Why No Water For 30 Minutes After Yoga Practice

by Ozma
(Caifornia)

I am wondering about the rule to not eat or drink anything including water!! for at least 30 minutes AFTER practicing yoga. The rule to not eat before, seems very obvious to me. But I was hoping you could explain, in detail, the rule to not "eat drink, including water, or bathe for at least 30 minutes AFTER your practice". Thank you very much!

Answer

There is no specific rule in yoga about eating after yoga but there are guidelines that a practitioner can adopt. A practitioner is free to experiment as per personal choice. Just listen to your body and you will find the answers.

Even if you consider any exercise, there has to be some cooling off period before the body is subjected to a shower or the task of digesting food.

It is generally recommended to wait for 15 to 30 minutes before eating after yoga practice. During yoga practice, all internal organs gets massaged. The organs related to digestion needs to be given adequate rest to rejuvenate and for absorption of energy generated by yoga practice.


Some Useful Guidelines
Here are some guidelines for eating after yoga which are based on conventional wisdom:

15 Minutes After Yoga.
Any time you feel thirsty, you may drink water at room temperature if you are thirsty

15 to 30 Minutes After Yoga.
~ Avoid cold foods
~ Drink preferably herbal tea/ green tea or warm milk

30 Minutes After Yoga.
Eat a healthy and light meal and avoid heavy dose of carbohydrates or fats.


How to Count 30 Minutes?
30 minutes time is calculated from the time you finish your asanas and pranayama. Any time spent in meditation, mantra chanting or shavasana after asanas and pranayama will also be included in this 30 minutes period.

Say if finish your yoga asanas and pranayama, then do mantra chanting/ meditation for 10 minutes and shavasana for 5 minutes, you can eat your food after another 15 minutes. Your countdown for calculating the time for eating starts after you finish your yoga asanas and pranayama.

At times you may not have much time available, say you have to leave for office after doing yoga at home. You can reduce this waiting period and eat something after 10-15 minutes. If you do not feel any problem you can continue.


Taking a Shower After Yoga

The logic here is similar to logic of eating after yoga. After doing yoga, cool down the body for 30 minutes before taking a shower.

A better alternative is to take shower before starting yoga. This will remove any sweat and freshen up the body. Therefore, in this case there will not be a need to take another shower after yoga practice. In case you are doing yoga at a place where climate is hot and humid and you sweat a lot, taking a shower after yoga is advisable.

Hope this helps.
Daljit