Good Belly Yoga

Every time you move, you are massaging your belly.

No matter whether you walk, run, swim, or dance, you are massaging your belly. Anything that requires you to focus on your body and use movement will be help you feel better because you are present in with your body. The best massage for your belly is moving your body.

Yoga, dance, and massage have been good to me. I used to be up in my head and very intellectual, but in a particular time in my life I got more physical. I ran, I danced, I went to playgrounds to sit in the swings big enough for my butt. I learned some gymnastics, and how to hold the center of my body and use my limbs to swirl and swing.

The beauty of dance and yoga helped me to liberate myself from my worries and concerns because I was focused on something more positive: stretching, breathing, and building strength. Yoga made me so much better at life, which includes managing my health, my significant relationships, and achieving my goals for a happier life.

The simple act of stretching to get to a relaxed state is different from working out. Both are good and have their own purposes. One is based on building muscle strength, and yoga is based on getting in touch with your bones, tendons, nerves, and your ideas about yourself.

Animals naturally stretch and yawn the minute they get up, so you can see why it is so important to move a little when you wake up. Stretching creates space in the spine and joints. The movement of the spine helps settle things back into place after sleep. That is why all vertebrate animals stretch.

There is a fundamental reason why yoga helps us feel better after stretching, breathing, and focusing on making our bodies better. We need to activate our muscles when we wake up because we have been relatively still and unconscious.

While while we sleep, our body and mind work together to make repairs.

When we wake up we have to adjust to being in a gravitational field, which moves our body in a perpendicular direction compared to our horizontal sleep position where we have been lying on a horizontal plane for hours.

The first step to opening the muscles that have been dormant while sleeping is to gently move the legs, feet, and rock the knees side to side to massage your lower back.

Certain basic moves also help to get things going: placing your hands on your belly and chest, and watch your breathing open up as you focus on deepening your breath by relaxing your ribcage and diaphragm. Knee to chest activates the colon, and helps you relax your bladder and sigmoid flexure so you can sit on the toilet and go naturally.

Rotating all your joints moisturizes them, and makes them looser; it is like a pre-yoga routine before you get up and do sun salute or get some coffee. Both are good ways to start the day.