Can Face Yoga improve Digestive Health?

Constipated? Bloated? Suffering from Wind? Or a Tight Pelvic Floor? Try these Face Yoga Exercises for Digestive Health

I love Face Yoga! Not the face yoga some people practice for a smooth, unlined face. I love making faces that are expressive, that communicate my mood, that make me laugh and feel good! I also love face yoga that supports my digestion.

In a recent blog "Dry Mounth? 8 Tips how to Improve Your Digestion with Face Yoga", I shared some tongue exercises from face yoga designed to support your digestive health. In today's blog, you can find out how face yoga may help if you have constipation, wind or bloating that is caused by a tight pelvic floor.

Why is the Pelvic Floor important for our digestion and how does Face Yoga affect it?

Defecation (poo-ing) is partly controlled by our anal sphincter. Sphincters are ring-shaped muscles that open and close orifices in the body and thereby control what can pass through these orifices. We have numerous sphincters in our body but the ones we usually notice the most are the anus and the urethra. They control the flow of stool or urine. When they are too loose we can suffer from leaking or incontinence and when they are too tight we may suffer from constipation or slow, low flow rate (the latter means that it takes a long time to pee).

Anyway, back to the anus: So the anal sphincter controls the passing of wind and stool. It is actually two sphincters: the outer of these sphincter is part of our pelvic floor and is under voluntary control, that means, you can tighten and relax it at will. Now, if this sphincter is chronically tight, you may end up having to strain or you might even develop constipation and find yourself suffering from constipation-related bloating, wind, discomfort or pain. You can find out more about this in my blog Constipated or Bloated? Why your Pelvic Floor might be to blame and what you can do to help.

Now, what does that sphincter have to do with face yoga? Moving our face can actually exercise our pelvic floor! Our eyes and mouth have circular muscles that allow us to pucker our mouth or squint our eyes. The muscles around our eyes and mouth aren’t true sphincter muscles but they act as if they were sphincters. And when we do face yoga exercises that pucker our mouth or squint our eyes, we also exercise our anal and urinary sphincter muscles.

Check out the video below for a face yoga exercise that can help your anal sphincter muscles. Notice that I introduce a few sounds in this video: Selected sounds can help us to work our face muscles a little more effectively and thus can help us contract or relax those deep anal muscles. The same applies for our urinary sphincter muscles although the sounds would be different (but that's another blog).

When you do the exercises on the video, try to have fun with them: Laughing can actually be the best medicine for our digestive health.

Incidentally, the anal and urinary sphincters are not the only sphincters in our body. Our digestive tract is full of sphincters. One important one for digestive health is the lower oesophagal sphincter, a valve between your stomach and your oesophagus. If this sphincter does not work effectively you may suffer from reflux or heart burn. This sphincter is not under voluntary control, meaning you can't tighten it by clenching or squeezing unlike the anus or the urethra. However, it seems that we may be able to affect the lower oesophagal sphincter and the other muscles of digestion by activating the vagus nerve. But that's another blog.

Face Yoga can only support your digestion as part of a healthy lifestyle which includes exercise, stress relief and diet. Remember to drink enough fluids, ideally water, throughout the day too.

This article does not replace medical advice. See your doctor to get a proper diagnosis. Digestive issue, such as bloating, constipation, gas, reflux and any other issues can have serious underlying causes.

About me, Kat Hesse, Movement Therapist and Medical Herbalist

With a degree in health science (herbal medicine) I have extensive training in digestive and women’s health. I apply this knowledge in my work as a movement therapist to develop tailor-made health and wellbeing programmes for individuals and groups. I am a qualified Yoga, Chi Gong, Pilates and somatic movement, Feldenkrais and Face Yoga teacher and also hold various qualifications for movement practices designed for rehabilitation, including for pelvic floor and digestive health.

I am presently studying for a Masters degree in Mindfulness. Relaxation practices such as breathing, meditation and mindfulness also have been shown support digestive, pelvic floor and even urinary health.

But that's not all. I also have personal experience of digestive health issues that I manage with movement and other natural practices. If you are interested in working with me, please contact me. I teach weekly short face yoga classes for general health and wellbeing or you can work with me privately for a tailormade programme for your digestive health issues.

Categories: digestive health