Yoga and Healthy Eating: How Yoga Helps You Tune in to the Effects of Your Dietary Choices

by Baxter

Fresh Bread and Fresh Butter
made and photographed by
Rosie Gibson

It is always a bit bittersweet for me come mid-July when I return from my annual yoga retreat at the Feathered Pipe Ranch  in Helena, Montana. It is a magical place for my students, and me, and most of our every-day needs are met by the staff at the Ranch, freeing us up to dive deep into the yoga and community. 

At this year’s retreat, I focused on many of the concepts we talk about here at Yoga For Healthy Aging, including therapeutic sessions on topics ranging from arthritis to digestion. One of the lovely things about going on these sorts of retreats is that all of your meals are prepared for you, and all you have to do is show up for meal times. The Ranch is no different, and they pride themselves of the variety of healthy, mostly organic foods that they prepare for us each year, from Indian to Thai to Mexican, to the “Toledo Lunch” (a throwback to my childhood favorite, grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup). In addition, they always have tempting desserts, from fruit cobbler to fresh baked cookies and cakes to something outrageous called Chocolate Decadence! The downside to this, at least from my perspective, is that the food is served buffet style, so there is the daily opportunity to overeat, despite the overall healthy options provided (minus some of the desserts, of course!)

I have to remind myself to be more mindful about my eating when at the Ranch. It is very easy to make a second trip up for some more of my favorite things, even when my first plate of food was more than sufficient to satisfy my hunger. Satiety is different than eating until I feel “stuffed.” which unfortunately happened a few times last week. But because I was also on retreat in my own way, even though I was teaching twice each day, I was able to have the time to meditate consistently first thing in the morning for about 15 minutes. I found that as I sat quietly focused on my breath or simple mantra (see How to Start a Meditation Practice), I became acutely aware of how my body was feeling and responding to the previous day's food choices. I also would recall if I woke in the middle of the night with indigestion, gas, bad dreams, or the urgent need to use the bathroom. This feedback allowed me to more consciously set an intention around my food choices for the rest of the day.

Since I tend to desire more processed sugar than is healthy for me, (is it really healthy for anyone?), I began to modify my breakfasts, the only meal I prepared for myself in the little teacher’s cabin kitchen, leaving out the jam on my toast and adding in a piece of fresh fruit to satisfy that sweet taste desire that I have. And I began to notice that my energy levels were higher for the rest of the morning as the week progressed. Quite motivating! I have to admit that dessert time was still a tough one, but was at least more mindfully dished and consumed than earlier in the week. 

Surprisingly, I realized I was looking forward to being back in my own kitchen where I could more easily design my meals for not just quality, but also quantity.  All these insights about behavior changes and choices arose directly out of the introspective practices of yoga, like simple breath awareness. They were there for me, and they are available for you, too. As we keep reminding you, consistent practice is a key feature of transformational practice. I did my meditation first thing today again, and my continued healthy, well-proportioned meals choices are reflecting it!

I've been thinking a lot about healthy eating and healthy digestion because my two-part online course at Yoga U is coming up soon. To sign up for the course, you can register here. For a free audio interview with me on yoga for healthy digestion, download the interview here.

Digestive Health: Online Course and Free Interview with Baxter Bell!

by Nina

In his recent post Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Yoga, Baxter mentioned that he’s going to giving a two-part online course on Yoga for Digestive Health via Yoga U. It’s coming up soon, everyone! And it’s going to be good. (I know because—ssshh!—I’m helping with the presentation.) Here’s the course description:

Learn about the digestive system and how you can use yoga to improve digestive health. In this 2-part online yoga course, Baxter Bell, MD offers an overview of the organs of digestion, their basic functions and how you can use yoga to impact digestive health, from his experience as a western trained doctor and a certified yoga instructor. Dr. Bell will discuss the common digestive disorders and the early signs of digestive disturbances.

To take this online course, you’ll need to register (and pay) here. But Baxter has also done a special interview on digestion for Yoga U interview and this is completely free. Here’s a description of the interview:

In it, Dr. Bell discusses how the digestive system interfaces with other body systems, particularly – the immune system and the nervous system. The digestive system has a separate network of nerves called the enteric nervous system, which works independently of the central nervous system and the brain. Early research even suggests that the digestive system could even impact our mental, emotional, overall well-being.

Dr. Bell further discusses some of the common early warning signs of digestive disorders to be on the lookout for, and how to check whether your digestive function is normal. He also offers insights into the different ways in which our yoga asana practice can have an impact on digestive health, and which groups of postures are particularly important.

To download the interview with Baxter, go here. For those of you who can't practice in person with Baxter, this will give you a little taste of what his workshops are like.

In Gratitude or With Thanksgiving…Stress and Digestion

by Baxter

Next Thursday is the official kick-off of the holiday season in the US, or maybe more appropriately the Feasting Season, or perhaps the Excessive Cream Cheese season.  Whatever you refer to the next seven weeks as, eating is center stage, and most often, with abundant quantities of food.  And although gratitude and togetherness and love and joy are also the focus of our gatherings and feasts, which seem like lovely qualities and potentially beneficial, we can still experience an increase in overall stress this time of year. And an increased perception of “stress” can have a noticeably negative impact on your digestion. 

When we are in good balance on a holistic level, which would include physical, mental and emotional balance, our digestive system, at least theoretically, should reflect that balance as well. The digestive system has it’s own nervous system, sometimes called the gut brain, known as the enteric nervous system, which can influence the function of the gut from the stomach all the way to parts of the large intestines. Without any direct input from the brain and the spinal cord, the enteric nervous system can move food along and continue with the digestion and absorption of fuel from our food. 

However, there is also interplay between the conscious parts of our brain, as well as the background operating system of the body known as the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) on our digestion as well. When we are in balance, the Parasympathetic portion (PNS) of the Autonomic Nervous System, prophetically known as the Rest and Digestion system, supports good digestion. However, when you are under stress, whether via truly threatening situations or everyday worries and anxieties, the other half of the Autonomic Nervous System, the Sympathetic Nervous System, dubbed the Fight, Flight or Freeze system, exerts dominance over your enteric brain. The result is a negative effect on the movement of food through the gut, a decrease in the blood sent to the gut for digestive purposes, which inhibits absorption of nutrients out of the gut, while acidity may simultaneously build up in your stomach, increasing the likelihood of indigestion and heartburn.

With ongoing stress, some people begin to crave complex carbohydrates (none of those around for the holidays, right?) as they can trigger the release of calming substances in the brain, at least for short periods of time. The unwanted side effect of such shifts in eating habits is sometimes weight gain.

By activating the Rest and Digest part of your Autonomic Nervous System via yoga asana and other yoga tools, you can guide yourself back into better balance and improve your digestion and decrease those unwanted symptoms like heartburn and bloating. In the spirit of gratitude for your readership this past year, we want to once again share with you one of my favorite poses to do just that: Reclining Cobbler’s Pose. A few months ago, we posted this short video on youtube, which we link to here again with the hopes you’ll watch and try it. It is a reminder to slow down, do some yoga and take good care of yourselves and your digestion this holiday season. I look forward to checking in with you after our break for the Thanksgiving week!

Healthy Eating and Your Digestive System

by Baxter

I recently heard from a colleague of mine in Portland, Vilma Z, who has hosted me at her lovely studio The Yoga Project in the Sellwood neighborhood over the years.  She was very excited and proud to let me know about a new project she had just completed, a calendar featuring the students from her highly popular class “Yoga for Larger Women.” Vilma has been working with larger women in Portland now for several years, and her experiences and the experiences of her students can be found on the website yogaforthelargerwoman.com. Please go there and read for yourself the amazing transformations these students describe.

Janet from the Yoga for Larger Women Calender

And then this past weekend, I once again offered my workshop on Yoga and the Digestive System.  As part of that course, during Savasana, I guide the students through a journey of their digestive system for start to finish. The last time I taught this guided visualization, several students asked if I had it recorded so they could do the journey again on their own. So, this weekend, honoring that request, I recorded the Journey Through Your Digestive System, and it is now available on Bandcamp at yogaforhealthyaging.bandcamp.com, where you can play it at any time or download it in any number of formats.



I’ve decided to share this recording with you today as part of our series exploring Yoga for Healthy Eating. You might ask yourself the question, “What does having a better understanding of my digestive system have to do with helping me foster healthy eating habits?” Well, one of Vilma’s students, Janet Wieneke, has this to say, which I think has great bearing on this question:

“Around the same time, the thought hit me that I had been dragging this body around for all these past 50 years instead of really living in it.   It came to me that I had not claimed this body, not moved into this body. I was renting it, but I didn’t live there. I didn’t want to live there—in the “undesirable” section of town.

That began to change though when I realized no amount of wishing, bargaining or promising will change the fact that this is my body and that it benefits me greatly to “step up” and partner with my abilities, instead of wishing that things were different.”

So the aspect of healthy eating that has to do with understanding your digestive system is learning to really live in and feel your body, noticing how different foods and meal sizes make you feel, and so on, instead of just wishing things were different. The more in tune you become with how your ingestion and digestion of food makes you feel, the more likely you are to make better decisions in the future regarding healthy eating.

And if you want to support Vilma’s work with larger women in Portland, buy a 2013 Calendar here . The photos—and the women—are lovely! And if you want to support our ongoing work here at Yoga For Healthy Aging, consider purchasing your audio track of the digestive journey from Bandcamp. And let us know how you liked the tour!

Featured Sequence: Mini Restorative Practice for Digestion (or just relaxation)

by Baxter and Nina

Baxter’s been thinking a lot about digestion lately because he’s going to be teaching a workshop on yoga for digestion this Saturday, June 2, at Fourth Street Yoga in Berkeley, CA (see 4th Street Yoga for details). And he’s observed that a lovely underlying principle for working with digestive issues is that no matter what’s going on, all digestive issues respond to restorative poses. Remember, the opposite of the Fight, Flight or Freeze response is the Rest and Digest response (also known as the Relaxation response—see Relaxation Reponse and Yoga for information). So with that in mind, today we’re presenting a mini restorative practice consisting of three of Baxter’s favorite restorative poses, which you can use to help with digestive problems as well as other problems caused by stress, such as insomnia, fatigue, and anxiety.

1.    Reclined Cobbler’s Pose, from 10 to 20 minutes. Set a timer so you don’t fall asleep in the pose.

You will notice from the photograph that we’re using quite a few official yoga props (including a block under the bolster to prop the bolster at an angle). Don’t let this prevent you from trying it! If you don't have bolsters and blocks, look around your house to see what else you can use; try cushions from your couch, folded blankets, beach towels, and so on. Just make sure you’re completely physically comfortable in the pose.

One of the important parts of completing digestion is good elimination. In addition to physical relaxation, which this pose provides, gravity is also helpful for good elimination. As you can see from the photo, Reclined Cobbler’s pose creates a gradual slope from your head to your hips. Therefore, it’s possible that this pose can help with problems such as constipation and sluggish elimination. One of our favorite teachers, Patricia Walden, suggests that this pose may increase blood flow to your organs, as well as cool your digestive fire.

2.    Supported Child’s Pose, for 3 to 5 minutes. Turn your head to the other side when you’re half way through.

Make sure your bolster (or folded blankets, stacked pillows or couch cushion) is pulled in against your pubic bone so your belly actually rests on the prop. If necessary, turn the bolster on its edge or add folded blankets on top of the bolster to make sure your belly is fully supported.

As you can see from the photo, Child’s pose is a forward bend of your belly toward your thighs. Because the bolster is pressing against your belly, it’s possible this posture will have a stimulating effect on your digestive system and your abdominal organs. Patricia Walden suggests that this pose can relieve constipation, gas, and bloating.

3.    Legs Up the Wall pose, from 10 to 15 minutes. Come out if your legs fall asleep.

We’re showing two versions of the pose, one with just a folded blanket and the other using a bolster with a folded blanket underneath it and a second folded blanket under the spine. Try both versions to see which one is more comfortable for you. If they are equally comfortable, try the higher version, as this may enhance your relaxation.

This pose is a slight inversion (more so on the bolster than on the blanket). Therefore, it could have any even more profound quieting effect on your nervous system than the first two poses. Also because your hips are higher than your heart, there is a mild reversal of the effects of gravity, which could quiet an over-stimulated system in people who have, for example, IBS or chronic diarrhea. Patricia Walden says this is an excellent pose of nausea and diarrhea. However, if you have a history of gerd or chronic heartburn, take care with this pose, and come out if makes your symptoms worse.

The Digestion System and Yoga

by Baxter 

Over the last 2 years, I have had the good fortune to act as faculty for the Niroga Institute’s Yoga Therapy Program in Berkeley, CA. As part of my teaching duties, I was asked to present and teach the group about yoga and the digestive system. This is a fairly daunting task, as the digestive system is a complex system that interconnects with our conscious mind, the unconscious portions of our nervous system via the autonomic systems sympathetic and parasympathetic systems (which we have discussed here on more than one occasion), and our immune and endocrine systems.  Despite the enormity of the task, I came to be reminded of a wonderful fact about the digestive system: it has its own nervous system, called the enteric nervous system (ENS). Upon further investigation, I discovered that this system has a lot to do with helping to move food through the small and large intestines, affecting the fluid absorption from the gut, as well as local blood flow in the gut. The ENS is sometimes referred to as an independent gut brain, which seems quite cool. But this is not quite accurate, for while it does have an independent influence on the many gut activities, it interfaces profoundly with the autonomic nervous system and conscious mind as well.

In some ways, this is good news. As we have seen before when discussing yoga and stress, if we can influence the autonomic nervous system and shift the patterns of excess sympathetic stimulation to balanced stimulation, including appropriate amounts of parasympathetic stimulation, we can allow for the body to have adequate amounts of rest and replenishment.  In fact one lay term for the parasympathetic system is the “rest and digest response!"

Human Digestive System

When we engage in a balanced yoga practice that includes active poses, resting poses, breath awareness and relaxation, an interesting thing happens: our digestive system often works more efficiently with less unwelcome symptoms (I’ll leave that to your own experience and imagination to figure out what those are!). So, although the digestive system itself is complex, our yoga practices quite elegantly can interface and support the best possible digestion, via our effect on the conscious mind and the background autonomic nervous system.

More specifically, consider restorative practices and yoga nidra when you know you are under lots of stress that could over-activate your sympathetic nervous system (your fight or flight response). If you’re in the Bay Area and would like to learn more about yoga and the digestive system, consider joining me on June 2^nd at 4^th Street Yoga in Berkeley, CA. See http://www.4thstreetyoga.com/workshops.html for information.