Yoga for Digestion

Namaste Yogi, my name is Pallavi Rajankar and welcome to Yoga & You. I am a counseling psychologist and a yoga teacher, and today we are bringing together mental health, physical health and emotional health. Today we are going to be doing a two-part series on Yoga for digestion. Now this is so important because the gut is called the second brain. Your gut and your brain are in constant communication through our nervous system, and there are certain microorganisms in the gut that actually help regulate our immune system.

So now let's move into certain things you can do around meal time, certain asanas and pranayamas that you can do around meal time to actually help digest your food better. The first thing we can do is before eating, before eating, when we are actually going to approach our food, we want to make sure that our minds and our bodies are in a state of calm. When we are in a state of calm, the body moves into the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the rest and digest system. When we are in this rest and digest system, the energy in the body actually has a chance to go into the digestion. As opposed to when we are anxious or when we are trying to run away, the body goes into the fight or flight system where the body has no energy to actually digest our food.

So we want to make sure that we are in a parasympathetic nervous system, and we can do that by just placing one finger underneath the nose. When you place the finger underneath the nose like this, this notes for a moment which nostril is dominant, or if any nostril is blocked. Do that with me for a minute and just notice your breath. Ideally you want to make sure that the breath is coming out of the right nostril when you are approaching your food. This is a sign that the body is in the parasympathetic nervous system. Now a lot of us, with the lives that we lead, we are not always balanced in the way that we breathe. So let's do a pranayama, a breath work, to make sure that the body is in the parasympathetic nervous system.

So we are going to move into a pranayama called Pada Deerasana. So for this pranayama, I am going to ask you to come into Vajrasana position, which just means that you will bring your knees together and your toes touching at the back. So the hips sit on the heels, toes touching, or toes can be not touching. I am going to face you once more to show you, right? And now I am going to ask you to keep your hands like this. Your thumbs facing up and your forefingers facing inwards. Now just keep these forefingers in the armpits of both your arms, so your thumbs are facing your face. And now together, I invite you to just close your eyes. Let me do the counting and we will take a few deep breaths in and out to my count.

So ready, inhaling for three, two, one, exhaling for three, two, one, same thing again, inhaling for three, two, one, exhaling for three, four, two, one, slightly longer, inhaling for five, four, three, two, one, exhaling slowly for four, three, two, one, even longer, inhaling for five, four, fill the body up with air, three, two, one, exhaling for five, gently opening the eyes, releasing the hands back down to the thighs.

If you are comfortable like this, you can continue sitting like this. You will move into what you can actually do during the meal time. Now during the meal time, a lot of us have been very accustomed to sit at a table and a chair to eat, right, and there's nothing wrong with that, it's just a way that our lifestyles have changed, but something that we can do to actually aid our bodies is to sit in Sukhasana, which is a comfortable pose.

So we're going to come out of Vajrasana, we're going to bring our legs in front, right? So from here, gently bring the right heel into the pelvic region, left heel in front of the right ankle. You make sure that the knees are facing forward and on the ground. Now if you have very tight hips, your knees might be up like this. You can place a pillow or a block or anything to support your knees, and ideally you can come into a position like this, right? So this is level one, if your hips are quite open, and level two, if this is quite easy for you, you can place the right foot in this wedge between your pelvic region and the thigh, and bring your left foot over the right. So you're in this cross-legged position. For some of you, this might be easy, for some of you, this might be tough, this is level two. Either way, for me, for example, this is much easier, so a position like this might be easier to eat.

But the reason we do this is because, like I said earlier, there's a certain amount of energy that is taken to digest your food, right? This energy, when we sit in Sukhasana, it goes from the legs and from the pelvic region into the abdominal area and then into the digestive tract. So we're basically aiding our body, giving it even more energy it needs to then digest the food better.

Now this is what you can do during eating. Another thing that you can do is also very mindfully eat, and especially eating only as much as you want to, or only as much as when you feel full. Like I said, energy is used when we digest our food. Now if we eat more than what is required, we are overburdening the body with a lot of food. So for example, if we have 100% energy, 75 or 80% of the energy then goes into digesting the food. So then there's only 20% of the energy left in your body to repair yourself, to repair certain wounds that you may have, to heal certain bruises that you may have. And therefore, your general health starts to deteriorate.

So eat only as much as until you are full, and when we eat, really feel the temperature and the texture of each bite. Now I know that with today's lifestyle, it's a little bit difficult to follow this, because all of us, myself included, we just often sit in front of the TV and eat, or we're talking to our friends and we eat. But as far as possible, especially if you're having digestive issues, aid your body by mindfully eating.

Now we'll go into the last part, which is what you can do after eating. Now we're going to come into Vajrasana, or back into our Thunderbolt pose, right? So what we're going to do is once again bring our knees together. I'll face this direction so it's easier for you to see me. Bring the knees together, toes touching, hips on the heels. Allow your body to just stay here, palms go onto the knees, spine is erect. With me, roll the shoulders back, relax the shoulders down. We'll take a few breaths together, just do it with me, inhaling for three, two, one, exhaling for three, two, one, a couple more times, inhaling for three, two, one, exhaling for three, two, one, last time inhaling for three, two, one, and exhaling for three, two, one.

Now oftentimes we hear our grandmothers and our mothers telling us things like sit in this position after your meal, but we don't fully understand the science or the biology of it, and so it just seems like it's not worth doing. Today I'm going to tell you that the very simple reason is that when food is going down your throat, down the chest, down the tract, your digestive tract, we're basically allowing gravity to help us move the food down the tract. Now if you eat and you immediately lie down, just by the posture you can see that it's not easy for the food to go down a horizontal tube, but if you hold a tube of water say like this and you allow water to move through it, it's much easier for the body to digest. So it's advised for us to sit in this position for about 10 to 15 minutes. If you're feeling like your knees are aching or your ankles are aching, that's actually good. The muscles are being stretched a little bit, your ligaments are being stretched, and it's good for the body. So stay here for about 10 to 15 minutes is the advice.

So in this video I've told you what you can do before, during and after your meal, and in the second part of the series I'll show you some general asanas you can do even on a daily basis if you're having digestive issues, or if you just want to have better digestion of your food. Thank you so much for practicing with me, Namaste.