If you are feeling constipated, you likely want relief fast.
After all, constipation doesn’t wait for a time that’s convenient for us.
If it’s late at night or the weekend, getting to the store might not be possible. If you’re traveling and find yourself constipated, a language barrier could keep you from communicating your problem. Or if you live in a remote area, you need to know how to relieve constipation fast without going into town.
While constipation may not be easy – with symptoms like passing fewer than three stools a week, stools that can be lumpy or hard, and straining to have bowel movements – the remedies to help you with it can be easy to find around your home.
How to relieve constipation fast
What causes constipation can vary from person to person. It can range from a lack of fiber in your diet and physical activity to certain medical conditions, a lack of water, or your medications.
For whatever the cause that’s led you to having trouble passing bowel movements regularly, relief can’t come fast enough.
So when you’re looking for how to get rid of constipation fast at home, consider the below tips. You’ll find solutions that can work as quickly as fifteen minutes (yes, coffee can do the trick!), as well as solutions that may take an hour or two but that help improve your digestive health so that your constipation goes away and stays away.
To see what helps with constipation, check through the list below, see what you’ve got in your home cabinets, and you’ll start feeling relief soon.
How to get rid of constipation at home
- Water: One of the reasons stool becomes hard is because we’re dehydrated. A lack of water forces the large intestine to take more water from our food waste, leaving it more difficult to pass. Therefore, dehydration can lead to constipation.
Fortunately, the solution is one of the simplest at-home remedies for constipation: drinking more water. To boost your water intake, consider one ounce of water for every two pounds of body weight.
- Fruits, Including Bananas and Kiwis: Kiwis pack a nutritious punch in every bite, with each medium kiwi containing nearly 3 grams of fiber, vitamins, and minerals that are good for digestive health.
Bananas, especially ripe ones, are also a great way to get rid of constipation fast at home. As an abundant source of soluble fiber, bananas can help resolve constipation issues.
- Garlic, Onion, and Other Prebiotic Foods: While you may need to brush your teeth after to disguise their effect, a number of prebiotic foods can help to improve your digestive health by feeding the beneficial bacteria in your gut.
With foods like garlic and onions, you’ll be taking a more holistic, overall approach to gut health to improve the balance of gut bacteria and reduce constipation.
- Removing Dairy: There are certainly foods that can cause constipation as well. We’ll dive more into this soon, but because of dairy’s pervasiveness (milk, butter, cheese, yogurt, heavy cream, sour cream, ice cream), we wanted to mention it here.
For people with an intolerance, eating dairy can cause an effect on your gut’s natural bowel movements, so consider removing it from your diet for the day while you swap in some of these other at-home remedies.
- Healthy Fats like Nuts, Olive Oil, and Avocado: These foods work to relieve constipation fast and to keep constipation at bay in the future because they contain the fats we need for our body’s basic functions.
Plus, they help to offer natural constipation relief by lining the intestines. For natural home remedies, look toward nuts, olive oils, avocados, and fatty fish like salmon.
- High-Fiber Vegetables like Broccoli and Cauliflowe: You may already know that broccoli and cauliflower are super vegetables. Their powers extend to natural constipation relief, too, thanks to high levels of fiber in each that help your gut to stay healthy and balanced.
As long as you don’t overcook the broccoli, the fiber levels are essentially equal between the raw and cooked versions, so enjoy it how you like.
- Lemon Water: Because lemon contains high doses of vitamin C and water-soluble fiber, it can help to stimulate your colon. With warm lemon water, it’s more easily absorbed for quicker relief, which is all the more important if you’re dealing with constipation.
- Coffee: While coffee isn’t a panacea for everyone (those with IBS likely won’t benefit from the bowel-stimulating effects of caffeine), it has a number of benefits that may help relieve your constipation.
With its high doses of caffeine, it works to stimulate the muscles in the gut in a way that’s 60% stronger than regular water and 23% more effective than decaffeinated coffee.
- Ginger: Ginger has a long history of digestive aids, even going so far as to help people with their upset stomachs and motion sickness. For constipation specifically, ginger helps to decrease the pressure on the lower intestine.
More broadly, it can manage other symptoms that come along with constipation, such as nausea, cramping, and bloating. Similar to warm lemon water and coffee, drinking it as a tea may help its absorption.
- Honey: Not only is honey full of enzymes that will boost your digestive health and a mild laxative, it’s an easy addition to a number of the remedies on this list. Combine with warm lemon water, ginger tea, or as a snack to make this constipation-easing remedy even more effective.
- Beans: Beans are one of the easiest ways to add fiber to your diet, and because that fiber is a mix of both soluble and insoluble fibers, it works to keep your food waste moving through your digestive tracts without delays.
While it’s not an instant fix, it is one of the most effective and available at-home remedies for constipation. Take your pick from black-eyed peas, garbanzo beans, pinto beans, kidney beans, and more.
- Whole Grain Breads and Cereals: Like beans, whole grains have a high amount of fiber. In this case, it is soluble fibers that work to absorb water and soften the stool, improving its consistency and making it easier to pass.
In a pinch, grab some oat bran, nuts, seeds, lentils, or peas to start relieving your constipation fast.
- Prunes, Figs, and Raisins: No list of at-home constipation remedies would be complete without prunes, figs, and raisins. They all contain a natural laxative quality.
If you’re looking for more fiber, opt for dried fruit. Raisins and figs are effective – and may be more popular than prunes, but because of the sugar alcohol called sorbitol that prunes contain, they really are one of the best ways to get rid of constipation fast at home.
Other ways to get rid of constipation fast at home
Unfortunately, sometimes occasional constipation can become chronic.
Chronic constipation means you have fewer than three bowel movements each week and your constipation symptoms persisted for several weeks or months
While the above tips may help, you should consult your physician about the constipation.
There are several over the counter and prescription medications that can help relief chronic constipation, and one of them is Vibrant.
What is Vibrant®?
Research shows that when the Natural Biological Clock is not synchronized, it may lead to constipation.
Vibrant®’s unique drug-free treatment uses gentle vibrations to stimulate the colon mechanically.
The pre-programmed timing of the mechanical stimulation is thought to improve the natural colonic motility by leveraging the colon’s biological clock.
Phase 3 clinical trial demonstrates an increased number and frequency of complete bowel movements and improvement in the quality of life, with 1.2% diarrhea occurrence.
Now you can take charge of constipation and enjoy the quality of life you wish for.
