7 asanas to help you deal with festive bloating.

Belly bloat is a common condition in everyone's life.

Even if you stay active and maintain a healthy diet, certain foods don't agree with your stomach. There are times when stress gets the best of our intestines.

The key to reducing this bloat is to introduce certain yoga postures into your routine that will help things move through your body, and act almost like a cleanse.

Being bloated can also be related to stress, PMS, weak digestion and poor food.

Yoga poses along with breathing can help stimulate, cleanse and boost your digestion.

• Dhanurasana (classic bow pose)

Dhanurasana is an excellent practice that encourages a gentle massaging of your internal organs.

This can help to facilitate digestion and move stuck wastes through the digestive system.

Rocking slightly forward towards your chest when you exhale, and then rocking you back towards your hips when you inhale, is one of the best self-massage techniques that helps in preventing bloating.

• Pavanmuktsana (wind releasing pose or knee to chest posture)

The name itself stands for relieving the gas (vayu).

It also helps for good digestion and peristaltic movements by giving a massage to the abdominal organs.

This pose also helps to maintain spinal curvature and to massage and realign the spinal vertebrae.

The ideal time to practice this pose is early in the morning on an empty stomach.

• Shashankasana (rabbit pose)

It compresses the abdominal organs and balances the adrenaline secretion, which causes stress.

This asana stretches the rectus muscle of the abdomen and helps in improving digestion.

It also relieves constipation and benefits people with sciatica and hypertension.

Shashankasana and its starting pose, vajrasana are highly recommended in bloating due to indigestion or constipation.

• Cat or cow pose

There are many physical benefits of this pose, including toning up the gastrointestinal tract thereby helping digestion.

The asana flow helps relieve stress from menstrual cramps, lower back pain, and sciatica.

This pose increases flexibility of the neck, shoulders and spine.

The movement also stretches the muscles of the hips, back, abdomen, chest and lungs.

It is a fantastic practice to feel lightness in the abdomen and to increase the energy flow to the navel chakras responsible for digestion.

• Trikonasana

It is a standing position, which provides a deep stretch to the whole body.

The twisting action of this pose helps to massage the intestines, stimulating digestion and helping to relieve discomfort and bloating.

It gives good relief from backache, gastritis, indigestion, acidity and flatulence.

• Salabhasana (locust pose) 

This is the most common back bend, which involves stretching of abdominal muscles.

This pose not just stretches the abdominal muscles, but its whole stability depends on it because the body is balanced by the muscles of rib, abdomen and pelvis during this pose.

Therefore, abdominal muscles play a crucial role in getting the effective results from this pose. This pose improves digestion and helps deal with gastrointestinal problems.

• Supta matsyendrasana (reclined spinal twisting posture)

It is a great way to improve digestion and is a very simple pose.

The massaging at the lower abdomen induces proper digestion, reducing constipation.

In the supine spinal twist pose, the pressing of the knee towards the abdomen while it is twisted, gives a great massage to the abdomen helping the inner organs to detoxify and thus function properly with various glands doing their secretion job.

Supta matsyendrasana is also a gentle twist that massages the abdominal organs, helping the kidneys and liver, facilitating digestion and reducing constipation, bloating.

The article is written by Dr Manoj Kutteri, Wellness Director at Atmantan Wellness Centre.