Feeling guilty about eating, drinking and having fun during the Spring Festival? Then you need to learn these methods urgently

Drinking too much, playing cards, and staying up late will harm the stomach and intestines. If you are not careful, it will cause stomach pain, bloating, diarrhea, duodenal ulcer and other diseases. Not to mention the cost of hospitalization, it will also affect your mood for the holidays.

During the Spring Festival, the number of patients suffering from holiday indigestion syndrome is several times more than usual; incidents of alcohol poisoning and even gastric bleeding occur frequently, and even the doctors in the hospital are too busy to cope with them.

During the third Spring Festival since the outbreak of the epidemic, people who celebrate the New Year where they are or return to their hometowns need to eat scientifically and exercise more to ensure that their stomachs also have a good holiday.

Proper diet protects the stomach and intestines

During the Spring Festival, the food quality is getting higher and higher, and people are more particular about what they eat and drink. Among all the particularities, the first priority is to eat properly and not cause trouble to your stomach. These few points will protect your health during the Spring Festival.

First, eat a fixed amount of food and avoid overeating.

First of all, we should control the amount of food we eat. If we eat too much, our stomach and intestines will be too bloated, which can easily lead to undesirable symptoms such as early satiety and belching. If we eat chicken, duck, fish and meat every day, our stomach and intestines cannot digest them, which can easily lead to bloating. Therefore, when visiting relatives and friends during the Spring Festival, we must eat in moderation and eat until we are 70% to 80% full at each meal (we don’t feel hungry, but we can still eat more).

Secondly, let the stomach and intestines have a healthy working rhythm. The stomach and intestines are very diligent. After we sleep, they are still digesting and absorbing food, and participating in the regulation of other organ functions. Therefore, if the meals are quantitative, the stomach and intestines work in an orderly manner, and it is naturally not easy to get sick.

Second, eat more staple foods and less snacks.

During the Spring Festival, there are so many delicacies such as fruits, snacks, and candies. Some people are already 90% full at the main meal, but still eat fruits and snacks after the meal; some people keep eating fruits and other snacks while chatting, and the main meal becomes a way to get by; some people are used to putting some snacks in their pockets or bags and eating them whenever they have time... These are not advisable.

When visiting relatives and friends during the Spring Festival, you must eat a good meal and ensure that you maintain a good "appetite" every day. The so-called appetite refers to the digestive capacity of the stomach. From a physiological point of view, the stomach is like a blender, grinding various foods into a mushy state and then transmitting them to the intestines for absorption. This process is the initial digestion of food.

Human digestive system, source: Chinese Nutrition Society website

The strength of the stomach's digestive ability determines a person's appetite.

A good appetite means a strong digestive system, and eating is more delicious; vice versa. Eating too many snacks not only affects your appetite, but also sugar and nuts have high energy density, and excessive intake can easily lead to weight gain, which is one of the main culprits for "gaining three pounds during every festival."

From the perspective of biological evolution, the stomach and intestines can digest meals more easily than snacks, so the burden on the stomach is lighter.

The third is to combine meat and vegetables for a balanced diet.

Oily, meaty, and spicy are the main features of dishes on the table during the Spring Festival, and are also the main reasons for damaging the stomach and intestines. The stomach and intestines, like people, have their own preferences and they like light food.

The inner surface of the stomach cavity and large and small intestines is covered with a layer of wrinkled mucous membrane, which is not only the first line of defense of the body's immunity, but also helps the absorption of nutrients such as vitamins.

Spicy or oily foods can cause mechanical physical stimulation or damage to this layer of mucous membrane, thereby affecting the body's immunity, or slowing down the absorption of nutrients, and further causing acute and chronic gastritis, gastric ulcers and other diseases.

Image source: China Health Network

In addition, the intestines mainly break down food through the flora, and a person's normal intestinal flora has more than 400 species, which are mainly divided into three types: beneficial bacteria, neutral bacteria, and pathogenic bacteria. The more beneficial bacteria there are, the healthier the human body is; vice versa.

When the proportion of pathogenic bacteria exceeds 50%, the immunity of the intestinal wall decreases and the intestinal bactericidal ability becomes weaker, thus causing bad breath, indigestion, obesity, diarrhea, constipation and other symptoms.

Pathogens are largely caused by irrational diet or eating raw or cold food. This is one of the main reasons to pay attention to diet during the Spring Festival.

After eating too much meat at a banquet, you can eat some high-fiber foods such as black fungus and kelp to increase intestinal motility, promote the growth of beneficial intestinal bacteria, and speed up the digestion of meat.

Fourth, drink in moderation and avoid excessive drinking.

There are many reports about the problem of drinking alcohol during the Spring Festival damaging the stomach and body, and the reason is well known, so I will not repeat it here. What we need to remind everyone is that for the sake of health, try not to drink alcohol and never drink excessively.

The "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents" states that the amount of alcohol that adult males drink per day must be within 25g (equivalent to 1 bottle of beer or 1 liang of high-proof liquor, for reference).

Move your legs more often and avoid staying up late

During the Spring Festival, in addition to eating and drinking to one's heart's content, the Chinese people's favorite thing is to sit at the card table all day (mainly playing mahjong) and entertain themselves all night long.

In fact, sitting for a long time will not only cause lumbar pain, deep vein thrombosis in the lower limbs and other diseases due to poor blood circulation, but it is also particularly bad for the stomach and intestines.

In recent years, researchers at the University College Cork in Ireland have found that exercise can increase the number of beneficial bacteria in the intestines, promote normal intestinal peristalsis, and help detoxify the intestines. On the other hand, eating more and exercising less during the holidays can easily lead to overnutrition, causing gastrointestinal indigestion, and in severe cases, cholecystitis, gallstones, etc.

Staying up late is extremely harmful to the stomach and intestines. The stomach and intestines are mostly made of mucosal tissues, and the cells on the mucosa regenerate every two or three days, usually when the body is resting at night. When staying up late, the cells have to bear multiple tasks and are too busy to handle them, which affects regeneration.

Therefore, it is recommended that you walk more after meals during the Spring Festival, and stand up and walk after sitting and playing cards for an hour or two. Try not to play cards or entertainment all night long. Even if you do it occasionally, you should make up for it with a good sleep the next day, and avoid continuing to "fight" with dark circles under your eyes.

Eating, drinking and having fun in a safe way is the top priority for a safe Chinese New Year. During the Chinese New Year of the Tiger, I hope that everyone will do a good job in epidemic prevention and control, control their mouths, run more errands, protect their stomachs and intestines, and have a healthy, safe and happy new year.

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Tadpole Musical Notation original article/reprint please indicate the source

Editor/Xiao Xitushuo