<p>Stomach This!</p>

- Shameem Akthar

One of the most ill-diagnosed and ubiquitous problems is indigestion—all of us have been victims to this at some point in our lives. Indigestion itself is a symptom of an underlying cause. In fact, this is such a large field that even a medical practitioner would refer you to a specialist rather than treat it symptomatically. It is best to fix the underlying cause and choose remedies accordingly. Therefore, here, we offer complementary yogic practices that help you deal with the lifestyle triggers to this problem.

Some may be tracked common-sensically:

• Eating and talking. This means food is not chewed properly, so the first stage of digestion is already compromised and is passed on half-prepared to the gut.

• Drinking too much fluid while eating dilutes the stomach’s enzymes and reduces their efficacy.

• Not chewing food well enough and taking in too much air while eating. This happens when your teeth are sensitive or you are not focusing on your food (watching TV while eating, for instance). The old Eastern saying, to ‘drink your food and chew your drinks’, hints at how you must eat.

Lie down on your back. Inhale. As you exhale, hoist your hips up in the shoulder stand (sarvangasana). Exhale; drop the legs behind in the plough (halasana). Breathe in and out deeply. Again, inhale to raise the legs back. As you exhale, slide down the hips till legs are fully on the ground. Lean your torso forward into a fu