Passing gas between 14 and 23 times a day is completely normal, but when gas becomes painful, excessive, or embarrassing, there are effective ways to get relief. The best approach depends on whether you’re dealing with trapped gas right now or trying to prevent it from building up in the first place.
Why Gas Builds Up
Gas in your digestive tract comes from two sources: swallowed air and bacterial fermentation. Every time you eat, drink, or even talk, you swallow small amounts of air. Some people unknowingly swallow large volumes, which accumulates in the stomach and gets released as burping.
The rest happens in your colon, where trillions of bacteria break down food residues that your small intestine couldn’t fully absorb. This fermentation produces hydrogen, methane, and other gases. The volume depends heavily on what you eat and the specific mix of bacteria living in your gut, which varies significantly from person to person. That’s why your friend can eat a bowl of beans without issue while you’re miserable for hours afterward.
Quick Physical Relief for Trapped Gas
When gas is already causing discomfort, movement is the fastest way to help it pass. A short walk relaxes the muscles around your abdomen and encourages gas to move through your intestines. Even five to ten minutes can make a noticeable difference.
Specific body positions can also help. Lying on your back and pulling one or both knees to your chest stretches your lower back and hips, which helps release gas from the bowels. Child’s pose (kneeling with your forehead on the floor and arms stretched forward) works similarly by relaxing the hips and lower back. Lying twists, where you drop both knees to one side while keeping your shoulders flat, rotationally stretch the lower back and can move gas along. Squatting is another effective option, since the position naturally compresses the abdomen and encourages gas to pass.
Abdominal self-massage follows a specific pattern that traces the path of your colon. Using moderate pressure with your fingertips, start by stroking from your left ribcage down to your left hip bone, repeating 10 times. Next, stroke from your right ribcage across to the left, then down to your left hip, another 10 times. Finally, stroke from your right hip bone up to your right ribcage, across to the left ribcage, and down to the left hip, 10 more times. Always move right to left. Finish with one to two minutes of clockwise circles around your belly button. This sequence pushes gas in the same direction your colon naturally moves its contents.
Over-the-Counter Options
Simethicone (sold as Gas-X and similar brands) works by lowering the surface tension of gas bubbles in your digestive tract, causing small bubbles to merge into larger ones that are easier to pass through burping or flatulence. It isn’t absorbed into your bloodstream, so it has very few side effects. The typical adult dose is 40 to 125 mg taken up to four times daily after meals and at bedtime, with a maximum of 500 mg per day. It works best for the bloated, pressure-filled feeling of trapped gas.
If your gas is triggered by high-fiber foods like beans, lentils, broccoli, or whole grains, an enzyme supplement containing alpha-galactosidase (sold as Beano) can help prevent gas before it starts. These foods contain complex carbohydrates that your body can’t fully break down on its own, leaving them for gut bacteria to ferment. The enzyme does the job your body can’t, breaking down those carbohydrates before they reach your colon. The key is timing: you need to take it with your first bite of the problem food, not after symptoms appear.
Peppermint Oil for Gas Pain
Peppermint oil has strong evidence behind it for gas-related discomfort, particularly bloating and cramping. It works by relaxing the smooth muscle lining your intestines through blocking calcium channels, which are what your gut muscles need to contract. This antispasmodic effect reduces cramping and helps trapped gas move through more easily.
In clinical trials, people taking peppermint oil saw their flatulence scores drop by nearly half compared to no change with placebo. Bloating improved in 83% of people taking peppermint oil versus 29% on placebo. Enteric-coated capsules work best because they dissolve in the intestines rather than the stomach, reducing the chance of heartburn. If you deal with regular gas pain rather than occasional discomfort, peppermint oil capsules are worth trying.
Foods That Cause the Most Gas
Certain carbohydrates ferment more than others because your small intestine can’t fully absorb them. The biggest offenders fall into a group called FODMAPs, which stands for fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols. In practical terms, that means:
- Lactose in dairy products like milk, soft cheese, and ice cream
- Fructose in apples, pears, cherries, dates, oranges, and high-fructose corn syrup
- Sugar alcohols like sorbitol, mannitol, and xylitol, found in sugar-free gum, mints, and many “diet” products
- Oligosaccharides in beans, lentils, wheat, onions, and garlic
You don’t need to eliminate all of these permanently. A more useful approach is to cut back on the major categories for two to three weeks, then reintroduce them one at a time. This helps you identify your personal triggers, since most people react to some of these groups but not all of them. Reducing fermentable carbohydrates has strong evidence for lowering bloating, abdominal pain, and gas production.
Everyday Habits That Reduce Gas
Eating slowly and chewing thoroughly reduces the amount of air you swallow with each bite. Drinking through straws, chewing gum, and sucking on hard candy all increase air swallowing. Carbonated drinks introduce gas directly into your stomach.
Eating smaller meals more frequently gives your digestive system less to process at once, which means fewer undigested residues reaching your colon for bacteria to ferment. If you’ve recently increased your fiber intake, doing so gradually over a few weeks gives your gut bacteria time to adjust, producing less gas in the process.
Probiotics for Ongoing Bloating
Probiotics may help if your gas and bloating are a chronic issue rather than an occasional annoyance. The evidence is moderate: some specific strains reduce bloating in people with irritable bowel syndrome, while others show no benefit. Multi-strain probiotics containing Bifidobacterium infantis have shown more consistent results for bloating and abdominal pain than single-strain products. Results typically take several weeks to appear, and what works varies between individuals. If one product doesn’t help after a month, a different strain combination might.
When Gas Signals Something Else
Occasional gas, even when uncomfortable, is rarely a sign of anything serious. But certain patterns deserve attention. Gas that gets progressively worse over time, persists for more than a week, or comes with persistent pain may point to an underlying condition like lactose intolerance, celiac disease, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or irritable bowel syndrome. Alarm symptoms that warrant prompt evaluation include unexplained weight loss, fever, vomiting, rectal bleeding, anemia, or significant changes in bowel habits like new constipation or diarrhea. These symptoms combined with excess gas suggest something beyond normal digestive variation.