People with eating disorders often find it helpful to do yoga poses like crocodile. Yoga can be a soothing eating disorder treatment that you can do in the comfort of your own home. It’s effective because eating disorder symptoms often include a dissociation of mind and body, and yoga brings them together. Your child should have a number of tools available for managing anxiety, and one of those tools may be a few simple yoga poses that can help ground and center your child.
Yoga has been shown to be an excellent auxiliary treatment for eating disorder recovery. Many people with eating disorders disconnect their minds from their bodies. They learn to ignore our body’s natural communication, needs, and desires. Yoga can be a great way to gradually reconnect the mind-body signals.
As a parent, having a few simple yoga moves to do with your child while they are in recovery can be a great way to help them make the mind-body connection. It’s also a great way for you to connect with your child, which is so critical to the healing process.
Makarasana, or Crocodile Pose, helps to facilitate diaphragmatic breathing (also known as belly breathing) by immobilizing the chest. When you engage in “belly breathing” you facilitate a relaxation response in the body, which makes this pose excellent during times of stress and anxiety. This may also be a great pre-meal pose to help your child get grounded before going to the table.
Here’s how to do it:
1) Lie on your belly and rest your forehead on your hands.
2) Mindfully breathe into your belly.
3) Stay here anywhere from 30 secs to 5 minutes.
Pretty easy, huh? You can even do this while sitting at a table or desk. Build your toolbox of coping behaviors throughout eating disorder treatment to support your child into recovery.
Emotional Regulation Worksheets
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Ginny Jones is on a mission to change the conversation about eating disorders and empower people to recover. She’s the founder of More-Love.org, an online resource supporting parents who have kids with eating disorders, and a Parent Coach who helps parents supercharge their kid’s eating disorder recovery.
Ginny has been researching and writing about eating disorders since 2016. She incorporates the principles of neurobiology and attachment parenting with a non-diet, Health At Every Size® approach to health and recovery.
Ginny’s most recent project is Recovery, a newsletter for deeply feeling people in recovery from diet culture, negative body image, and eating disorders.