by Youngbear Roth

Created on: July 21, 2010   Last Updated: August 10, 2010

Irritable bowel syndrome – IBS - is an intestinal problem and stress is shown to be a major contributing factor. Symptoms can be constipation, diarrhea, cramping and bloating. On the surface, IBS is not easy to diagnose because lactose intolerance, gluten sensitivity, and other common food issues as well as Vagus nerve issues can cause the same symptoms to present in individuals with these intolerance or nerve pathologies. Symptoms fluctuate from mild to severe and from intermittent to constant. IBS will not create permanent damage and does not predispose one to Cancer. However, IBS creates a painful condition by moving waste into the bowel before the bowel is ready to evacuate that waste because of  an involuntary autonomic nervous system  failing to correctly time its signals to the intestinal tract.

How does stress affect the involuntary autonomic nervous system and how can yoga help my IBS?

Digestion is a job for the involuntary autonomic nervous system. A sub-branch of the autonomic nervous system referred to as the parasympathetic branch handles relaxation responses. Digestion and bowel responses are handled here.

Stress is a factor that activates the sympathetic nervous fight or flight response and interferes with the autonomic relaxation response.

Many styles of exercise will lower stress levels. However, yoga can be specifically adapted to affect IBS symptoms utilizing a variety of asanas – stretches and twists – designed to work on the digestive organs rather than just the muscular and skeletal systems, and also using yoga breathing practices developed and sequenced especially to calm the sympathetic nervous response and thereby restore proper balance of the digestive and evacuation process.

Are there other ways that yoga can help me with IBS?

While yoga asanas are considered to be moving meditation and part of a contemplative tradition, often classic seated or still meditation practices are also used as an adjunct to the physical asana session to reduce the mental worry that attaches to the physical symptoms and becomes part of IBS pathology. Practiced in this way, yoga becomes a valuable transformative tool in dealing with IBS on an intellectual and emotional level as well as the physical level.

I mentioned that yoga is a contemplative tradition.  As such, an important aspect of yoga is the study of self. Vipasana meditation is a style of "self-questioning" or conscious introspective practice; one may ask about the whys and wherefores of one's stresses, discover the antecedent causes of stress and plumb the possible connections between stress and IBS symptoms.

Bringing together the physical and contemplative practices that yoga has evolved over its six to eight thousand years of history offers the IBS patient a powerful wholistic tool that does more than treat the symptom; it searches for the cause, and in this, along with keeping up patient and physician communication, we have a thorough complementary treatment program.

Please remember to see your doctor for an initial visit because by law yoga professionals may not diagnose.  IBS is far too painful and the pathology is too individual to risk a mistake in suggesting a yoga sequence without having a full workup and background on the patient.  Please see 'Yoga for Wellness' by Gary Kraftsow / Chap. four / pages 205-215 for possible asana sequences to discuss with your yoga instructor or therapist and your physician.  

See controlled studies: All India Institute of Medical Sciences; State University of New York at Albany; Banaras Hindu University; et al.

  

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