Yoga - can it truely be helpful?
So during this worst flare-up period I ever had (7 months now but who is counting?!) and only a handful of "safe foods" left (which don't feel safe anymore) I'm now finding myself at a state of deep desperation. Deep anxiety is shaking me/waking me at night to the rythm of my gurgling stomach - only followed by pain by my new friend (painful bladder syndrom).
So sitting here and waiting for a doctor of a highly renowned gastro. clinic to call me at the end of the month (wish me luck, I want to be treated there by any means necessary) I found this book again that I purchased 2 years ago. It's called "Gesund durch Meditation" ("healthy through meditation"😉 by famous mindfulness-meditation prof. med. Kabat-Zinn. I always tried to incorporate meditation into my daily life by so far my attempts have been ... let's say "dishonest" (sitting still and listening to your own breathing for max of 10 min per day can be nice but doesn't change anything). So I now follow Kabat-Zinns 8 week beginner period of mindfulness meditation (the book comes with a handy 8 week timetable) and 3 days of 40 min sitting meditation per day later I'm sure that it at least cannot harm me more.
Ok so here comes the thing: The guide also comes with Yoga instructions. I used to be a rather sporty person but aside from daily walks I have completely skipped any and all body-related exercises in fear of aggravating any physical symptoms and upsetting my stomach even more. This is ironically what I did with foods as well (skip all in fear of symptoms).
Well the question now arises: What if that was a huge mistake? I've had more bloating and gas since I started the low-intensity stretching exercises the book suggests yesterday. I almost want to give yoga up again but that got me thinking: What if that is actually what my body needs? Yes, it is a painful but researchers now even suggest slow yoga for people with Morbus Crohn (so basically those of you with highly inflammed intestines) and in sports rehab everyone is under stress and in pain at first, no!? Also: physiotherapists I know have this mantra "Only no exercise is bad exercise" and that got me walking daily at least but while walking is nice and good, it only gets the digestion going but can't really train regions of the upper body.
So here's my question: Any of you who pracise yoga and can tell me about your experience?
This is just my experience, but I've been doing some type of yoga pretty regularly and I usually stick to what feels right. If I feel like it's painful or doesn't feel good, I prefer doing something else that does. Sometimes, when I'm flaring, my body just feels like it needs to rest. There are, however, yoga exercises that I personally find helpful with bloating, I would just google that or follow a YouTube video to see if something helps you.
I'm also going to link other people's articles and forums about yoga for IBS here: https://irritablebowelsyndrome.net/living/yoga, https://irritablebowelsyndrome.net/living/yoga-for-ibs. I hope this helps.
Karina (team member)
Doing it for 2 days now and the exercises feel fine while I'm doing them but I get serious gurgling afterwards. This might be good or a bad sign, I don't know.
At this point I'm anxious about anything :-/I can really relate to the "anxious about anything" feeling... 🙁 I personally don't think that yoga should do any harm if the exercises feel fine while you're doing them. What I meant in my previous comment was more about not forcing positions that feel painful and/or doing exercices that feel too hard when you're exhausted. I've done this during yoga classes and it didn't do me any good.
Could the gurgling be related to you releasing some tension during the exercises, which causes your digestive system to start moving? I have no idea if that's how it works honestly, it's just an idea. Karina (team member)
