The Hindu Business Line : 12 steps away from acidity

I’m a software developer. I’ve had stomach problems for weeks: constipation, recurring acidity, and so on. I’ve tried to follow a simple, healthy diet, but as I stay alone and don’t know how to cook, I rely on outside food. In the morning, I take sapaad — rasam, rice, sambhar, and so on. In the evening, I get chapathis and side dishes at a local North Indian lodge. Can you please guide me with a diet?

Jigar Brahmbhatt

All the symptoms — acidity and so on — are caused by overeating, spicy food, and soda added to rice and idli to puff them up. Some suggestions:

Eat moderately. Don’t polish off stuff because you’ve paid for it.

Select medium-spicy or bland food.

Learn to cook rice. Chop some vegetables and you get a salad. Add yoghurt to it and you get a cooling raita.

Don’t start the day with tea/coffee as this aggravates acidity. Instead, boil a cup of water with half teaspoon jeera and saunf. Drain, sweeten with honey and drink. Eat the jeera and saunf. This alleviates acidity.

Breakfast: Cook oats/rava in milk. Oats and rava contain fibre — excellent for acidity. Have tea with ginger — a great digestive.

Lunch: Cucumber sandwiches of whole-wheat bread, a tomato-french-bean-beet-apple salad, a glass of buttermilk. This meal is substantial and satisfying without being heavy, so you remain alert through the day.

Teatime: A cup of tea/coffee with extra milk with potato-chaat or poha.

Dinner: Rice-rasam-raita or curd-rice-salad will satisfy. Avoid rajma, chole, and so on until your acidity problem is solved.

Low-impact cardiovascular exercises like swimming build endurance and ease joint pain.

Ice cream cools the stomach. Apple juice is friendlier than orange juice.

Sleep with head elevated to avoid acid coming up and burning your chest and throat.

Avoid tight-fitting clothes.

Jog away all stress.

For the past six months, I’ve been snoring in my sleep — it has become a cause of concern to me and a nuisance to others. I’m 65 and weigh 78 kg. I notice an increase of 6 kg during the past six months. Could you please help?

S. Narayan

Snoring is related to being overweight, so your increase of 6 kg could be causing you to snore. It has also been found that on losing weight, either the snoring becomes less audible or disappears altogether. So, here’s what you could do:

Diet. Check out what you’ve been overindulging on — perhaps sweets, fried foods, nuts…? — and knock them out of your diet. Aim to lose those 6 kg.

Walk. Check with your family physician and then walk daily. This is a healthy habit to cultivate whether one is a snorer or not.

Breathe. Inhale to a count of 8. Exhale to a count of 8. The breathing should be neither too deep nor too shallow but moderate. Do it 3 times thrice a day. This clears your breathing passage.

Use your hands gently, and avoid soap as far as possible as it contains lye — a skin irritant.

Check out your medication. Consult your doctor whether your medicines are the cause. Sedatives, tranquillisers, antihistamines, any medication that relaxes the tissues around the head and neck can cause snoring.

Sleep elevated. Elevate the upper torso and head to minimise snoring.

The wise say sincerity is a powerful antidote to all problems. Before sleeping, sincerely repeat several times, “I shall sleep silently.” Once you stop snoring, not just your family members, but you too will enjoy a refreshingly restful sleep.

Please suggest ways to reduce my stomach. I play badminton every day but don’t see much difference in my weight so far.

Aishwarya Natarajan

Do two exercises daily:

Jog on the spot 100 steps per minute, counting as ‘one’ everytime you raise your right foot. You need not raise your feet more than an inch from the floor. Jog non-stop for 20 minutes. This burns fat from head to toe.

Lie on your back, feet flat on floor, knees bent in an inverted V. Place your hands behind your neck. Raise your shoulders off the floor, keeping your neck straight, chin not touching your upper chest, eyes looking at the ceiling, then lower your shoulders. Do these abdominal crunches 100 times. As you get fitter, do 100 reps 5 times, resting for a minute after every 100 reps.

Finally, eat fat-free, sugar-free meals and cut out snacks. The stomach will flatten.

What kind of exercises helps arthritis and when can one expect results?

B. Lalwani

Generally, arthritis requires three types of exercises:

Stretches — Stretching improves the range of your movement which otherwise gets limited.

Strengtheners — Resistance exercises with rubber bands or light weights strengthen the surrounding muscles which then support and ease the arthritic joint.

Endurance builders — Low-impact cardiovascular exercises like swimming or pedalling on a stationary armchair bicycle builds endurance and eases pain by increasing the circulation of synovial fluid in the joints.

Hot water bath and applying balm before and after exercising are great aids.

Expect beneficial results to show up slowly but surely — anytime between six months to a year. Remember, exercising also maintains and enhances the strength, flexibility and endurance you already have. Keep exercising cheerfully. Be patiently certain that all will be well.

I’ve just recovered from tennis elbow. Could you suggest an exercise to prevent it from recurring?

Alvin Pinto

This is the best exercise for tennis elbow:

Sit at a table. Place your lower arm on it.

Hold a 2.5-pound dumbbell in your hand.

Palm down, raise your hand by bending wrist, then lower it — 10 times.

Palm up, repeat the exercise 10 times.

Build up to a set of 30 — 10 pause 10 pause 10 reps.

As your arm-muscles strengthen, increase the weight to 3 pounds, then to 5 pounds, but do not increase the reps.

The skin on my hand peels, particularly in winter. Please suggest any home remedy.

Binu Mongia

Dryness is due to lack of water inside your skin. Dermatology advises: first soak your hand in lukewarm water, wave your hand to shake off excess water, then apply moisturiser, oil or petroleum jelly to trap and keep the moisture in the skin.

Avoid soap as much as possible as it contains lye — a skin irritant. If at all, use soap containing fats like cold cream, cocoa butter, lanolin, oil.

Try this home remedy; place a cabbage leaf strip on a bandage cloth. Roll it around the affected area. Secure with an adhesive tape.

Finally, use your hands gently. Often, we impatiently yank at a steel tap or grip an object hard — all this dents, peels, cuts sensitive skin. Perhaps the message of the skin is: get in touch with your gentler, more sensitive, loving side.

I have low blood pressure and feel weak, listless and, sometimes, light-headed. My doctor says it is nothing to worry about and that I should have coffee daily. Is there anything else I can do?

Sindhu Narvekar.

Your doctor is right. Hypotension or low blood pressure is a minor disorder at most. You can do five simple things:

Walk or cycle every day for half an hour.

Squeeze a handgrip 10 times with each hand — especially before you get up. This takes away the dizziness you may feel as you rise.

Count backward from 100 by 5s or 7s rapidly. Research has shown that this instantly elevates the blood pressure.

Eat six small meals instead of three big ones. A big meal can lower blood pressure.

Sleep with your head elevated. On waking up, sit, then stand up.

The writer is co-author of the book ‘Fitness for Life’.

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