10 min Beginner Yoga for Digestion - Yoga for Gut Health

Transcript

hey yogi's welcome to my channel my name is cassandra and today we're doing a quick 10 minute sequence to help with any kind of gut issues you might be experiencing so whether that's bloating or constipation or trapped gas i know that can be like super uncomfortable and yoga is a really great ally so we're going to focus on kind of compressing and decompressing the stomach area so lots of twists and forward folds and that kind of movement movement just to hopefully give you a little bit of relief no props needed and we're going to begin by sitting up nice and tall so you want to anchor the sit bones down and really find as much length through your stomach and through your spine as you can and maintain this length as we twist over to the right so you can bring your left hand towards your right knee right fingertips go behind you as you open up the chest over towards the right so we want to avoid rounding and slouching here keep the crown of your head extending up and your sit bones tailbone anchored down towards the mat and really think of hugging your belly button in towards your spine so a nice contraction here through the abdominals drawing the low belly in big breath and exhale to release and we'll go to the other side so i would say twists are definitely the best kinds of poses when it comes to gut issues so lengthen up on the inhale and exhale reach your left shoulder back as you open up and twist to the left so instead of puffing your stomach out think of hugging it in and up roll your shoulder blades down your back sit up a little bit taller and release to face center and just go ahead and change the cross of your legs just so we're not always doing the same thing so the other knit on top and we're going to bring the hands over to our knees a seated cat and cow as you inhale squeeze your shoulder blades behind you open the heart and on the exhale round and contract and really make this motion come from the belly come from the abdomen inhale to open and exhale round it in take a few more here you can go as slow as you'd like matching the rhythm of your breath try to relax your stomach last one here and coming back to neutral you can extend your right leg out in front of you and keep your left foot to the inside of that right thigh start with a straight spine activate the muscles inhale to lengthen and then exhale move into a forward fold so forward folds can be really really good as well for digestion issues think of reaching the crown of your head forward so this is a dynamic pose you want to roll the shoulders back flat back take an inhale and then on the exhale let yourself fully relax and round into the pose so more like a yin style movement making this very passive walk your palms back and roll all the way up inhale and exhale to settle we'll do that a few times so inhale to lengthen and then exhale move with a flat back engage the muscles big breath in and this time exhale release and round all the way down inhale roll all the way back up and exhale stay where you are last one big breath in lengthen and exhale fold forward flat back breathe in through the nose all the way to your belly exhale relax your belly as you fold a little deeper walk the hands in come all the way back up and this time pick up your left knee and you're going to cross the left foot over towards the right thigh to the outer edge of that thigh you can wrap your right arm around the leg to twist open pull your left shoulder back behind you and try to hug your belly in as you hug your thigh in towards your chest and maybe look over towards your left shoulder unwrap and unwind and we'll go to the other side so left leg forward bend your right knee and bring the foot in towards the inner groin so inhale flat back exhale maintain the straight spine as you fold breathe in deep and exhale relax let gravity do the work for you here as you fold on in inhale to roll all the way back up and exhale to settle inhale to lengthen and exhale flat back feel the motion from the hips from the low belly exhale round and release roll and press the hands back lifting the spine big breath in and tilt it forward exhale fold it down inhale walk it back lift your right knee up so it points up towards the sky and you can step the right foot over the outer edge of your left thigh squeeze everything in and lengthen your spine right hand goes behind you as you twist to look over your right shoulder the more you can squeeze your thigh to your belly and the more you can squeeze your belly towards your low back the more you're going to feel the benefits of this pose and hopefully relieve yourself of any discomfort felt in the gut and in your stomach and release come all the way back and now from here we're going to come into our yogi squat malasana so you want your heels in toes out bending at the knees you're using your elbows to push the knees open a little wider inhale lengthen up and just keep your fingertips down on the mat here as you inhale you're going to lengthen and on the exhale you're going to straighten the legs and fold forward so you can definitely keep your knees bent generously here let yourself release and we'll do those two poses a few times so inhale into that deep squat this is a really really good pose for digestion open the chest and exhale push into the legs to fold it down once more here inhale into the squats exhale into the forward fold and just find downward facing dog from here so walk your hands out step your feet back and you can paddle the feet here in your downward dog so bending one knee straightening the other leg think of pushing your chest towards your thighs softening your neck softening your head draw your navel in towards your low back big stretch out here and then bring your knees back down to the floor let's come in to thread the needle so from tabletop pose reach your right arm up to the sky open the chest and exhale you're going to thread it under shoulder and ear come down to the floor and you might feel better just extending your left arm up overhead kind of pushing into the left fingertips so big deep twist here take one full breath and push into the left palm come all the way back out tabletop pose on hands and knees second side left arm rises open and exhale thread it through left shoulder and left ear come down to the floor right arm can extend forward draw your navel in towards your low back slide the right palm back push into the hand lift back up and bring your big toes together keep your knees pretty close towards one another we'll take an easy child's pose so hips towards your heels arms reach back forehead down to the floor and i like to just wiggle a little bit side to side here letting your belly rest over your calves over your thighs and from this child's pose hold on to your heels with your palms and you're just going to rock up onto the crown of your head so you might feel a nice little stretch through the back body draw your navel in and set your hips back down and let's roll all the way up stay sitting on your heels and just place both hands over your belly see if you can breathe directly into your palm so as you inhale push the belly out and then exhale draw the belly in two more like this inhale push your stomach out into your hands as much as you can and exhale squeeze the stomach muscles in and up last one breathe in and breathe out and we'll release thank you so much yogis for doing this practice with me i hope you get a little bit of relief from it and this is definitely a sequence that you could redo multiple times so you don't need to go through it just once you could do it twice and maybe get a little bit more benefit from it i also have quite a few classes here on youtube that are specifically made for digestion so if you're looking for something a little bit longer just search yoga with cassandra digestion and you'll find what you're looking for please do i put out new classes every single week and check out my new mobile app it's called yoga with cassandra you can just go in the app store on your phone to find it thank you all so very much namaste you