4 steps after meals can help prolong life

For the elderly, the time after meals is a very important period. Correct health habits after meals can enable the elderly to maintain good intestinal function, promote comprehensive absorption of nutrients, and effectively prevent gastrointestinal diseases. I recommend four steps to everyone. If you stick to them for a long time, they can aid digestion, strengthen your physical fitness, and thus achieve the effect of prolonging life.

Rinse your mouth first

The ancient medical scientist Zhang Zhongjing pointed out, "After eating, you should rinse your mouth to keep your teeth healthy and your mouth smells good." Rinsing your mouth can remove food debris and some soft plaque in the mouth, reduce the number of bacteria in the mouth, and thus reduce the risk of gastrointestinal diseases. The correct way to gargle is to hold mouthwash or water in your mouth, close your mouth, and then puff up your cheeks and lips to allow the solution to fully contact the teeth in the mouth, and use the water force to repeatedly rinse various parts of the mouth, so as to remove food debris and soft plaque remaining in the gaps between the teeth.

Take a break

“Lying down after a full meal will cause a hundred diseases.” Many elderly people dare not lie down immediately after a meal, and choose to take a walk instead, but this is not healthy. The stomach is in a full state after a meal, and the gastrointestinal tract must be adequately supplied with blood for initial digestion. If you get up and walk away in a hurry at this time, some of the blood will inevitably be concentrated in the motor system, delaying the secretion of digestive juices and disrupting the normal digestion of the stomach. The correct approach is to rest for 30 minutes after a meal before walking, which helps promote gastrointestinal motility and secretion of gastrointestinal digestive juices. For the elderly with gastroptosis, it is best to lie down for a while after a meal, because gastroptosis is greatly affected by the body position, and lying down feels slightly better. If you walk around immediately after a meal, it will aggravate the damage of food to the stomach and small intestine, which can easily cause indigestion or abdominal pain.

Rub your abdomen

Traditional Chinese medicine believes that the umbilicus and abdomen are equivalent to the intestinal gland area of ​​the stomach's pyloric gland. Frequent friction can accelerate gastrointestinal motility, increase gastric juice, aid digestion, and normalize excretion. The King of Medicine Sun Simiao advocated

"Rub the belly with warm hands after eating" is believed to "rubbing the belly after eating can cure all diseases." Massaging the abdomen after a meal can also serve as a benign stimulus, which is transmitted to the brain through nerves and is beneficial to the regulation of endocrine function. Specific method: Place your palms on your abdomen, with your navel as the center, and slowly and gently massage in a clockwise and counterclockwise direction for 20 circles each.

Listen to ditty

"Shoushibaoyuan" said: "The spleen likes music, and it moves and grinds food when it hears the sound." Especially for elderly friends, enjoying soft music after meals is of great benefit to health. Polish medical experts once recommended that patients with stomach problems listen to Bach's music records after each meal to cure their stomach problems. It is not recommended for the elderly to listen to noisy sounds, strong and exciting rhythms, or lingering and sad tones, as they will have a negative impact on their emotions and digestive functions.