Category Archives: Yoga

Easing Pain with Yoga

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Erich Schiffman Moving Into Stillness 2009

There are many reasons to practice yoga although it is essentially a practice intended to make us wiser, calmer, and better able to understand things. If you breathe, you can do yoga. If you are willing to pay attention to your thoughts and feelings, you can do yoga. And if you suffer from chronic pain, yoga can be a powerful compliment to physical therapy, medical treatment or surgery. The key to understanding chronic pain , pain lasting longer than 3 months, is exactly what modern science and yoga teaches: a mind-body connection that doesn’t differentiate physical pain, such as chronic neck pain, and emotional pain, such as depression. Practicing healing breathing and meditations, done anywhere, and at any time, can diminish this kind of suffering.

Calming the Nervous System
Our brain does a fine job of alerting us to incoming threat signals for our safety, but with chronic pain, the body and the nervous system becomes hyper alert, out of proportion with the actual physical pain. Stanford University professor  Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. ,in her book Yoga For Pain Relief, explains how you can thank our nervous system and its ability to learn in response to experience, called neuroplasticity,  for that. When you balance on one leg, she writes, the nervous system  becomes  more sensitive  to signs that you are in danger of falling. It also becomes more skilled at using that information to trigger a physical response to keep you in balance. The same holds true for pain, in that the nervous system “gets better” at being in pain, detecting threat and producing the protective pain response. It turns out this also leads to increased sensitivity in areas of the brain that detect any other kinds of conflict. Neuroplasticity can also be a solution, she writes. You have to teach your mind and body something new. The Yoga Sutra , the classic  text on yoga , describes  conflicts and false perceptions, such as” I am never going to get rid of this pain”, as Avidya. Avidya literally means “incorrect comprehension.”It clouds of perception of things.
3 Minute –Meditation

Teach yourself something new by redirecting your mind to your breath, the life force in all of us. Practice this simple meditation to reprogram the biology of any pain you have, and allow your body to heal and thrive. (Adapted from Emotional Freedom by Judith Oroloff M.D.)
•    Find a comfortable quiet place where you won’t be interrupted. Settle into a  relaxed position, or prop yourself  on your bed, with pillows supporting you, so you won’t fall asleep.
•    Focus on your breath to quiet your thoughts. Eyes closed, gently place your awareness on your breath. Be conscious of only breathing in and out. Notice your thoughts, but don’t attach any judgment to them. Just let them float away & gently return to focusing on your breath. Relax a little more.
•    Breathe in calm, breathe out stress. Let yourself feel the sensuality of inhaling as you first fill your chest and then fill the abdomen, and exhale as you release the abdomen and then finally empty the top of the lungs. This stretches your spine and straightens your back. With each slow, deep breath, feel yourself  inhaling calm, sweet as the summer jasmine, then exhale frustration. All negativity is released. Your body unwinds, lulling your biology. You’re cocooned by the safety of stillness. Keep refocusing on your breath and the calm. Only the calm.
There are many ways to describe the meaning of yoga beside the classic definition of one with the divine. No matter what name we use for the divine, anytime we feel in harmony with a higher power, that  too, is yoga. One of the most influential yoga teachers of our time, Sri T. Krishnamacharya,  spent  most of his life helping people with all sorts of illness. For one person, it might have been a more physical practice, for another, prayer and meditation might have been more appropriate. What ever you choose, practice it if only for a few minutes each day, as simple as breathing .

Connie Aronson is an ACSM Health & Fitness Specialist located at the  YMCA in Ketchum, Idaho. She is currently at her annual yoga retreat, with big Montana skies.

In Health, Small Changes Count

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Regarding your health, small changes matter.

Popping up into a handstand  is easy. All you need is straight strong arms and  up  you  go. I used to do them easily. But then I developed chronic nerve pain in one of my legs, and going up was out of the question. I avoided them for years in yoga class. When my symptoms healed and  it was time to go up, fear took over. All I could think of  was buckling, which I did, again and again. In  Fierce Medicine, author and yoga pioneer Ana Forrest  writes about a Brave-Hearted Path. What if we became the hunter, and tracked down our fear, to turn from prey to predator? What if we let go of the old stories that hold us back and make a very small change? For most of us, small changes are realistic and attainable. The next time I tried a handstand, I tracked down the fear, (Have fun!) and up I popped, exhilarated! All it took was one small change in a very brief amount of time. When it comes to your health, tiny steps can help change a laundry list of habits.

Four Real New Year’s Resolutions

Access  Readiness.

Motivation has to come from within. Ask yourself what is the real objective you are after. Keep asking “why”. Uncovering the real reason of saying “I want to lose weight”, with further prodding, might really be that you want to have more energy and not miss out on hiking in the Pioneers next spring with friends.

Set your intent

Instead of waking up, tossing some coffee down our throats  and  rush  headlong into our day, Forrest suggests that you  set your intent, and not  make it overwhelming. Make one change that appeals most to you. If you are tired of a stiff neck from sitting at your computer, you might add 10   big shoulder rolls in each direction every hour you spend at your desk that day. Schedule a long overdue massage. If it’s out of control eating that bothers you, promise yourself to sit at the table every time you eat.

Small Enough Steps

Everyone knows it’s a good idea to park your car further away from where you need to be. Not only are the extra steps good for you, but it is also a time when you can take notice of the day. For those few moments, appreciate the environment you live in, the sun, or even the lack of traffic that day, and be grateful for that. Instead of feeling guilty about not getting on the treadmill for an hour, try just 10 minutes. You’ll be energized by the effort, and may even stay on it longer that you’d thought you would.

Nip an Unhealthy Habit in the Bud

As you strive to make health-enhancing resolutions materialize, Edward Philips, editor of the Harvard Health School Report, recommends taking a good look at any unhealthy habits that you can’t seem to shake. A daily diet of cookies for lunch could wreck havoc on your energy later in the day. Likewise, excessive amounts of time surfing online, for example, can leave you less opportunity to engage in healthier pursuits, such as deepening social ties, or a walk.

Your day to day choices, no matter if it’s practicing handstands or healthier eating, all count to help  bring vitality and well-being in the New Year. Happy holidays!

Connie Aronson ACSM Fitness Specialist located at the YMCA in Ketchum, Idaho.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Be present, be happy

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A good life: Love & happiness The story goes: a man is driving on a highway listening to the radio, when suddenly there is an announcement:” On the 401, a man is driving in the wrong direction. Use extreme caution.” He looks around and says: “Only ONE person is driving in the wrong direction? There are hundreds of them going in the wrong direction!” Isn’t it so easy to point a finger, get angry, or blame the other guy? Nawang Gehlek Rimpoche, the grand nephew of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, in his book, Good Life Good Death, sites the dichotomy: we are all basically beautiful human beings, but our particular behavior and attitudes can get in the way of our happiness.

Buddhists believe that you become enlightened when you haven’t a negative thought. Scientists now know beyond a doubt that potent physiological states, like anger, envy or blame, affect our health as much as could high triglyceride. Good health is more than the physical habits of our daily lives. How we experience our lives matters. Factors such as isolation, depression, anger, jealousy and hostility not only rob our true nature of happiness, but can contribute to heart disease. Thoughts can become biology. In her book The Heart Speaks, Dr. Mimi Guarneri tells how suppresses emotions, or ones we are unconscious of, or just simmer on the back burner indefinitely, eventually manifest as physical symptoms. She illustrates how emotionally stressful events, particularly anger, precede and may even trigger the onset of a heart attack.

The heart has an electromagnetic current 60 times higher in amplitude than the field of the brain. It also emits an energy field five thousand times stronger than the brain’s. What, Guarneri asks, if it’s not the brain telling the heart what to feel, but the heart informing the rest of the body? What if, she asks, changing the mind actually involves changing the heart? How can we stop pointing to the other guy, and be here in the present, to allow more happiness in our lives?

Radiate love and appreciation

Anger-provoking situations play havoc on heart rate responses and blood pressure, as we all know. Levels of a protein, IL-6, a maker of inflammation that may cause arterial thickening, and the stress hormones cortisol and epinephrine also kick in to push cholesterol and blood sugar levels higher. The heart and nervous system rhythm’s become chaotic, adversely affecting the whole body. Positive feelings, such as love and appreciation produce heart-rhythm coherence, and increased harmony and health, Guarneri writes. Since the heart is the most powerful oscillator in the body, it has the capacity to synchronize other organs in unison. Heart-rate patterns shift to orderly ones when a person enters a loving, appreciative state, she writes. Forgiveness, optimism and gratitude, topics she says would have been dismissed as irrelevant in medical school, are as much a part of heart disease equation as blood levels. A shift in our thinking, filled with gratitude, can help us connect to something larger than our individual experiences, whether to others, nature or a higher power. May this New Year be filled with happiness and big love.

Copyright Š 2011 Express Publishing Inc.

All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited.

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week’s issue.

Connie Aronson is an ACSM Health & Fitness Specialist and an IDEA Elite Certified personal trainer. She is located at the YMCA  in Ketchum, Idaho.

Restorative Napping

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Restorative Yoga- we could all use a little nap

We could all use a little nap. It seems that many of us just keep going until too much stress upsets our normal balance.

According to the American Psychological Association, a third of us are living with extreme stress that can lead to high blood pressure, insomnia, anxiety, heart disease and a host of other health problems. We worry, plan, over-schedule and maybe not pay enough attention to what’s going on inside ourselves. Maybe we are simply exhausted. Restorative yoga is a way to help you relax deeply for a few minutes a day. And no, it’s not an infomercial.

Here is where modern science and the ancient practice of yoga merge. B.K.S. Iyengar, author of the classic book “Light on Yoga,” first introduced props and blankets to his students who had difficulty holding specific yoga poses. He then discovered that he could help them recover from their illnesses and injuries with supported gentle yoga poses that not only stretched the spine in healthy ways but also enabled students to rest deeply in the poses.

Iyengar taught that to relax is to cut tension, and as you practice restorative poses you feel harmonious and balanced. This works by returning the nervous system to its natural state, a state in which the body has the ability to heal itself. The goal when doing the poses is to be aware and passive, not falling asleep. (The sleep state is different from the state of deep relaxation).

The Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center studied restorative yoga and looked at its positive impact on emotional wellness in ovarian cancer patients. Imaging studies show significant increases in left-sided brain activity when one relaxes or meditates, which is associated with healing positive emotional states.

In her book “Relax and Renew,” renowned yoga teacher Judith Lasater suggested thinking of restorative poses as taking a short holiday right in your home that it adds to one’s energy rather than subtracting from it. It’s particularly helpful when you feel tired or weak, during big life-changing events, or recovering from an illness.
Race To The Top

“Twenty minutes of restorative yoga is the equivalent to a one-hour nap,” Lasater wrote.

And that’s just the energy benefits. The healing benefits abound.

Here are two simple poses to try: one at home, and the other at the office. The first one is Legs–Up-the-Wall–Pose. It refreshes your legs, especially swollen jet-lagged legs, enhances the health of your circulatory system by the mild inversion and gently calms the nervous system. (Don’t do this pose if you’re pregnant or if you have sciatica.) From a seated position on the floor, swing your legs up onto a wall, so that your tailbone and butt are not lifting off the floor. Your back should be completely supported by floor. If your chin is lifted towards the ceiling put a small pillow under your head to support your neck. Your chin should be slightly lower than your forehead, not strained. Keep your legs straight and relaxed with your arms comfortably out to the sides, palms turned up. Relax and take several long, slow breaths. Feel like your back is completely supported by the floor and your chest is open and free. Stay here for five to 10 minutes, and take your time when you come out of the pose.

The second nap is Desk Forward Bend, nice for a break at the office, at your desk. Lasater likens it to school days when she would simply lean forward and rest her head on her desk. Place your chair near your desk so you can lean forward, feet flat on the floor, and then lean forward and place your folded arms on the desk. Let the desk support your arms, head and worries, and relax completely for three to five minutes. When you’re ready to come up, inhale, and use your arms to sit up. Sit for one more long breath before carrying on with your day, refreshed.

Connie Aronson is an American College of Sports Medicine-certified, ACE Gold Level status-certified, and an IDEA Elite Level-certified personal trainer. She works at High Altitude Fitness and the YMCA in Ketchum.

Originally published in the Idaho Mountain Express – Friday, February 15, 2008