No Pain No Gain...Right?

I took a class the other night from a teacher at the studio where I teach. I was a bit hesitant to take her class as I know it can be intense. By intense I mean that I don't usually feel completely warmed up before she starts putting us into advanced poses. She will do a lot of complex pretzel like poses that most of the students in her class aren't ready for but will try to contort themselves into anyway. Needless to say her classes are always packed. People love to torture themselves.

When I teach a power class, one where I'm really pushing my students I will get feedback telling me how much they loved the class and how they feel like they are going to be so sore tomorrow. I notice the next week that my class has generally grown a bit, like the word got out that if you want a good workout go to Jamie's class. 

This got me thinking. Why do we think and like for that matter, when a class kicks our butt? I'm just as guilty as the next person. I started circuit training about six months ago and I swear I've been hurting since the beginning. I was overexercising, but aside from the pain, loving every minute of it. 

Soreness after a workout is good, it means you are building muscle. The soreness should gradually build in the hours after your workout and then slowly fade out. However localized pain that reoccurs each time you exercise or if it persists between sessions could be a signal that you are doing too much. Sprain, strains, stress fractures or tendonitis are all signs of doing to much. Yogi's are not immune from this. Actually we are some of the worst offenders.

Power, Vinyasa, Ashtanga and Bikram yoga are some of the most intense yoga practices. These classes will push you to your edge. Unless you are an advanced yogi, and by this I mean that you have great body awareness and can let go of your ego, you are bound to hurt yourself eventually. There are people of all levels in these classes and a teacher can't cater to all. We will throw in the easy poses as well as the hard ones to make everyone happy. It is up to you to not go beyond your edge. As a teacher I see people do this all the time. The following week they come back and tell me how their shoulders/knees/hips hurt. I tell them to slow down and not go as hard, only to watch them do just that in the class.

A teacher will tell you to stop or slow down your practice in order to heal, but we can't make you and we won't adjust our class to tame your ego. It is up to you to sit down and check in with our body. See if the exercises that you are doing are serving you or hurting you. If you find that you have been overdoing it, the next step is to figure out why. Check in with your emotions and thought patterns here. Are you afraid of gaining weight or do you like the high that exercise gives you (that's my culprit). You have to decide if the emotional gain is worth the physical pain and potential permanent damage.

Your body is a temple, treat it with respect. Find a healthy middle where you challenge your body, but not overdo it. It takes a lot to let go of the ego, to let go of the exercise high of really challenging yourself. The key is to find ways that still physically challenge you (I switched to a strength class in the pool, nicer to the joints but I'm still reaching my goals), but don't damage your body in the process. You can get all the benefits of a healthy life with a lot less pain. 

Conscious Relaxation, How it Helped Me Survive the Dentist

I don't like going to the dentist. The sounds, the scraping and I swear the hygienist uses that scraper thing as a torture device. But alas it is a place one must go to have healthy teeth and catch any problems before they start. Ayurvedic medicine believes that the health of your mouth affects the health of your body.

When I used to go to the dentist I would leave with such a tension headache. This would be due to the fact that while my teeth are getting cleaned tension slowly creeps into my body. It starts in my neck and works its way down, all the while I'm holding my breath. If I focus on how uncomfortable I am my anxiety will start to increase to the point I feel like I'm going to panic. This is not good.

Since I can't avoid the dentist for the rest of my life, oh what a joy that would be, I must learn to relax. As we all know we can't convince ourselves to relax, we have to teach our bodies how to do so. You can do this through conscious relaxation.

There are quite a few techniques out there on conscious relaxation, below are two of my favorites.

Relaxing each body part. Start with your feet and work up to your head. You can be as detailed here as you want. I generally do feet, calves, thighs, hips, butt, low back, upper back, abdomen, chest, shoulders, upper arms, lower arms, hands, throat, jaw, eyes and head. With each inhale gather up the tension in that area and with each exhale let it go. If you are exposed to a lengthy exposure of stress once you get to your head you may need to start back at the bottom again. For example in the dentist chair I may have to cycle through a few times verse when at home after the dentist one time through should do the trick.

Flooding the body with color and images. Close your eyes and picture your favorite place, a place that you find relaxing. From that picture pick a color. Do the same relaxation technique as relaxing each body part but on the exhale flood that body part with your relaxing color. Once you reach your head see your relaxed self in your favorite place.

These techniques are simple. If the mind begins to wander as you do them, like why is the hygienist trying to dig a hole in my gums, just bring the focus back to the breath. You may have to bring it back several times and that is ok. If you know you are going somewhere that is going to make you tense, it may help to do a bit of relaxation before you go. That way your body and mind will at least have a good head start.

Low Back Pain

Low back pain is unfortunately very common in this day and age of prolonged sitting. For the most part, pending any actual injury to your low back, the pain is caused from either tight quads (the muscles of the front thigh) or tight hamstrings (the muscles of the back of the thigh). Generally if one muscles set is tight, like your quads, you will have loose hamstrings or vice versa. This causes issues with your low back as it pulls your pelvis out of neutral alignment putting stress on the low back.

One way to figure out which set of muscles is causing you pain is to do a quick stretch to test the tightness of the quads or hamstrings. To check your hamstrings fold forward and notice the tension there. If you can get your hands or fingers to the floor it’s pretty safe to say that you have loose hamstrings. To test your quads, standing on one foot, grab your ankle of the other and bring the heel up towards your butt. Again check for the level of tension. If you can get your heel to your butt you have pretty flexible quads. Another way to figure it out is lay on your back. If you can slide your hand under your low back, meaning you have a significant arch in your low back, then you have tight quads. If your back is pressed to the floor (it is natural to have a slight curve here), then your hamstrings are tight.

 

It is possible to have tight hamstrings or quads on one side and loose on the other. This is pretty rare, but can happen. If this is the case, follow the same recomendations below, but just do what is appropriate for each side.

You can have flexible quads and hamstrings but if one muscle set is a bit tighter than the other then you can create an imbalance in the pelvis. Imbalance in muscles groups causes pain.

Once you have figured out which muscle is tight, the next step is to lengthen and stretch the tight muscles and strengthen the loose ones. Below are some exercises for strength and flexibility.

To strengthen the hamstrings try Bridge. To challenge your strength more lift up your toes or balls of your feet (not your heels). Even more extreme is lifting one leg up into the air. Word of caution, hamstrings are easy to pull so be mindful not push past your edge. If you feel  yourself straining, come out of the pose. Focus on lifting the hips and arching the back. Relax through the shoulders.

To strengthen your quads you can do chair pose or any of the various standing postures like warrior I & II, extended side angle, goddess or a standing lunge. Hold them for as long as you can.

To stretch your hamstrings intense side stretch or a simple forward fold will work. Focus on keeping your spine straight. If you can’t reach the floor, which you probably won’t since you are working on flexibility, use blocks, a table or chair to rest your hands on so you can focus on the stretch. Work on keeping your pelvis level, meaning don’t let one side of your pelvis, like the left hip, go up. You should be able to place a glass of water on your low back without it falling off.

To stretch your quads you can do a lunge with your back knee down on the mat, use padding here if needed to protect the knees. Pull the pelvis forward a bit to increase the stretch or grab the ankle of the knee that is down on the floor and pull it towards your butt  (You can use a strap here if your shoulders are tight and can't reach the ankle. Just wrap the strap around the ankle joint, not the top of the foot.). Make sure not to pull too hard as it can strain the knee. Dancer is another great stretch or just grabbing your ankle and bringing the heel towards your butt.

In order to make any progress on this you will have to do the stretches daily or when you feel your back starting to act up. If you are unsure of the poses I mentioned above you can go to http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/finder/browse_categories to view the various poses. A good way to start your day is to do your  set of stretches. It helps to prevent the back pain from happening in the first place.

Emotional Release

At one point or another in our lives we’ve all had some type of emotional release. Emotions are building in our bodies from the time we are born. If we don’t process these emotions they will stay in our bodies. If a child is upset about something they will cry, if you are upset about something you will either cry or talk to someone about it. That is processing. However, if we have a strong emotion and we don’t cry, yell or talk about it the emotion will be stuck in our bodies till we do something about it.

Today was my daughters first day of kindergarten. My husband and I, as well as my daughter, were very excited about this day. I’m not the nostalgic type of mom. I’m always excited and happy for milestones in Madelyn’s life. I live in the present and am optimistic about the future. So what happened after drop off took me a bit by surprise.

The drop off went great, Madelyn ran into the room and never looked back. As a parent I was so proud, my girl was excited about her new transition. As I was walking to the car I felt the emotions starting to well up inside of me. By the time I was driving away I was sobbing. The intensity of these emotions took me by surprise, so much so I had to stop and think about where they were coming from. It didn’t take me long to figure it out.

My husband works in the ER. His schedule is varied. Nights, days, weekends, it’s never the same. Due to this I am the primary caregiver for Madelyn. I stayed home with her for three years. We had recently moved so we didn’t know anyone and the closest family was two hours away. We had lost our freedom. It was a difficult task to get out for the things we needed to do, let alone out to do something fun.

I eventually went back to work which took life from boring day to day to chaos and it stayed that way till today. I was constantly fatigued and had high anxiety. Today, with the beginning of school, was the day my husband and I got our freedom back. All the anxiety, anger and frustration of the last five years came pouring out of me. My body was letting go of the intense emotions that had built up within me since I had lost my freedom with the birth of our beautiful girl.

The cool thing about this is that my body knew when it was ok to let it go. It didn’t wait a week, month or year after school started to recognize that all was well in the world, it knew instantly. I think this is in part because I am so aware of my situation and I knew both physically and emotionally that it was over. I could let it go.

If this isn’t the case for you then there are certain things you can do to help your body and mind process a strong emotional event. Be it the death of someone close to you, a change in careers or the end of a relationship. There are many things in our lives that fall into this category.

Meditation is wonderful. It allows you time to sit with the body and see what is going on in there. What are you thinking and physically feeling. Yoga will help to free up the emotions in the body. Any intensity that you feel within your practice, be it physical or emotional, do a forceful exhale, like a sigh or a scream. If you feel the urge to cry, cry. Don’t hold it in, you never know when it will surface again. Try to find a quiet place if you can so you can really let it all out. Talking with someone, be it a friend or a professional is also very helpful.

Letting a strong emotion go can be scary, but it’s worth it. Afterwards you generally feel tired, but free. Your body and mind can now relax. It is better for our health to process and let go of these emotions as they come. However this isn’t always possible. With a consistent meditation and yoga practice it will make it easier for you to let go daily of your negative issues and focus on the positive in your life.

Heating Up Your Yoga Practice

I thought I was going to die in my first hot yoga class. Between the heat (90-105 degrees and humid) and the fact that I was in Denver (I live in Vermont) so I was not used to the elevation. I sweated through the class (not to mention my clothes and mat), spending most of my time in child's pose till I blissfully passed out in savasana.

Hot yoga isn't for everyone, even if you are a practiced yogi. If you have any health issues like high/low blood pressure or heart disease hot yoga isn't for you. More conditions are out there, to see if it is safe for you to practice click here.  Hot yoga is physically demanding and requires endurance. The tendency to over stretch is great and often leads to injury. Dehydration is an issue as well. Still interested? My goal here isn't to scare you but to help you make an educated decision about the safety of your practice.

As yoga teachers we all have our opinions on the various styles of yoga out there. Some we love, some we hate and others we don't have much to say about. Hot yoga tends to be a major topic of conversation among teachers. Mostly due to the issues listed above. I'm personally not a fan of the practice. I do however think that a bit of heat in your practice is good.

In the summer my studio space is often hot as the owner doesn't like to turn on the AC, we naturally have a "hot" practice. This heat is created from nature (usually about 70-80 degrees) plus the heat that is created from the movement of our practice. This lower heats allows the body to warm up naturally which makes us aware of when our muscles are ready to go deeper, not give us the illusion that we are ready for that intense stretch.

Sweating is good. It cleans out our pores acting like a mini detox for the body. You will notice once you start a hot practice that your sweat tends to smell less. Some practitioners of hot yoga don't even need to use deodorant. You will eventually build a tolerance to heat as well, making those hot spells in summer more bearable.

If a hot practice is part of your yoga resume, whether it is in a real hot class or just from the heat of summer make sure you take the steps to keep it healthy. Hydrate well before and after class. Make sure that you are really warmed up before you go deep into your poses. Let go of your ego, if you are dizzy, stop and go into child's pose, don't power through. If you have a health condition, no matter how simple it may seem, let your doctor know you are thinking about starting hot yoga. The heat can turn a little thing into a major issue real fast.

Your yoga practice is your choice, it is your body and mind. Make the decision that is best for you. Our bodies change daily so check in with the decision to do a hot class every time you walk in the door. Enjoy and don't forget your towel.

Alone and Loving It

I heard once that if you don’t know how to be alone, you will always be lonely. It seems in this technical world that we are more lonely than ever. This stems from a serious lack of quality time with people. We are connecting more over social media sites than we are in person. When we do manage to get together in person we aren’t really present. Our faces are glued to our smart phone.

As an experiment go sit at an outside café on a busy street and just watch people. How many people are engaging in conversation with each other verses talking on their phone or checking email, etc? I’m sure you won’t be surprised at the results. The consequence of this is that we are more lonely than ever. We aren’t getting that personal connection that is so important to being human and we don’t know how to shut our brains off and enjoy being alone. When given down time instead of reading, drawing or exercising (with no head phones but just enjoying the quiet), we are connected to technology. Our brains never get a rest.

Being alone isn’t a bad thing, it is actually good for you. It gives you one on one time with yourself where you can analyze your day and decompress. You can do something that you enjoy that you may not otherwise do with someone else. If you watch children they are often content to go off and play on their own after a long day of play. As a species we need this time to hit the reset button.

If your brain is used to being constantly connected, starting a practice of down time is a serious challenge so you will need to start small. If the thought of leaving your smart phone behind to go for a walk causes an anxiety attack, perhaps just turn it off and leave it in your pocket for the walk. After your brain realizes you didn’t miss anything, the next time you go for a walk you will feel more comfortable leaving it behind. Start with little increments of time and work yourself up to at least an hour a day. You will find that you are able to think more clearly and be more productive.

Where once you found down time a space to fill up, it will eventually become a time where you can just relish in doing nothing. By doing this you will be giving more to yourself which will allow you to give more to others in your life, preferably in person, not online.

The Art of Stress Free Living

I had the opportunity to attend a phenomenal lecture while I was at Kripalu. It was on the topic of stress, which as a yoga therapist I’ve read and heard a lot about, but this presenter's approach was a bit different and helped to me understand all the information I already know on a deeper level.

Susan Lord is a MD and has an intense interest in spreading the word about stress and how it affects our bodies. From the yoga therapy perspective we believe that stress is the root cause of most disease. Many of the techniques that she spoke about we do as yoga therapists, but she had one very good point that even I struggle with. We know when we have stress and with time we see that stress accumulating in the body. At that point we want to do something about the stress, we are aware of it. We will try various things to reduce the stress (meditation, yoga), but somehow it doesn’t go away. Here is why.

We can’t will away our stress. Being aware of your stress and the impact on your body is important, but you can’t think it away once you know it is there. I’m guilty of this too. I will start to feel my anxiety build and will take some deep breaths and think, this will calm me down. But it doesn’t always because I’m more focused on waiting to see if I calm down then I am on my breath.

The other reason we fail is that we aren’t consistent. We must practice daily on reducing our stress. Not just when we feel it overwhelming us. We have to train our bodies to react differently to stress, to see it and let it go, not hang on to it. It takes 90 seconds for an emotion to move through our bodies. Within that 90 seconds we usually feel the emotion, than start to think about the emotion and then become obsessed with it and that is when it causes us stress. Instead, try feeling the emotion, look at it a bit, then let it go and in a few seconds it will be gone completely. If it comes back into your mind, just let it go. It can’t hurt us if we let it go.

Dr. Lord’s recommendations to letting go of stress are simple. Here they are:

1.       Build self awareness. You can’t fix it if you don’t know what it is that is going on.

2.       Express your truth. When we don’t say what we want or feel it causes us stress. You need to have these conversations even if they are difficult. Find a way to have the conversation that gets your point across but without harsh or blaming language. If that person rejects you, see it as a blessing that they weren’t meant to be in your life, they are negative energy. We only want positive energy in our life.

3.       Make a list of thoughts, feelings and beliefs. Get to know them and work with them. Start to eliminate all the negative ones.

4.       Experimentation. Change is hard, especially if you are told for example not to have a drink when you are stressed. When you’ve had a bad day instead of having a glass of wine, stop to think why you had a bad day and how you could have made it better. Solve your problem. It is ok to have a drink, but make sure you are drinking it because you enjoy it, not because you are using it to get away from something.

5.       Be present. Don’t live in the past, let it go. You can’t change it and it will only suck your energy. Same with the future, it's not here yet. If you are living for tomorrow you are never truly living today.

6.       Judgment. Don’t judge as you never fully know the life someone is living. Don’t be quick to make a decision about something or someone. Stop and listen fully to what someone is saying without interrupting. Get all the information. This may open you up to more possibilities such as a better relationship with the person.

We all have stress , but it doesn't have to rule our lives and adveresly affect our health. By doing these simple mindful living techniques we can make a profound difference in our lives. We will be healthier both physically and emotionally.

 

A Little R&R

Sometimes in life you've just got to relax, let go. Doing this while at home is not an easy task, especially when you have kids. Relaxing, as wonderful as it sounds, isn't easy. It's actually a skill if you ask me. One would think as a yoga teacher that I would know how to relax no matter where I am, sadly this isn't the case.

We all come to yoga for our own reasons. Mine was stress and anxiety. My yoga practice has helped me considerably with this, however it is still a daily struggle for me to let go. I find that during long stretches of stressful times my body starts to tell me that a little R&R is needed. My body spoke, I listened. If I've learned anything over the 10 years I've been doing yoga is that when the body speaks, you listen.

So here I am, typing this blog while at Kripalu, a yoga retreat center in Massachusetts. I love this place and have done three teacher trainings here, but this is the first time I've come here strictly to relax. I feel slightly out of place, like I should be hanging out in the classroom, but as time goes on I'm feeling more at ease with it. I'm starting to recognize the other R&R guests as we're showing up to the same programs specifically catered to help us let go and relax. We even have our own special name tags that tells the world, don't do anything to stress us out, we are here to relax!

As a teacher I'm a people watcher, even when I'm not teaching. I'll notice you on the street and critique your posture, your mood and how you engage with people. So naturally I'm doing this to the other R&R guests here. Surely these people are here for the same reason I am, to relax and boy do they need it! The first day you'll notice they hold their bodies stiff, their expressions are tight, trying to laugh and let go, but they aren't there yet. They have this look of being unsure. But by day two, or perhaps three, you begin to notice a change. They are starting to let go because they see that it is ok to do so. They are starting to live life and realize that there are things outside of themselves. They are getting out of their head.

That is what a retreat is for. It is for you to learn to let go of the things that are weighing you down and gives you a safe and supportive space in which to do it. To open your eyes to what is out there when you pull yourself out of the routine of everyday life. You see it is ok to laugh, to let your guard down and most important of all to allow some time for yourself. Sometimes we are afraid of these things, especially the last one because we won't know what to do with ourselves if we had some free time.

The one downfall I see to retreats is that they aren't cheap. So how do you get the retreat experience without the price tag? Simple, create your own. Find a place that you can go to to get away from everyone that isn't your house, this is important because when we are home we feel the need to tackle our to do list. Simply sending the family away for the weekend to go camping won't work. Perhaps you can house sit for a friend, find a cheap Bed and Breakfast. Get creative.

The next step, and this is the hard one, do nothing for at least part of the day. Turn off the cell phone, the computer and go dark on technology. (Yes, I'm not going dark writing this, but after I'm done it is off for the rest of the R&R.) Read books, write, draw, go for a hike, do all the great stuff you used to do before life got so darn busy. Eat out if it is in the budget or have prepared meals ready to go so you don't have to think about what's for dinner. Aim for healthy foods, healthy body, healthy mind.

The main point of a retreat is you time. Time carved out for you to do whatever you want. It is a time for us to explore our thoughts and deal with them. The treat is that when we do come back into the real world, we are ready to take it on.

Breathe Energy Back Into Your Life

“To breathe is to feel; and conversely, to limit breathing is to limit feeling.” Ken Dychtwald

After you read this sentence take a moment and notice how you are breathing. Close your eyes and just listen and feel…go ahead, I’ll wait.

If you do yoga regularly you’re probably pretty in tune to your breath and what is considered normal breathing. If not, you may be completely unaware that the way you are breathing is affecting your energy and your emotions. When we are stressed or anxious we will take shallow breaths. This deprives our bodies of much needed oxygen. This can lead to more stress and anxiety creating an unhealthy breathing cycle. Over time this is just how we breathe, we perceive it as normal. We wonder why we are tired or feel on edge all the time.

Take a moment to lie on your back. Place one hand on your stomach and one on your chest and just breathe. As you breathe the hand on your stomach should rise as your stomach inflates like a balloon. If you don’t feel this, if you feel your stomach collapsing then you are an anxious breather.

I first discovered this at my teacher training. I couldn’t believe it, I was breathing wrong and had for years. It took me a few months before I could correct my breathing (you will have to retrain your chest and abdominal muscles to breathe correctly) but I noticed a change when I did. I also had to work through some of the emotional stuff that had lead to my anxious breathing. I broke the cycle by calming my emotions and the proper breath allowed me to stay calm. If I felt tense or anxious I would take a moment to check in with my breath and sure enough I wasn’t breathing normal. Old habits are hard to break, it is a constant practice to correct them.

Taking some more breaths now focus on the hand on your chest. Does your chest fully inflate as you breathe or is it just a slight expansion? Does the hand on your belly barely move? If this is the case you are breathing shallow, not taking full breaths. You may notice that if you breathe like this that you yawn a lot, are tired more often than you should be. Perhaps you are anxious a lot.

Our breath is a direct connection to our bodies. In the book Bodymind by Ken Dychtwald, he talks about our emotions and how it affects the way we hold our bodies. If we are insecure or anxious we will tend to concave our chest. This compresses our lungs and doesn’t allow us to take a full breath. This will lead to shallow breathing depriving the body of oxygen which leads to us drinking a lot of coffee.

Instead of reaching for that cup of joe, try taking some deep breaths. Regularly check in with your breath. Whenever a negative feeling arises in us we hold our breath in an attempt to hold back that feeling. It’s awful, we don’t want to feel it. But by doing this we are hurting our bodies. If you are working on something challenging or in a stressful situation, notice if you are holding your breath.  If you can focus on regular healthy breathing, notice how it affects your mood, your energy.

“ Show me how you breathe and I will tell you how you live.” Eugenia Gerrard

Our breath affects our lives. You can change your life by correcting the breath. In yoga the breath is prana, which is our life force. Without a strong life force we can’t live a full and happy life, we will only stumble along. Take a deep breath and live life to its fullest. Your breath may be trying to tell you something about your life, something that may need to change for the better. Take the time to explore these feelings, taking deep breaths as you do. You may be surprised at what you find and the profound changes that can be made.

Moving Through Arthritis

One of the many benefits of yoga is the range of motion that it creates in the joints. The poses that you do throughout a yoga class will take your joints through all their movements. This is healthy for the joint as it lubricates it, allowing for better movement and if you have arthritis, less pain.

Arthritis is an inflammation in the joints. There are over 100 types of it and it’s usually a result of a trauma, an infection or simply aging of the joint. The pain is generally constant and may be localized to the joint area.

You don’t have to be old to have arthritis. Hyperflexibility, which is when the tendons and ligaments in the body are stretched out, therefore not giving the joint the stability it needs, causing trauma to the joint which can develop into arthritis. I’m only 36 and due to my hyperflexibility I have arthritis in my SI joint (the triangular bone at the base of your spine). Building strength in your yoga practice is essential to protecting your joints.

Once you develop arthritis you will have it for life. A gentle yoga practice will help with the symptoms. As mentioned above the rotation of the joints will produce synovial fluid, which acts as a lubricant to help the joint move better (think of oil in a car). Mukunda Stiles created a series called the Joint Freeing Series which can be found here: http://www.crohnsforum.com/yoga/Joint-Freeing-Series.pdf

This series is wonderful for the joints. If you do it every morning, doing each exercise or just the ones specific to your area with arthritis, it will help to reduce the pain in that area and lesson the stiffness in the joint. Generally when we have pain in an area of the body we tend to move it less for fear of it hurting when we do. This can lead to a loss of range of motion and can cause issues in other parts of the body.

For example, if you have arthritis in your left hip you will move it less. This will cause stiffness in the lower back and glutes (butt). It will also cause you to overuse the right side of your body which can  lead to imbalances in the body. For instance your left side of the body will be weaker and the right side of your body will be stronger, but tight which can lead to pain. As you do the exercises notice if it is easier on one side verses the other. When doing an exercise with the left hip (like number 5 in the series) and it feels weak, focus on building strength with the exercise (add a light weight). If it feels tight then focus on the stretch (when you feel a point of stretch in the exercise, hold it and breath 3-5 breaths before resuming the movement). This will help to reduce the imbalance in your body caused by your arthritis.

For each exercise you chose, do it 3-5 times, doing slow deliberate movements, move with your breath. Don’t overdo it as that will cause more harm than help. If you find throughout the day that you are getting stiff, do a round of the exercise for that area. Remember, this isn’t a fix, but will help to ease the pain a bit, help you to keep some of your range of motion and prevent more issues from arising in other parts of the body.

 

The Present Moment, Not Such A Bad Place To Be

I took my daughter to see her first theater performance yesterday. This was a first that was very exciting for our family. I was a bit teary eyed as I watched her excited face take in all the action on stage. My mind then began to wonder to her first day of kindergarten that would be starting in two weeks. My baby girl was about to enter into the world.

Part of me wants to keep her little forever. At 5 she loves me unconditionally, she doesn't judge me and forgives easily. When her teenage years come I fear these things won't be as abundant. Fear of what the future holds and wanting to relive the good moments of the past is an easy trap to find ourselves in. It's good to ponder about what life holds and nice to visit old memories. However what isn't healthy is when we are spending more time in the past or future than we are in the present.

When we aren't fully present we miss out on things. I will often find myself lost in thought and have completely missed out on something my daughter was trying to tell me. The present moment can sometimes be a scary place as we have no control over it. Unlike the past we don't know what is going to happen and unlike the future we imagine we can't think about what the outcome should be.

Being present doesn't need to be daunting. When we are fully present we can really get involved in the moment. When I'm playing with my child I may not really be there. In my mind I would rather be reading my book than trying to summon my inner child and come up with a reason whey Polly Pocket wants to try on yet another outfit. However if I'm present I will notice the delight in my daughters eyes that I'm giving her my full attention. I hear her laugh and see her creativity as she plays. Rather than watching the clock, I'm fully engaged in a moment that in a few years I would probably give anything to have back.

By being fully present with people we are showing them that we care. That what they are doing or saying is important to us. We look them in the eyes as they talk and we are quite and listen to what they are saying without interrupting to give our point of view. By being fully present with ourselves we are giving our bodies and minds the same consideration. When we are present and really listening to ourselves, without our inner critic, we will notice things that may have otherwise gone unseen. We may notice that we are tired or not as happy as we thought. We may notice that we are smiling and content in life and that we don't need some of the excesses we were chasing that we thought were making us happy.

The next time you are talking with someone or working on a project. Focus on being present. Every time the mind wanders, bring it back. Don't scold yourself for the wandering mind, just bring it back and try again. Over time you will see that you are able to be more present. Keep a journal of all the wonderful things you experience while being present, things you may have otherwise missed out on. Notice how your relationships with people change. In a technical world it is harder than ever to be present. Go to a coffee shop or restaurant and notice how many people are on their phone rather than engaging with the people at their table. The people in our lives are more important than the posts on Facebook.

Start today, make eye contact and listen without interrupting. You'll be amazed at what being in the present moment will produce.

Hitting The Mute Button On Our Inner Critic

I’m a mom so my inner critic is constantly questioning my every move with my child. After talking to other parents I’m coming to the conclusion that this is something every parent goes through. But you don’t have to be a parent to have a strong inner critic and this critic doesn’t have to rule your life. 

Some might say that their inner critic is the thing that drives them to be great. It pushes them to give whatever they are working towards their all. This is true, to some extent. Like everything in life you need balance, this includes your critic. 

If your inner critic is talking to you more often than not that it is not healthy. When we are constantly berating ourselves we wear ourselves down. We let doubt and fear creep in. Where once we trusted our motives and ideas, we will begin to question them. Our relationships with others may begin to suffer as our inner critic may find a voice and spread it’s venom to others. 

How to gain your silence and confidence back? When your inner critic starts to talk take a moment to stop and listen. Then think about what is being said. See if you can find any truth to it or see it for the story that it is. The thing our critic is most talented at is taking something small and turning it into something more. It’s like that telephone game we played as kids. The end result is rarely what it started out to be. 

Next, once you’ve seen the critic for what it is really saying, try and figure out where it is coming from. Was it something you were always told as a child? That you aren’t good enough, that you are lazy, that you aren’t worth anything? The things we hear from childhood can stay with us for life. It will creep up on us without our even knowing it. Stopping to witness where your thoughts are really coming from can help you to diffuse them.

Often times we are hard on ourselves because we literally don't know what we are doing. This is where education is key. Find a book or talk to a friend or professional who is knowledgable on the subject. The more informed you are about your choices in life, the better you will feel about them.

Find a positive mantra to use when your inner critic starts to rear its ugly head. Something like, I am good at what I'm doing or I made the right choice. It has to be something positive and use phrases like I am, not I will be.

Bring balance back into your life and live knowing that you are doing your best as that is all we can really do. I read a quote today that I loved. "Optimist, someone who figures that taking a step backward after taking a step forward is not a disaster, it's more like a cha-cha." With that in mind, get out there and dance.

Tendonitis

Yoga is well known for its therapeutic effects. Science is starting to back up what many yogi’s have known for thousands of years. Students will start taking yoga classes because some part of their body hurts and they hope to find relief. But what if that yoga class you took to feel better is making you feel worse?

Millions of people are doing yoga and with numbers like that statistics are bound to stand out. Injuries are one of them. Books are starting to fill up shelves about the various injuries that you can get if you aren’t paying attention in your practice. The most common one I see is tendonitis.

Tendonitis is an inflammation of the tendons, a fibrous tissue that connects muscle to bone. This inflammation typically occurs due to repetitive use and improper alignment of the joint causing the tendon to rub against something instead of moving smoothly. Symptoms include pain and tenderness along a tendon, usually near a joint and pain that’s worse with movement. Tendonitis can occur anywhere in the body where there is a tendon, the most common is in the shoulders and knees. In yoga, I primarily see it in the shoulders.

If you practice any type of flow yoga (power, vinyasa, ashtanga, etc) you are susceptible to this injury. New students can develop it by not being strong enough to do a proper chaduranga. They often do the pose with slouching shoulders and their stomach reaches the ground before their chest does. This puts a lot of pressure and strain on the shoulder joint and tendons. If this is you, roll those shoulders back and down and put your knees down till you get strong enough. In stronger students it’s more an issue of not getting into the pose properly. You move fast in a flow class and there isn’t always time to get into the perfect pose. Bad alignment causes damage.

Another thing to consider with alignment is your carrying angle. This is the angle made by the axes of the upper arm and the forearm with the elbow in full extension. If you stand tall with your arms by your side, palms facing forward you can check your angle. If your forearms lay close to your thighs you have a small angle. If your forearm sticks out, creating a triangular type shape between your arm and your thigh, then you have a bigger carrying angle. (See photo below, this is a big carrying angle.)

If you have a big carrying angle you need a wider base when putting weight on your hands. When you do your flow through from plank to down dog you will need to widen your hands to about mat width (you’ll want to experiment here and see what width feels comfortable). With a wider stance it allows the shoulder joint to move correctly.

To help heal your tendonitis, which unfortunately will never fully go away, it is prone to flare-ups once you develop it, there are a few tricks. First, especially after it first presents itself, is to cut back on all poses that move the joint. Skip the flow class for a bit and try a different type of yoga. Once the flare-up has subsided you can go back to your beloved flow class. You will constantly need to be mindful of any more flare-ups. You should also cut back on your chadurangas. Go from plank to up dog to down dog, or just straight back to down dog. This will limit a lot of extra rotation in the shoulders, especially when in a typical flow class you can do this sequence dozens of times. To keep up your strength hold your plank longer before going back to down dog. If you find after a class your shoulders bother you, you need to cut back the chadurangas or perhaps cut them out completely.

To treat the inflammation ice works great. Also a topical anti-inflammatory called Arnica works well, especially if it is put on shortly after the flare-up. I’ll put mine on after class and it is usually better by the next day. In my own practice I have cut out a lot of my chadurangas and just hold my planks. This has cut back on my flare-ups considerably. It’s not easy when our bodies age or are injured, we have to learn to let go of our ego, the health of our body depends on it.

Allergy Help

Allergies are a drag, literally. They leave you drained and miserable. Medications help, but don’t always give you relief or you may choose not to take them. Fortunately there are natural remedies out there. Speaking from experience the yoga poses do work. They aren’t however a long term fix. I’ve noticed after I do them that my symptoms lesson for a few hours.

Below are some of my favorite poses to do when my allergies are really bugging me. These poses will help with the sinus congestion and that heavy feeling you can get in your chest. I recommend you do them in the morning and evening or when your allergies are at their worst. As with anything, don't over do it.

Chest inversions: These are great for draining and opening the lungs. You’ll notice after you come out of these poses that you may cough a bit. That is your lungs trying to expel any gunk that is in there from your sinuses draining. Supported shoulder stand is my favorite. Take a yoga block and place it under your sacrum and lift your legs up into the air. Make sure to have a nice arch in the back and roll the shoulders under. If it is too intense having the legs up you can prop them against a wall or put them down which will put you into a supported bridge pose. Hold for 3-5 minutes or longer if you are more experienced with the pose and its affects. Another good chest inversion is down dog.

Word of caution with the inversions, depending on your congestion you may feel a lot of pressure in your sinuses when you are doing these. If the pressure is too much make sure to come out of the pose and only hold the poses for short periods till the pressure starts to release.

Chest openers: Our lungs breathe better when our chest is open. With bad allergies breathing is more difficult so we want to help out a bit. The bridge mentioned above is great, also plow and camel pose.

Doing deep yogic breathing while in these poses will also help to open up your airway. I personally like the Ujjayi breath. Deep even inhales and exhales. If you prolong the exhale it has a calming effect.

A nice complement to these poses is a neti. This is a form of sinus rinse. To learn more about it click this link. http://www.himalayaninstitute.org/products-publications/neti-pot-products/ Make sure to read all about it, especially the safety guide.

 

 

Finding Inspiration

To feel inspiration daily is a challenge, especially when we're lacking the energy it takes to get things going. Often we fall into the slump of our everyday living and we make up excuses as to why we don’t want to give something new a try, even if that thing may take us out of the blah of our monotonous lives. Carrying on in a robot like existence, although torturous, is easy. We can think for hours, days, maybe even years about what we really want our lives to be without ever taking action. We could be on our death bed wondering how we got there and never accomplished what we truly wanted. 

In Yoga we call this repetitive pattern a samskara. Samskaras can be either emotional or physical patterns. Imagine a samskara like a canyon in your brain. It is a pattern of thought that we have done over and over again, creating a grove. In order to get out of this pattern we must create a new positive samskara. Each positive thing that we do will fill in the negative samskara and start to dig a positive one. It takes a lot of awareness and persistence to create a positive samskara as the old ones can be deeply ingrained. 

Some of our samskaras have been with us since childhood. Understanding where these samskaras come from will be helpful in ceasing them.  Finding a therapist to talk with can be helpful. If we had parents that repeatedly told us we weren’t smart enough or that we were lazy, these are thoughts that we have carried into adulthood. These thoughts will stop you from believing in yourself causing you to stall in taking the steps to chang your life.

To start your new life you need a plan, one that isn’t just in your head. Sit down and start writing. Write out what you hope to achieve overall, then brainstorm on what you need to do to get there. Don’t leave anything out, put in even the smallest details. The more details you put in, the more inspired you will become. If, at a point, you become overwhelmed by all the things you have written down and wonder how you will ever accomplish it all, break your list down into manageable bits. 

Once you’ve got your plan, your next move is to work on it daily. Especially on the days when you don’t feel like it. Why? Because those are the days that your plan will start to gather dust. You'll start to doubt it and come up with reasons to delay or leave it behind all together. Sure you may not be your most creative or inspired on those days, but you need to do something, even if it is for five minutes. I read once that in order to succeed you must implement. 

Patience is the other factor. Success doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a lot of hard work and commitment. It takes support, not just from your friends and family but from yourself. You need to believe in what you are doing. Work hard at it. Things aren’t handed to you, especially in this competitive world. 

Create a positive mantra to help build yourself up on those hard days. A mantra is a positive repetitive phrase that you say over and over in your head or out loud. An example is “I am a talented writer/artist/designer, etc.” Not “I will be” or “I hope to be” but use the phrase “I am”. Our minds are funny things, they will grab ahold of any little thing and run with it. Using the phrase “I will” can leave the mind open for doubt, vs the phrase “I am” doesn’t leave any wiggle room.

Whatever your dream is don’t delay. Start today, right after you finish this article grab a pen and paper and start writing. Don’t delay or you’ll be old and dying and wondering why you didn’t just do it.

Vijnayanamayakosha and Anandamayakosha: Our Intuition and Beliefs

Who are we, why are we here? Some of us could care less about this question, but for those of us that struggle with it daily we would love to find an answer. To achieve this we must explore our Vijnyanamayakosha.

This kosha consists of our higher mind. It is a witness for our thoughts and emotions. We use it as a guide, it is our conditioning. If we let our emotions rule our thoughts and actions then this kosha will be imbalanced. In order to heal at this level we need to tap into our inner wisdom allowing us to step out of our personal conditioning and become who we really want to be. Some may refer to this kosha as our intuition.

You need wisdom to recognize when your emotions are ruling your actions. You need to be wise enough to stop, take a breath and look at alternative options rather than a hasty reaction. It's about deconditioning your negative core beliefs and replacing them with positive ones. You may have been told your whole life that you are too anxious. This will have labled you in your mind as such. This kosha can help you to break through those beliefes and start to build new ones.

In order to break through these beliefs we can get a bit of help from the last kosha, the anandamayakosha, our bliss body. This kosha is believing in a higher power. Not necessarily god, as not all of us are religious, but spirituality in general. Knowing that you aren't tackling life alone. That there is someone or thing out there that is watching over you and guiding you. For me, when I'm overwhelmed, I'll go out into nature. I'll hike, ski or sail. Getting out into nature reminds me that I'm not alone in the world. It slows me down and allows me to take a breath so I can take the time to recognize my situation for what it is and have time to think on how I would like to change it.

These last koshas are subtle, but very important. Our beliefs shape us and rule our every day life. Take the time to write down your beliefs about yourself and society as a whole. Try to figure out if these beliefs are helping or hurting you. Pick one belief to work on, meditate on it for at least a week. See what answers you come up with for changing it for the better. Implement it slowly, be persistent. Change takes time. Once you've made progress pick another belief and do the same thing. Over time you will begin to change into the person you really want to be, not the one people told you you should be.

Yoga vs Stretching

I was in spin class this morning and a student in the class was complaining about a bad cramp in her calf. The woman next to her asked if she had stretched before class. Before she could even respond the teacher with a look of horror on her face said, “Oh you should never stretch before warming up!” She said it in such a way that one would think if you stretched before warming up your muscles that they would just snap under the pressure.

 As a yoga teacher I just kind of chuckled at this. It's always interesting to hear different views about stretching. Most often the view in a gym class is quite different from the yoga studio. According to this teachers advice we should run around the studio a few times before we start class.

As I spent the next 45 minutes spinning I got to thinking, what is the difference between stretching and yoga. They both involve lengthening the muscles. There are certainly some technique differences, but what I believe really separates the two and what makes yoga safe to do even if you aren’t “warmed up” is awareness.

At the beginning of a yoga class you start with subtle gentle movements. You ease into the poses, taking your time to assess your body and hopefully your mind. You’re going into the class knowing your muscles are tight. You slowly warm them up by stretching. Once the muscles are warm, you can then move into more challenging poses safely.

From a gyms perspective, stretching is something that is done, hopefully, but not always, at the end of class. Not a lot of time goes into the stretches, they just hope to target the main muscles that you worked in class. Proper form is not generally taught and the stretches are briefly held. But honestly, the classes we go to at the gym we aren’t going to for a good stretch.

The point I’m trying to come around to is that yes, you can stretch if your muscles aren’t warmed up, you just have to go slow and not power into the stretch. Yes, having warm muscles does allow you to get deeper into a stretch and is safer for the muscle (although it should be mentioned here that it is easy to overstretch a muscle when they are warm, causing the same damage as if you went too fast into a "cold" stretch). Again this comes back to awareness of what is going on in your body and how to proceed from there is up to you and how it feels in your body.