Hi, I’m Michelle and today we're going through a series of exercises
to help you relieve constipation. Now, these are exercises you can do either on the bed which I’m
going to demonstrate here today or lying on the ground and we're going to go through these
exercises together. Now, at the end of the video, I’m going to show you how to massage your bowel
also to promote movement of the stool through your bowel. Now, all these exercises are geared
to promoting movement through the bowel, so you might not need to go to the toilet urgently,
but hopefully your bowel moves over the course of the day or sooner into the evening. So
let's get started now either on your bed or lying on a mat on the ground.
Okay, so let's come down into lying down for starters, and I’d like you to lie down and we're
going to just start with some deep breathing, just to help us relax through our tummy. So
just place your hands – knees are obviously bent, feet are flat, and place your hands on your lower
belly. Now, I would like you to deep breathe and breathing into your belly, so that when
you breathe in, your hands rise, so breathe into the hands, let your belly rise, big breath in, and
out. We're doing three of these all together, nice deep breath again, breathing in,
into the belly, feel your belly rise, and out. Great, get the air right down to the base
of the lungs, really start to stimulate the bowel. And again, nice big breath in, and out.
Good. Let's start with the right leg. Bring the knee into the chest,
and see then if you can extend the left leg down,
so bring that leg in. Now if your knee is sore, you can hold on behind your thigh,
and tuck in that way. Otherwise, behind the – in front of the knee is great, front of the shin.
Just holding that, and relax the breath, breathe it out. And again, nice big breath in, and out.
And one more time, if you're feeling really keen, you can progress this with the foot coming higher
and you're gently pressing the thigh into your belly there, extending through the other side.
And let's take the leg down. Same thing on the other side,
bring the knee into the chest, and again, tucking that leg right in if you can,
breathing in and breathe out. Try and keep that diaphragmatic or belly
breathing going just throughout these first few exercises if you can, breathing in and out.
And once more, again, if you'd like to progress, remember you can take that foot high,
and you can push that thigh in towards your belly if you're able to, big breath in, and out.
And take the leg down and just extend right out, big breath in, and out, and release.
Now, let's bring the arms down, one leg up at a time, and we're going to now bring both knees
in, both thighs up towards your belly and just holding gently in this position,
breathing in, and breathing out. And again, nice big breath in.
We're really trying to stimulate the smooth muscle in your intestine. We're really
trying to stimulate that smooth muscle with the movements we're doing here. And one more time,
and out. And when that smooth muscle contracts, it squeezes and squeezes the stool through the
bowel. Now, take both legs down. If you can bring your arms above your head,
that is great, otherwise out to the sides' fine. I’ll take mine right above my head,
and rolling your knees over to one side and breathe out as you roll,
nice big stretch through the torso here, stretching through the trunk. And let's
come back up breathing in and out. So obviously, movement's really key for stimulating the bowel,
and that's part of the reason why we're sitting around or confined to bed that
we can be more prone to constipation, that's one reason. Breathing in and breathing out,
roll across again, should feel really comfortable, you don't have to have your arms up high like me,
if you don't want to. And one more time, breathing in and breathing out,
and coming back up.
So if you're staying on your back, if you don't feel comfortable lying on your tummy,
you can bring your knees into your chest and you can just do some gentle rocking movements to the
side. Otherwise, let's roll over onto our tummies. So coming over onto your belly and bringing your
hands underneath your shoulders, we're going to breathe in and breathe out and just press up,
and getting some gentle stretch through your belly, breathe it out,
and again, take it down, breath in and breathe out, and stretch back, keep your chin tucked so
that you don't put pressure on your neck. And now, this time bring your hands underneath your
shoulders, breathing in, and breathe out, and bring your body right back so you're stretching
right back, knees apart, you can bring your arms right out in front if you're able to or by your
sides if that's not comfortable. And this is a really good position for shifting wind if you
find that your tummy is really bloated, and you can just rest your head down comfortably there.
And then let's just finish off coming up and do some gentle pelvic tilts rounding out,
hollowing through the tummy, and bringing it down. And let's do one more of those,
really lift up and hollow through your belly, you can draw your tummy muscles in there
and then breathe out and relax and come down.
So you might like to lie back down on your back, I’m just going to demonstrate what we're going
to be doing next with our massage. So our large intestine runs up around and down. We're going
to be massaging that area to try and promote movement through that area. You can use the heel
of your hand. You might use a fist, you start at the right side of the pelvis so that bone there,
lifting up through here to the rib cage, underneath the rib cage and across and
down. That's the pattern we're going to be following when we're lying down. Now,
let's do that together. So coming back down, all right, so in this position now, use either
the heel of your hand, right side of the hip, lift up, pressing in gently but firmly, take it across
under the rib cage, and then taking it down and press. And just go again, across we come,
lifting up, and you might like to use a fist, see if you can go a little bit deeper,
and you try to keep this comfortable the whole time, but just promoting some movement
through that bowel. And then if you'd like to, you can use your fingertips both hands, and you can
often find firm areas – it feels hard, it feels a little bit hard under some areas of your fingers,
and you can just do some circular movements with your hands over those areas of firmness,
and often you'll feel those areas release as well as you start to get some movement
through the bowel. And I can hear checking my tummy growling a little
bit there now just doing that, across to the other side, massaging around and down.
And you can do this as often as you like, particularly, if you're resting in bed,
and you might like to also combine it with some warmth. So you could use a warm pack on your tummy
and combine it with massage and both those things will help to stimulate your bowel motility.
So now, let's just finish off with our arms down, bring them back to your belly,
and we're going to finish off with a couple of nice deep diaphragmatic breaths.
So we're going to breathe into the belly, let your belly rise up again,
and then let the air fall out, fall away. And once more, nice deep breath,
and let the air fall away.
So I really hope these constipation relieving exercises give you a really good idea
of the sorts of things you can do at home if you're confined to bed
or if you can't get out of the house to relieve constipation.
Thank you so much for watching today. If the video's helped you,
I’d really appreciate it if you can give it the thumbs up below,
this helps other people find the video too. I’ll see you next time. Bye for now.