In her book Yoga Therapy for Digestive Health, Charlotte Watts explains the connections between how we move, how we feel and the deep mind-body connections with digestive conditions. Here she explains how any form of conscious movement has the potential for unravelling the loss of internal movement and stress in tissues that play such deep roles in conditions such as IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), IBD (inflammatory bowel disease) and diverticulitis.
Five key digestive factors can be affected by trauma, chronic stress, sedentary habits and postural issues, and in turn relieved by some simple movements:
- Gut motility
Action throughout the whole digestive tract relies on peristalsis, a wave-like, spiralling muscular motion. This is the basis for ‘gut motility’, that if seized, interrupted or spasmodic, can be the basis for many digestive issues. The speeding up or slowing down of gut motility is a feature of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) where a go-slow means...
Listening to our hearts
“The intimacy that arises in listening and speaking truth is only possible if we can open to the vulnerability of our own hearts. Breathing in, contacting the life that is right here, is our first step. Once we have held ourselves with kindness, we can touch others in a vital and healing way.”
― Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart
Compassion is an intrinsic part of Buddhist and yogic cultures, where there is an emphasis on feeling a deeper connection through non-violence and kind attention to the present moment. Metta Bhavana is one of the core Buddhist meditations and translates (from Pali), with Metta meaning loving-kindness and Bhavana to cultivation or development. With our tendencies for self-criticism and judging inner voices, this practice is gathering interest and respect from Western ideologies and researchers. For those practising it is not news that the practice sows the seeds to take a more...
Turn your world upside down - simple inversions to support heart and circulatory health
We inherently know that ‘putting our feet up’ is a restful place to be, but fully changing our perspective on the world can have even greater repercussions for our heart health and stress-coping capacity. In this article we explore supported inversions that can offer a truly calming space in your day.
Many people associate inversions as more acrobatic, like the handstands, shoulderstand and headstand seen in so many yoga pictures. But whilst these more dynamic postures have their benefits, to reverse our usual relationship with gravity so we don’t need to hold up our body weight, offers a soothing and releasing mind-body effect.
Whichever way we practice inversions, placing our hips above our head, aids the lymphatic flow so important for immune function and detoxification. This fluid system that runs throughout the whole body alongside the bloodstream. It relies on our...
Following the huge success of Yoga Therapy for Digestive Health comes Charlotte Watts’ timely exploration of our immune and respiratory systems, and how yoga and somatics play an integral part in maintaining whole-system health. We take a look inside the book, available to purchase here…
When the UK went into its first Covid lockdown in 2020, people were abruptly separated and restricted from social contact. It wasn’t simply the virus itself that had devastating effects on global health but the ensuing reactivity, the effects of which are still rippling through our nervous systems. It was at this flashpoint of collective and individual trauma, stress and societal breakdown that Charlotte felt compelled to write Yoga and Somatics for Immune & Respiratory Health, knowing how vital the free flow of movement and social engagement are to mental and physical wellbeing. She was struck by the irony of how the focus of so much anxious attention at this time –...
Yoga for Respiratory Health
Breath is life and our quality of breathing determines the energy and vitality we feel. Whether you have a respiratory condition such as asthma or simply feel you grasp for breath and don’t quite feel your full breathing potential, supporting how you breathe through movement and exercise can help you thrive, body and mind.
Put most simply, breathing inhales oxygen into the body and exhales carbon dioxide out. This happens on a large scale through the lungs, but also for each and every one of the cells throughout your entire body. It is the respiratory system that provides the means for vital oxygen to enter bodies via our lungs, into the blood stream and ultimately through the whole body. The carbon dioxide excreted is the by-product of each cell’s breathing or ‘respiring’ – much like the body’s exhaust fumes.
Healthy lungs working optimally take in about ½ litre of air roughly 12-15 times each minute. They meet...
First published in What Doctor's Don't Tell You Magazine.
There are pros and cons to standing upright, yes our arms and hands are free to use as tools and to help us communicate with others, but the pay-off for bipedal living is inherent weakness in the lower back and neck. This often means that holding ourselves up from gravity translates into tension into the upper back, shoulders, neck and jaw.
When we get locked into work or stress postures (or even feeling protection in cold weather), our natural range of motion through the shoulders and neck can become compromised. Lack of flexibility in the neck region is associated with pain (BMC Musculoskelet Disord. 2015; 16: 56) and the more we can simply move, the less tension has a chance to build up.
The effects of stress on the shoulders, neck and jaw
Stress is expressed in body tissues as tightness, holding and viscosity. We can feel its physical, emotional and psychological effects most keenly through the state of our breath,...
From environmental pathogens to modern diet, our cells are inflammaging – aging through increased inflammation. How can yoga help?
By Leonie Taylor and Charlotte Watts, co-authors of Yoga & Somatics for Immune & Respiratory Health
‘Inflammaging’, a term coined by Italian researcher Claudio Franceschi in 2000, refers to the low-grade chronic inflammation that often characterises the ageing process. This may partially explain why some older people suffer more from diseases such as COVID-19. Beyond this pandemic, many refer to the creeping symptoms related to inflammation – such as joint pain, loss of mobility or issues related to immune and respiratory health – as an inevitable sign of ageing.
‘Ageing is often described as the progressive accumulation of deleterious changes over time leading to a loss of physiological aptitude and fertility, an increased susceptibility to disease, and ultimately to death’[1]
While ageing is a...
We humans are wired to have neurological changes to the differing substances that can enter our bodies. Whether that is a dopamine rush from a sugar high, a glass of wine, an opioid medication, cigarette or stronger substance, these are varying degrees of changes in biochemistry that can have us coming back for more.
Whether our habitual and often compulsive behaviour patterns and use of food, drink, drugs (or behaviours like gambling, shopping, TV, excessive exercise or sex) wander into addictive territory can be subjective. When is a passion for good wine a mask for an alcohol problem or when does a cycle of pain create a dependency on pain medications for example? There is much debate whether sugar is addictive, but those caught in its thrall certainly struggle to give up and feel acute symptoms of withdrawal when they avoid it.
The definition of addiction (Miriam-Webster) states that addiction is “Compulsive, chronic, physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming...
It is part of our human condition to seek and want; desire is part of our motivation dynamic. As babies we first feel this when the desire to reach a toy or procure some food provides the impetus to learn to roll over or cultivate eye-to-hand coordination.
In this article, I will mainly discuss cravings for sugars and sweet foods, but many of the mechanisms and cycles described can equally apply to anything we crave. Not just food stuffs, but also general ‘stuff’ – having more, seeking and acquiring (think window shopping or Ebay trawling!) – in an attempt to fill a void or distract ourselves from being with uncomfortable feelings and emotions. They are also the roots of any addictive behaviour, from smoking to over-working, from alcohol to over-exercising, any behaviour of excess or that we feel ‘normalises’ us, can be examined from a few angles that can help free us from acting on our impulses and feel we have the liberation of choice.
The blood...
Our knees hold us up and allow us to propel forward, yet we often give them very little thought until they start to tell us that strain is taking its toll. When we consider that they can bear 5-12 times our weight when we break into a run, we can see how understanding their function is crucial for how we support ourselves up from gravity. They are the largest joints in the body because they need to be.
Our knees are essentially hinge joints, with a back-and-forth motion between extending the lower leg to straight and flexing it back in, our natural walking motion. They also have some rotating capacity inwards and outwards, allowing them to have flexibility, but can make them prone to injury. With modern tendencies to sit on chairs rather than on the floor as our skeleton evolved, we often have reduced range of motion (ROM) in the hips – which are ball and socket joints with a wider ROM – and the knees take up more rotation than their design allows. This...
Yoga is an ancient health system that includes a physical practice designed to prepare the body for meditation. Its popularity reflects its universal adaptability to suit individual needs and many modify their practice for changing phases of life. Its emphasis on non-violence, non-competitiveness and self-compassion can allow practitioners to respect the energy and postural needs of their body.
Many people begin yoga to help with back pain and it is no coincidence that they also see improvements in bone health, especially alongside dietary changes of low sugar, less acid-forming foods and higher vegetable intake. The combination of postural improvement, muscular strength and better coordination adds up to improved overall musculo-skeletal health. More balanced breathing patterns also improve circulation to feed oxygen and nutrients to bone cells.
Bone as living tissue
Much of bone health comes down to density, which naturally decreases with age and so increases the risk...
With stress on the rise as we face three of the most challenging factors for the human psyche - change, uncertainty and lack of knowledge – watching for some really common stress-related symptoms is a good barometer to acknowledging when we need to step back for some self-care.
There are some quick-fire ways to address your body showing you it is in survival mode, but paying attention in the longer term can help us ride the waves of change and keep our sanity intact.
From the fear-based place of the fight-or-flight response, finding ways to let your whole mind-body know it is safe in this moment is the route to calming excitation that spreads into muscles, mind and affects our capacity for sustainable sleep, mood and energy.
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Racing mind, worry and anxiety
It’s natural for our inner dialogue to go to full-on protection mode when we perceive danger is afoot. It doesn’t matter that the threat might not be of a full-on physical nature, we are set to track for...
