Who doesn’t love the idea of a picture-perfect morning routine—be it a 10-step skin care regimen, an intricate matcha ritual, or a mindful journaling practice. But for many of us, the reality is a little less Instagram-friendly: Constipation, bathroom anxiety, and other very real digestive issues affect so many women before they’ve even brushed their teeth. The good news: You don’t need a total lifestyle overhaul to support digestion and get your day started on the right foot. In fact, just a few smart morning habits can move the needle in meaningful ways.
“Your gut has its own circadian rhythm, and the signals you send it in that first hour or two set the tone for the entire day,” Will Bulsiewicz, MD, a board-certified gastroenterologist and the author of Plant Powered Plus, tells SELF. It turns out that your morning routine has a major influence on how your digestion fares for the whole day ahead.
Here, he shares four game-changing habits and tweaks to set you and your tummy up for success. (Whether or not you choose to document it for the masses is totally up to you.)
1. Hydrate before you caffeinate.
If you’re anything like me, you probably consider coffee to be the best part of waking up. Yet instead of making a beeline straight to your Nespresso machine, be sure to sip on some H2O first. Per Dr. Bulsiewicz, this is one of the simplest yet most effective habits for digestive regularity that most people skip. “After six to eight hours without water, your colon has been absorbing moisture from stool overnight while your kidneys expel it, leaving things sluggish,” he explains.
He suggests drinking 16 ounces of water before anything else in order to rehydrate the GI tract and trigger the gastrocolic reflex, a.k.a. your body’s natural signal to let you know it’s time to go number two. Trust that your morning coffee can hold a few minutes—especially if better bowel movements await you.
2. Focus on fiber—not just coffee—to go to the bathroom.
Many people rely on their morning coffee to stimulate a bowel movement. After all, caffeine doesn’t just perk up your brain; it also stimulates GI motility, or how fast food moves through your GI tract. While Dr. Bulsiewicz notes that coffee can certainly be one component of a healthy morning meal, it shouldn’t be your one-and-done, holy grail to poop. Here, he emphasizes the importance of a fiber-rich breakfast to “give the microbes what they need to produce short-chain fatty acids like butyrate, which nourish the cells lining your colon.” That’s especially crucial for anyone prone to digestive discomfort, as a healthier gut lining will be better suited to manage inflammation and keep digestion running smoothly.
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