How to Counteract Flatulence

While digestive gas is a biological reality for all of us, excessive flatulence can be an embarrassing and uncomfortable problem. Luckily, problems with gas are affected by diet and habits that you can alter to reduce the severity and frequency of flatulence.

Things You'll Need

• Probiotics
• Anti-gas medicine

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Instructions

• 1

  Understand the causes of flatulence. Excess gas in the digestive system happens as a result of difficulty in digesting certain foods, causing them to move into the large intestine in an undigested state. Once there, the bacteria in the large intestine break down the food, releasing gas. This is the purpose of those bacteria and is a regular function of your digestive system, but if it happens too much, excessive flatulence will occur.

• 2

  Alter your diet. Not everyone has trouble digesting the same foods, so try cutting out different foods to see which ones are causing your gas. Some common culprits include beer, legumes (beans), whole grains, dairy, apples, eggs, broccoli and cauliflower.

• 3

  Get a good night's sleep. A good deal of accumulated gas is released from our digestive system while we sleep, especially if we make an effort to control ourselves during the day and not release it. If you don't get enough sleep, however, you may find you are more flatulent because your body hasn't had the chance to release the gas.

• 4

  Add probiotics to your diet. Probiotics are helpful bacteria that help digestion in the stomach and small intestine, ensuring that food is more fully digested before it reaches the large intestine. Take probiotics in pill form, or eat yogurt or kefir with live cultures.

• 5

  Take an over-the-counter anti-gas treatment. These products contain digestive enzymes that can serve a similar function to the probiotics and are specially formulated to prevent gas.

• 6

  Intentionally expel the gas from your system at once. If you find yourself in a situation where you're experiencing a bad bout of gas and don't have the chance to take any gas treatment (such as a social situation), excuse yourself to the bathroom. Kneel on the floor and bend forward, placing your elbows on the floor. This position will put gentle pressure on your lower digestive system, encouraging gas to move out.