Bathing Post Meals to Having Lunch After 2 PM, 5 Mistakes That Lead to Poor Digestion

The way to a healthier heart is through your stomach. But your gut health plays an important role in keeping the body healthy and the immune system strong. Apart from maintaining a healthy diet, it is important to improve digestion and issues like constipation or heartburn and bloating. Habits like drinking water right after your meals or having a bath post-lunch could disrupt the digestion process.

Yes, the reason for your digestive problems could be due to these lifestyle habits that you have been making inadvertently. Did you know that while following a healthy diet routine, it is equally important to note what you shouldn’t do after having your meals? We are here with some expert advice, revealing the common and everyday errors which might be the reason behind your digestive disorders.

Ayurveda expert, Dr Dixa Bhavsar Savaliya recently shared a post on her Instagram handle, informing about “5 common mistakes in our daily routine that we must avoid to improve the digestion without any medicines.”

Here’s what you should avoid doing in your daily routine:

1. Bathing right after meals:
   Dr Dixa said according to Ayurveda, every activity has a specific time period and doing it beyond that limit can harm the human body. One should not take a bath within the next 2 hours after having a meal. “The fire element in the body is responsible for food digestion, so when you eat, the fire element gets activated and results in increased blood circulation for effective digestion and if you take a shower right after your meal, the body temperature goes down and results in slow digestion,” she said.
2. Walking right after meals:
   Walking long distances, swimming and exercising, all these activities are very aggravating and may disturb digestion leading to incomplete absorption of nutrition, bloating and feeling of discomfort post meals. Dr Dixa suggests, walking for 100 steps, which is 1 min to 10 mins post meals is beneficial.
3. Having lunch after 2 pm:
   According to the expert, Ayurveda recommends having lunch in the afternoon, anytime between 12 to 2 pm when the sun is at its peak in the sky. It is that time of the day when pitta is dominant, which helps to digest your food easily. Ayurveda considers lunch to be the most important meal of the day and recommends it to be heavy. Whereas, having meals after 2 pm results in patchy digestion and fat accumulates in the body.
4. Consuming curd at night:
   However, consuming curd aids in digestion but having it at dinner time or at night, can result in severe health issues. One might catch a cold and cough and constipation problems. Curd is sweet and sour in taste and it increases Kapha and pitta dosha in the body. During the night, there is natural predominance of kapha in the body and having curd at this time can lead to its excess build up. It could also accumulate in the gut, making you feel constipated. So, Ayurveda recommends avoiding eating curd at night, she adds.
5. Sleeping right after meals:
   The expert suggests, keeping a gap of at least 3 hours between meals and sleeping time. If not doing so, a person may encounter health issues such as indigestion, heartburn, risk of unhealthy weight gain and obesity. During a nap, the body repairs, heals, restores and digests the food. For this reason, Ayurveda recommends that the last meal of the day be relatively light and one should avoid sleeping right after meals.

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