Stomach Pains Can Be Stress-Related

It is not just what you eat – but what’s eating you – that may cause stomach distress.  This is what internist James Fitzgerald of Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. wants to emphasize when he says that stress and tension can lead to acid indigestion.

“A happy mind should produce a happy stomach,” he adds, and in order to keep the stomach happy, Dr. Fitzgerald offers seven rules:

• Don’t oversleep, creating a morning “time crisis.”
• Eat foods that act as “blotter paper” when drinking coffee or colas.  Just coffee and cigarette are a deadly combination for unleashing acids to gnaw on stomach.
• Don’t squeeze too much business into business lunches.  Intellectual activity at meals may divert blood flow to the brain and away from the stomach.
• Avoid controversy at meals.
• Frequent smaller meals help the “nervous” stomach.
• Skim milk is the best snack and neutralizer of stomach acids.
• Don’t drink alcoholic beverages on an empty stomach.

Diarrhea And Dysentery.  When a person has loose or watery stools, he has diarrhea.  If mucus and blood can be seen in the stools, he has dysentery.

Diarrhea can be mild or serious.  It can be acute (sudden and severe) or chronic (lasting many days).  Although diarrhea has many different causes, the most common are infection and poor nutrition.

With good hygiene and good food, diarrhea could be prevented.  The prevention of diarrhea depends both on good nutrition and cleanliness.

Healing With Water.  Another eye-opener for us is that if people simply learned how to use water correctly, this alone might do more to prevent and cure illness than all the medicines they now use – or misuse.

The daily practice of drinking pure water upon arising in the morning (say two, four, or even six glasses) can actually flush your system from accumulated poisons of the previous day; your kidney and bladder will be greatly benefitted – not to mention you stomach, too.

Tidbits.  What’s the best thing to drink before, during and after strenuous exercise?  Water, says the American College of Sports Medicine.  Dr. Edward L. Fox recommends “frequent water breaks (every 10 to 15 minutes)” to keep the body’s water table from approaching 3% deficit.