Well, I’ve managed to do it again—load up my plate with too much work, too many extracurricular activities, and still find time to spend with my family and friends. Plus, add in a little travel away from home, and, needless to say, the first thing I drop off my list is my daily yoga and meditation practice. Why is that always the first thing to go? When we get busy and stressed, yoga is probably the most important thing to keep on our to-do lists.
After a two-week period off my regular routine, I started to feel tired, sluggish, my back started to ache, and I was getting headaches. My body was going through some form of DT, and I was craving that yoga high.
I have to admit, I’ve been struggling with how much yoga I need to make each day. As part of my yoga-teacher training, one of the required reading assignments is a book titled Yoga: Mastering the Basics, by Sandra Anderson and Rolf Sovik. At the end of the book, they provide a sampler of daily practices that includes asanas, breathing exercises, and activities that you can do early morning, midmorning, midday, midafternoon, late afternoon, early evening, and before bedtime. Whaaat? I’m having trouble fitting in one session per day; there’s no way I’m going to fit in all of that into my day planner. After reading the section preceding this (yep, I’m one of those people who skips to the ending), I was relieved to know they were not suggesting I practice all day long; rather, this was a menu to select from in order to plan a daily practice. What is most important is for us to create our own sadhana—the combination of yoga disciplines that we choose and the effort we put into them.
I’m setting a new intention…somehow, some way I am going to make the time every day to make the yoga, even if it is just for a few moments to sit in silence and meditate.
So, how am I going to do it?
– Start my day with yoga and meditation. Yes, the woman who is not a morning person is going to start her days off with exercise and meditation. If I do my practice first, there’s no way I can blow it off or cut it out when my schedule falls to crap. In the morning my mind is fresh and uncluttered, and my practice helps set the tone for the rest of the day. Plus, when I practice in the morning, I get that lasting yoga-high feeling all day long.
– Be realistic about how much time I have. If I don’t have time for an hour or more, I’ll do a shorter class or just focus on some basic back stretches, breathing, and meditation to start my day.
– Ask fellow yogis and yoginis from the Twitter yoga community (like I did with @lissabliss) to make a pact with me to keep up our daily practice and check in with each other for motivation. Nothing like being held accountable by a bunch of fellow tweeties!
– Be realistic about the fact that some days it is just not going to happen, and for those days that I’m chained to my computer, I’ll do some chair yoga at my desk or meditate or chant in my car during rush hour traffic. I’m not going to beat myself up anymore if I don’t get in a full practice.
– Take a few minutes every night before bed to stretch and meditate and, if I’m really lucky, set time aside for a yoga Nidra session.
Really, now that I think about it, I can practice yoga every day, even if I don’t find time to jump on my mat. The yoga sutras can be applied each and every day in all my activities off the mat.
I’m in yoga-teacher training, which has added to my daily demands, but I’m hopeful that when I do become a full-fledged teacher, I’m fortunate enough to have a regular schedule of classes that will also keep me focused.
Tell me how you make time each day to make the yoga, and if you would like to help be a cheerleader for me on Twitter, send me a tweet @downwarddog, and I’ll send some motivational mantras your way as well. I’m going to start using a Twitter hashtag at #yogateam to start a community of yoga lovers and supporters. Aahhhh I’m feeling a lot of love in the room already!
If you practice yoga, don’t you just love the way you feel after you finish a class? You know what I’m talking about—that tingling feeling throughout your body, a sense of inner peace and happiness, and that heady feeling of being high. If you don’t practice yoga, I’m sure what I just described may have made you feel a little like a kid in high school hearing about how his friends got high the night before and wanting to get in on the fun. Seriously, if you have not tried yoga, it is one of the best highs I know and one that won’t leave you feeling like crap the next day.
So, I got to thinking about it and wondered what is it exactly about yoga that leaves me feeling high. I used to think it was the concentrated, deep breathing for over a full hour, all that oxygen coursing through my lungs and making its way to each of my internal organs and filling up my brain with delicious nutrients. Yeah, that is good stuff, but it has to be more than just the breathing.
During a typical workday, I sit in a chair, head bent down, looking at a computer screen, right hand clenched around a mouse, left hand perched on the keyboard, and as much as I try to watch my posture, I’m sure that I am slouched over throughout a good portion of the day. When I finally finish working and disengage the mouse from my gnarled hand, I am a big, fat pile of stress. Yoga allows me to stretch and release the tension that built up in my neck, shoulders, and back muscles. After an hour of breaking a sweat, stretching my muscles, and chanting Om with a room full of people, I’m suddenly relaxed and smiling again. When I practice after work, the high I get is the direct result of my body saying, “Thank you, Maria. Let’s try doing this yoga thing a little more often to relieve all that pent-up stress you keep throwing at us.”
Then there is the music that is played during class. Listening to an awesome playlist and “dancing” through an incredible yoga flow is the perfect prescription for making me happy, so the music element must contribute as well to the overall feeling of being high.
Still searching for the elusive source of the yoga high, I thought about the practice of setting an intention in my classes and how I often dedicate my practice to someone I love or who needs some special love and attention. I’m thinking an hour of selfless giving and taking the focus off of me and putting it on someone else who really needs it could leave me feeling a little giddy.
I’ve finally come to the realization that there is a myriad of inputs that creates this overall feeling of the yoga high. I’m not done exploring the origins of the yoga high, and I’m going to continue to write about it on The Daily Downward Dog. I’d love to hear your reasons why you think yoga gives you a high or about a particular class or place where you did yoga and got an incredible high.
How often do you find an inexpensive activity that can make you feel so great, not give you the munchies, make you feel paranoid, put on weight, or make you feel rotten the following day? We’ve got to pass the yoga high around to others!
My ego thinks she is pretty damn hot. She is always trying to come in and take over my thoughts when I’m entering the yoga zone, deep into a meditation session, or, I’m sad to say, when I’m supposed to be relaxing in savasana. Recently, I was relieved to learn that it is natural for our ego minds to try to take over our thoughts. I thought maybe my mind was just a little too hyperactive, jumping around everything from what I’m going to eat after class to what I’m going to write about next on the Daily Downward Dog instead of allowing me to go inward and focus on my yoga practice.
The thing about our ego minds that really kind of stinks is that they want us to be unhappy and to think negative thoughts. Really? What a beeyotch.
Well, guess what, ego? I’m onto your little games now, and I’m going on the record to say, “You are not the mistress of my mind.” I’ll let you have your fun, but I’ll be waiting patiently for my thoughts about my breath and my body to drift back to me, allowing me to bliss out and be present.
Go on now, go, walk out the door, just turn around now, cause your not welcome anymore*. My daily meditation practice is helping me turn off the fire hose of thoughts running rapidly through my mind, and instead taking me to a happy spiritual place.
*Music Monday Theme Song – “I Will Survive” (without my ego mind)
Can’t you just hear Julie Andrews blasting out those lyrics while twirling around on a beautiful Austrian mountainside? The sound of music can just sweep you away, and I got to have one of those Julie Andrews musical moments last week while practicing yoga.
I showed up for yoga class just at it was about to start, and when I walked in the room, the class was jam-packed. I surveyed the room quickly to find a small patch of floor that I could shnorkel* my mat into, but there was no room left. Everyone in the class just kind of gave me a look like, ‘Don’t even try to fit in here next to me.’ I looked up at the instructor, and she waved me up to the front of the class as she picked up her mat and motioned me to take her place on the floor. Not wanting to further disrupt the class, I walked to the front of the room, placed my mat horizontally, and, with a huge amount of unease and angst, I started class with everyone staring at me.
I always wanted to know what it felt like to be a yoga instructor, and now I was getting my opportunity with 20 people facing me head on. I decided the best way to get over my stage fright was by closing my eyes and just getting into the flow. I really like closing my eyes and losing myself during yoga class, so it ended up being a really great class.
After savasana we were all seated for the final moments of class, and the instructor asked us to participate in a few chants of om. Everyone took a deep breath and started their om, and when they did, this beautiful wave of sound washed over me. I was surprised by how loud and strong the sound was as it reverberated off the walls in the front of the room. It felt like I was being bathed in a glorious, magical song—it was uplifting and soothing. Just as the first wave had settled over me, another one came in just as forceful, and I allowed it to flow over me with delight.
If you ever get the chance to face the oms, I highly recommend it. Just like Maria spinning around in the mountains in the Sound of Music, it was a religious experience that I’ll never forget.
*shnor-kel (shnôrkl) verb – a word that was originally developed by Maria’s husband that has crept into her daily vocabulary meaning to connive, sneak, or get yourself into place in a line, an event, or a crowded area. Used in a sentence…That dude shnorkeled his way into the mosh pit to get a better view of the stage.
I’ve always had this unwonted curiosity about the mile-high club. It just sounds so forbidden, and who doesn’t love to break a rule every once in a while. However, with all the airline regulations these days, I would not recommend getting caught in the bathroom in an embarrassing pose.
It seemed like there had to be a better way to have fun and make a long flight more enjoyable, and that is how I discovered a completely different way to cut tension and get an amazing high while 30,000 feet above sea level—airplane yoga.
Next time you are sitting on that long flight, bored, desperately trying to inch away from the overweight seatmate invading your personal space, instead of reaching for a drink from the cocktail cart, pull out your handy pocket-size book of airplane yoga poses. A fantastic book, Airplane Yoga contains 45 yoga poses that you can do from the comfort of your airplane seat—no mat required.
If your muscles are sore from sitting or you need to calm your jitters, try a few Mile-High Head Tilts or Runway Spinal Rolls to increase your circulation and set you back on course. Seated next to that chatty person who won’t stop talking? I can’t think of a better way to get them to shut up than by doing a few airplane-friendly downward dogs. If you want to meet someone on a flight, I’m sure doing yoga on an airplane would be a great conversation starter.
On a business trip and need to clear your mind before your big meeting in New York City? Try a little Meal Tray Meditation.
This book is small and designed in the style of an airplane emergency safety card, so it can easily be tucked away in your carry on bag or briefcase.
Thank you, Bess Abrahams and Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, yoga travel goddesses, for this smart and funny yoga practice. I can’t wait to try these yoga poses on my next trip, get my yoga high, and finally become a member of the mile-high (yoga) club!
If you ever get the chance to face the oms, I highly recommend it. Just like Maria spinning around in the mountains in the 
