Friday Q&A: Yoga Tricks for Better Sleep (Rerun)

The Dreaming by Paul Gauguin

Nina: At the end of my post Yoga You Can Do In Bed, I asked for additional suggestions from our readers. Caryn Dickman, a yoga teacher at Piedmont Yoga Studio (see here), wrote in with such good suggestions, I decided, with her permission, to post them here. What I love about her suggestions is that she obviously listened to her body and used her creativity to come up with "yoga tricks" that worked for her. 

 Caryn: I have found a way of doing Child's pose in bed using the pillows that doesn't disturb my partner and allows me to bring the awareness inwards when I can't seem to calm myself through the breath. After 5-10 minutes propped on pillows and still under the covers I find that my mind slows down enough to start benefiting from watching the breath. I eventually crawl back to sleeping positions and then concentrate on watching the inhale and exhale through expanding and contracting the back of the rib cage left to right, etc. I usually fall back to sleep, and a very deep sleep, after doing that.

Another "yoga trick" I do is when I wake up and feel anxiety in my body. I have this need to move some or else sleep will not come. So I stand near the side of the bed in the dark and pay attention to the inhale and exhale. I then very slowly lift my arms towards the sky and then slightly bend my knees as I come forward to a very gentle Uttanasana. I keep bending my knees more so that I come to a gentle squat (very gentle squat) and let my arms dangle towards the ground. When I reach the ground I slowly start to roll into my back body to come on up. I do this a very times. Again, very slowly and gently watching the breath throughout. It tends to get rid of the anxiety in my body and then I can either just go back to sleep or do the Child's pose I mentioned above and I go back to bed.

Nina: I think I'm going to try that under-the-covers Child's pose myself sometime soon. Anyone else have some good yoga tricks up their sleeves?

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Thinking about the Wisdom of Yoga (Rerun)

by Nina 

Gaudi Stairway by Brad Gibson

“You have taught the essence of yoga
is equanimity, Krishna;

but since the mind is so restless,

how can that be achieved?


The mind is restless, unsteady,

turbulent, wild, stubborn;

truly, it seems to me
as hard to master as the wind.”

—The Bhagavad Gita

In my post What is Healthy Aging? I added “wisdom” to the list of tools yoga provides for healthy aging. But since then, I’ve been thinking about how reading a bunch of wise words in an ancient (or modern) text is so different than actually living wisely. Haven’t you all watched someone close to you—or even yourself—be drawn irresistibly into self destructive behavior, even as they know exactly how unwise they’re being? As Arjuna says to Krishana above, the mind seems to me, too, “as hard to master as the wind.”

In The Bhagavad Gita, Krishna replies to Arjuna’s question above by saying that constant practice and detachment are what allow you to move toward wisdom.

"You are right, Arjuna: the mind

is restless and hard to master;

but by constant practice and detachment

it can be mastered in the end."

It is the regular practice of mindfulness that allows us to observe our patterns of behavior and ultimately begin to make changes. In his book Yoga and the Quest for the True Self, Stephen Cope describes it this way: 

"Acknowledge the pattern. Study it. Observe it. Respect its power. And, if possible, make an intention to interrupt it just at its very end point. For most of us, that endpoint is the reaction to the reaction. Self-hatred. Negative self-talk. Moralizing. Guilt. Let’s begin by deleting a little of that, and then a little more.

"When we pare away judgment, something remarkable happens. We’re free, for the first time, to observe how the pattern really works."

He says our behavior patterns are samskaras, which are like ruts in a road that deepen through repetition so becomes inevitable that a car will slide into them unawares. But with our newly gained awareness of our patterns, we can use tapas, the energy of restraint, to stop the slide:

"Tapas requires a particular kind of attention—precisely the kind required when driving on a rutted road. We need to be awake. We need to be concentrated in order to avoid the edges of the ruts. And sometimes we need to pull the car wheels—with considerable effort—out of the ridges in the road."

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Men and Yoga: A Yogi Views Interview with Baxter!

by Baxter

Talking with Antonio Suasys

For the first time in about a year, it happened again. Last Wednesday—although I had not exactly noticed myself—one of my long time students, Mara, leaned over to me as class at Berkeley Ironworks Climbing Gym was about to start and said, with surprise, “There are more men than women in class today!” Indeed, of the 16 lunchtime students in attendance, 9 were men. Here, our surprise is not that surprising when you consider that of the estimated 20 million Americans practicing yoga regularly in this country, the vast majority are women. In most of my classes, the ratio is around 10:1. And yet, in the history of yoga, this was not always so. In fact, prior to the 20th century, yoga was a man’s domain, although there were a few exceptions.

So what happened as yoga became popular in the US in the 60s and 70s, and then mushroomed in the 90s? Why the big gender switch? What happened to all the men that could have, maybe should have, been jumping on the yoga bandwagon?

This question has been one I have long pondered, and in June of this year, I met a man at the Sytar Yoga Therapy Conference in Austin, Texas with an equal curiosity about this phenomenon. He is Antonio Suasys, originally from Uruguay, South America, and now of Marin, California, just up the road about 30 minutes from where I live. As synchronicity would have it, we had both been teaching periodically for a monthly yoga class just for men that our mutual friend yoga teacher David Moreno started a few years back. The Men’s Kula takes place on the last Sunday morning of the month, at the early hour of 7:00 am. Despite the early time, it is well attended, and the men in class seem to be happy to have found an opportunity to practice and study with other male yogis. Oddly, Antonio and I had never met in person until Austin; but once introduced, we were quickly and deeply discussing many aspects of yoga (Antonio is passionate that way!), including the topic of men and yoga. This led to an invitation from Antonio to come up to Marin and be interviewed on his weekly cable yoga TV show Yogi Views. Here's a little clip from the interview he did with me about men and yoga:

  
I am not going to give away any more of our insights on men and yoga here, but I am going to encourage you to tune into tonight or tomorrow afternoon if you’d like to see the first broadcast of our conversation! I hope that you—our YFHA family—will help spread this post around so the show is viewed by as many men as possible. Here are all the details of the broadcast:

YogiViews - Yoga for Men – Baxter Bell Part 1

COMCAST Channel 26 - AT&T Channel 99 (Marin County)

Tuesday November 25th at 8:30 pm PST, Repeat on Wednesday November 26th at 3:00 pm

Watch the program live at cmcm.tv only! It will not be archived.

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What is an Advanced Yoga Practice? (Rerun)

by Nina

Year-Old Snow and New Snow by Philip Amdal

A number of years ago, I encouraged a close friend of mine, M, to join me in taking Rodney Yee’s advanced class. Even though she had a muscular, athletic, and stiff body that made doing super bendy poses difficult, if not impossible, I knew that she understood how to take care of herself in class, that she would adapt the poses for her particular body type and keep herself safe, so I wasn’t worried about the class being too hard for her. She was interested, however, she expressed some concerns about not being “advanced” enough for the class. I decided to discuss the matter with our teacher himself, feeling fairly sure of what he was going to say. But what he told me when I asked him if she was “advanced” not only took me by surprise but has stuck with me all these years, transforming my thinking about the asana practice in general. What he said was this:

“Of course she’s advanced enough. M does yoga more mindfully than any student I’ve ever seen.”

And here I’d been thinking that being advanced meant being capable of doing difficult poses, like 10 minute headstands or extreme backbends, at some level or another! But doing yoga “mindfully”—now, here was goal we could pursue for our lifetimes and no matter our level of physical capacity was, we would always have the the ability to go deeper and deeper into the practice.

I’m thinking about this today because I’m helping a new friend of mine adapt her practice to allow her to heal from an ongoing injury. It’s taken her a long time to even be ready to temporarily give up certain poses and ways of practicing, because she felt such regrets about excluding poses from her practice that she used to be able to do with such great enjoyment. 

But as Baxter mentioned in his post on Wristful Wrists: How to Keep Your Wrists Safe, sometimes rest is the best way to heal from an injury. So being willing to adopt mindfulness as a goal in the practice rather than achievement is a necessary element in being able to heal from an injury.

People who are aging may find themselves in a similar position, not necessarily due to injury but simply due to the physical changes that come along with aging. To be honest, I used to have what I sometimes call a “semi-fancy” yoga practice. But in the last few years, I developed arthritis in my right hip that makes it impossible to do seated poses that involve a lot of external rotation. Lotus and half lotus are now impossible for me, and seated forward bends and twists that require certain leg positions are painful and difficult. And I now need props in many of the standing poses now. Still there is no question I consider my practice more advanced these days than it was in the years when I regularly took the East Bay’s most “advanced” yoga class.

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Friday Q&A: Breath Practices that Stimulate or Invigorate

Ladders Cross the Blue Sky in a Wheel of Fire by Joan Miro*

One of our readers left a question on my post How Your Breath Affects Your Nervous System.

Q: I am teaching a Pranayama workshop and linking it to Brain Physiology. I checked this article and I am confused. According to your article, inhalation stimulates the SNS (sympathetic nervous system) and exhalation triggers PNS (parasympathetic nervous system). Is this your personal experience or are you pretty sure about this correlation because I did not find this in any Yoga textbooks or articles.

Just think about Kapalabhati Pranayama: The inhalation is very passive and exhalation is very forceful. If your correlation is true, at the end of Kapalabhati pranayama, you need to feel more relaxed and calm (exhalation-PNS). But this is not what we typically experience. The nature of Kapalabhati pranayama is such that it makes an individual more active, there is more heat generated in mind and body and it awakens an individual from stupor. I guess this is due to activation of SNS. So this would be contradictory to what you mentioned. What is the correct explanation?

A: I love it when my readers take some aspect of the practice of yoga and begin to look a little deeper! I just reread my post How Your Breath Affects Your Nervous System on the effect of the length of the inhalation/exhalation (like a five-minute pranayama practice of one second inhalation and two second exhalation, for example) over time and the indirect influence it has on the brain and the “tone” of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The length of your inhalation and/or exhalation influences your heart rate (cardiovascular system) by slowing or speeding it up, which then has a feedback effect on your brain’s perception of safety or danger, activity or rest, and may then shift the overall balance of your sympathetic/parasympathetic tone in one direction or the other. This assumes the person doing the pranayama does not have any other factors at play that might be more activating or quieting to their nervous system. For example, a new practitioner unfamiliar with breathing practices might be nervous and anxious about getting the practice right, and a breath ratio, such as 1:2, that might normally turn on the parasympathetic parts of the the ANS could be overridden by the background mindset of the person practicing it and actually stimulate the sympathetic nervous system instead.

In fact, the Autonomic Nervous System is by no way a simple system of the Fight or Flight response (sympathetic nervous system) being turned on and the Rest and Digest response (parasympathetic) being turned off, or vice versa. The ANS is much more subtle and nuanced than that. Why, just this past week, anatomy teacher and yogi Leslie Kaminoff’s colleague Amy Matthews wonderfully articulated this concept in this video clip.

As for the other kinds of breath practices our reader mentions, such as Kapalabhati pranayama, where the practitioner is quickly exhaling audibly, and quietly and more passively allowing the inhale to happen, and doing so at a pace that can be slower at first for newer practitioners or much faster in pace for more experienced practitioners, the typical effect is more stimulating for the ANS. 

This means that for most people doing the practice, the sympathetic nervous system is likely going to be stimulated more. Even here, I could argue that the inhale/exhale length effects described above for slower kinds of pranayama techniques might still have an effect: the exhalation is short and quick, and the inhalation, which is not as audible as the exhalation, is probably a little longer in length than the exhalation. Done over several minutes, this could support the increase in stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system. In addition, the abdominal muscles are actively contracting to assist in the that quick exhalation, so you are asking your body to “work” more, which also will likely stimulate the sympathetic system a bit more.

This would be true also for Bastrika pranayama, where both the inhalation and exhalation are quick and audible. 

In Bastrika, the length of the inhalation and exhalation are about the same, so you would not see the same influence of the length of the inhalation relative to exhalation that you do in Kapalabhati or the 1:2 ratio example I gave before. But because your abdominal muscles are so actively assisting the process, it is going to be more stimulating than quieting to your nervous system.

In all of this, keep in mind that it is not a simple formula of “this leads to that.” You will need to consider many factors when anticipating the effect that any particular breath practice might have, and, after practicing, also assess for yourself whether your predicted effect, either stimulating or quieting, really played out in the end!

—Baxter

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The Fountain of Youth is Free

by Nina

The Fountain of Youth by Lucas Cranach the Elder

“Researchers are optimistic about recent efforts to delay the effects of aging and, perhaps, extend life spans. 

"But at the same time, the scientific community is wary of how quickly these findings are packaged and resold by companies promising a fountain of youth. “It’s probably worse today than it’s ever been,” said Dr. S. Jay Olshansky, a professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a research associate at the Center on Aging at the University of Chicago. “As soon as the scientists publish any glimmer of hope, the hucksters jump in and start selling.” —New York Times

I’m not sure why I even opened the New York Times special “Your Money” section on Wednesday—maybe it was because of the cute, colorful illustrations—because this issue was entitled “A Guide to Buying Just About Everything” and buying a lot of stuff isn’t exactly my idea of fun times. But it turned out that the article about what you couldn’t buy—the “just about” part of the issue—was the one that caught my attention. Because, you guessed it, it was about aging, and it was called Science (and Quacks) vs. the Aging Process. Although the article seemed to take a while to get to the point, it basically concluded that you should not spend your money on solutions for delaying aging. 

I have to say that nothing in the article was particularly new to me. After all, living with a medical researcher who studies aging, I’m well aware of all the snake oil being peddled out there to people who want an easy fix to the aging “problem." And the fact that there are currently no medications or supplements that have been proven to delay aging is one of the reasons why we never recommend supplements on our blog (though people ask about them all the time). As the article said: 

“People are aware of the aging process, and they want to interfere,” Dr. Barzilai said, but he said he thought it was a mistake to turn to Internet remedies. “Some are causing harm. Some, maybe, you couldn’t care less, and some might be even good, but we don’t know that.” 

But because I didn’t really know where this article was going with its message, I laughed when I reached the conclusion. 

"It is a message Dr. Olshansky echoes — instead of spending money on aging “fixes,” he suggests that people accept the bland prescription doctors have been offering for decades: a healthy diet and exercise. “You don’t need to spend money,” he said. “Maybe a good pair of running or walking shoes would work. Exercise is roughly the only equivalent of a fountain of youth that exists today, and it’s free to everyone.” 

Yes, we’re back to the same old basics: a healthy diet and exercise. And yoga can help with those basics. Of course, the asana practice is a wonderful exercise system (see Opening Your Yoga Toolbox) and various yoga practices, including meditation and conscious relaxation, can help with healthy eating (see Yoga for Healthy Eating: An Overview). But this doctor rather typically forgot about another basic: stress management. Because stress causes many age-related diseases, such as heart disease and strokes, using yoga to managing your stress is another important way to stay healthy as you age (see Stress, Your Health, and Yoga), and maybe even extend your life span. 

And, yes, especially if you practice yoga at home as I do, all these basics—exercise, practices to support healthy eating, and stress management—are free.

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More on Side Plank Pose and Scoliosis: Double Curves, Explanations, Cautions

by Baxter

Standing Female Nude Seen from the Back by Vincent van Gogh

Since I wrote about the new study on using Side Plank pose (Vasishtansana) to improve scoliosis in my post Friday Q&A: How to Practice Side Plank Pose for Scoliosis, Nina has launched the Side Plank Pose Challenge, encouraging those with simple, one-sided scoliosis to join her in doing Side Plank pose every day, twice on the convex side of the curve (for example, if the scoliosis bows out to the right side, convex is to the right) and once on the concave side (left side, in this example). I’d remind folks that in the study just completed, the variation of the pose done on the convex side includes bowing the convex side of the body up towards the ceiling, away from the floor. Here is what I recommended last Friday:

1. First, do the convex side of Side Plank pose with the hip/side-body arch used in the study.
2. Do the pose on other side, but without the lift, focusing on keeping the two sides of your chest as parallel as possible.
3. Repeat the first side again, with the lift variation used in the study.

Let’s go into a little more detail today to help clear up any confusion you might have on how to approach this at home. The muscles on this convex side of the ribs and waist are lengthened and typically weaker then the concave side, so you will be employing concentric or isotonic muscle contraction to get into the pose. This means that the muscles that are located on the convex side of the torso and abdomen grossly shorten and tighten while you move into the pose, the idea being to strengthen these muscle while affecting the amount of the curve in your spine. Once you are in the pose and holding it for as long as you can (the average in the study was around 1.5 minutes), those muscles are then maintaining your position via muscle contraction known as isometric contraction, meaning the muscle is still actively contracting, but not grossly changing length. This can also contribute to strengthening those weaker, longer muscles on that convex side.

When you are doing the concave side, those side body muscles are already stronger and somewhat shortened compared with the convex side muscles. So we don’t want to encourage them to shorten any more with full concentric contraction as you did on the first side. I suggested above that you come into the more classic alignment of keeping the sides of your torso and waist parallel, which is really mimicking where you would like to see the spinal alignment end up over time. Going even further, I suppose one could argue that allowing the left side of the torso and waist to slightly bow toward the floor, then engaging the left side body muscles in isometric contraction to maintain that position might further the goal of gradually changing the curves of the scoliotic spine. I’d caution those that try this last idea out to make sure to keep the concave-side shoulder and shoulder blade areas strong and avoid sagging around the shoulder area.

If scoliosis—or life itself—were only so simple! As it turns out, some people with scoliosis will have a “double curve,” pictured as the variation on the far right of the illustration Nina shared last week (although the lower curve to the left is kind of subtle). 

In this situation, there will be a primary curve (typically on the right), and a secondary curve, often below the primary curve (typically on the left). Sometimes (could not find data on how often) this second curve is considered “compensatory,” meaning it is the spine and brain’s way of trying to balance out the top curve through the entire length of the spine. The obvious question arises, and several readers asked this: how should I approach the Side Plank pose practice if I have a double curve?

First off, since this condition has not been studied using Side Plank, anything I say about applying this particular pose to double curves is merely conjecture on my part. So keep that in mind! And it would be helpful for you to be evaluated or re-evaluated by your doctor or health care provider to document where your curvature is at the start of any experimentation you might undertake (even those of you joining Nina for her Side Plank Pose Challenge!). (When her chiropractor reviewed her old X-rays this week, Nina learned that what she thought was a right-sided curve was actually a low lumbar, left-sided curve!) And then you could return to have the angle of curve rechecked after some reasonable amount of time practicing Side Plank Pose.

Here are two possible ways to address the double curve:

• Since the secondary, lower curve may be compensatory, focusing on the primary, larger curve could positively affect both curves, bringing the double curve closer to vertical alignment. So you might just do what those with single curve to one side are doing.
• It could also be argued that when doing the Side Plank Pose on the convex side of the primary upper curve, you would accentuate the lift in the mid-ribcage area, and when doing it on the convex side of the lower curve, you would bow at the side-waist area.

Obviously, since no one has yet studied the double curve scientifically, you are on your own here. So go slow, make sure that you get good guidance on doing the pose correctly as to your arm and wrist positions, your bottom shoulder joint activity and the positioning of your feet. From there, make sure that if your double curve was causing pain prior to starting the Side Plank pose practice, that your practicing of the pose does not increase your baseline pain levels. That is an obvious indication to re-evaluate the safety of the pose for your unique scoliosis.

One of our readers and a student of mine, a graduate of the Piedmont Yoga Teacher Training, went so far as to email the author of the scoliosis study, Dr. Fishman, and received quite helpful information back. He acknowledged to her that double curves are more complicated to apply the Side Plank pose prescription to. And he actually offered to send her a yoga Rx if she ever has another spinal X-ray done and can send it to him. Wonderfully generous!

If those of you out there with a double curve decide to give this pose a try to see if it improves the curve of your scoliosis, please report your findings back to us—who knows, you might end up planting the seed for a new study on yoga for scoliosis!

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Do You Really Need Knee Replacement Surgery? Maybe Yoga Can Help Instead

by Nina

Nude Woman on Her Knees by Michelangelo

“If you do not have bone-on-bone arthritis, in which all of the cushioning cartilage in the knee is gone, think about consulting a physical therapist about exercise programs that could strengthen the joint, reducing pain and disability, Riddle says.” —New York Times

I’m sure that by now we all know someone who has had a knee replacement due to arthritis of the knees (see Arthritis and the Knee and Yoga for background information). And while some this procedure is a clearly life changing for people who advanced knee arthritis, there is growing evidence that people may be electing to have the procedure prematurely gaining limited benefits from it. So many people considering the procedure might be better off finding other ways to improve their knees, such as strengthening the muscles around their knee joints and moving their knee joints regularly through their complete range of motion.

A recent article in the New York Times Think Twice Before Choosing Knee Replacement discussed two major studies published this year, in which researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond conducted a surgical-validity assessment. In the studies Use of a validated algorithm to judge the appropriateness of total knee arthroplasty in the United States: a multicenter longitudinal cohort study. and Using surgical appropriateness criteria to examine outcomes of total knee arthroplasty in a United States sample., the researchers concluded that knee replacements should be judged appropriate for only those whose arthritis in the knee was “medically proven to be advanced.” (“Medically advanced” in this context means not just having severe pain but also being impaired in your physical functioning as well, such as, being unable to climb stairs, get out of a chair, or walk without aid.) The reason for this was that only those with advanced arthritis actually saw significant benefits from the surgery:

“The same researchers also found that people who were good candidates for surgery — basically, they had really bad knees — benefited substantially from the surgery, reporting much less knee pain and much better physical functioning in the months immediately following the procedure and again two years later. On one commonly used measure of knee function, their scores improved by about 20 points on average. By contrast, subjects whose surgeries the scientists deemed inappropriate did not improve much. After a year, their scores on knee function had risen by only about two points.” —New York Times

For people whose arthritis of the knees is not advanced, the New York Times recommended questioning the need for surgery and consulting your doctor to learn how advanced your arthritis really is. And if you make a decision to postpone the surgery and try exercise instead, yoga has a lot to offer you. Start by reading Baxter’s article on knee arthritis Arthritis of the Knee and Yoga for background information on the condition and to see which poses and practices he recommends in general.

Although this NY Times mentioned only strength building as a way of helping to manage arthritis of the knee, Shari says in her post Yoga for Osteoarthritis that moving joints through their range of motion is also essential for keeping them healthy. And this is where yoga can be especially beneficial, because the wide variety of poses allows you to move your knees through their full range of motion.

“People stop moving with arthritis because it hurts, but when you stop the joint motion you decrease the nutrition to the joint structures. The body tries to repair the area by laying down more bone to protect the area and the result is spurring, which then cause more irritation from the “bones rubbing.”

When the cartilage has deteriorated and there is no movement, the synovial fluid that bathes the inside of all synovial joints decreases, which then decreases nutrition to the joint and the cycle reinforces itself with pain=no movement=more pain with swelling and inflammation=even less movement. 

Yoga is so perfect for arthritis because it can stop that cycle by providing infinite variations in joint mobility and ways to maintain the joint alignment to improve joint weight bearing. You need to keep the joint moving in its full range of motion to keep the joint healthy, and yoga allows you to do that.” —Shari Ser

You should also consider your particular anatomical structure when thinking about managing your arthritis of the knee joints. Do you have bowlegs or knock-knees? Or do you typically hyperextend your knee joints? (If you don’t know, ask your yoga teacher or health professional to help you assess your knees for these conditions.) Because these three conditions are quite common, we’ve written specific posts on them. See:

1. Hyperextension of the Knees and Yoga by Nina
2. Bowlegs, Doctor Who, and Yoga by Nina 
3. Knock-Knees, Lady Gaga, and Yoga by Baxter 

Here's to happier, healthier knees through yoga!

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Take the Side Plank Pose for Scoliosis Challenge!

by Nina

After reading Baxter’s post on Friday (see Friday Q&A: How to Practice Side Plank Pose for Scoliosis?) and talking with my chiropractor, who is also a yoga teacher, I decided to practice Side Plank pose (Vasithasana) every day for six or more weeks. My chiropractor strongly agreed with Baxter that for the long term, practicing Side Plank pose on just one side was not a good idea and said that to maintain the benefits, a person would need to practice indefinitely. So I’ll be doing it exactly as Baxter suggested in his post, twice on my convex side (the left side for me) and once on my concave side (my right side). And I’m hoping that some of you will join me in taking this challenge, and will report back.

Because I was assessed by my chiropractor on Friday, she’ll be able to see what happens to my curve (and the rest of my spine) when I go back in a month, and in the visits that following after that (if I decide to continue the practice). I’ll report back to you with her observations as well as my own. If you want to join me in the challenge and don’t have someone assessing your curve, you could simply report in on any reduction in pain you are experiencing or any other differences you are noticing—or not—on a week-by-week basis.

Obviously since I’m writing this, I have scoliosis. I briefly mentioned it in my post Late-Onset Scoliosis is Common in Older Adults because I had myself had developed late-onset scoliosis. But I didn’t say much more than that. (By the way, if you haven’t read that post and are having back problems—or even hip or leg problems—and have never been tested for scoliosis, please do read it because there is a possibility you might have the condition.) So I’d like to take a few moments to tell you more about it, so you’ll understand why I’m motivated to take on this challenge, and also why I see a chiropractor regularly.

Although my scoliosis is fairly mild and doesn’t cause me back pain (it is a levoscoliosis, in my lumbar spine, rotating to the left), it does cause my right hip to be higher than my left and also causes that hip to rotate in more than the left hip. The result is my legs are imbalanced, with one leg being shorter than the other. If left untreated, I develop leg pain, outer knee pain, and eventually a limp. I have also developed mild arthritis in my right hip as a result of imbalance, which has limited my mobility in my right hip joint (see Goodbye, Lotus Pose).

Although I cannot reverse the scoliosis or my arthritis, I do work on strategies for maintaining my physical health. I keep exercising all my joints through their range of motion to keep them as healthy as possible (I’d like to delay as long as possible the need for a hip replacement). Yoga has been an immense help to me in this because it is so multi-dimensional in the way you are able to move your body in the asanas (see Range of Motion: Yoga's Got it Covered!). I also get regular chiropractic adjustments from a chiropractor who is also a yoga teacher. After an adjustment, my legs are the same length, my leg pain is gone, and I can walk well. The adjustment is only temporary, as the scoliosis is still there and my hip returns to its original imbalanced position over time, but regular adjustments keep me walking well and pain free.

So it was in this context that my chiropractor and I decided together that it would be a great idea for me to practice Side Plank pose, twice on the convex side and one on the concave side, to see what would happen. We’re so curious and excited! Will this practice help reduce my curve and keep my leg and hip in a healthier alignment? And it’s wonderful for me to be able to do this experiment with a health professional I trust—and who also knows a lot about yoga—assessing me through the process, Dr. Claire-Marie Holman. 

So who wants to join me? If you’re interested, please leave a comment on this post stating your intention to practice. Or, you can leave a comment over on our Facebook page  on the post there that links to this one. See Friday Q&A: How to Practice Side Plank Pose for Scoliosis? for details about how to practice the pose. Although I won’t post weekly on the blog about my experiment, I will post and update in another four weeks after my first assessment. However, I will post weekly on Facebook to report in that I have practiced, so if you join me on Facebook, you can report in there weekly as well, and we can all chat in the comments about how the experiment is going. (And, of course, if you do start practicing regularly and Side Plank Pose causes you pain or any bad side effects, please do stop.)

I look forward to hearing from you!

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Friday Q&A: How to Practice Side Plank Pose (Vashithasana) for Scoliosis

A reader left the following question as a comment on Nina’s post Side Plank Pose Could Reduce Spinal Curves in People with Scoliosis, which described a study in which Side Plank pose was practiced to help improve scoliosis:

Q: I'm wondering if the pose should be done on only one side to correct the imbalance. If so, advise on how to determine which side would be useful to me.

A: The yoga world is all a buzz about the newest study for Loren Fishman, MD on yoga for scoliosis. Dr. Fishman, an Iyengar yoga practitioner, physiatrist, and yoga researcher, has just completed at study looking at the effect of one pose, Side Plank (Vasithansana), on scoliosis. (By the way, Fishman has already written two books on yoga, one on yoga for arthritis and one on yoga for osteoporosis, and is also conducting a large study on yoga for osteoporosis.)

For those interested, you can see the study itself at www.gahmj.com. I tend to like to look at the whole thing, as reports about the study are often incomplete in painting a good picture of what was done! Note: when I first visited this site, I could view the entire study, but now only the abstract appears. If you have information on how to access the full study, please let us know and we'll revise this post.

In the study, Fishman’s team noted a particular trend in the modern treatment of scoliosis that often involves muscular stretching and relaxation to address the sometimes painful curvature of scoliosis.

“Non-surgical techniques for treating scoliosis frequently focus on realigning the spine, typically by muscular relaxation or muscular or ligamentous stretching. However, such treatments, which include physical therapeutic, chiropractic, and bracing techniques, are inconsistently supported by current evidence.” (Emphasis is mine.)

They therefore choose an opposite approach, utilizing a single pose to strengthen the side of the chest and spine the scoliosis curves toward (or bows toward). The majority of scoliosis cases curve towards the right side in the thoracic or rib cage part of the spine. There are other less common varieties, but I’d like to use this one as the example. Of the 25 subjects enrolled in the study, 19 did a good enough job following the study’s recommendation to be included for the final results: once a day practice Side Plank pose, initially for 10-20 seconds for the first week, then increasing the hold for as long as they could after that, most days of the week. With the curve to the right side, they would only do Side Plank with the right hand on the floor. They also were taught to do a important variation of Side Plank that may be different than the alignment often taught in public classes, with the hips and side body bowed up a bit towards the sky instead of keeping the two sides of the torso parallel.

X-rays were taken at the start of the study and again between 3-22months later. The average time practitioners held the pose was 1.5 minutes, and the frequency was six out of seven days a week for a bit over six months. Again, the practitioners did this one pose, once a day only, on the one side. The change in the curve of the spine was impressive: in the compliant group, the mean change in the angle of curve (known as the Cobb angle) was over 40%. This is quite a lot! But there is also a lot we don’t know:

• If the participants suffered chronic pain from their scoliosis and if their pain improved at the end of the study. 
• If the participants had trouble with secondary issues in doing the same pose over and over for six months, such as wrist, elbow or shoulder soreness or pain, even though the authors stated somewhere that these were not an issue.
• While the study included a few different variations of the pose, such as forearm version vs. full version, it was not clear how many participants required modifications to participate. 
• Whether the improvements in the curve would remain if the participants stopped doing the pose after six months and were six months after stopping practice, for instance. Do they have to do this indefinitely to keep the straighter spine? 

To summarize, this is a small study of 25 people with scoliosis, doing Side Plank pose for an average of 1.5 minutes once day for just over six months, with significant improvement in the spinal curve of scoliosis using strengthening instead of stretching. Despite what we don’t yet know, it seems reasonable to try this pose out if you have scoliosis and want to see if you can improve your spinal alignment. Because there are different kinds of curves, I’d recommend you discuss this with your doctor, your physical therapist if you have one, and the most experienced yoga teacher you can find. From your MD and PT, make sure you are clear on which kind of curve you have. From your yoga teacher, learn all the variations of Side Plank you can to find a way to gradually learn to do it in the best way possible for your body. 

One question I have also heard from a few different readers is: what do you think of only doing it on the one side? Before I answer that, I am wondering if the study author Dr. Fishman thinks these folks should only do one yoga pose each day and not have a balanced yoga asana practice in addition to this special practice? I’d hope not, but don’t know his thoughts on this. However, if a person with scoliosis wanted to have a regular practice, too, I’d use this new info to inform certain poses.

Personally, if I had scoliosis, I might consider:

1. Doing the convex side of Side Plank pose first with the hip/side body arch as in the study.
2. Then doing the Pose on other side, but without the lift, focusing on keeping the two sides of the chest as parallel as possible.
3. Then repeating the first side again with the study lift variation. 

I would then apply this body arch idea as well to other side bending poses, such as, Triangle pose (Trikonasana), Extended Side Angle pose (Utthita Parsvakonasana), and Half Moon pose (Arda Chandrasana). And I would be very interested in not only the improvement in physical appearance of the vertical alignment of my spine, but just as or more importantly in the functional improvement of my body and the subjective improvement in how my body is feeling. 

The study is a first, exciting research step in using yoga to improve scoliosis. I hope there is a larger and broader look at it in the near future. And for those in our reading audience, let us know if you have tried anything like this and what results you found. If you start practicing with this new information, give us a report back periodically on what you are finding personally!

—Baxter

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Yogis in Nature: Photography Series by Melina Meza

by Nina

Baxter Bell in Nature by Melina Meza

If you’ve been reading our blog for any length of time, you've surely noticed the beautiful photographs by Melina Meza that we often use in our posts. Melina is both a long-time yoga teacher and a photographer (find out more about her melinameza.com). Recently, these two passions have come together in a new series of photographs she has done called “Yogis in Nature.” 

“Yogis in Nature” is a unique collection of yogi portraits inspired by Ann Dyer’s vision to see Mountain Yoga’s teachers and staff immersed in the natural elements surrounding Montclair Village. Melina explains:

"Historically, yogis have always practiced yoga in nature and this return to nature for portrait work led to some stunning images of yogis dancing with the elements or quietly listening and responding to the impulse of nature.

"Within the health science of Ayurveda, there is a belief that nature heals and that we are composed of the same basic five elements—ether, air, fire, water, and earth—as every material object around us. Through this lens, I aimed to capture the powerful union between person and place, and to bear witness to the joy that arises when we return to nature as a place for healing."

I’d also like to point out that in keeping with our Yoga for Healthy aging body image message that “every body is a yoga body,” the yogis in this series are of a variety of ages, races, and body types.

Now I’m thrilled to announce that Melina will be having an exhibit of this new series of photographs at Mountain Yoga in Oakland, California. There will be an opening reception on November 21.

yogis in nature: a photography exhibition

by melina meza

Opening Reception Friday, November 21, 7 - 8:30 pm

Mountain Yoga
2071 Antioch Court, Suite 100

Oakland, CA. 94611

510.339.6421 

For those of you who are not local or who cannot attend the exhibition, Melina will be creating a special flickr account where you can view and/or purchase her Yogis in Nature photographs. I’ll add a link to that account on this page as soon as her account is activated.

To end, here’s another photograph and quote from Melina about this series:

Ann Dyer Cervantes by Melina Meza

“In Nature my muse comes alive with the company of the elements: gazing at clouds, playing with reflections, driving down the freeway pre-sunset, kneeling before plants of all kinds, and capturing the personality of the seasons with one simple click of the camera. I believe that being creative is food for the soul and look forward to each opportunity to walk out into nature, camera as my companion, and chase the light.”

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Forgiveness (Kshama)

by Ram

Tree of Forgiveness by Edward Burne-Jones

Years ago, my wife and I faced a couple of traumatic experiences that could have severely disrupted our lives had we chosen to let them. When, where and how the emotions attached to the negative experience will surface depends on each individual. In our case, we were faced with several situations on an ongoing basis that constantly brought back those negative events. Like many others who face traumatic experiences, we had the choice of:

• approaching a psychiatrist/psychologist
• seeking a counselor
• enrolling in a support group
• choosing to do nothing

While we were not keen in sharing our personal experiences with others in the society, we did not wish to sink/drown in our sorrows, either. Even before we could consider a suitable option, we left Minnesota and made a major move to Marin County, CA. Several life-changing events enveloped us since our move to California. One among them was living in the vicinity of several yoga studios. Thus, we both enrolled in one of the leading yoga studios and, additionally, I chose to seek out Ayurveda while my wife moved into the area of Pranic Healing.

Yoga, meditation, pranayama, Ayurveda, and Pranic Healing may be different schools of learning but they all shared several basic underlying principles, including the aspect of focus (dharana) and the overlaying of painful memories with positive feelings and experiences. Thus, through these practices, we both came closer to transforming our negative experiences. Our daily practices of methods drawn from the above-mentioned sciences helped to lessen the impact of the harrowing events. They made these horrible experiences less intense, and we experienced less frequent flashbacks. But despite bringing in all of the above-mentioned practices into our lives, we were not able to completely alleviate the traumatic experiences. At the very far corner of our minds, we continued to harbor the negativity albeit at a low threshold. 

Then, a few years ago through the practice of self-study (svadhyaya), we came across a couple of original scriptures, including the Hatha Yoga Pradipika by Gorakshanatha and Yoga Yajnyavalkya Samhita. Both these texts describe ten yamas (including the five that I wrote about on this blog) that serve as moral guidelines to lead a conscious, honest, and ethical life. The fifth of the ten yamas mentioned in these scriptures is kshama, which is translated as forgiveness, forbearance, patience, or pardon. As my wife and I delved deeper into this concept, we realized the power of forgiveness. We started cultivating this quality and using it very often in our lives. And guess what? Over the years, forgiving actually helped us to erase that little speck of negativity that was deeply rooted in the far corner of our brains and brought us to a more “present state.” We could completely mitigate our past horrible experiences through the act of forgiveness, and gone was the sorrow, sadness, and flashbacks. The harrowing events disappeared completely; it was as if the nerves associated with these experiences had either withdrawn completely or had died down.

We understood that since the biggest obstacle to connecting with our true selves was hatred or bitterness. Forgiving the individuals who injured our minds and upset our emotional balance helped us to let go of the underlying emotions. Let me clarify that by forgiving, we were neither accepting nor forgetting the facts. Forgiveness also doesn't mean we were overlooking/excusing the behavior or that we were correcting the wrong. Forgiveness only meant that we needed to free ourselves from the traumatic past and move on with those events cleared from our lives. Some of you may criticize that forgiveness may have been a free gift to those who hurt us, however, it brought enormous benefits to my wife and me. In order to forgive completely, we committed all our energy to the process (tapas), engaged in self-inquiry and introspection (svadhyaya), and cultivated a mind that saw divinity in all sentient beings (ishvara pranidhana). (See The Second Branch of Yoga: The Niyamas for more information on the niyamas in general, including tapas, svadhyaya, and ishvara pranidhana.)

How did this transformation happen? Well, according to recent research studies, if you forgive and let go, you are likely to enjoy lower blood pressure, a stronger immune system, and a drop in the stress hormones circulating in your blood. Additionally, other physical symptoms, including unexplained body pains, digestive issues, and migraine headaches, may disappear. At the emotional level, forgiving and letting go helps to curb anger, bitterness, resentment, depression, and other negative emotions. It also allows you to recall amiably the true though painful parts without the baggage of expletives running through your mind that stirs up hatred, tension, and tears. According to scientists at the Stanford University Forgiveness Project, “harboring unforgiveness comes at an emotional and a physiological cost. Cultivating forgiveness may cut these costs." 

Recent research on the health benefits of forgiveness also shows that people who can make this mental shift may benefit yet in another way they didn’t anticipate—namely, living longer. In a study aptly entitled Forgive to Live, Luther College psychologist Loren Toussaint and colleagues investigated the relationship between forgiveness and lifespan in a U.S.-wide sample of 1500 adults aged 66 and older. The study, published in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine, tested the benefits of forgiveness to longevity. The study followed the subjects for three years to allow the researchers to determine whether forgiveness influenced health and mortality. After controlling for various parameters, including religion, social class, and health-related behaviors, the single parameter that greatly predicted mortality was the act of forgiveness. People who were averse to forgiving died early compared to people who were keen in forgiving. The people who refused to forgive continued to harbor resentment and grudges that affected their overall health. 

It is known that continually nursing negative feelings keeps stress levels high, and chronic stress is known to trigger early aging and death. Overall, forgiveness is linked to important aspects of physical and mental health. All the physical and psychological benefits that come with just that one act could be key in predicting a longer and healthy life. Is there someone you need to forgive? Let that be the best gift you give yourself this year.

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An MD's View of Yoga: A Yogi Views Interview with Baxter Bell

by Baxter

Me on TV

Many of you, our readers, are well aware of my roles as physician, yoga teacher and educator, as well as the work I do as a medical acupuncturist. I even came clean on how I made the transition from full-time family doc to yoga teacher in my post True Confessions: My Yoga Story. But when I finally came to meet a Bay Area yoga teacher and yoga enthusiast Antonio Suasys from Marin County, my work took on a whole new dimension!

You see, Antonio, who leads yoga trainings on Yoga and Grief around the country, also hosts a weekly yoga TV show on cable called Yogi Views.  Oddly enough, we met not in the Bay area, but in Austin, TX at the IAYT’s annual yoga therapy conference called “SYTAR” this past June. We immediately hit it off and dove into all sorts of interesting discussions about yoga, healing, medicine, yoga therapy and life! And he invited me to be a guest on his show to talk on camera about these topics and more. Here is a video clip of part of our conversation. 

I won’t give anything more away, but will invite you to tune into tonight for the first of my two-part interview, which is about my views as a physician and yogi on the role of yoga in health, healing, and therapy. It will be shown on cmcm.tv tonight and again tomorrow, and will be archived on Antonio’s website yogiviews.com.

And I hope that you—our YFHA family—will help spread this post around so we can get our message out about the tremendous benefits of yoga for fostering health and healing. 

And here are all the details of tonight’s broadcast:

YogiViews - An MD's View of Yoga – Baxter Bell Part 1

COMCAST Channel 26 - AT&T Channel 99 (Marin County)

Tuesday November 11th at 8:30 pm PST, Repeat on Wednesday November 12th at 3:00 pm

Watch the program live at cmcm.tv or after it airs at yogiviews.com.

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