Bloated, burning, rushing to the toilet, or not going at all? When your gut is upset, everything else is harder. The great yoga teachers and the medical doctors who worked with Mr BKS Iyengar all point to the same thing: a calmer brain makes for a calmer gut, and the right poses and breathing help both. This guide brings together what each of them says about IBS, reflux, indigestion, constipation and colitis, and what modern research has found. Last updated: 1 November 2026.
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Can yoga help IBS and digestion? The short answer
Yes. Yoga helps the gut, and it works through the gut brain axis (the two-way line between your brain and your bowel). In a trial of Iyengar yoga for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), young adults had fewer IBS symptoms, less distress and better sleep after six weeks. Mindfulness trials cut IBS severity by up to 38%. Slow belly breathing halved the time acid spent in the gullet for people with reflux, and 12 weekly yoga classes lifted quality of life for people with ulcerative colitis. Mr Iyengar set out a yoga approach for eight digestive problems, and the yoga doctors explain why it works: stress drives gut symptoms, and yoga and pranayama calm stress.
One thing to keep in mind as you read: most trials tested “yoga” of many styles, taught by teachers with very different training. The trials that tested Iyengar yoga specifically, taught by trained Iyengar teachers, found it helped IBS, and in our view well-taught Iyengar yoga is likely to go further than the average. Why the kind of yoga matters.
The bottom line: five key moves for a calmer gut
- Go to a yoga class at your level, two or three times a week. The Iyengar IBS trials ran twice a week for six to eight weeks, and the colitis trial for 12 weeks. Keep going: in one Iyengar trial, symptoms crept back when people stopped practising.
- Breathe slowly, low into the belly, every day. Slow breathing, about six breaths a minute, eased reflux, indigestion and IBS with constipation in small trials. Pranayama, taught step by step, trains exactly this.
- Calm the brain, and the gut follows. Stress, worry and a racing mind make IBS, reflux and colitis worse. Restful poses, pranayama and mindful attention bring stress down.
- Eat mindfully, and find your triggers. Eat when you are hungry, not heavily or late, and notice which foods upset you. Sugary and highly processed foods are common culprits. Yoga makes it easier to notice.
- Start now. New to Flametree, or away 3 months or more? 2 free classes, then 10 at half price, in Darwin or LIVE online.
Iyengar yoga is the style we teach at Flametree. During the 20th century, Mr BKS Iyengar was the major person who codified traditional Indian yoga, through his seminal books and widespread teaching. He also pioneered the use of props, so poses can be adapted to almost any body. His style is sometimes called modern classical yoga. This guide is part of our encyclopaedia of yoga for health conditions.
This guide in short
- Mr BKS Iyengar: a yoga approach for eight digestive problems. Work the belly with twists and forward bends; rest it when it is raw.
- Dr Timothy McCall: stress makes ulcers, IBS and constipation worse, so if you stress less, you suffer less.
- Geeta S Iyengar: good digestion is part of her very definition of health. Keep the abdomen soft.
- Dr Krishna Raman: each gut problem gets its own poses, and deep breathing calms the body through the vagus nerve.
- The research: 24 studies listed below, from three Iyengar IBS trials to reviews of hundreds of people with reflux and colitis.
- Take it further: a free ebook on stress, classes in Darwin and online, our 2027 masterclass on calming the mind, and retreats.
If constipation is your main worry, our note on yoga for constipation goes into the poses in more detail. This guide covers the whole gut, and IBS, reflux and colitis in particular.
Yoga For The Gut On One Page
Five sources, one answer: calm the brain, soften the belly, and the gut settles.
Work the belly with twists and forward bends. When it is raw, rest it with supported poses.
Stress makes gut problems worse. Stress less, suffer less. Movement keeps the bowel moving.
Good digestion is part of health itself. Learn to make the abdomen soft.
Each gut problem gets its own poses. Deep breathing calms the body through the vagus nerve.
Iyengar yoga eased IBS in young adults. Slow belly breathing halved acid time in reflux. Yoga lifted life with colitis.
Each source is set out in full below. Research: Evans 2014, Eherer 2012, Cramer 2017.

Supported Bound Angle Pose (Supta Baddha Konasana) over bolsters. The props hold you, so the belly can let go.
“As long as you take food, you need yoga.”
What are IBS, reflux, constipation and colitis?
Your gut is a long tube, about 11 metres from end to end, and food meets saliva, acid and digestive juices all the way along. Many things can upset it. The common ones are:
- Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS): belly pain, bloating and changed bowel habits (diarrhoea, constipation or both), with no damage that a test can find. The muscles of the bowel move too much, too little, or out of time.
- Reflux and heartburn: stomach acid comes back up into the gullet (oesophagus) and burns behind the breastbone. A hiatus hernia, where the top of the stomach slips up through the diaphragm, can add to it.
- Indigestion (dyspepsia): discomfort, fullness, nausea or burning in the upper belly after eating.
- Constipation: hard, infrequent or painful bowel movements, often with a feeling of not finishing.
- Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD): ulcerative colitis (an inflamed colon and rectum) and Crohn’s disease (inflammation that can be anywhere along the gut). Both come in flares, with quieter spells between.
What they share is the gut brain axis. The brain and the gut talk all day, mostly through the vagus nerve (a long nerve that runs from the brain to the heart, lungs and gut). Stress turns up the alarm, and the gut feels it. That is why IBS and anxiety so often come together, and why a calm practice and a calm gut go together too.
What did Mr BKS Iyengar teach about digestion?
In short: work the belly, calm the brain, and match the practice to the problem.
In Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health, Mr Iyengar gives the digestive system its own group of eight conditions: indigestion, acidity, constipation, diarrhoea, irritable bowel syndrome, duodenal ulcers, gastric ulcers and ulcerative colitis. Hiatus hernia sits in another part of the book. His claim is that regular practice effectively eases digestive disorders. A few ideas run through all of them.
- The belly is the working area. His course for indigestion is a long one, and yoga for indigestion in his book means twists and standing poses that move the belly, ending with supported inversions. Twists and forward bends that move and soften the belly are a feature of nearly every digestive course.
- Raw guts need rest. For ulcerative colitis, duodenal ulcers and diarrhoea, his courses are short, gentle and restful, built from reclining poses and supported inversions rather than energetic work.
- IBS is calmed, not pushed. He links IBS with low fibre, laxatives and stress. His IBS course mixes reclining poses, twists, forward bends and supported backbends, and is calming overall.
- Breath for burning. For acidity, gastric ulcers and hiatus hernia, his courses include pranayama: ocean breath (Ujjayi) and staircase breath (Viloma), done lying down.
- Calm the brain. He held that practice raises the threshold for pain and lowers the fear of it. In his words, “Practising yoga teaches the brain to be calm and passive” (p. 263).
- The right poses for the person. Wrongly chosen poses can do harm, he warns, so the course must fit the person (p. 260).
In Light on Yoga, his first book, the appendix on ailments gives more room to digestion than to any other area: about twenty entries, from acidity (p. 413) and constipation (p. 419) to colitis (p. 419), flatulence (p. 422) and duodenal ulcer (p. 432). For acidity he gives a wide, active course, and several later entries, including dyspepsia, heartburn and gastric ulcer, simply point back to it. For diarrhoea (p. 420) and dysentery (p. 421) the course shrinks to supported inversions and breathing without breath holds, the same rest-the-raw-gut idea as above.
We do not publish his sequences. A sequence needs a teacher who can see how your body and your gut are on the day, and adapt each pose, which is what a class is for.
The Gut Brain Loop
Stress upsets the gut. An upset gut makes us worry. Worry is more stress.
and round again
- A slow out-breath presses the vagus nerve brake
- Restful poses switch on rest and digest
- Mindful attention lowers worry about gut feelings
- Movement and twists keep the bowel moving
Based on Dr Timothy McCall, Dr Krishna Raman, Liu 2022 and Henrich 2020, all cited on this page. A simplified picture.
“Psychologically we relax the brain and physiologically we work on the stomach.”
What does Dr Timothy McCall say about the gut?
In short: stress drives gut trouble, so calming it is half the work, and moving the body moves the bowel.
Dr McCall is a US medical doctor and yoga therapist, author of Yoga as Medicine and former medical editor of Yoga Journal. His June 2019 list of conditions helped by yoga includes irritable bowel syndrome (no. 49), inflammatory bowel disease (no. 46) and hemorrhoids (no. 41). Yoga as Medicine gives IBS a full chapter (chapter 24). His views, in our words, from that chapter and his writing on the ways yoga improves health:
- Stress less, suffer less. Ulcers, IBS and constipation can all be made worse by stress, so less stress means less suffering.
- Movement moves the bowel. Like any physical exercise, yoga can ease constipation, because moving the body speeds food and waste through the bowels.
- Twists, from practice. Yogis have long held that twisting poses help move waste through the system. He notes this is known from practice and not yet studied.
- Rest and digest. Yoga shifts the nervous system from fight or flight towards the calming side, which slows breathing and the heart and sends more blood to the gut.
- Calm makes for better eating. In his view, yoga lowers cortisol (the stress hormone that drives eating when upset) and can make you a more conscious eater.
- Different symptoms, different practice. In his IBS chapter: for constipation, gentle stretches, twists and supported inversions; for diarrhoea, calming restorative work, and no strong belly twists, which can stir the bowel up.
- Work on the cause. His expert, Michael Lee of Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, asks what life issues sit behind the symptoms, and pairs gentle poses with a long, sighing out-breath and mindfulness. A symptom diary and slow, well-chewed meals are part of the self-study.
- The studies. Small Indian trials, he says, found yoga eased symptoms about as well as standard medicines and lowered anxiety more, and in one trial yoga plus medicine did best of all.
- Warning signs. Blood in the stool, fever, chills or weight loss are not IBS, he says. Always follow the directions of any doctor you are consulting.
Which Practice For Which Gut Problem
What the trials and the teachers point to, problem by problem.
IBS
Iyengar classes twice a week, plus calm, mindful attention
Reflux and heartburn
Slow belly (diaphragm) breathing, every day
Indigestion
Slow breathing, about six breaths a minute
Constipation
Movement, gentle twists and low belly breathing
Colitis and Crohn’s
Weekly classes; restful, supported poses on flare days
Evans 2014, Gaylord 2011, Eherer 2012, Hjelland 2007, Habu 2022, Cramer 2017, and Mr Iyengar’s courses in Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health.
“Relax the abdomen. Learn to make the abdomen soft.”
What does Geeta S Iyengar say about digestion?
In short: a good gut is part of what health means, and the abdomen should be soft, not gripped.
Geeta S Iyengar, Mr Iyengar’s daughter, wrote Yoga: A Gem for Women, the classic Iyengar book on yoga for women. Most of the people in the IBS and colitis trials below were women, so her approach matters here.
- Health includes good digestion. She defines health as balanced body humours, clear senses, a peaceful mind and good digestion together (chapter V).
- The whole system. She goes through the digestive system among the body’s systems as part of her case for yoga for women (chapter VI).
- Constipation and piles. She gives a practice hint on constipation (p. 80) and returns to constipation and piles at several points in the book.
- In pregnancy, her claim is that the right poses bring relief from constipation, among other effects (pp. 266 to 273).
- Timing matters for women. She sets aside strong abdominal poses at certain times, such as during serious period problems (p. 87). Your teacher will guide you.
“I will be compassionate to your stomach but strong to humble your brain.”
What does Dr Krishna Raman say about the gut?
In short: each gut problem has its own poses, and the breath is the way into the calming nerve.
Dr Raman is a Chennai physician who trained in yoga under Mr Iyengar. His question-and-answer book on yoga and medical science has a whole section on the digestive tract, from reflux and belching to colitis, IBS, piles and constipation. His views, in our words:
- Poses for each problem. He gives different poses for reflux, hiatus hernia, colitis, IBS, piles and constipation, rather than one routine for all.
- Inversions for hiatus hernia. In his view, inversions done with the right timing are especially useful for hiatus hernia. That is his own clinical view.
- Breath and the vagus. Deep breathing stimulates the vagus nerve, which calms the body.
- Stress harms the body. Stress hormones can do harm in many ways, which is part of why calming practice matters.
- Not straight after a meal. He lists indigestion, and practising straight after eating, among the times not to do pranayama.
- Heavy and dull. In the traditional picture of the three qualities (gunas), he describes wind and constipation as heavy, dull (tamasic) states.

A supported forward bend with the head resting. Forward bends that soften the belly run through Mr Iyengar’s digestive courses.
Other yoga voices on the gut
- On a bad IBS day, open the belly gently and calm the nerves. For IBS relief, Chris Lalor, Certified Senior Iyengar Yoga Teacher and certified Yoga Therapist, first stretches out the belly with gentle supported backbends, such as lying over crossed bolsters or a supported bridge. If stress is part of it, she uses Legs Up The Wall. To head off the next flare she uses gentle seated and lying twists, and she skips twists with diarrhoea.
- Breath, concentration and patience helped her through Crohn’s disease and surgery. Regan Tataryn, a Level 3 Iyengar teacher and assessor in Winnipeg, Canada, was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at 50. Alongside her medical care she used diet, rest, a simpler schedule and months of supported backbends. After a bowel operation, she found breath practice and concentration helped her cope with the pain, and she rebuilt her practice step by step. Read her story at Iyengar Yoga Canada.
- Inflammatory bowel disease is named as an early area of benefit, and fast, forceful breathing is best left out with ulcers or colitis. Harvard Medical School’s special report An Introduction to Yoga. The pranayama we teach is slow and nasal.
Chris and Stuart have their own gut story, too: both found that one supermarket grain food set off what is often called IBS, while the organic version did not. That is their experience, not research, and it is told in our note on yoga for constipation and digestion.
“Do not eat if saliva does not spring from the mouth when food is brought before you.”
A story: “Worrying about worrying”
In Yoga as Medicine, Dr Timothy McCall tells of Michael Faber, whose gut trouble began after a trip to South America. Antibiotics cleared a parasite, but the constipation, wind, diarrhoea and bloating went on. Working in a retreat centre kitchen, he saw how much anxiety he lived with, and noticed his symptoms nearly vanished when he relaxed on camping trips. In an eight-week programme with yoga therapist Michael Lee, he realised in meditation that he was “worrying about worrying”. He says that when he stops practising, milder symptoms come back, and they ease again when he starts again.
Source: Dr Timothy McCall, Yoga as Medicine (2007), chapter 24, Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
What does the research show?
In short: IBS has the most trials, and the strongest results come from Iyengar yoga and mindfulness. Slow breathing has small but clear trials for reflux, indigestion and constipation, and yoga lifts quality of life in colitis. Most of these studies tested yoga in general, of many styles. The Iyengar yoga trials are listed on their own below. Why the difference matters.
The Research At A Glance
Four studies that sum up the evidence. All of them, with links, are listed below.
Iyengar yoga eased IBS symptoms, distress, sleep and tiredness in young adults. Evans 2014: six weeks, twice a week, against a waiting list.
Mindfulness cut IBS severity by 38%, against 12% for a support group. Gaylord 2011: 75 women, three months after the course.
Slow belly breathing roughly halved the time acid spent in the gullet. Eherer 2012: four weeks of breathing training for reflux.
Twelve weekly yoga classes lifted quality of life in ulcerative colitis, and lowered disease activity. Cramer 2017: 77 people, against written self-care advice.
Every study is listed in full in this section, with a link to read it.
Iyengar yoga studies
These trials tested Iyengar yoga specifically, taught by trained Iyengar teachers, with props and adapted poses. All three are for IBS.
- Iyengar yoga improved IBS symptoms, overall wellbeing, disability, distress, sleep and tiredness in young adults; teens gained in physical functioning. After yoga, young adults also had less constipation and nausea, and about 45% of both age groups reported a meaningful drop in pain. Six weeks, twice a week, against a waiting list. Evans 2014, a trial of 51 people aged 14 to 26. Read the study.
- Half the teens had a meaningful drop in belly pain, and those who did also slept better. Teens said home practice was important for lasting results. Six weeks of Iyengar yoga. Evans 2018, a pilot of 18 teens with IBS. Read the study.
- Iyengar yoga lowered IBS severity, gut sensitivity and body symptoms over the course. Symptoms crept back over the next six months, when fewer of the yoga group kept practising; walkers kept walking. Sixteen sessions, twice a week, compared with walking. Shahabi 2016, a pilot trial of 27 adults with IBS. Read the study.
The lesson of that last trial, in our view: Iyengar yoga works while you keep doing it, and a regular class is what keeps people doing it.
Yoga for irritable bowel syndrome
- IBS severity fell with yoga and not without it; stress, anxiety and weight came down too. Yoga five times a week for three months, added to usual care. Devi 2025, a trial of 165 adults with IBS. Read the study.
- Yoga improved IBS quality of life and the heart-rate signs of a calmer nervous system. Three months of yoga. Bhattacharya 2026, a trial of 202 people aged 18 to 45. Read the study.
- Yoga was better than usual care for bowel symptoms, IBS severity and anxiety, with no harms reported. Schumann 2016, a review of 6 trials and 273 people. Read the study.
- Yoga poses, breathing and meditation eased gut symptoms, anxiety and low mood, with moderate to large effects on symptom severity. Pavan 2025, a review of 10 studies of yoga for IBS. Read the study.
- Teens doing yoga had less disability, less anxiety and fewer avoidance habits, and gut symptoms fell after yoga. A taught session, then four weeks of daily home practice by video. Kuttner 2006, a trial of 25 teens. Read the study.
- Online yoga with mindfulness lifted IBS quality of life. Six weeks, with or without probiotics. Chao 2024, a small trial of 31 people. Read the study.
Mindfulness and meditation
These trials tested mindfulness courses, not pranayama. In our view yoga and mindfulness overlap: you cannot do a pose or pranayama well without being mindful. The IBS results here are among the strongest in the whole field.
- Mindfulness cut IBS severity by 26% straight after the course and 38% three months later, against 6% and 12% for a support group. Eight weekly sessions and a half-day retreat. Gaylord 2011, a trial of 75 women with IBS. Read the study.
- Mindfulness-based stress reduction brought a clinically meaningful fall in IBS symptoms that lasted six months. Zernicke 2013, a trial of 90 people with IBS. Read the study.
- Mindfulness eased IBS symptoms and lifted quality of life, partly by lowering worry about gut feelings. Six weeks of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. Henrich 2020, a trial of 67 women with IBS. Read the study.
Breathing practice for reflux, indigestion and constipation
These trials taught slow belly (diaphragm) breathing. It is close to where pranayama begins, but it is not pranayama as an Iyengar teacher teaches it, with the breath refined step by step over months. Why the kind of breathing matters.
- Belly breathing cut the time acid spent in the gullet from 9.1% to 4.7% and lifted quality of life. Those who kept it up for nine months used less acid-blocking medicine. Four weeks of training. Eherer 2012, a small trial of 19 people with reflux. Read the study.
- Belly breathing modestly eased reflux symptoms across the trials. Results varied a lot between trials. Abureesh 2026, a review of 10 trials and 476 people with reflux. Read the study.
- Five minutes of belly breathing, five times a day, lifted reflux quality of life and cut the use of acid blockers. Four weeks. Sadiq 2025, a very small trial of 22 people. Read the study.
- Yogic breathing added to medicine lowered gut symptoms and stress, and lifted quality of life, in people with acid burning and upper belly pain. About two months. Dayma 2025, a pilot trial of 34 people. Read the study.
- Slow breathing, six breaths a minute, lifted quality of life in ongoing indigestion. Five minutes a day for four weeks. Hjelland 2007, a trial of 40 people with functional dyspepsia (indigestion with no structural cause). Read the study.
- Slow, deep breathing eased IBS with constipation: better stools, more bowel movements and more activity in the calming nerve. Six breaths a minute, 30 minutes a day, for six weeks. Liu 2022, a pilot trial of 85 people. Read the study.
- Ten minutes a day of lower belly breathing more than halved constipation scores, from 7.2 to 3.1. Six weeks of Japanese “Tanden” breathing. Habu 2022, a small trial of 20 young adults. Read the study.
No trial has yet tested yoga poses on their own for constipation, or for reflux. Not yet studied is not the same as not working: Mr Iyengar, Dr McCall and Dr Raman all describe how the poses help, from long practice.
Three Numbers Worth Knowing
Before and after, from three of the trials above. Shorter is better.
Reflux: time with acid in the gullet, Eherer 2012
9.1%
4.7%
Constipation score, Habu 2022
7.2
3.1
IBS severity: how much it fell in three months, Gaylord 2011. Longer is better.
12%
38%
Small trials, each listed above with a link. Bars are scaled within each pair.
Ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease
- Yoga lifted disease-specific quality of life at 12 and 24 weeks, and disease activity was lower with yoga at 24 weeks. Twelve weekly 90-minute classes, against written self-care advice. Cramer 2017, a trial of 77 people with ulcerative colitis in remission. Read the study.
- Yoga-based programmes lowered anxiety, low mood and stress, and lifted quality of life, in inflammatory bowel disease. Pan 2025, a review of 7 trials and 502 people. Read the study.
- Quality of life and confidence rose in children and teens with Crohn’s disease and colitis, and 85% said yoga helped them control stress. The gains showed most three months after classes ended. Twelve weeks of yoga. Leiby 2023, a controlled trial of 78 young people aged 10 to 17. Read the study.
- A breath, movement and meditation workshop eased anxiety, low mood and stress and lifted IBD quality of life; a blood marker of inflammation was lower at 26 weeks. Gerbarg 2015, a small trial of 29 people with inflammatory bowel disease. Read the study.
Reviews across gut conditions
- Across most IBS studies, yoga eased symptom severity, mood and quality of life; it also helped in colitis, chronic pancreatitis and gut cancers, and was generally safe. Thakur 2024, a review of 12 studies of yoga for gut conditions. Read the study.
Studies we do not list above
We list studies where yoga, pranayama, breathing or mindfulness helped. A few are left out:
- Saab 2025, a review of 11 trials and 535 people, found no clear difference between yoga and comparison groups for IBS overall. It pooled very different trials of many styles, mostly not Iyengar yoga, and its authors rated their risk of bias as high. The Iyengar and mindfulness trials above point the other way. Read the study. Why the kind of yoga matters: yoga or Iyengar yoga.
- A 2023 review of yoga for indigestion that held no trials, only theory, and single-patient case reports.
Hemorrhoids (piles, Dr McCall’s no. 41) have not yet been studied with yoga. Dr Raman and Geeta Iyengar both cover them from practice.
“Asana practice guides one in having sensitivity for eating what the body needs each day.”
How does this come together in a Flametree class?
Everything above points the same way, and it is how we teach in Darwin and online.
- Belly-softening poses: supported forward bends, gentle twists and supported backbends over bolsters, chosen for how your gut is on the day.
- Classes adapted to the people in them. No one-size-fits-all. Tell your teacher if your gut is flaring, and the poses are changed for you. Gentle on raw days, more active on heavy, sluggish ones.
- Rest and digest: our restorative yoga and gentle yoga classes switch on the calming side of the nervous system.
- Breath: every class ends in rest, and our pranayama classes teach slow, nasal breathing step by step. We do not practise pranayama straight after a meal.
- Mindful eating: Chris’s mindful eating approach, and our Flametree recipes, low in added sugar.
Read more on digestion and the gut
- Yoga for constipation and digestion
- How to twist safely in yoga
- How to calm your nervous system and vagus nerve exercises
- What is restorative yoga?
- Yoga and diet: food and habits notes
- Yoga poses to tone the abdominal muscles
- Related guides: stress and burnout, anxiety, upsets and anger, inflammation and the immune system, and weight and stress eating
Take it further
Free ebook: Cutting Stress With Yoga. Stress is the gut’s biggest trigger. Here are the facts; the ebook has even more, including the stories of people who brought their stress down with yoga, and why the out-breath is the brake. Then do the free classes, and put it into action.
New to Flametree, or away 3 months or more? 2 free classes + 2 ebooks, only available via this offer. Already a student? You can still get this book. Get your free copy of Cutting Stress With Yoga
- Classes, in Darwin or LIVE online: new, or away 3 months or more? 2 free classes, then 10 at half price. Already practising yoga? See the non-beginner half price pass. See every class time.
- Masterclass: the calming practices that settle the gut brain axis run through our 2027 Sunday Arvo Masterclass on anxiety, upsets and anger with Chris Lalor, Certified Senior Iyengar Yoga Teacher and certified Yoga Therapist. Come for the poses, the sequences and the pranayama that put this into action. Bookings open soon.
- Retreats: a week of daily yoga, pranayama and good food in Bali. See the retreats.
Other conditions are in our encyclopaedia of yoga for health conditions.
Yoga for IBS and digestion: questions people ask
Is Iyengar yoga used for irritable bowel syndrome?
Yes. Three trials have tested Iyengar yoga for IBS. In the largest, young adults who did six weeks of Iyengar yoga, twice a week, had fewer IBS symptoms, less distress, better sleep and less tiredness than a waiting list group. In another, symptoms crept back when people stopped practising, which is why regular classes matter.
Can yoga help acid reflux and heartburn?
Yes. Yoga for acid reflux works mainly through the breathing. In a small trial, four weeks of slow belly breathing roughly halved the time acid spent in the gullet and lifted quality of life, and people who kept it up used less acid-blocking medicine. A review of 10 trials found belly breathing modestly eased reflux symptoms. Mr Iyengar’s courses for acidity and hiatus hernia include ocean breath (Ujjayi). Always follow the directions of any doctor you are consulting.
Is yoga good for bloating and wind?
Many people find yoga for bloating helps. Chris Lalor opens the belly with gentle supported backbends over bolsters, and uses gentle twists to keep things moving. In the traditional yoga picture, Dr Raman describes wind and constipation as heavy, dull states. Bloating has not yet been studied on its own, but slow breathing improved stools and bowel movements in IBS with constipation.
Can yoga help ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease?
Yes. Yoga for ulcerative colitis lifts quality of life and lowers stress. In a trial of people with ulcerative colitis, 12 weekly yoga classes lifted quality of life at 12 and 24 weeks and lowered disease activity at 24 weeks. A review of 7 trials in inflammatory bowel disease found less anxiety, low mood and stress. Mr Iyengar’s colitis course is restful rather than energetic.
What is the gut brain axis, and how does yoga work on it?
The gut brain axis is the two-way line between the brain and the gut, carried mostly by the vagus nerve. Stress turns up gut symptoms, and gut symptoms raise worry. A slow out-breath presses the vagus nerve brake, restful poses switch on rest and digest, and mindful attention lowers worry about gut feelings, which one IBS trial found helped explain its results.
What did Mr BKS Iyengar say about digestion?
In Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health, Mr Iyengar set out a yoga approach for indigestion, acidity, constipation, diarrhoea, irritable bowel syndrome, duodenal and gastric ulcers, ulcerative colitis and hiatus hernia. Twists and forward bends that work the belly run through them. For colitis, ulcers and diarrhoea his courses are gentle and restful, and for acidity he adds pranayama.
Should I do yoga or pranayama straight after a meal?
No. Dr Krishna Raman lists practising straight after eating, and indigestion, among the times not to do pranayama. Mr Iyengar also advised against eating heavily or late. Leave a gap after a meal before class, and come to class with a light stomach.
Where can I do yoga for IBS in Darwin or online?
Flametree Yoga Studio teaches Iyengar yoga at Woolner and Coolalinga in Darwin, and LIVE online across Australia, with bolsters, blankets and chairs in every class so poses can be made gentle on a sensitive gut. New, or away 3 months or more? You get 2 free classes, then 10 at half price.
Where this comes from: BKS Iyengar, Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health (Dorling Kindersley), the Digestive System conditions, hiatus hernia and the introduction to yoga for ailments; Light on Yoga, Appendix II, pp. 413 to 432; Light on Life; The Tree of Yoga; Yoga Wisdom and Practice; Yoga Rahasya, 1999. Geeta S Iyengar, Yoga: A Gem for Women, and her Sydney classes, 1996. Timothy McCall MD, Yoga as Medicine (Bantam), chapter 24, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, his June 2019 list of health conditions helped by yoga, and his Yoga Journal article on the ways yoga improves health. Krishna Raman MD and S. Suresh MD, Yoga and Medical Science: FAQ, the section on the digestive tract. Harvard Medical School, An Introduction to Yoga. Regan Tataryn, Iyengar Yoga Canada, 2026. Flametree teaching notes by Chris Lalor. Studies as linked above. Everything is summarised in our own words.
This page is general information, not medical advice. Flametree Yoga Studio, Darwin and LIVE online.
