I’m in the down stretch, just two more weeks of yoga-teacher training, and I feel like a college student cramming for final exams. I’ve even pulled a few late nighters (no, not all-nighters; when you’re over 40 the body just shuts down at a certain point, even with caffeine). Did I procrastinate and leave too many of my assignments ’til the end? Yes. Did I underestimate how long it would take to read and comprehend my yoga anatomy book? No, I knew this one would be a beyotch, but it still didn’t kick me in the ass enough to start earlier.
Between work, family, my yoga and meditation practice, deciphering Sanskrit yoga terms, a little time for Twittering, and all my yoga-teacher training assignments, my dance card is totally full. It is during times like these where I just crave a little hugasana—you know, that feeling when a friend or someone you love comes up and gives you a big bear hug that lets you know everything is going to be all right. I’m not talking about one of those wimpy-ass hugs; I’m talking the full-body-contact hug where you feel yourself melting into the other person, the kind where you hold on just a little longer to let those healing effects of the hugasana soak into your body, all the way to your internal organs. What an incredible way to reduce stress!
Thankfully my husband was schooled in the fine art of hugasana and my family members are not afraid to give big, healthy hugs.
Like all forms of yoga, hugasana is completely therapeutic and aids in long-term health and happiness. I’m sure there are even scientific studies to prove that hugs help reduce stress levels. Why not try some today? The cool thing about a hug is that you don’t have to wait to get one; just go for it and reach out to someone and get your very own hugasana session going! Let the hugs flow this week, and share a healthy habit-forming hugasana high with a special person in your life.
To accompany my stress reduction hugasana practice this week, I’m offering up this yoga theme song, a little stress-reduction reggae melody from Bob Marley, reminding us to not worry; everything is just gonna be all right… Jai!
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!
One of the excuses I hear quite often is, “I’m too old to practice yoga,” or, “I’m not flexible enough to practice yoga.”
Well, for all you naysayers out there, I’ve got a story that will prove you wrong. Check out this article and pictures from theDaily Mail about Bette Calman. She is an 83-year-young yogini from Australia and my new personal role model and hero. She has been teaching yoga for over 40 years and can do poses like peacock pose that I can’t even do. She still teaches 11 classes a week!
What I find interesting about the article is that she claims she is able to do more today than she was able to do 50 years ago. She has become more flexible and grown into poses she couldn’t do. I’m so excited because that means there is hope for me! Maybe someday I will be able to get my feet to the floor in downward dog or master that headstand.
To quote Bette, “You’re never too old. The body is a remarkable instrument. It can stretch and stretch, and get better all the time. Forget age.”
Bette, I’m taking your advice—forgetting about age and working toward getting stronger and more flexible each and every day. I’m going to make my body better with age. I wrote a while back that when I went to the doctor this year for my physical, I had actually grown in height. I believe my practice of yoga has helped me to stretch my spine and grow, instead of shrinking down in height due to the aging process. Not to mention what it has done to relieve my back pain.
I don’t think I’ll ever walk out of yoga class with perfectly set hair and pearls, but my goal is to be walking out of yoga class when I’m in my eighties. Bette says that she always comes out of a yoga class feeling on top of the world, and I feel the same way too. Bette you rock!
Do you know what seriousness disorder is? It is a plague that impacts 80 to 90 percent of adults in America. Apparently, we’re all just a little too stressed out, too serious about ourselves, and forget to take the time each day to laugh! I’m guilty as charged and was thrilled when I got to attend a laughter yoga class as part of my yoga teacher training that was led by an amazing woman by the name of Sarah Uma.
Sarah is a certified laughter yoga instructor and started us out with a general introduction to the importance of laughter and the background of laughter yoga by watching the documentary Laughology, which I highly recommend. Next, she walked us through an hour-long laughter yoga class that I have to admit was one of the best yoga workouts I’ve had in a long time. Seriously, my sides were aching, and my abdominals were a little sore the next day from all the belly laughs, but the yoga high I got from all the laughing was well worth it!
So, if you are wondering what the heck you do in a laughter yoga class, here are a few of the laugh exercises she took us through:
Walking around the room, pointing at each other and laughing. It sounds a little brutal but it is serious fun.
With a partner, we sat back to back, and felt the vibrations of the other person laughing (this is really cool and something I would recommend you try with a friend or lover).
We all put a serious issue we had in our hand and then let everyone else in the room laugh at it. This seriously was very therapeutic.
When is the last time you laughed for over an hour? I’m telling you, this is “serious” fun and some of the best medicine I’ve had in a long time.
Laughter yoga clubs were started by Indian physician Dr. Madan Kataria about 15 years ago. Dr. Kataria realized that laughter was a powerful way to heal, so one day he went to his local park and recruited people to laugh with him. His laughter movement is a worldwide phenomenon, and today there are over six thousand laughter yoga clubs in 60 countries. I seriously want to join or start my own yoga club, but I don’t think I’ll be too effective recruiting strangers at the park to laugh with me. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.
Here are a few ways you can get more laughter into your life right away:
Get together with a group of your close friends and laugh. You can laugh with anyone, but I know that when I get together with my good friends, I laugh a lot!
Listen to laughter yoga sessions on Blog Talk Radio. Here’s two that I know about:
“Four Directions Laugh Radio” has interchangeable daily themes, which presently include: “To the Moon Tuesdays”; “Wiggle Wednesdays;” “Thirsty Thursdays”; and “Squeeze and Release Fridays.” Sessions run Tuesday through Friday at 9:30 a.m. ET. Call in to (347) 539-5612 or listen/instant chat at www.blogtalkradio.com/fourdirectionslaughradio.
Join the online virtual laughter club It’s Time to Laugh!. This weekly laughter yoga session is hosted by Laughing Lady Amy. For one hour each week, they chant, clap, dance, laugh, and celebrate life. Call in to (347) 205-9249 or listen/instant chat at www.blogtalkradio.com/Laughing-Lady.
Laugh Your Way There—A Laughter Yoga Workout for Commuters. I seriously could have used this CD when I was fighting the morning commute every day! I can’t think of a better way to utilize the time stuck in your car on your way to work than to elevate your mood with laughter.
Laughology—The revolutionary new film about a new way to laugh. This DVD provides a great background on the invention of laughter yoga and the importance of laughter in our daily lives.
Life is serious, death is serious, work is serious. Why not start taking laughter seriously? I, for one, would like to join the ranks of the 10 to 20 percent of Americans who don’t suffer from serious disorder.
If you are into laughter yoga or teach it, I would love to connect with you, so please leave a comment below.
Images: Porceline Clown – Mari Carmen Guinovart, Happy Clown – Frank Burgey
On my journey to find the best yoga DVDs, I’m taking a lot of time to check out those geared toward back care. I suffer from scoliosis and for years I’ve just lived with the pain and tight muscles in my back (I have a really high tolerance for pain, but even that was starting to fail me). I was lucky that I found yoga before my back issues got worse, and now I’m a huge proponent of the amazing benefits of yoga to help heal back pain. If you are tired of living with the pain and want an alternative to drugs or surgery, than I really encourage you to give yoga a try*.
Rodney Yee’s Back Care Yoga DVD provides an excellent 58-minute yoga workout that will have your back feeling stretched, strengthened, and blissed out! If you are not familiar with Rodney, he’s an internationally known yoga instructor and the star of over 30 instructional videos from Gaiam that have sold millions. He claims that this back workout comes from a culmination of his 21 years of practicing yoga and his obsession for back care. The workout is broken down into three sections as follows:
Exploration: Through gentle yoga moves, Rodney covers your spine and all the muscles in your back to help provide a better understanding of how your back works. It’s a back lesson and workout all rolled up like a yoga mat, and by the time you finish this class, your back will be loosening up and your spine realigned.
Strength and Flexibility: Next, Rodney moves through specific yoga poses meant to build up the strength in your back and to improve your flexibility. It’s a really great flow that strengthens your core muscles to support long-term relief and prevent back pain (in layman’s terms that means you’re gonna need to work on those stomach muscles if you want to strengthen your back).
Restoration: This portion is very slow, but that’s okay because it includes lots of long, yummy poses that really stretch the back. They couldn’t have picked a better word to describe this section, because the tension in your back will be released, and your back will feel renewed. If you have a really stressful day at work, I highly recommend popping in this portion of the DVD to relax and release your stress. I think this would be a great section to do before going to bed.
I had to laugh because one of the practice guidelines on the liner notes is: Practice in a warm, quiet place free from distraction. Avoid practicing in direct sunlight. I guess that doesn’t apply to Rodney, because he is rocking this back-loving practice in direct sunlight on a beautiful rocky beach in Maui, Hawaii. I think just sitting and watching the DVD in this tropical setting gave me my daily required vitamin D supplement from the sun.
If you enjoy a high-energy yoga workout, this is not the DVD for you. This is an all ages yoga show, ideal for a beginner yoga student and those who are experiencing back pain and want a slow, gentle workout. Rodney does a great job of walking through the poses, and I loved his verbal cues about breathing into each pose to release built-up tension.
I am not giving high marks for the music on the DVD; it sounded canned and, thankfully, just blended into the background most of the time. I think the sound of the waves crashing up on the rocks might have been a better musical accompaniment.
Here are a few tips to get the maximum benefit from the DVD. First, watch the interview with Baxter Bell, M.D. and Rodney before you do the workout. It provides encouragement for those with back pain, and includes an informative overview on the back care yoga workout. I highly recommend watching the workout sections next to get a feel for the moves and how Rodney utilizes various props to help with the poses. You will need the following props: a yoga mat, brick, strap, chair, bolster, and blanket.
If You Sit At a Desk All Day, This DVD is For You!
I’m sure one of the biggest causes of my back pain is the way that I sit at my desk, hunched over my computer all day. Rodney just made my desk life so much better by providing a set of poses I can do to help me maintain proper posture. Now instead of sitting around, waiting for my browser to bring up Web pages, I’ll be rotating my pelvis, doing back bends, twists, and opening my hips. During conference calls I can do a sitting version of cat-cow pose to loosen up my back.
There is also a highly informative interview with Baxter Bell, M.D., who really talks up the amazing affects that yoga can have in improving the health of your back.
Here’s my overall score of Back Care Yoga based on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the best.
Yoga workout: 9
Music: 2
Bonus features: 9
Repeat factor: 10 (meaning the likelihood of me doing this yoga workout repeatedly)
*Always see a doctor first before starting any new exercise program. A doctor can make sure the problem isn’t something serious and determine if yoga is the proper exercise program to help strengthen and maintain a healthy back.
