Your stomach looks like you ate a basketball in one big gulp. You feel more than a little full… even if you haven’t eaten that much. And the bloating is so uncomfortable that it’s sometimes tough to wear pants (even with the button open).
This painful pressure gets even worse at night, making it hard to fall asleep. But in the morning when you wake up, your stomach is flat and mostly “back to normal.”
You’re probably wondering why you get so bloated in the evening… And if you are, you’re not alone. Millions of people suffer from this nightly tight and agonizing feeling.
Luckily, there are things you can do to beat the bloat. And the sooner you start, the faster you’ll feel comfortable.
But before you can fix the problem, you have to figure out the cause.
5 Reasons You’re More Bloated in the Evening
Bloating – officially known as abdominal distension – causes your belly to balloon out, making it feel overly full and tight.[1] Although bloating can sometimes be brought on by a medical condition like IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), many everyday habits can trigger evening bloating.[2]
And once you identify your bloat triggers, you can make changes to keep your belly comfortable night or day. Here are five common reasons for evening bloat.
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1. Lying down soon after eating
Lying down after you eat can cause indigestion, gas, and bloating. That’s true whether you take a midday nap after lunch or eat dinner shortly before bedtime. Digestion works more efficiently when you’re upright… and slows down when you’re not.[3] Plus, being horizontal and still encourages air and gasses to accumulate in your small intestine and stomach. When that gas gets trapped, the result is bloating. It’s much harder for your body to expel gas when you’re lying down.
2. Having an imbalanced gut microbiome
Your gut microbiome contains trillions of bacteria, both beneficial probiotics and harmful pathogens. When pathogens outnumber probiotic bacteria – a condition called dysbiosis – they interfere with healthy digestion.[4] Your body can’t properly process nutrients when your gut is out of balance,[5] and that can lead to excess gas and bloating by the end of the day.
3. Not producing enough digestive enzymes
Your body creates special enzymes to help break down the food you eat into nutrients. But sometimes, your body doesn’t create enough of the right types of enzymes to fully digest all the food you’ve eaten. By the evening, those undigested foods can start fermenting and giving off gas. This gets amplified by dysbiosis, as pathogens can interfere with proper digestion.[6] In a healthy gut, beneficial bacteria assist with enzyme production and digestion.
4. Eating too little prebiotic fiber or too much of the wrong prebiotic fiber
Prebiotic fiber helps keep you stay regular [7] and can help keep your gut microbiome in healthy balance. The trick is to get the right amount of the right fiber. But here’s the rub: Some kinds of fiber can make your bloating worse. Many forms of fiber can cause digestive upset, especially if you’re consuming too much of them. So you’ll want to look for prebiotic fiber that specifically does not cause those issues.
The most common forms of prebiotic fiber include:
- Inulin
- Oligofructose
- Fructooligosaccharides (FOS)
- Galactooligosaccharides (GOS)
- Xylooligosaccharides (XOS)
Unfortunately, prebiotics like oligofructose and inuli