Nausea is a common side effect after exercising and many experience it after a bout of exercise. With a few tweaks to your regimen, you can enjoy the full blast of the ‘happy hormones’ brought on by exercise without the stomach clenching nausea.
1. Abrupt beginning and ending of exercise
It is important to warm and cool down before and after working out to stretch muscles and ease your heart rate. Starting and ending your workout abruptly causes nausea.
What to do: Always start your work out slower to reduce jarring your organs, joints and muscles. Be sure to always cool down too.
2. Drinking or eating before working out
Eating within two hours of working out reroutes blood flowing to your gastrointestinal tract and stomach to your muscles. This slows digestion and causes discomfort that leads to nausea, dizziness. Furthermore, foods that are high in fat or protein take longer to digest and they will eventually lead to nausea. Rehydrating is always good; however, over-hydrating leads to diluted electrolyte levels and as you guessed it, it leads to nausea as one of the symptoms of hyponatremia.
What to do: If you have to, choose to eat foods that digest faster a few hours prior to your workout and avoid drinking excessive quantities of water.
3. Working out in heat
Sweat is a good way to detox. However, a hard workout in heat can cause intense dehydration and low blood pressure. This would easily lead to nausea.
What to do: To counter this, take as many breaks as possible when it’s too hot to recover a little and cool down. Keep a bottle of water near to quench your thirst.
4. Pushing too hard
We are always encouraged to gradually increase the intensity of our workouts for better results. However, pushing yourself too hard when your body is not ready for it will send you far out of your comfort zone. One of the major side effects for working out too hard is nausea, injury and strained muscles.
What to do: Talk to a doctor or trainer to help you set targets for a period of time. When you need to increase the time and intensity of your workout, they can help figure out a way to the next level. Dial back the intensity of your workout when you feel nauseated in the midst of your routine. Pushing through the nausea will make you feel worse.
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