a meditation to enhance your digestive capacity

Science now shows that meditation can have a positive effect on almost every system of our being, creating conditions for more optional function and longevity.

It's proven to support change in how we think, feel, and act. We can actually measure encouraging changes in brain structure and gene expression.

This is pretty big stuff!

While meditation has long been known to promote better digestion, a 2015 study from the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center found that practicing mindful breathing, meditation and yoga can create positive changes in gene expression in patients with diseases of the digestive organs—relieving symptoms and even markers for diseases such as IBS and IBD.

These days, we are blessed that so many medical institutions and settings are now prescribing mindfulness and meditation along with medication.

And although meditation is a spiritual practice for me, as a yoga therapist, I also specialize in the therapeutic applications of the practice.

From a yogic and ayurvedic lens, digestion is the cornerstone of overall health and healing.

Everything we take in needs to be chewed on and broken down. We need to assimilate what is nutritive and eliminate that which would be toxic if built up. Yoga and western science share the premise that our gut environment dictates the function of so many other systems.

Science tells us that optimal digestion only happens when our bodies and minds are relaxed. When we feel safe to Rest and Digest; when we're in the relaxation response, tapping into our parasympathetic nervous system.

However, when we’re stressed, energy is shunted from the digestive system—and all systems responsible for long term health and healing—and instead energy is diverted to serve our ability to fight, flee, or freeze. This is known as the stress response.

In fact, Western medicine tells us that most digestive-related disorders are either caused by or exacerbated by over-firing of the stress response—activation of the sympathetic nervous system.

Now, from a yogic and Ayurveda view, we don't look at digestion only in relation to food. But we consider that we need to "digest" everything we come into contact with. Our thoughts and emotions. Our experiences. Our social media. Everything we take in must go through this process of digestion.

And in both science and yoga, breathing is a common link at the heart of digestion and anything we need to process.

As we breathe more deeply and fully, we not only shift into a state of calm, mentally and emotionally, but as our diaphragm moves more fully it also helps massage our abdomen and all of our digestive organs.

In yoga, our belly is known as our emotional center. So as we feel calmer, and breathe fully and deeply, we begin to support not only the digestion of our food but also the deeply held tension—psycho-emotional holding in our body—in our gut.

As our mind becomes calmer, our body relaxes, and our resources also return to support all our systems for long-term health and healing.

Now, science also tells us that gratitude and grace is a deeply calming practice and can have wide-reaching effects on our nervous system, behavior, and life. It can help create a sense of ease and even contentment. Think of it like a booster practice that enhances our overall health and happiness And, of course, plays a big role in digestion...

Gratitude helps shift our nervous system into rest and digest.

Think of grace and gratitude that are said before a meal. As we relax, as we settle for the moment of calm that precedes the meal, our body relaxes and our organs prepare to digest and absorb the food we are about to eat.

I’m sharing the first meditation in my new three-part digestion series. You can try it before a meal, or truly anytime you need to down-regulate.