7 Yoga Poses to Help Your Body Detox
There has not been a single time in my life where I left a yoga class feeling worse than when I went in. In fact, it’s pretty hard to walk out of an hour-long or 90 minute practice and not permeate the Earth’s atmosphere with a warm, fuzzy, loved-up yoga buzz. And when you ask the majority of people who do yoga why they do it, you will hear a lot of, “because it feels so damn good.”
It wasn’t until my first teacher training that I started looking deeper into the physiological aspects of the postures, and what the benefits are of having different classes of asana with different positive effects on the physical body.
In order to build a sequence for detoxing, it’s important to look at the systems of the body that we can help detoxify, and which classes of asana target those systems. Then, all we have to do is pick a few poses from each asana group, and before you know it, you’ve got a meaningful and powerful practice to boost your body’s already boomin’ detoxing processes.
So without further ado, here is a quick sequence of 7 yoga poses to help your body detox.
1. Seated Twist
It’s common to equate twisting postures with detoxing, and although it’s probably impossible to actually twist so much that toxins want to jump right out of your liver, any sort of compression and gentle movement in the torso definitely helps to get things moving downward and outward in the digestive system.
And considering how major the role of — to put it nicely — elimination is in releasing toxins from the body, the more we help our digestive system move waste and toxins through the intestines, the better our powers of detoxing.
Sit firmly on both sitz-bones with your tush behind you (rather than completely underneath you) to ensure a long spine. With the feet together, lengthen up through the crown of your head as you reach your heart forward. Take your right hand to the mat behind you, either on fingertips or with a flat palm, and hug your knees or hook your elbow to the outside of your right knee, as you twist your chest open to the right.
Make sure both sitz-bones stay grounded to ensure the twist happens in the upper part of the torso and not the sacrum. Hold for at least 5 breaths, lengthening up as you inhale, and deepening the twist on the exhale.
After 5 breaths, switch sides.
2. Chair Pose Twist
For this mega twist, first start in Chair Pose, making sure your big toes are together and you can see your toes in front of your knees. Take your hands to Anjali (namaste) mudra at your heart center, and hook your left elbow to the outside of the right thigh as you twist open to the right.
Keep your knees in line, and press strongly into your palms to deepen the twist, unfurling your chest up and open to meet your thumbs as you roll your right shoulder away from the right ear.
After 5 breaths, come back to center. Switch sides.
3. Forward Fold with Belly Massage
Have you ever seen a mama cat licking her baby’s tummy to help it digest? Well, instead of asking our partners or friends to lick our bellies to get our digestive fires burning, let's just help ourselves, shall we?
Compression and pressure on the abdomen is what we are going for in Forward Folds, and adding a mini-massage with our fists is a great way to help get things moving.
Stand with your feet hip distance apart and take your fists to your hip creases. Keep the spine long and strong as you fold forward over bent or straight legs, letting the back body completely release and the head and neck hang heavy without effort.
If you don’t feel pressure from your fists in your belly, bend your legs enough so that your belly rests on your thighs, with the fists gently compressing the lower abdomen. Then make small circles with the fists to gently get movement in the intestines to help your body release waste and toxins from the digestive tract.
Stay here for 5 or more breaths before coming back up to Tadasana, Mountain Pose.
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