The best way to get a flat belly is to reduce your weight and increase your fitness, but yoga can also play an important part too. Not only is yoga great for your emotional wellness and wellbeing, which can help make dieting easier, but some yoga can help to assist with a distended and uncomfortable belly, reducing bloating.
There are various poses that can help to aid digestion and reduce bloating, one of them being the bow pose. This pose strengthens and lengthens your torso, engaging all of the muscles in your belly. To get into it, start in Downward Facing Dog, and then bring your knees to the mat and lie down on your tummy. Bend your knees and grasp the outside edge of one ankle and then the other. Once you have a tight grip on your ankles, keep your toes together, choosing to point or flex your feet as you wish. Pull your feet up as high as you can manage, and shift your weight forwards so that you are resting on your tummy and not on your pelvis. Hold for the count of five and then release.
A wide-legged forward bend can also help to reduce bloating because folding yourself in half like this squeezes the belly and helps things to get moving along. If you are suffering from tummy pain that is related to stress, this pose can also help to reduce the tension.
To do the wide-legged forward bend, start by standing with your feet three or four feet apart, turning out your heels so that they are slightly wider than your toes. Put your arms behind your back and clasp your fingers together, pressing the heels of your palms together to form a fist. Bend forward, folding at the hips and drawing the crown of your head and the hands towards the floor. Stay there for five breaths and then engage your quads and stand up.