PoopGroup: The Yoga Edition

I usually wake up in the morning feeling bloated or with some twisting-turning action happening in my stomach. Surprisingly, this does not often result in morning poop. (It eventually will, though. My dad has a 5 AM poop literally every morning, and though it sounds like the explosive diarrhea variety, which I also don’t have very often, he’s got twenty-seven years on me; one day my BMs will probably mimic his just as my jaunt and jowls are beginning to now.) So it is with some trepidation that I go to yoga in the mornings, which is when I prefer to go. What if the stomach pains turn to cramps and make the poses painful? What if I have to leave class to go poop (the idea of pooping at a yoga studio, which I have done only twice in my life, both times with extreme haste, gives me nightmares despite my extreme poop-positive outlook; I’m working on it)? What if I’m disruptively gassy?

So far I have found nothing that calms my stomach more swiftly or in a way that feels more natural and correct than by doing yoga. And it makes sense. You are twisting your body, opening things up, shifting things around; your intestines are basically getting a sweet massage. And if you’re doing everything right, the meditation, the poses, and in general your controlled focus should take your mind off stomach pain. (I can’t vouch for the ladies with period cramps; my favorite teacher Sheri warns that if any women are “on” their “moons” that they might take a lotus pose rather than an inversion. I’m really curious: Why? And is yoga good for period pain?) Also, PoopGrouper Meghan tells me that a five-minute headstand makes for miracles in your digestive system. I don’t know that I could do a headstand for five minutes, but I did a three-minute one the other day and must say that my poop was pretty great afterward.

But as for yoga gas—which I’ve wondered aloud about here before—I really think there’s nothing to be done. If you are giving your intestines a massage and there is a bunch of turbulent air trapped up inside them, it is going to find its way out. And if no one else is going to admit it, I will: I love farting in yoga. It feels great. It’s like when you’re in a twist and by exhaling you can take the twist deeper: if you let some air out your butt end, you can also go deeper. It’s not like I make and effort to do it. But when the gas bubbles to the surface, I do not try to suck it back down.

I should also say that I am a connoisseur of what my family calls SBD (“silent but deadly”) gas. You may not hear them, but you are absolutely going to smell them. So I have not yet had the experience of releasing a thunderclap fart and having the entire class turn to me in shock. I fart, then 25 or 30 seconds pass, and then you notice the other yogis losing some of their focus, crunching up their noses, exhaling a little bit aggressively. Sorry! But at least it’s a good exercise in flexing your focus muscles. And even if the thunderclap were to happen, what’s so wrong with laughing, outstretching your hands, looking upward with humility to acknowledge the marvels of the human condition, and saying, “Pardon me!”

So to this person, with whom PoopGroup is in direct ideological opposition (this is a dead-end cause already), I have a few things to say: First of all, lighten up! If you can’t take other people’s natural bodily odors, then maybe you should just get a NordicTrak, a DVD set, a good ventilation system, and stay home. Also, if one fart in a yoga class derails all your relaxation and focus, how on earth does gym stench not bother you? (I hate gym stench, which is one of many reasons why I do not go to gyms.) Also . . . you know . . . the point of yoga? Perhaps you’re missing it?

Sure, it would be unpleasant and distracting were everyone’s pranayana infused with fart throughout an entire class (though you’d get used to it pretty fast! Try bikram, where Izzy tells me yogis are encouraged to fart). What I’m saying here is what I’m always saying in PoopGroup: We all poop, we all fart. Sometimes it’s really amusing, sometimes it’s very provocative (I always find it provocative), sometimes it’s embarrassing, sometime’s it’s shitty (ha!). It seems to me that there’s no point in making it shameful.