How yoga can help with digestion when you've eaten too much
How yoga can help with digestion when you've eaten too much
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There always gets a point over the festive period where you realise you’ve really overdone the eating. You’ve foie gras-ed yourself – and it’s uncomfortable. While there’s no turning back time on that last turkey sandwich, there are some yoga techniques that can help.
Yoga is known to help digestive health in general by helping to improve stress – something that can worsen gut issues – as well as physically help move digested food along the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. When we’re stressed, the connection between the brain and the gut can become disrupted and cause digestion to slow or stop. “The brain and the gut send signals back and forth through a pathway called the gut brain axis,” Weston says. “When the body is in a heightened state of stress, the nervous system tips into its ‘fight or flight” response which restricts digestion.”.
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“I think any movement is helpful for digestion, but yoga can be particularly gentle post-turkey,” Jamie Hepburn, founder of the south London yoga studio Basic Space, agrees (basicspacelondon.com). She suggests “slow, gentle movements, keeping yourself mainly upright (rather than upside down) with some gentle seated twists, maybe some cat cows, where you gently move between an arched back position and a rounded back position, and some baby cobras, where you lie on your front and do a very gentle back bend by placing your hands next to your chest and pressing into your palms into the ground.”.
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She adds that for painful trapped wind, “anything knee to belly is helpful as well (as you would for an infant with gas) so happy baby, knees to chest and rocking is nice, some supine twists, which is where you lie on the floor, and bring one leg over too.”.
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