Upset stomachs, or tummy aches, can be horrible. Often you can feel uncomfortable or even queasy for long periods of time without actually throwing up or having a fever, but it is enough to keep you from sleeping at night and feeling miserable during the day. Whether your upset tummy is caused from stress, motion sickness, something you ate, a bit of a bug, or perhaps by morning sickness during pregnancy, there are natural remedies that you can use.
Ginger
Ginger actually has a lot of healing properties, and is especially well known for aiding digestion. Ginger is so effective at treating motion sickness, in fact, that it has been proven to be better than Dramamine! It is effective at treating all types of nausea, and can help ease symptoms like diarrhoea and vomiting as well.
You can take ginger in capsule form (then you don’t taste it), drink ginger tea, nibble ginger biscuits, or chew on crystallized ginger (quite strong so not to everyone’s taste).
Probiotics
Our digestive systems rely on a delicate system of tiny organisms that live in our intestines and aid our digestion. If this balance is disturbed, then you can end up with an upset tummy (sometimes even to the point of throwing up undigested or only partially digested food) or bloated feeling. Eating probiotic foods can help to boost the amount of healthy bacteria in your body, aiding digestion and soothing upset stomachs. The most common probiotic food is yogurt (it should specify-Activia is, for example), but there are many others including miso soup and certain milks.
There are also prebiotic foods, or foods that do not actually contain the helpful bacteria, but may help to foster their presence. These foods will not immediately ease a tummy ache, but eaten regularly over at least a week may help people with chronic stomach upsets. Prebiotic foods include oats and honey.
Fennel
Fennel is a herb which is known to help aid digestion. In fact, it is so gentle on the tummy and soothing that is often included in baby foods, and there are special fennel teas to help weaning babies and children with upset tummies.
The easiest way is to drink fennel in an herbal tea, and it is often included in teas that are designed to aid digestion These teas often combine fennel with a variety of other herbs which not only can make it nicer to the taste as a drink, but also adds other herbs with properties that aid stomach aches.
Toast
Some tummy aches are caused by excess stomach acid (especially if also associated with heartburn). This can be painful, but is easily helped. You can try eating or drinking something that will counteract the stomach acid. For example, a piece of toast (keep it quite plain) can help by giving your stomach something to digest and limiting the amount of extra stomach acid. If you think you can keep it down, a piece of toast might help. If you’re having a lot of heartburn or reflux with it, try having toast with a drink of milk. The milk will also help to neutralize the stomach acids and will soothe your throat. If you can stomach it warm (make an Ovaltine, Horklicks, or Caro-any of these hot milky drinks may help settle your tummy as well), it might help even more as the warmth can be soothing on spasming stomach muscles.
