Are you looking for an exercise to alleviate your hiatal hernia pain?

Then you’ve come to the right page.

A friend of mine almost died from a hiatal hernia right before my eyes. Talk about facing the reality of health and death. Ever since that evening, I’ve learned to really cherish my health and the blessings of a good digestive system.

Understanding what hiatal hernia actually is best illustrates why certain exercises are better than others.

Hiatal hernia is a violent upward muscle spasm that happens somewhere behind your heart muscle. The stomach starts the problem by losing its ability to move and digest food . . . usually from a lack of enzymes and stomach acid.

As food builds up and more food is added to an already backed up plumbing system, the stomach area bulges and stretches. Being filled to the brim with undigested food gases form from stagnation and the stomach herniates upward and out the diaphragm.

The hiatal diaphragm is the large muscle that is between your ribs and your organs, so the bloating stomach can really only push up to the one opening where your throat goes through.

What happened to my friend is the undigested pieces of steak he eat for dinner were pushed up through this opening in the diaphragm almost choking him to death.

Neither of us knew what to do, he kept pacing and choking, if he laid down, sat down or bent over it got worse.

Hiatal hernia is a scary ordeal and the best exercise we came up with after some fast Internet research was to ‘jump’. Luckily his wife had two things that saved him; a yoga ball and a tiny exercise trampoline.

The yoga ball helped by allowing him to stretch backward on the large flexible exercise ball . . . whereas the exercise trampoline made it easier to jump allowing gravity to exercise his diaphragm back down away from his throat.

Bottom-line exercising on a regular basis is the best prevention against you having a hiatal hernia event, along with eating small portions and chewing your food well.

Walking is the best way to exercise away any digestive stress. If you experience a hiatal hernia try jumping up in down. Rise on your toes and drop your heals like dead weight to the floor 10 times.

Then stretch backward over a large round, preferable soft object . . . yoga balls are large and soft enough to make this an easy exercise practice for hiatal hernia prevention too.

You were born to heal,

Todd M. Faass

Health Advocate