It’s Vata season (fall), which means all of Vata’s wonderful qualities become heightened until Spring.
As a quick recap, Vata is made up of the elements air and ether (space) and its qualities can include digestive irregularities, feelings of anxiety and overwhelm, creativity, and movement. Think wind, dryness, and cool air – all properties present in autumn.
What to do when you’re plagued by digestive discomfort? Whether it’s cramping, bloating, gas, constipation, diarrhea or a little bit of all of it, a specific yoga for digestion sequence may help.
Yoga for digestion: why the poses work
Twists and poses that compress the digestive organs can be helpful to get things moving again in your digestive tract. We all need a little extra motivation sometimes when things get tough. Research also shows that digestive discomfort can be heightened by stress and a lack of activity, so yoga is a perfect candidate to help get you moving and breathing to reduce stress.
Yoga poses that lengthen the torso help create more space and open up any areas that may be chronically compressed causing blockages. Think about it. When something goes wrong on the highway, everything gets all backed up and there is no way you’re getting through until whatever is blocking traffic gets moved out of the way. Considering your large intestine is about 5 feet long, I figured a traffic analogy would work well. 5 feet is like a highway for tiny cells and stuff.
Combine these types of poses in a flow and you’ll get your blood pumping, your breath assisting, and it will probably just feel good to move.
I’ve offered up some yoga poses for digestion on the blog before, so you can use those as a resource/reference as well. (I swear, I didn’t plan to wear the exact same shirt…)
It’s always nice to revisit this topic seasonally and switch things up a little so you don’t get bored!
This video is 10 minutes. No excuses 🙂
