Bloating, IBS and Your Spleen: Eating to Settle Your Gut This Fall

IBS and bloating often follow a daily pattern. You start the day comfortable. By mid-afternoon, your waistband feels tight and your stomach is in knots. On a stressful day, it is worse. Some weeks it is constipation, other weeks the opposite.

Meanwhile, you are eating what you were told is healthy. That means smoothies, big salads, and an iced coffee to get through the afternoon. And as November settles over Calgary, none of it seems to help.

In my Bridgeland clinic, digestion rarely arrives on its own. It comes with stress, poor sleep, and often a cycle that is off. Chinese medicine has a clear way of reading this picture, and food is a big part of it.

The Spleen is not the spleen

First, a word that confuses everyone. In Western anatomy, the spleen is an immune and blood organ. It has little to do with digestion.

In Chinese medicine, the Spleen is a functional system. It covers everything involved in turning food into energy. In fact, it is much closer to what we would call the pancreas. The two organs sit side by side, and the tail of the pancreas touches the spleen. One classical text even describes the Spleen as having a piece of “scattered fat” attached. Many people read that as the pancreas.

So when I say Spleen in this post, think digestion and metabolism. When the Spleen is struggling, food sits heavily. You feel bloated, tired after eating, and foggy. Chinese medicine calls that heavy, swollen feeling Damp.

Why stress feeds IBS and bloating

With bloating and IBS, the pattern I see most often has a classical name: the Liver overacting on the Spleen. In plain terms, stress goes straight to the gut.

It shows up as bloating that is worse under pressure, and cramping that eases after a bowel movement. Often it means constipation one week and loose stools the next. Around 1,800 years ago, the physician Zhang Zhongjing described it. When you see a disorder of the Liver, he wrote, know that it will pass to the Spleen.

In fact, modern gastroenterology has reached a similar place. The Rome Foundation now classifies IBS as a disorder of gut-brain interaction. Your gut has its own nervous system, and it talks to your brain constantly. So when you say your stomach is in knots, it is more than a figure of speech.

The pot on the stove

The image I use with patients is a pot on a stove. Digestion is the fire underneath. Everything you eat has to be warmed and broken down before your body can use it.

Cold and raw food asks that fire to work harder. An iced drink with a meal is like pouring cold water into the pot. As a result, Chinese medicine says the Spleen likes warmth, and warm, cooked food is easier on it.

This matters even more as fall turns to winter in Calgary. Instead of a smoothie, try congee or porridge. Swap the cold salad for roasted vegetables or a soup. Add warming spices like ginger, cinnamon or fennel. Above all, a warm drink beats an iced one.

IBS and bloating: the questions I ask and what I suggest

When a patient comes in with bloating, I ask about food long before I suggest anything.

The questions I ask	What I often suggest
Do you drink iced drinks, smoothies or eat lots of salads?	Warm and cooked over cold and raw
Do you eat breakfast? How late is dinner?	Regular meals, including a proper breakfast
Do you eat at your desk, or on the go?	Sit down, slow down and chew well
Do you get sugar cravings, and when?	Go easy on sugar, dairy, fried food and alcohol, which the classics link to Damp
Do you eat until you are stuffed?	Stop at about 80% full

Sugar comes up a lot in my clinic. In classical terms, a little sweetness supports the Spleen and too much damages it. I also find the nutritionist Luis Mojica’s work useful here. He describes sugar as a stimulant for the nervous system. So a craving can be a stress response rather than a failure of willpower.

If this sounds familiar, my first appointment looks at your digestion, stress and cycle together.

Where classical and modern advice meet

I want to be clear that this is classical dietary advice, not evidence-based treatment. Still, some of it overlaps with mainstream IBS guidance. For example, the UK’s NICE guideline on IBS advises regular meals and taking time to eat. It also suggests cutting back on alcohol and fizzy drinks. The Su Wen, one of the oldest classical texts, says much the same. People who lived well ate and drank in moderation and kept regular hours.

If symptoms persist, the evidence-based dietary approach for IBS is a low-FODMAP diet. It works best with guidance from a registered dietitian, so ask your doctor about a referral.

See your doctor first if you notice

• Weight loss you can’t explain
• Blood in your stool
• Difficulty swallowing
• Symptoms that wake you at night
• A family history of bowel disease
• New symptoms later in life

These need ruling out before anyone calls it IBS. Acupuncture sits alongside that workup, never in place of it.

Where acupuncture fits for IBS and bloating

In treatment, I work on both sides of that gut-brain conversation. I use points to calm and settle, such as Liver 3 on the foot. Alongside them, I use points to support digestion, such as Stomach 36 just below the knee.

What your first visit looks like

Your first appointment at my Bridgeland clinic is 90 minutes. I ask about your digestion in detail, alongside stress, sleep, energy and your cycle. Then I look at your tongue and take your pulse. Finally, I go through what you eat, and which small changes might help most.

Keep Reading

Related Read: Eating for Your Cycle: A TCM-Inspired Guide to Using Food as Medicine

More on this: Gut Health & Acupuncture: How TCM Heals Digestive Issues Naturally

Also worth reading: You’re Not Sick, But You Don’t Feel Well: Acupuncture for Sleep and Digestion

Book your first session

Bloating that comes with stress is a pattern, and food is one of the first places I look. Warm, cooked, regular meals are a simple place to start this fall.

My initial 90-minute session covers your health history, your digestion and how I would approach it. I direct bill to major extended health plans. I also offer evening and weekend appointments in Calgary, and I am accepting new patients.