- Get ready to improve your digestive health,
and relieve symptoms of constipation, IBS, bloating,
and abdominal pain with these simple exercises.
- IBS?
- Irritable bowel syndrome.
- All right.
So if you wanna be able to void better,
you could try some of these exercises.
They're simple to do, and they can very well work.
I think this video is more for 50 and older, but maybe not.
Bob and I are both 60 and older,
and we feel these are a little more applicable to our age.
But anyways, good luck with them.
There's good activities.
(bright music)
- We wanna emphasize that this is not for someone
that is suffering from diarrhea.
Obviously that is the complete opposite problem
where you can't stop going.
- Right, so to start any of these exercises,
you'll want to get like a 16 ounce glass of warm water,
drink it all down, so we get some ability
for those things to start moving.
- So the second tip is if you're mobile or functional,
and you can get out and about, just movement in general
typically gets bowel movements to occur.
This can include walking or jogging
or anything like that sort.
- Right.
I think both Mike and I concurred that for us,
going out for a jog works well.
However, most people do not jog.
Walking a block or two can certainly be enough.
The exercise we're gonna show you
is if you are unable to get out and do that kind of activity
or it's just not what you'd like to do.
Okay, here we go.
This first activity is simply lying on your back.
You can do this in bed.
You've already had your warm water.
You're gonna take your arms over the top of your head,
assuming you have enough shoulder range of motion
that it's not painful.
And then you're gonna do some diaphragmatic breathing.
And that's where you breathe,
and you're gonna feel your stomach go up, up, up,
take a deep breath, and then exhale.
This is something a lot of people do not do,
and it's actually a good way to breathe, to relax.
And when you do that,
it helps push on the visceral content,
which gets the voiding moving.
So five times that.
Now the next option is simply bring the knees up.
And this oftentimes is more comfortable
for people in this position.
Again, arms up overhead if possible,
in regards to your shoulder range of motion.
Take your knees and go to the left as far as comfortable,
and then do the same type of breathing.
Let that belly come up as you breathe,
relax the stomach muscles,
(Brad inhales sharply)
and exhale, five repetitions that way, and go this way.
Now you may find one direction gets things moving.
The other one may not do,
whichever direction works best for you,
and it may be both.
- Okay, if you're not having success
with the first couple exercises,
then this is another option,
but you have to have a little bit more ability
and be able to get on your hands and knees for this.
So we're gonna do a child's pose type stretch,
and you're gonna reach forward, bend down like this,
and you can hold this for a duration of time.
You can also try going each direction.
So maybe this way helps a little more, or that way helps.
This will just kind of help get the bowels moving a bit
and get some movement in there.
Plus you get a nice little backstretch.
- Right, and I think you might agree, Mike,
you could do that, hold it for, you know, 15 seconds or so,
depending on how it feels.
And then come back up and do, you know, a few repetitions,
like oscillating.
Are you going into the next one now?
- Yeah. - Oh, I'm sorry.
- Another option you can do are called some press ups,
which ironically is also a back exercise,
but it gets things moving.
So you can just try to keep your hands
flat on the mat like this.
You can do mini press-ups if this is tolerable.
If you can go the full range of motion,
you could certainly do that.
Try to do 10 repetitions,
just move through the motion and see if this helps.
This may work, this may not.
It's gonna be very individualistic.
- And I do wanna make clear,
particularly if you're a little older,
you probably will not have near this much range of motion.
And if you only can get up a few inches,
that's fine as well, as long as we're getting some motion,
and you're not creating any other pain
like in your back or in that situation.
Okay, the next technique,
this may seem a little unusual, but it's field tested.
Bob has used this, and he says it works well,
and we'll tell you about it.
You'll need a broomstick or a mop like this,
something five foot tall, this is a little bit short,
and you're gonna use this on the floor,
and you're actually on the toilet or the stool.
You're gonna put this on the floor.
Now, if you're using, you know, a doweling or a stick
and it's slippery on the floor,
you may need to put a shoe down
and put it in there so it does not slip on the floor.
That's critical.
We're gonna use a Booyah Stik,
it already has rubber ends and it will not slip.
Go ahead, Mike, show 'em the technique.
- So you're gonna place it on the floor,
and you're gonna grab as high as you can
with your shoulder range of motion,
and you're gonna stretch out,
elongate your bowels and your GI tract,
when you're sitting like this, they're more compressed.
So the idea is to elongate and stretch 'em out,
and sometimes this gets things moving,
at least for Robert it does.
So what you wanna do is grab up here,
and then you're gonna do your belly breaths again
like we talked about earlier.
So inhale, through my nose.
(Mike inhales sharply)
Expand my stomach, and then breathe out.
When you inhale through your nose,
make sure you're not elevating your shoulders.
You wanna push your stomach out.
You wanna do this five different times in a row
and see if this helps.
Now, do you wanna talk about the other option we got here?
- Well, I do wanna mention, emphasize,
if this is not comfortable,
it hurts your shoulder or something like that,
it's not for you, this is not for everyone.
But the other option is, go ahead,
we could actually do some same technique,
but add some rotation, to the right.
And to the left. - And then you're gonna go
to the other direction and go five each way,
and Bob, do you belly breathe during this as well?
Bob says, "Sure." - Yes.
You really need to learn to be relaxed with this, I think,
if you're not going to,
with all these techniques is breathe, relax,
we're gonna let things move, so to speak, literally.
(Mike laughs)
- So if you're having constipation problems, try these out,
see which ones work for you,
and obviously stick to that one.
They're not all gonna work for everyone.
- That's right.
And again, if you're having problems with this,
this is something you're gonna need to see your doctor about
'cause you need to get things moving,
if these aren't working with a little effort,
make sure you get checked out.
- So good luck on the toilet.
(bright music)