This book covers a topic close to my own heart – Digestive Health. When I first started studying Yoga beyond the confines of single classes and learned about the Digestive System, I came across a meeting place of staggering complexity versus elegant simplicity.
And yet, there was more. The first time I heard a lecturer talk about digestion as being wider than food and nutrients, but also about being digestion of stuff – emotions, happenings, life – a lot of dots connected. Physical digestion and emotional digestion are separate, yet intertwined – ignore the wider picture at your peril
In writing a book like this the author could have taken a functional direction of looking at the Digestive System in isolation; that would not have been wrong but it would have been reductionist and incomplete – although alas it is the direction that many writers and practitioners go in. Instead this is a comprehensive work that looks at Digestive Health in a wider sense, looking at digestion from differing angles – the physical structures, the psycho emotional aspects, the energetic and subtle aspects. The author then looks at Yoga perspectives and practices to support our digestion.
Its a comprehensive and all embracing work that shows how so much can impact our Digestive Health; so much so it becomes not so much a cover to cover read but a reference work to dip into and re-read. Although the writing style endeavours not to overly complicate the topic, the sheer volume of information in here could approach overwhelming if you are not disciplined; this reflects the complexity of the topic.
All that said this is a useful book for Yoga Teachers and Therapists who will benefit from contextualising Digestion within the wider picture; for Yoga practitioners looking to improve their digestive health intelligently; and for professionals in other disciplines who are interested in seeing if Yoga can assist their clients.
