Dhanurasana – Bhujangasana
Do you experience acid reflux, heartburn, or a sour taste in your mouth?
Imagine your digestive tract as a pot with fire burning beneath it. Each time you eat, you are adding food to that pot — meant to be cooked, absorbed, and the leftovers expelled. Now, suppose you eat a large, heavy meal full of mixed foods. Your digestive system tries to secrete enough acid, bile, and digestive enzymes (the fire under the pot) to digest it. But often, the food is so dense that the fire is not strong enough — a mass of undigested, sour mucus remains in your stomach, gets pushed upward into the esophagus, and causes burning and reflux.
What to do?
By practicing Dhanurasana (Bow Pose) and Bhujangasana (Cobra Pose), you can help your stomach and esophagus feel better.
Why? Look at your spine right now — is it straight or curved?
When you slouch, your esophagus and stomach are pushed backward, and the valve between them moves upward, reversing the natural downward flow of digestion. This disturbs the process and leads to reflux and heartburn.
The digestive process always follows a downward direction. Food moves from the mouth to the esophagus, then to the stomach, small intestine, large intestine, and finally, waste is eliminated. When you practice these two asanas, your spine becomes aligned, the digestive organs return to their correct positions, and the downward flow for digestion, absorption, and elimination is restored.
Additional recommendations
* Avoid overeating. When you fill your stomach completely, food overflows into the esophagus and causes reflux.
* Stop consuming caffeine (coffee, black tea, chocolate). Caffeine increases acidity and worsens reflux.
* Do not drink cold water or iced beverages during meals. It puts out the digestive fire, slows digestion, and increases the chance of undigested mucus and reflux.
* Avoid lying down or lying flat for at least two hours after eating. Food moves downward during digestion, and lying down immediately after eating interrupts this flow and pushes it back upward.
* Chew one cardamom pod and swallow it.
* Mix the following spices into a powder using the given ratios:
Cardamom (1) + Fennel (1) + Cumin (1) + Coriander seeds (1/2) + Rose petals (1/2)
Whenever you experience reflux, mix half a teaspoon of this powder with a little honey to make a paste, swallow it, and drink a glass of warm water with lemon and honey. This can be repeated every three hours until the reflux subsides.
For more home remedies and diet recommendations for acid reflux, click on the word Reflux.
Stay full of health.
Written by: Setareh Kiumarsi
Please make sure to mention the author, “Setareh Kiumarsi,” if you share or republish this article, which was written with hope for everyone’s health and love.
