How to Reduce Bloating and Keep It From Coming Back

Before you cut anything out, write it down. For two weeks, jot down what you ate and drank, when, and when you felt bloated. Doctors and dietitians use exactly this kind of diary to spot which foods and drinks are behind your symptoms (3).

• What you ate and drank, and roughly how much
• How fast you ate, and whether you were sitting down
• When the bloating started and how long it lasted
• Bowel movements, since constipation is a common cause
• Where you are in your menstrual cycle, if that applies to you

Patterns show up faster than you'd think. Maybe it's every afternoon you have a sparkling water, or every night pasta meets a big salad. That's your starting map.

Eating fast is one of the easiest bloating triggers to fix. When you rush, you swallow more air, and you tend to eat more before your fullness signals catch up. Doctors often recommend eating slowly and chewing thoroughly, sitting down instead of eating on the run, skipping conversation mid-bite, and choosing smaller, more frequent meals over a few big ones (3).

A simple target: make each meal last at least 20 minutes, ideally away from your phone. Harvard Health even suggests eating with chopsticks or your non-dominant hand to slow yourself down (4).

Let's clear the air, literally! Plenty of the gas behind bloating is air you swallowed without noticing. Swallowed air that doesn't come back up as a burp can travel into your intestines (2). These everyday habits add more of it:

• Chewing gum and sucking on hard candy
• Fizzy drinks, including sparkling water, soda, beer and hard seltzer
• Drinking through a straw
• Smoking
• Dentures that fit loosely

You don't have to give up bubbles forever. Try a week of still drinks and see whether your afternoons feel different.

Some carbohydrates aren't fully digested before they reach your large intestine, where bacteria break them down and make gas. Common culprits include (3):

• Cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, kale and collard greens
• Beans, peas and lentils
• Apples, peaches, pears and fruit juice
• Dairy products like milk, ice cream and yogurt
• Drinks with high-fructose corn syrup, like soft drinks, sports drinks and energy drinks
• Sweeteners ending in "-ol", such as sorbitol, mannitol, xylitol, erythritol and maltitol

Many of these foods are great for you, so don't ditch them all at once. Use your bloat log to pick one suspect, cut it back for a week, then bring it back and see what happens. High-fat meals can make bloating worse too (3). If simple swaps don't help, a registered dietitian can walk you through a short low FODMAP trial, a structured way to test hard-to-digest carbs (5).

Fiber is a bit of a frenemy here. Too little can leave you constipated, and a backed-up gut is a classic source of bloating (1). Too much, too fast, and your gut bacteria throw a gas party!

The fix is pacing. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend 22 to 34 grams of fiber a day for adults, and NIDDK suggests adding it gradually, by 2 to 3 grams a day, to help prevent gas and bloating (5). If you have IBS, research suggests soluble fiber, the kind in oats, beans and fruit, is the more helpful type. For more on why fiber earns its hype, read Fiber: The Benefits Behind the Trend.

This might be the most underrated bloating habit of all. In a 2021 randomized trial of 94 adults with functional bloating, people who walked for 10 to 15 minutes after each meal for four weeks improved as much as a group taking prokinetic medication, and they did better on after-meal fullness and bloating (6).

It's a small study, but the habit is free, easy and good for you anyway. Movement helps gas keep moving through your gut instead of parking in one spot.

Water keeps things moving. It helps soften what you're digesting so it doesn't get hard and compacted, which matters even more as you add fiber (1). Keep a bottle within reach and sip through the day rather than chugging a liter at dinner.

Salt is the other half of this step. Salty, processed foods cause water retention, which can make your middle feel puffy even when gas isn't the issue (1). If takeout and packaged snacks show up a lot in your log, our post Don't Get Too Salty breaks down where sodium hides.

Not all bloating starts with food. Many people bloat in the days before and during a period, during pregnancy, or through perimenopause. Estrogen can cause water retention, and shifts in estrogen and progesterone can speed up or slow down how food moves through your gut (1). Your bloat log will show whether your symptoms follow your cycle.

Stress matters too. Conditions like irritable bowel syndrome involve how your brain and gut talk to each other, which can make you feel more bloated (2). Regular exercise, steady sleep and a few minutes of slow breathing before meals won't fix everything, but they help your gut work in a calmer setting.

Most bloating is harmless and fades with the habits above. Some bloating is your body asking for a closer look. Health conditions such as lactose intolerance, celiac disease, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, constipation and, less commonly, a blockage caused by colorectal, ovarian or stomach cancer can all cause bloating (2).

Your provider may order tests, such as a hydrogen breath test (1), and suggest a lactase product if dairy is the issue, treatment for an underlying condition, or an over-the-counter option. Simethicone breaks up gas bubbles and alpha-galactosidase helps digest the carbs in beans, though Harvard Health notes the evidence for many gas products is thin (4). NIDDK recommends talking with your doctor before you start supplements or probiotics for gas (7). If IBS is in the picture, ask about enteric-coated peppermint oil, which a 2022 review of 10 studies found worked better than placebo for overall IBS symptoms (8).