I love that there are literally yoga poses designed to help any symptom you are experiencing. My digestive system and I have had a turbulent relationship over the years. I don’t remember a time in my childhood where I didn’t experience some kind of digestive upset.
And I am far from being alone. So many people today are experiencing or have experienced digestive issues. IBS has become a buzz word that gets thrown around to encompass a long list of annoying symptoms that can really put a damper on feeling good.
Besides diet there are many other tools that can help improve digestion and today I am going to share my favourite yoga poses that you can do to help ease some of your discomforts when they arise.
Belly breathing
This is the first pose I was taught in yoga and although it seems simple and straight forward the truth is so many people don’t breath into their belly, but instead are breathing shallowly into their chest. This creates tension through the shoulders. For this technique, find a comfortable seat where your spine can be nice and straight and begin directing the breath down to your diaphragm. By consciously bringing our focus to our bellies and inhaling to fill this area (imagine inflating a balloon) and then letting it go, drawing navel towards the spine on the exhale creates an internal massage on our digestive system and organs that support digestion. This can be done either before eating or about 20 minute post eating to help assist with digestion of food. It’s also a great one to do any time you are feeling bloated or tense in that area.
Wind removing pose (Pavana Muktasana)
Who doesn’t love the feeling you get post releasing wind? The yogis knew what to do anytime they were feeling like they needed some help to get things moving. For this pose you start by laying on your back bending your right knee toward your chest and lengthening out the left leg along the floor. If you can’t lengthen it out due to back injuries or pain please keep it bent). Hug the knee in as close as you can and breath into your belly whilst holding there. Then repeat the same on the left side.
We start with the right side so that we work with the way our digestive system flows - up the right and down the left.
Knees to chest (Apanasana)
This one is great to follow on from wind relieving pose. Simply hug both knees into the chest as far as they will go (not pushing into any pain) and then breath into the belly. You will feel pressure as you breath here due to your knees being against your stomach and this is what helps to get blood pumping to this area once you release your knees down.
Belly down breathing with hands under abdomen
Gosh I wish I could remember the Sanskrit name for this or at least come up with a shorter English name for this epic pose.
This pose was passed down to me from my teacher. So no it’s not on google. Despite not remembering the Sanskrit name this is a pose I do daily and it has helped me immensely with getting my digestive system working well again, after years of hissy fits. For this pose you lay down on your belly and then make fists with your hands and place these just above your belly button. This creates pressure in the transverse colon that travels along the top part of your belly. When doing this you may hear some beautifully funky sounds coming from your colon and organs. A great sign that something is happening! Embrace the music and breath into your belly here. I usually hold this between 1-5 minutes. I would not recommend doing this after eating but first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. Please don’t push into any pain here. If you are experiencing alot of digestive symptoms this one can be really intense. Ease in. It’s also effective just to lay on your belly and breath into this area without the hands. Head can be either looking forward, with chin on the mat or turned to one side.
Legs up the wall
Alas, my favourite pose that I call upon all the time. This pose can literally be used for so many things. Anxiety, overwhelm, relaxation, to assist with drifting off to sleep, swollen legs…. but also it’s great for digestion. This simple inversion also helps your body enter ‘rest and digest’ mode, (your parasympathetic nervous system) which stimulates digestion and supports regularity.
There are many more poses that can help with digestion but here are my 4 go-to’s. I would love to hear from you! Let me know your favourite pose to help with digestion in the comments!