A diet that relieves IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) should avoid cold foods. Cold foods consist of anything that comes out of your fridge or freezer and are eaten right away:

• Sandwiches just out of the fridge

• Couscous salads or similar just out of the fridge

• Salads just out of the fridge

• Yogurts just out of the fridge

• Fruit just out of the fridge

• Ice cream (duh!)

You get the picture?

According to ayurveda, cold food tends to slow digestion and contribute to indigestion. Since IBS is (according to ayurveda) a kind of chronic indigestion, the last thing you want to do is to hamper your body with what you eat. But why is it that cold foods aggravate IBS? The reason, according to ayurveda, is that cold foods hinder your digestive fire – i.e. they require more energy to digest than warm or hot foods, and weaken your digestive process.

Digestion is a chemical process that depends in part on the pre-digested food stuff (what you have recently swallowed) reaching body temperature quickly.

The more work your body has to do to heat up the food in your stomach, the less energy it has left to do other things also – which is why eating cold foods regularly can lead to fatigue.

Cold foods slow digestion

While the advice to limit cold food is generally good for all people suffering from IBS, it is particularly important if you have a naturally weak, variable, or sluggish digestive system originally (i.e. before you ever had IBS). This is often the case if you have a vata or kapha body type (ayurvedic constitution). Also, steering clear from cold foods is also helpful if you are suffering from IBS type C (constipation dominant) or IBS type A (constipation and loose stools alternate).

Cold dairy produce makes mucus explode in your gut!

In particular, cold dairy produce (yoghurt, cheese, ice crème, milk) tend to produce an increased secretion of mucus in our stomach and intestines. Many people know that this is a problem because it leads to them getting head congestion (blocked sinuses, colds etc). But not many people realise that the same mucus can travel downwards in the intestines causing sluggish elimination. Eventually, overuse of cold dairy will lead to chronic constipation which is a sure way to invite IBS into your life.

Check out our YouTube videos on colds foods

I don’t personally suffer from IBS, but I find that, having a vata body type, I cannot eat cold foods on a daily basis without becoming sluggish and constipated. For people with IBS type A (constipation and loose stools alternate) and C (constipation dominant) the problem is even worse.

Tips to survive a chilled food culture

• If you do have to eat chilled foods – ideally let them warm up to room temperature, or eat them while sipping a cup of hot water so that the mixture you swallow is heated in your mouth. This would work well for a sandwich – but not for ice cream of course.

• Avoid cold foods in the winter when the climate is also cold and sluggish. Bring a thermos of soup to work – or better still, a food thermos with a healthy one pot meal in it – check out this video on one pot meals.

Ayurveda is a health system thousands of years old which originated in India. It is still practiced extensively today and thanks to its continuity has the experience to treat many conditions such as IBS. Ayurveda treats conditions according to people’s different body constitution Vata, Pitta and Kapha.

Babies should be given something sugary before a jab to reduce pain, Canadian researchers say. Experts at the University of Toronto say new-borns are less likely to cry if given a few drops of a sugar solution before immunisation. Data based on 1,000 injections suggests infants given a glucose solution are 20% less likely to cry following a jab. The research, published in Archives of Disease in Childhood, is based on clinical data from 14 studies. As well as the findings related to glucose, the researchers found that between a few drops and half a teaspoon of sucrose and glucose also led to a small reduction in the amount of time a baby spent crying. From ‘Sugar drops ease baby jab pain’ (BBC News Article)

In ayurveda, the effect of taste is well understood. Ayurveda teaches that we experience 6 tastes:

• Sweet
• Sour (like lemons or vinegar)
• Salty
• Pungent (spicy)
• Bitter (like green tea)
• Astringent (drying, makes your mouth pucker)

Each taste has its own particular action, physical and mental, including an effect on the doshas: vata, pitta and kapha. Of the three doshas, vata is the one that is mainly responsible for pain. Pain manifests thanks to vata dosha. In ayurveda, pain means you have an excess state of vata dosha, and excess vata can be reduced by using these three tastes:

• Sweet
• Sour
• Salty

But in particular, pain is reduced by the sweet taste. In fact, ayurveda goes further by stating that vata is reduced whenever we eat something. For the hour or so following a meal, our body produces more kapha (cohesion, saliva, mucus), particularly in the stomach, where it helps liquefy and mix foods. During this part of the digestive cycle, vata is pacified; hence, in general, pain is reduced. This is one reason why people turn to food in general when they are in pain, physical or emotional. Boredom is also helped when we eat; as boredom is a state of excess vata. So it would seem that the idea of giving a child a sweetie to comfort them after they have hurt themselves is not such a bad idea after all. I don’t know who, but someone once said to me that that was a bad idea as it might create a psycho-somatic link in the child’s subconscious that makes them turn to candy and chocolate whenever they are feeling emotionally hurt. I disagree with this concern. Children need to be taught not to eat junk sweets all day long as part of their diet. But if my kid falls off his bike, I am more than happy to offer them piece of candy, or a spoonful of honey as well as a reassuring hug of course. Even sweet smelling things can reduce pain according to recent research (1). Love is also sweet, so is the reassurance of embrace, so when pain knocks at your door, try these simple non-drug treatments: #1 Taste: Taste something sweet, like sucking on a piece of candy (one only)or a liquorice stick #2 Touch: Find someone to hug you, or better still, treat yourself to a soothing body massage (using sweet smelling fragrant oils) #3 Talk: Call your mum or a loved one and listen to their soothing words* So, remember – for pain relief, the three ‘Ts’: Taste Touch Talk *This has been shown to have the same effect as a loving hug – check out this recent news story:

Mother’s phone call ‘can be as soothing as a hug’ US researchers put more than 60 girls in a stressful situation and monitored their hormonal responses when they were either phoned or hugged afterwards. Their mother’s voice produced virtually the same amount of the stress-quelling hormone oxytocin as physical comfort. The findings appear in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The girls, aged between seven and 12, were asked to make an impromptu speech and then solve a series of sums in front of a panel of strangers – experiences which sent their hearts racing and levels of the stress hormone cortisol soaring. Full BBC Article

Actually, ayurveda uses all 5 senses to reduce pain through applying sweetness via each sense faculty. Sweetness, being composed of ‘water’ and ‘earth’ elements (states of matter) means nourishing, loving, stable, safe and soft and so on. Using all 5 sense, we could prescribe the following formula to ensure a maximum dose of sweetness in times when urgent pain relief is needed:

1. Sweet sounding music and loving words.
2. Sweet therapeutic touch through a hug, gentle massage, stroking of hair. Get a cat and stroke it!

1. Sweet sights – like seeing soft landscapes, cute animals, babies, that sort of thing
2. Sweet tasting foods. Favour a healthy option such as fruit or something with a natural sugar like honey or a suck a licorice stick.

1. Sweet smelling odours – use an essential oil diffuser and put some geranium or ylang-ylang in it for example.

By Alex Duncan (1) John Prescott and Jenell Wilkie, ‘Pain Tolerance Selectively Increased by a Sweet-Smelling Odor’ Psychological Science April 2007 18:308-311.http://pss.sagepub.com/content/18/4/308.abstract

The puzzle is to figure out which factors apply to you, at least that way you can start to avoid them. The good news is that Ayurveda solved this puzzle a long time ago. You see, IBS comes in three basic forms, I’m sure you’ve heard this before. Why is this? What Ayurveda says, is that while we are all made of the same basic stuff, the way we’re configured varies between us. The old adage “no two people are alike” couldn’t be more relevant here.

This explains why some folk get constipated when they eat chocolate, while others have a laxative effect. What the Ayurvedic forefathers did was discover how to understand your unique make-up in a beautifully simple, yet extremely practical way. What they said is that your body is controlled by the three principles called Air, Fire and Water. What differs between people, is the mixture of these principles. Some people have more Air, others more Fire, the rest more Water. It is this difference that explains your unique nature. If you are an Air dominant type, certain things, like dry or cold foods will aggravate you. If you are a Fire type, hot and spicy foods will disturb you, and if you are a Water type, rich foods will aggravate you. The idea is really very simple, even my kids get it. Basically, the principle that dominates in your nature will predispose you to certain symptoms and types of IBS, because each principle reacts differently to the same diet and lifestyle. So you see, the principle that dominates in your nature predisposes you to getting one, of the three types of IBS. Understanding your constitution-Air, Fire or Water-is not only the key to understanding why you got your IBS, it is also the key that unlocks the door to the diet and lifestyle that gives fast and lasting results.

Check out the video: http://ibstreatmenthelp.co.uk/why-did-i-get-ibs/