The Mindful Plate: Nutrition, Sleep and Yoga for Better Digestion

Stress, nutrition, eating patterns, travel and sleep all play a role in how our bodies digest food and how our gut might feel. In today’s blog, two 5 Koshas teachers dive deeper into how yoga can help you become more aware of patterns, and how specific practices can bring relief.

The Second Brain

Mary Hilliker, RD, E-RYT 500, CYT

The gut can tell us a lot…  It has been more recently referred to as “the second brain,” a complex system of nerves and neurotransmitters that link to the gray matter in our head. The “second brain” provides gut instinct, that barometer for our instinctual sense about bad food, situations and people.   

The gut is also sensitive and reactive to our thoughts and moods. The discovery that our gut contains a “second brain” provides a good explanation for why stress-reducing practices, such as yoga that help regulate physiology, thought, and mood, can be so helpful for the gut.   

Nutrition and good digestion are vital for good health, clear thinking, and strong immunity. Step one is eating nutritious food. Food must then pass through all of the stages of digestion to be useable fuel for our body. We need to be able to digest the food, breaking it into the component parts that can be absorbed and assimilated by our body. 

Energies of the Body & Digestion – Samana Vayu & Apana Vayu

Yoga aids the digestive process in several ways.  

• Yoga practice can regulate the nervous system, helping to soothe stress symptoms, which in turn improves digestion and absorption. Stress usually involves thoughts and emotions that often need to be slowed and quieted for better digestion, absorption, and assimilation.  
• “Hyper” conditions of the stomach like excess acid secretion, ulcers and heartburn, or of the intestines like diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, and inflammatory bowel disease, often benefit from soothing, gentle, calming approaches to yoga postures, breath techniques, and sound.    
• Sluggish digestion such as constipation and poor absorption (gas, indigestion, bloating, poor energy, headaches) can be improved by a yoga practice adapted to create circulation in the area of the digestive organs and specific approaches to the postures and breathing to get things moving. Twists, forward bends and lateral postures are often quite helpful. 

Yoga cultivates awareness of the connection between the body, breath and mind. In Viniyoga asana (postures), we coordinate the movement of the body with the flow of the breath. This heightened mind-body-breath connection trains awareness. We can then use this heightened awareness and apply it to conscious eating. Through awareness and conscious eating, we can often make choices that support gut health.

Once you recognize patterns of eating and digestion, you can begin to explore small shifts that help. Here are a few questions to contemplate:

• What is the amount of food that my body can digest at any one time?  
• How much of any particular food is ok for me?  
• How often can I eat foods that tend to be harder for my body to digest (indigestion) or assimilate (food allergies)?  
• Cooked or raw—which can my body handle? 
• What food combinations seem to be ok for my body?  
• How does the time of day or season impact my digestion?  
• Does my gut health change when I travel?  
• Am I eating the most diverse and nutritious diet possible respecting any unique health conditions?  
• How is stress affecting my eating and my ability to digest, absorb and assimilate food?  

A yoga practice tailored to your individual needs and interests and adapted to your specific health issues, along with conscious eating, can impact digestion and overall energy and vitality.  A Yoga Therapist is trained in applying the tools of yoga for health and healing and can assist you with adaptation of yoga for digestive issues.

Here are two postures that can help relieve gut discomfort: 

Jathara Parivrtti:  Supine Twist

Benefits:  Gently twists and compresses the belly, bringing circulation to the digestive organs.

How to Do the Posture:  Move into the posture on an exhalation. Come out of the posture on inhale. Repeat the movement in and out of the posture for 6 repetitions, and then stay for 6 breaths, focusing on a steady and long exhalation.  

Apanasana:  The Gas-Relieving Posture

Benefits:  May be soothing for bloating or gas pains and helpful for constipation.  

How to Do the Posture:  Lying on your back, place your hands over the tops of the knees with your fingers pointed toward your toes. Inhale in place and then as you exhale, bring the knees toward your chest. On inhale, slowly move the knees back to the position above the hips. Continue the repetitions at least 8 times, progressively increasing the length of your exhale. You might find it soothing to add a “hmmmm” sound to your long exhalation.

Yoga Nidra and Gut Health

Jay Coldwell, RYT-500, iRest Level 2 Teacher, currently studying Yoga Nidra 

If you are new to Yoga Nidra, it is a practice involving guided meditation that induces deep relaxation, sometimes referred to as “yogic sleep.” And getting better sleep can affect gut health.

Preparation for Yoga Nidra may include ayurvedic practices that balance the doshas—Vata, Pitta and Kapha—that govern our physical, mental and emotional functions in the body. 

A key part of any Yoga Nidra practice is to set a Sankalpa, or intention for the practice. For example:

• “I intend to use the practices of Yoga Nidra to fall into deep, restful sleep.”
• “I intend to calm my nervous system while remaining aware during my practice.”
• “I intend to enter the state of Yoga Nidra, which is awareness during deep sleep.”

A Yoga Nidra practice includes: 

• Finding a completely comfortable position so you are not distracted by your body.
• Becoming present in the room, leaving agendas and thoughts behind.
• Setting a Sankalpa, or intention for the practice.
• Focusing all your attention on specific body parts, becoming aware of sensations.
• Focusing all your attention on the flow of energy, or prana with the breath and throughout the body.
• Rotation of consciousness through the physical and subtle body. 
• Centering your awareness on the seat of your consciousness, the energetic heart.
• As you drift into slower and slower brain wave states, maintaining awareness.
• Eventually awareness is all that remains as you enter the state of Yoga Nidra. You may experience the bliss of being, and a oneness with all that is.
• There is no grasping to stay in this state, but as you move back to awareness of your energy, body, the room, and others, you may carry with you the fragrance of the Yoga Nidra state, helping you exist in a centered state as you go about your day. 

Regular practice of Yoga Nidra can help develop a reservoir of unshakable peace, which in turn may help increase resilience, allowing one to approach each day with a calm, centered demeanor. 

Learn more about this experience HERE

For a deeper dive on Yoga for Gut Health, check out our Video on Demand Program “Yoga for Digestive Health”, which provides 6 months of access and you can start anytime:  Yoga for Digestive Health Series with Andrew Beaumont, Jay Coldwell, Mary Hilliker HERE