Friday Q&A: Can You Change Your Blog Format?

Q: Dear Editor, 
I got so used to the previous website that the present one is a bit of a challenge to navigate. I have a couple of comments that can make my (and other's as well) experience more easy.
 1) Can you provide a direct link on this site to the YFHA's Facebook page URL as well? 
2) Your scroll bar overlaps with the Right tab keys (subscribe, labels, archives etc). So when I have to scroll down, I invariably hit the right tab keys which is a pain in the .....
3) Your SEARCH function is not very user friendly. It does not give all the older posts. It gives only some of the topics? Can you do something about it?
 Thanks, and if my complaints are not valid, kindly ignore. This old man may be asking for more comforts, that is all.

A: Of course your complaints are valid! But before I address the specific points you raised, I need to give you—and all our other readers—a bit of background about our blog and the way it is put together.

We are using a prefab format for our blog that is provided by the Google Blogger software. There are two reasons we are using Google Blogger: 1) it’s completely free (our blog is not monetized so we have no income to pay for web site hosting or a custom format) and 2) it’s very easy to use (we’d rather spend our time writing content than doing HTML programming). Unfortunately, using the prefab format means that we are stuck with certain features (or lack thereof). One day we will create our own web site that has all the features we (and our readers) want, but that will take an investment of time and money we’re not quite ready for. In the meantime, there are a lot of features that we just can’t control from our end. For example, one reader wrote in to ask why we didn’t have a Print function, and the answer is that with the Blogger, you just get what you get.

Obviously the shift from the old format to the new dynamic format was a huge one for our long-time readers. I was especially concerned about the new functionality for subscribing, and for searching for labels and archived posts (see the How to Subscribe and How to Search pages on the blog). But I decided to make the shift because the new format is much cleaner and easier to read, and certain features work much better (including the comments, the ability to share on Facebook and Twitter, and even the Search function, which I’ll discuss below). However, certain functions that used to work in the standard format just don’t work in the dynamic format. For example, the Facebook “badge” that used to work on the old format just doesn’t appear in the dynamic format. (I have done some research and learned that certain Blogger “gadgets” just don’t appear in the dynamic format, even if you have included them in your page layout.)

Now I’m going to address your points one by one:

The Facebook link that used to be on the blog's home page no longer works automatically the way it used to. If there is someone out there who can help me fix this—probably with some custom HTML programming—do let me know! (In the meantime, I have added a direct link to the YFHA Facebook page on the How to Subscribe page as well as at the bottom of this page.)

I’m not sure exactly what you mean by the scroll bar overlapping the right tab keys because I haven’t experienced this problem but it is definitely not something I can control from my end. It may have something to do with the platform you’re on (the operating system) or even the particular browser you are using to visit the site. Obviously you can’t switch operating systems (though perhaps you could upgrade) but you might try a different browser to see if that helps. Shari found a problem she was having was resolved by using Firefox instead of Safari. But without knowing whether you’re on a Macintosh or PC, I can’t help you more than that. Again, if there is anyone out there who can help with this, let me know.

Finally, the Search function is provided by the Blogger and I can’t control how it works. However, I actually think it works better than the old one. My initial instructions in the How To Search page were incorrect (and I have since updated them). Instead of typing the search phrase followed by Return, type your search word or phrase into the box, and as you are typing the phrase, a pop-up window will open that displays the titles of posts that contain that word or phrase.

You can then move your mouse down to the appropriate post title and click on it to open the post. That being said, if you can’t find the older posts you want with the Search box, try using the index (the Label function) as I describe on the How to Search page.

I hope this helps you. Although I have a number of wonderful writers and a wonderful editor assisting me with the contents of the blog, I alone am responsible for the blog’s format. However, as I’m not an HTML programmer, I obviously have my limitations. So I’m open to advice and guidance from anyone who will provide it!

—Nina

Subscribe to YOGA FOR HEALTHY AGING by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook

Read More

More Short Meditations from Mexico

by Baxter

If you are up for it, I'd like share some new meditations with you that I’ve been teaching this week at my retreat in Yelapa, Mexico. Now, if Tuesday’s theme is a good one for you right now, then by all means continue to use "strength and stability" for a while. But if you’d like to experiment, here are two more possibilities.

Flexibility Meditation

For the second day of my retreat, I was thinking of how to incorporate the concept of flexibility into my meditation and that of my retreat group. And as I was gazing down on the surging and receding surf on the Yelapa beach, I realized I’d like my own flexibility to reflect nature's undulations. The rhythm of the waves on the shore mirrors the waves on my own breath in meditation. The mantra or meditative phrase "fluid as the sea" seems fitting, so try repeating it mentally on your exhale for your ten-minute sit today. Hope all follows well from there!

Digestion Meditation

On day four of my retreat, we turned our focus to an area of the body that has special connotations in the yoga tradition, the upper abdomen. This is where the digestive fire, known in Sanskrit as the jathara agni, is said to reside. Convenient, as the anatomical stomach sack and the first part of the small intestine are also located there! Instead of narrowly focusing on digestion as related to healthy eating, I broadened our vision a bit. As my friend and colleague Scott Blossom, a yoga teacher, Ayurvedic practitioner and acupuncturist (a triple threat!) has said to me, we not only are digesting the food we eat, assimilating what is beneficial and eliminating what is not, we are also digesting the interactions we've taken in throughout the day on an emotional/mental level as well.

So I asked the students to consider some situation they were still chewing on and come up with a word or two that would distill down its essence, not unlike a memorable meal where one ingredient stands out and can come to represent the bigger meal eaten—like those porcini mushrooms that one mealtime in Italy, but I digress! So once you have quietly sat for a minute or two and have come up with an appropriate word for your unfinished meal, use that word as your mantra for your ten-minute minute sit today. Remember that a primary purpose of a mantra is to create a consistent focus for the mind to distract it from its usual habit of generating all kinds of thoughts, many of which can be stressful. Secondarily, this particular mantra may allow for new insights to arise following your mediation regarding the "meal" at hand. Several hours after practicing with this focus myself, I find my mind returning to the mantra again and again and spending some valuable moments in reflection on the original event I had taken in earlier! Tasty!

Subscribe to YOGA FOR HEALTHY AGING by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook

Read More

Decide Each Day What to Do

by Nina

Last Hike by Shitao

In a recent NY Times article about weight loss The Empty Diet Claim Season, Jane Brody said something simple that I just loved:

“Make physical exercise a daily activity. Decide each day what to do rather than whether to do it.”

To me that’s not only good advice for people who are concerned with losing or managing their weight, it’s also good advice for people like us who are concerned with staying healthy as we age. In his book The Story of the Human Body, Dr. Daniel Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist, says that the human body evolved to support the physically active life of a hunter-gatherer who treks miles each day to hunt and forage. And he says that many of the diseases of modern life (and aging), such as diabetes and heart disease, are the result of a “mismatch” between the environment of physical activity and food limitations that the human body originally evolved to thrive in, and the modern environment of sedentary behavior and food surplus in which we now live. So to stay healthy, we do need to be physically active on a daily basis.

I mentioned in my post  Friday Q&A: How Do You Keep Fit? that I had surveyed the Yoga for Healthy Aging writers about their exercise habits, and while we all seemed to be quite different in what we did, it turns out we had three things in common:

• we exercise every day
• we practice yoga asana regularly for exercise
• we also do some types of exercise other than yoga

For me, each day I do exactly what Jane Brody recommends: I decide each day what to do rather than whether to do it. I usually practice yoga four days a week for 1.5 hours and take a two-hour class on Friday. Saturday and Sunday I take long walks in the city or hikes in the country, and during the week I also take walks around the city (I use my feet for transportation) to do my shopping and errands, to meet friends for lunch, or just as a way of hanging with a friend—or husband. But sometimes I like to mix it up. Why not? If it’s a beautiful day, I might take a walk instead of practicing yoga. If it’s dumping rain, I might stay in and practice on a weekend. I’m good as long as I get some exercise that day.

On Friday, I did recommend to the reader who wanted to get started with some gentle movement that she consider starting with short, but daily sessions to establish a new habit, and for that post I didn’t want her to become overwhelmed by reading about what us long-time yoga practitioners did on a daily basis. But since I did the survey anyway, I thought it might be useful to share that information with you now so you can see several different ways of making exercise a daily activity.

Baxter’s Exercise Routine

Lately, in addition to 30-60 minute home yoga practices several times a week, as well as a weekly Friday public class I attend when I am in town, I have been attempting to take a 30-60 minute walk/hike for aerobic fitness. I am also riding my bike to work when the weather cooperates, and once or twice a week I do some simple weight work at a gym where I teach to combat the sarcopenia (see Strength and Aging) that affects muscles as we age.

Shari’s Exercise Routine

I do daily yoga, in the past (pre-surgery) for 30 min and currently (post surgery) it varies from 5-30 minutes. I also do daily aerobic exercise either on a bike or indoors on a stationary bike for 30 min (now it is 15 and not aerobic, with no heart rate changes but range of motion for my healing knee). I also walk daily for 30 minutes either outisde or on a treadmill. In the past I would do specific strength training on the mat with free weights for targeted muscle groups maybe two times per week (now daily as part of my knee rehab but no weights yet) and timed holds for certain yoga poses (60 seconds) to build strength and bone mass.

Ram Exercise Routine

MONDAY-FRIDAY
6.00-6.45am-GYM
7.00-7.30am-Pranayama + Meditation
6.00-6.30pm-Pranayama + Meditation

MONDAY & WEDNESDAY
12.00-1.00pm-Yoga

SUNDAY
8.00-9.15am-Yoga (I teach the class)

Timothy’s Exercise Routine

I do a couple of hours of asana per day, but probably none of it would be counted as aerobic. I also sit for chanting, pranayama and meditation for more than an hour each morning. After many years of belonging to gyms and health clubs, in recent years, I've backed off from such vigorous "cardio" exercise. I always tried to get my heart rate high into the aerobic range and keep it there for 45 or more minutes and did this several times per week.  Now in addition to yoga, I do gentler aerobic exercise such as hiking, dancing, swimming and bike riding and pay little attention to my heart rate. Part of the change comes from my understanding of Ayurveda. Considering my fiery pitta nature, I believe that more soothing exercise is actually better for me. And it's a lot more fun….

Subscribe to YOGA FOR HEALTHY AGING by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook

Read More

Short But Sweet: 10-Minute Meditations for Healthy Aging

by Baxter

Even though I'm away leading a retreat this week, I'm thinking of all our readers at YFHA (kinda' wishing you were here!), as I'm focusing a good portion of our practice time here on developing a home yoga meditation practice. Since we have two yoga practice sessions a day here, we begin and end each if them with a 10-minute seated meditation practice. Monday was our first full day of practice together and the overriding focus was on the feet, anatomically, and the idea of "starting”—whether that meant starting something new, starting again, starting over—about taking the first steps on that new path. For me, the feet represent the base of our overall strength, as well as stability. So I suggested that the group might use the phrase "strong and stable" as their mantra (a repeated word or phrase for mental focus), during the final seated meditation of each class.

As you might have calculated, by doing four 10-minute meditations in class, my group is getting 40 minutes of time to practice this powerful method in manageable amounts of time. (I happen to have them doing two more 10-minute sessions on their own for a total of 60 minutes a day). This is a sweet amount of time, but at home, you can easily practice just one or two sessions in a day and still reap benefits. Try the "strong and stable" mantra for your sit today! I'll try to share other ideas this week as well.

Subscribe to YOGA FOR HEALTHY AGING by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook

Read More

Medical Yoga Symposium at the Smithsonian

by Timothy

Greetings from India! I've come to Kerala once again to study with my Ayurvedic doctor and to get some treatments. It is so nice to be back in this lush, semi-tropical setting and to see my teacher and many old friends. But just before I left the States, I had the privilege of taking part in a weekend symposium on modern and medical yoga at the Smithsonian, in Washington, DC. The symposium was held in conjunction with their groundbreaking exhibition, Yoga: The Art of Transformation. (The symposium is available for online for on-demand viewing.)

The event started off with a keynote by Dean Ornish, in which he summarized his more than 30 years of scientific research that has found that a yoga-based program, including a yogic vegetarian diet, can reverse heart disease. More recently his work has focused on men with prostate cancer, and is again showing very encouraging results. And due the similarities between breast and prostate cancers, Ornish believes that his comprehensive lifestyle program may benefit woman with breast cancer. That's speculation at this point, but other research is finding beneficial effects of yoga for those with the disease, including allowing them to tolerate chemotherapy and other medical treatments with fewer side effects.

The program included Richard Miller and Larry Payne, long-time yoga therapists and the co-founders of the International Association of Yoga Therapists, which has become the leading organization in the field.  Miller has garnered significant experience in recent years using the guided meditation practice Yoga Nidra with veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Payne founded and directs the graduate program in yoga therapy at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

Also significantly represented were top yoga researchers, including Sat Bir Khalsa of Harvard Medical School and Lorenzo Cohen of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Texas. As those of you who read my online newsletter know, Khalsa, Cohen and I, along with the world's most prolific yoga researcher (with more than 100 published articles!), Shirley Telles of the Patanjali Yogapeet in Hardiwar India, have agreed to co-edit the first medical textbook of yoga therapy. (We're just getting started, so it will likely be a year or two until it's published.)

The event was hugely popular, filling the Smithsonian's auditorium and selling out months in advance. More than 100 people attended my Yoga As Medicine workshop on Sunday, and I was struck by how many physicians and other health care professionals were present. One incentive was that, under the auspices of the event's co-sponsor, the George Washington University Medical School, physician attendees were awarded Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits, highly unusual for a yoga conference!

All of this speaks to the growing acceptance of yoga as a therapeutic modality. Indeed, there is now so much yoga research being published that Sat Bir, one of about a dozen full-time yoga researchers in the U.S., says he can't keep up with it all. This doesn't mean that yoga is already being fully integrated with modern medicine, but we are getting there much faster than any of us would have predicted 10 or 15 years ago, so stay tuned….

By the way, if you were unable to see the show at the Smithsonian, which was fabulous, it will be coming to San Francisco's Asian Art Museum from February 21 to May 25, 2014  and then travels to the Cleveland Art Museum from Sunday, June 22 to Sunday, September 7, 2014.

Subscribe to YOGA FOR HEALTHY AGING by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook

Read More

Friday Q&A: How Do You Keep Fit?

Newberry Crater by Melina Meza

Q: How do you & other writers keep fit? I was wondering what a typical week of yoga/aerobic exercise would look like in a week (or, spread out over a couple of weeks)? I am curious how others build in other activities in their week besides yoga. A yoga session for half an hour with walking for an hour?

How does one keep fit? I'm in a slump and right now I just want to do some gentle exercise but know I need to do more………, I was hoping that having more of a structure would help motivate me.

A: One of the barriers people run into when they decide to start practicing yoga at home is being overly ambitious. They think they need to have a full-length practice (such as the length of one of their yoga classes) or it’s not worth their while to practice. Then, either because they can’t find that much time or because it seems too overwhelming to contemplate, they end up not practicing at all. But it is far better to practice asana several times a week for short sessions because you start establishing a new habit. And as you develop the habit of practicing regularly, you may find your sessions start to stretch out until they naturally become longer and longer (that’s exactly what happened to me!).

This is why almost all yoga teachers, including us, recommend that you start small. So rather than trying to set yourself up with an intimidating new schedule of a half-hour yoga session plus one hour walking every day, come up with something for yourself that feels easier and more doable (gosh, did I really just use that word?). Then, make it a point to do that practice six days a week. And if you find you don’t have time even for that, get on your mat and do at least one pose, whether it is an active pose like Downward-Facing Dog pose or even just a restorative pose like Legs Up the Wall pose (some days are like that). Establishing your new habit of practicing is what really matters! Eventually you’ll start to feel like your day isn’t complete if you haven’t practiced, but it will take you a while to get there.

I did actually survey the other blog writers to see how much yoga they did every day, and times ranged from 30 minutes to 2 hours. We all also include some other types of physical activities into our week, including walking, hiking, biking, weight lifting, treadmill, and so on. But after some thought, I decided not to go into details about who exactly did what because most of us have been doing yoga for many, many years. And I wanted to emphasize that for someone who is in a slump and wants to get some gentle exercise, starting out small (rather than trying to keep up with us) is the best approach. Also, any exercise you choose to supplement your yoga practice with should be one that you enjoy—and that varies from person to person—because if you dislike it, you’re not going to be able to force yourself to keep doing it.

I hope this helps you (and other people in your position), and I’d love to hear back from you about what you decide to practice and how you fare with your new routine.

—Nina

Subscribe to YOGA FOR HEALTHY AGING by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook

Read More

Winter Ice, Fear of Falling and Yoga

by Baxter

Despite the fact that I have lived in California near the temperate ocean for the last 14 years, I still vividly remember the scary, slippery winter days when I lived in the Midwest in icy conditions. And I remember slipping and falling on more than one occasion. Perhaps because I was younger at the time, I avoided significant injury (except for that one ice-skating party my freshman year in college that started at midnight, when I fell while showing off and broke my arm—was there beer involved?). And as I’ve watch the national weather reports the last few weeks, I have seen icy conditions in the forecasts for a good part of the country. For many adults as they age, especially if they are not very physically active, icy conditions are enough to keep ‘em indoors for days on end, until the ice abates. Seems a shame! I wonder if there is any benefit yoga could provide to boost the confidence of those in such chilling circumstances?

As you probably have already guessed, yoga can definitely help on many levels. It can restore your confidence in your physical abilities, as you get regular with a practice geared toward the outdoor icy reality.  It can improve your strength if you have not been working your body out as of late, especially in the legs. Your standing balance can get better with targeted work in certain yoga poses. Yoga can improve your chances of getting up off the ground if you happen to go down, something we have written about in my post Transferring and Yoga Wisdom from Jane Fonda as “transfer” ability. And as many of my students have reported back after the fact, yoga can even can help you to “fall better.” Finally, if you are stressing out about falling on the ice before you even leave the house, some focused easy meditations can keep you mentally and physically relaxed as well as improving your concentration for when you step out the door and into that new, shifting reality of the winter wonderland (see Stress Eating and Healthy Eating Meditation Practice—you could use a different mantra, such as "healthy walking," for the second meditation).

Tell me more, you say! Let’s first talk about the strength, flexibility and agility that you need in icy situations. First off, you need strength and agility to feel your feet are under you and grounded to the earth, even if they might start to slip. And if you begin to slip, you’d like the strength, flexibility and agility to self-correct if possible. In modern yoga, practicing many of the basic standing poses, such as Warrior 1 and 2 (Virabradrasana 1 and 2), Triangle pose (Trikonasana), Extended Side Angle pose (Parsvakonasana), Standing Backbend, Wide-Legged Standing Forward Bend (Prasarita Padottanasana) to name a few, will allow you to start to address the strength and flexibility aspects beautifully.

Extended Side Angle Pose

Doing some simple Sun Salutations and Moon Salutations will crank up your agility skills by not only moving your body dynamically, but also making bending down to the ground and being on all fours familiar, should you still lose your balance on the ice. You could almost think of it as practice falling!

Poses with two bent knee poses, such as Powerful pose (Utkatasana) and Squat or Garland pose (Malasana), done both dynamically—in and out of it with the breath—and dropping as low as possible and holding the pose, are great poses to prepare you for a slip.  How so? Well, at the first feeling of a slip on ice, if you remember to bend your knees and not lock them, you can start to “sit down” toward the ground as opposed to tipping over like a falling tree. Sitting down is much less impactful (less injurious, perhaps) on the body than tipping over. And if you do find yourself sitting down from a slippery fall, you’ll have the strength, from having practiced these squatting shaped poses, to more quickly and successfully right yourself. In other words, you will be good at transferring down and up again. (See Featured Pose: Powerful Pose for detailed instructions on how to do the pose.)

Powerful Pose

And if you really want to advance things and improve your balance, you can start adding in one-legged yoga poses to the mix in case you slip and one foot happens to stay on the icy earth. Tree pose (Vrksasana), King Dancer (Natarajasana), Warrior 3 (Virabradrasana 3), Half Moon (Arda Chandrasana), and Standing Hand-to-Foot pose (Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana) will take you in all different directions with your legs and your spine, so again, you may feel more familiar with suddenly being in those positions in slick conditions. (See Featured Pose: Warrior 3 for three different ways to practice Warrior 3.)

Warrior 3 Pose, Easy Version

I can also assure you that my students who have fallen and lived to tell the tale (with minimal injury) reported back that they have the definite impression that their regular home practice and class attendance contributed to their ability to “fall well.” They reported that their reaction time seemed faster and that they had the ability to choose how and where to fall. And often they began to fall and “caught themselves” before actually going all the way down—save!

Now, I can hear some of you saying that this is all fine and dandy, but what I am I to do today? It’s icy out there now and I have been sitting on my butt for years. Well, there is no time like now, especially if you are not going outside today anyway, to start your new yoga home practice today. And the way things are playing out this winter, there is likely to be more ice in the weeks and months to come, so your future pay-offs will be huge by practicing one icy day at a time, beginning now. Go!

Subscribe to YOGA FOR HEALTHY AGING by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook

Read More

Stress Eating and the Healthy Eating Meditation Practice

by Baxter

Breakfast of Champions by Melina Meza

Recently I had the good fortune to present an all-day workshop on Yoga for Healthy Eating at the Yoga Journal Conference in San Francisco. The workshop was in many ways a distillation of all of the ideas and information we have presented here at YFHA over the last 2+ years. And as I prepared for the day, and while I was presenting the workshop, the stories my students and workshop attendees shared with me really brought home once again how powerful our daily modern stresses are in derailing our attempts at healthy eating.

As we have addressed here previously, the stress response, which usually is NOT to a true life-threatening emergency these days, causes an immediate impulse behavior that is essential in a true emergency, when you need to act, not mull over what to do. But because we are usually at the desk or behind the wheel and not actually fleeing or fighting and expending energy, the impulse tends to override our commitment and willpower to maintain healthy eating habits. So sometimes we grab a snack as our impulsive reaction.

On top of that, the stress reaction releases extra cortisol into our blood stream, which hangs around a lot longer than the fast acting adrenalin and CRH hormone. And cortisol tends to increase our appetite, even if it is nowhere near mealtime. So we have yet another urge to eat. And since the body releases energy-rich sugar molecules into our bloodstream in those first moments of our stress response - molecules that have been stored in the body for emergencies - we tend to be more likely to want to replace them by reaching for carbohydrates that are rich in similar sugar molecules when that post-event cortisol appetite strikes. So we make another unhealthy choice by going for the snack foods and sugar-rich soft drinks so readily available at work and at the store! What’s a determined yogi to do?

Nina has suggested that a regular stress-reduction asana practice—with an active portion (such as a few rounds of Sun Salutations to address held physical tension in the body), followed by several restorative poses or even a supported easy inversion—combined with meditation and breath awareness -- is a good option for beginning to deal with the overall stress in your life. And we have also talked about how the stress response causes that immediate impulsivity, which Kelly McGonigal, PhD says reduces your willpower in the moment of the stressful event. But she also notes that a regular meditation practice tends to build willpower, possibly offsetting the stress response impulsivity and getting you through those daily stressful bumps. According to one study, even 10 minutes a day starts to do the trick after you rack up as little as three hours of total meditation time over several weeks.

All of this made me think about the times when you return home from a stressful day, fatigued and not wanting to or having the energy to do your stress management practice. So I came up with a 20 minute practice to address the general effects of stress and to support our resolve and will power to eat more healthy, that just about anyone can do when you first get home.

Before I share this fairly simple practice, I want to reiterate our recommendations on what to do in the moment of the stress event. Consider any of the following:

• Get up and take a short, brisk walk.
• Try one of our short office yoga practices, which you can do at work or just about anywhere.
• Drink a big glass of water and sit quietly, observing your breath for five minutes before acting on the impulse to eat.
• If you really feel you need to eat something, be prepared with healthy whole-food snacks you bring to work each day, or have in your purse or backpack before you leave home for the day.

For the 20-minute practice, I’m proposing a two-part meditation. You can practice this when you get home or, honestly whenever it suits your schedule. But I suggest you do it every day (we’ve said before and I’ll say it again: your bad habits never change without work and practice!).

Part 1:  This is your Stress Reduction practice, a 10-minute simple, reclined meditation. Before practicing, set a timer so you don’t have to worry about what time it is, because that is not relaxing. For this practice, lie in Relaxation pose for 10 minutes, and simply focus on your easy, natural breath as it enters and exits your body. That’s it. Try to stay gently awake. You can use a blanket support under your spine and head, or just a pillow to lift the head slightly. The purpose of this first meditation is to trigger the Relaxation Response that Herbert Benson first described back in the 70’s.

Part 2: This is your Willpower Boosting practice, a 10-minute seated meditation practice. Come up from your reclining position and sit with or without support on the floor, or use a chair if you prefer. Set your timer again for 10 minutes. Now, establish a nice inner lift from your sitting bones up to the crown of your head. Then pick a simple word or phrase to use as your mental focus, and repeat it to yourself mentally on each exhalation. You might use the phrase “healthy eating” as your intention, or pick something that works better for you. When you notice that you’ve become distracted, immediately return to repeating your phrase. This second meditation is not about relaxing, but about staying focused and concentrated on your intention. That does not mean you might not still feel relaxed at the end, but that’s not the purpose. Remember, studies have shown that meditations like this not only make meditating easier over time, but also improve a wide range of self-control skills, which is what we are after!

So there you have it—the 20-minute, two-part Healthy Eating Meditation practice! Give it a go for the next month. And let us know what changes you notice. No time like the present to make the change you want to see in 2014!

Subscribe to YOGA FOR HEALTHY AGING by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook

Read More

Yoga for Healthy Eating: An Overview

by Nina

Both Baxter and I have already written a number of posts exploring the topic of Yoga for Healthy Eating. But seeing that it’s the beginning of a new year—when people often make resolutions regarding their health—I thought now would be a good time to provide an overview of the topic. Basically, between the two of us, we’ve come up with a four-pronged approach to support healthy eating:

• Understand your digestive system

• Practice stress management
• Cultivate mindfulness
• Strengthen Will Power

1. Understanding Your Digestive System

Baxter has recorded a short audio tour of the digestive system (see Audio Tracks) that you can use to learn about how your digestive system works and what happens to your food as and after you eat it. It’s especially helpful for you to learn about how your digestive system interacts with your Autonomic Nervous System and higher brain function. When you’re in a state of stress (see Stress, Your Health and Yoga), your nervous system diverts your body’s resources away from your digestive system (you don’t need to be eating or digesting your food when you’re running away from that tiger or that car that looks like it’s not going to be stopping before the crosswalk!). So chronic stress can cause digestive problems. In addition, even thinking about stressful situation can have a potential negative impact on digestion!

2. Practicing Stress Management

Chronic stress may not only cause digestive problems as I mentioned above, but the cortisol that is released can cause weight gain by stimulating your appetite (Yoga, Stress and Weight Management). So one of the most important things you can do to improve digestion and move toward healthy eating is to use your yoga practice to reduce your stress levels. See The Relaxation Response and Yoga for basic information on using yoga to switch your nervous system from the Fight or Flight response (stress mode) to the Rest and Digest response (relaxation mode). It’s not called the Rest and Digest mode for nothing!

3. Cultivating Mindfulness

Many poor eating habits are just that—habits! Practicing yoga asana with mindfulness and meditating will help you tune into your body, and not to ignore it. And as you tune into your body, you may learn about foods you are currently eating that are compromising your health (see Got Mindfulness?) or notice poor eating habits, such as eating beyond satiety (see Meditation and Healthy Eating). Cultivating mindfulness can teach you to recognize:

• which foods are good for you and which are not (not just junk food, but maybe food intolerances or allergies)
• when you are full and don’t need to eat more
• when you are thirsty instead of hungry
• when you are eating for stress, not for hunger

See Yoga for Healthy Eating for more information.

Mindfulness will also help you start to recognize habitual thoughts that are getting in the way of healthy eating. You can then work on changing your perspective (see Cultivating the Opposite).


4. Strengthening Will Power

Once you’ve identified your habits or have decide to eliminate or cut back certain foods, it takes will power to change! According the Dr. Kelly McGonigal, being in a state of stress can increase impulsive behavior and decrease will power. So practicing stress management as we describe above will help with your will power (see Healthy Eating, Stress and Self Control). However, you can also use a meditation practice to intentionally strengthen your will power.  Meditation teaches you to return to your object of meditation (your focus) and tune out distractions (temptations):

“Neuroscientists have discovered that when you ask the brain to meditate, it gets better not just at meditating, but at a wide range of self-control skills, including attention, focus, stress management, impulse control, and self awareness. People who meditate regularly aren’t just better at these things. Over time, their brains become finely tuned willpower machines. Regular meditators have more gray matter in the prefrontal cortex, as well as regions of the brain that support self-awareness." —Dr. Kelly McGonigal

See Meditation and Healthy Eating for more information.

Tune in tomorrow to hear from Baxter on the same topic! He’ll discuss stress eating and recommend some specific yoga practices for you to support your goals for healthy eating. 

Subscribe to YOGA FOR HEALTHY AGING by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook

Read More

Sleep: A Pillar of Life

by Ram

Siesta by John Singer Sargent

According to the Ayurveda philosophy, there are three supports or pillars of life. Sleep is one of the pillars, with the other two being good digestion and sexual restraint. These pillars endow the body with strength, complexion and healthy growth that can continue until the full span of life, provided the individual does not indulge in activities that are detrimental to health. According to the Charaka Samhita, a foundational Ayurvedic text:

“Happiness, misery, nourishment, emaciation, strength, weakness, virility, sterility, knowledge, ignorance, life and death -- all these occur depending on proper or improper sleep.”

Proper sleep and rest is essential for the well-being of any individual. The body utilizes the sleep time to repair itself of any damage sustained during the waking hours. Sleep helps us thrive by contributing to a healthy immune system and balance our appetites by helping to regulate the levels of hormones that play a role in hunger and satiety. So when we’re sleep-deprived, we may feel the need to eat more, which can lead to weight gain. A good night sleep enhances the same positive feelings and states of being that we achieve through our yoga practice. Good sleeping habit plays a direct role in how full, energetic and successful our lives can be. There's no question that we feel better after a good night's rest. It seems that, if we want to live to our full potential, we must approach sleep as a personal practice.

According to the Harvard Women’s health watch, there are six primary reasons to have sufficient sleep:

• Sleep helps the brain sustain and preserve new information to memory; people who have a good sleep after learning a task do better on tests later
• Sleep deprivation triggers weight gain
• Sleep deficits contribute to accidents, falls and traffic mishaps
• Sleep deprivation triggers emotional disturbances
• Sleep disorders can be a cause of hypertension and irregular heartbeat
• Sleep deprivation lowers immunity making the individual more susceptible to degenerative diseases or infections

How sleep is beneficial and how we are affected by sleep is of great interest to sleep researchers. In a landmark study, scientists discovered that during sleep the brain clears out harmful toxins thereby reducing the risk of several brain diseases. Nina elaborated on this study in one of her previous posts Sleep, Alzheimer’s Disease and Yoga.

In another recent study, a group of researchers from the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory of Chicago showed that good sleep is the antidote to fear. In experiments involving 15 normal human subjects, the researchers demonstrated that specific fear memories of human beings were wiped out during the slow-wave sleep. The complicated small sample study involved exposing the human subjects to two fear contextual cues: pictures of faces accompanied by an electric shock (to generate a fear response) and specific aromas associated with the faces.  All test subjects learned to fear the faces and the aromas that came with an electric shock. The subjects were asked to sleep and all the subjects were exposed again to the specific smells associated with the fear when they entered the slow-wave sleep cycle. Interestingly, the fear response to the specific odor had significantly waned in the slow-wave sleep cycle, suggesting the importance of sleep as a therapy to boost fear extinction memory.

In addition to supporting the Ayurvedic concept of sleep being one of the pillars of life, the above-mentioned research studies appear to offer a reasonable explanation of the need to have good and timely sleep. Proper sleep contributes to psychological health and well-being. However, most of us will encounter sleep disturbances throughout the course of our lives. In fact, one out of three people will experience sleep disturbances at some point in their lives. Sleep disturbances do not allow the proper repair of injuries making the tissues more susceptible to further injuries. This leads to the body breaking down. Sleep deprivation/disturbance is also a major source of stress among adults. A mere week of unrest or sleep deprivation can cause severe mood disturbances, depression and emotional upheaval. In a multicenter, randomized controlled trial for sleep quality among cancer survivors, a yoga program consisting of breathing exercises (pranayama), 16 gentle hatha and restorative yoga postures (asanas), and meditation was found to be a useful treatment for improving sleep quality and reducing sleep medication use among cancer survivors. Yoga participants demonstrated (a) greater improvements in sleep quality, quantity and efficiency, and daytime dysfunction and (b) decreased intake of sleep medication.

For more on yoga programs for sleep disturbances check Nina’s articles on these specific topics, including Day to Night: Yoga for Better Sleep. I hope after reading this article you will appreciate the importance of good sleep. Remember, good sleep is essential for a person’s health and wellbeing, and if you are experiencing sleep problems there is quite a price to pay.  I am reminded of Mahatma Gandhi’s quote from one of his speeches:

“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.” 

Subscribe to YOGA FOR HEALTHY AGING by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook

Read More

Friday Q&A: What is Slow, Gentle Yoga?

Seaweed by Melina Meza

One of our readers left the following question on the post Degenerative Disk Disease and Yoga:

Q: I wonder what you mean by 'gentle, slow yoga'? Could you give some examples?

A: In the post in question, I was reviewing a study that looked at the spines of experienced yoga teachers and observed that the discs between the bones of the spine—the vertebrae—were healthier than a control group who did not do yoga. The teachers, who were from Taiwan, all taught a “gentle, slow form of yoga.” Unfortunately, from what I could find online, I was not able to ascertain which yoga lineage or modern strain of yoga they were teaching.

When I speak of “gentle, slow yoga,” I am referring to practices that would typically include mostly beginning-level yoga postures, although some intermediate poses, especially seated poses, could be done in a gentle way. In fact, the way in which the poses are instructed or performed, that is, the quality of the effort, would be gentle. The poses could be held for a while, say a few breaths to several minutes, if the gentle quality could be preserved, or there could be a slow transition from pose to pose, a kind of slow motion vinyasa style practice. Many of my colleagues teach what they call “Slow Flow,” which could qualify in this category of style of practices, to differentiate from the faster vinyasa classes that move more rapidly from pose to pose, such as “Power Flow” classes or the Ashtanga Primary series. More obvious, perhaps, would be Restorative Yoga classes, where the effort is minimal, and one tends to be in each pose for several to many minutes. Many studios now offer public classes that they actually name “Gentle Yoga.” But names can be deceiving, so the proof is in the pudding, as they say. See what your experience is like in so-named classes before you give it the “gentle, slow yoga” seal of approval.

And don’t be led to believe that just because a practice is gentle and slow it may not be effective, or that you won’t feel much. In the study at hand, it may have led to the better disc health for these teachers as demonstrated on MRI studies. And on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis, you may also notice distinct improvement in mobility, strength, balance and agility despite the “name” of the class or style. If you haven’t given this kind of class a spin, maybe this is the weekend to do so!

—Baxter

Subscribe to YOGA FOR HEALTHY AGING by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook

Read More

Lowering Your Blood Pressure

by Nina

If you have high blood pressure—or even high blood pressure that is being controlled with medication as Timothy wrote yesterday—there are certain anti-stress poses that you should not be doing. Although inverted poses can lower blood pressure due to the interaction between your baroreceptors and your nervous system (see Why You Should Love Your Baroreceptors), going upside down initially raises your blood pressure before feedback from the baroreceptors to the nervous system causes the Relaxation Response to kick in. This initial rise in blood pressure is why the poses are considered dangerous for those whose blood pressure is already high (and perhaps for those whose blood pressure is being controlled with medication as Timothy wrote in Keeping Yoga Safe for People with High Blood Pressure), because there is concern it could cause a stroke.

Timothy didn’t list exactly which inverted poses besides Headstand that people with high or even controlled high blood should be avoiding, so I decided to talk with Baxter about the topic in order to list them out for you. The good news is that Baxter considers three of the most effective stress-reducing inversions to be generally safe. I’ve divided the inverted poses into same three groups I used in my post All About Supported Inversions. So here goes:

Full Inversions: Poses to Avoid

• Handstand (Adho Mukha Vrksasana)
• Forearm Balance (Pincha Mayurasana)
• Scorpion (Vrschikasana)
• Headstand (Sirsasana)
• Shoulderstand (Sarvagasana), including the chair version
• Plow (Halasana), including the chair/bench version

Because you are fully inverted in these poses, the blood quickly rushes toward your head, initially raising your blood pressure. In addition, most of these poses are stressful to perform, especially for beginners, and the stress itself can raise your blood pressure.

Half Inversions: Poses to Evaluate

• Downward-Facing Dog pose (Adho Mukha Svanasana)
• Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana), with or without support
• Wide-Legged Standing Forward Bend (Prasarita Padottanasana)

Poses where your head and torso are inverted but your legs not, such as Standing Forward Bend, are probably safe. But Baxter recommends that you ask your teacher to look at you while you are doing the poses. The same questions about how you look in the pose that Timothy listed yesterday would be helpful for assessing the suitability of these poses for you or, if you’re a teacher, for your student.

“Does the student appear to have the strength and flexibility to do the pose safely? How is their breathing in the pose? Do they look uncomfortable? Are they able to maintain a healthy curve in the neck? Are their neck veins bulging? How do they say they feel in the pose? It is even possible, if you've got a blood pressure device, to measure the pressure to make sure it isn't spiking in the pose or poses you're concerned about.”

If the pose is difficult or stressful for you, you may want to exclude it from your practice. If you decide to exclude these poses, you can practice Half Downward-Facing Dog pose at the Wall instead.

Gentle Inversions: Poses that are Generally Safe

• Legs Up the Wall pose (Viparita Karani)
• Easy Inverted pose (Viparita Karani with bent legs)
• Supported Straight Leg Bridge pose (Setubanda Sarvangasana)

According to Baxter, gentle inversions where your heart is only slightly higher than your head and your body slopes gradually down, such as Legs Up the Wall pose, do not seem to cause an initial rise in blood pressure (he has done some informal testing). Therefore, he feels comfortable in saying they are generally safe. One caveat might be that if your blood pressure is wildly out of control, it might make sense for you to do a different type of practice for stress reduction (see below).

Safe Ways to Lower Blood Pressure

Remember, there is no need for you to do any inverted poses! If you are at all concerned about going upside down, you can choose from several other very effective and safe techniques for lowering your blood pressure. Any yoga or meditation technique that triggers the Relaxation Response (see The Relaxation Response and Yoga) will lower your blood pressure (this was proven in the 70s by Dr. Herbert Bensen and described in his book The Relaxation Response, which I highly recommend). Probably the easiest thing to do is just to sit quietly and observe your breath or recite a mantra. But you can practice any form of mediation, practice Yoga Nidra, any guided Savasana, or any form of Relaxation pose (Savasana) with a mental focus. You could also practice your favorite restorative poses (see Mini Restorative Practice, also with a mental focus. Just be sure to take a non-judgmental attitude toward your practice, give yourself at least 10 to 20 minutes of practice, as it takes a while for the Relaxation Response to kick in, and don’t fall asleep (sleeping is different than conscious relaxation).

All of these options are wonderful for anyone who experiences “situational” high blood pressure (when getting stressed out or angry causes... well, you know!) And practicing conscious relaxation on a regular basis will also enhance your health in the short term (bolstering your immune system) and the long term (helping to prevent heart disease, strokes, and other diseases of aging).

Subscribe to YOGA FOR HEALTHY AGING by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook

Read More

Keeping Yoga Safe for People with High Blood Pressure

by Timothy

Monterey Cyprus by Melina Meza

I recently taught a course on Yoga for High Blood Pressure on Yoga U Online. During the program I suggested that doing certain inverted poses such as Headstand (Sirsasana) may not be a good idea, even for some people whose blood pressure (BP) is “well controlled” by medications. But one listener had heard during her teacher training that inversions were okay in this situation. Her instructors had consulted a local cardiologist and shown the doctor the poses in question, and he had said he didn't have a problem with them in people whose BP was under control.

The concern is that when you go upside down, the pressure in the head increases, which could at least theoretically increase the risk of a stroke. I say theoretically, because actually no one really knows how large the risk is, though it's likely very, very small. As I've written elsewhere, more than likely yoga greatly decreases the overall risk of a stroke. But that doesn't mean it's a good idea to push your luck.

Interestingly, blood pressure is one area where yoga teachers are sometimes more conservative than doctors. Aadil Pahkivala, the teacher I worked with on the high blood pressure chapter of my book Yoga as Medicine, has found that some people with well-controlled BP nonetheless demonstrate jitteriness when they do some inversions and strong backbends. This nervous system agitation, which can be visible to the teacher and palpable to the student  (at least the ones who have developed their internal awareness though their yoga practices), suggests a potential problem.

In medical school, we were taught to always weigh risks vs. benefits of any test, drug or medical procedure under consideration. In medicine, this comes under the category of “first do no harm.” In yoga, we've got the same idea with the notion of ahimsa, non-harming, which is considered the foundation of any yoga practice. Again, the risk of a stroke when inverting with “well-controlled” high blood pressure is likely very small, but even a tiny risk of something very bad should be factored in when deciding whether or not to do a particular yoga pose. In yoga, a crucial way to assess safety is to study your student—or yourself, if you're the student in question—as they do the practice in question.

So rather than simply saying, “The doctor says it's okay to do Headstand so let's do it,” a more prudent approach is to let that be the beginning of your evaluation. If you're a teacher, consider the following questions: Does the student appear to have the strength and flexibility to do the pose safely? How is their breathing in the pose? Do they look uncomfortable? Are they able to maintain a healthy curve in the neck? Are their neck veins bulging? How do they say they feel in the pose? It is even possible, if you've got a blood pressure device, to measure the pressure to make sure it isn't spiking in the pose or poses you're concerned about. And if you're a student concerned about high blood pressure, ask your teacher to help you do this evaluation.

Especially when the risks are uncertain, the more information you can get the better. And after you have all the information, it’s time to practice ahimsa.

Subscribe to YOGA FOR HEALTHY AGING by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook

Read More

How Yoga Affects Breathing

by Baxter

Jellies by Melina Meza

As I was reading an interview in my latest yogauonline.com newsletter with physician and yoga therapist Loren Fishman, MD and his collaborator Ellen Saltonstall called Can Yoga Preserve Freedom of Movement? (hell, yeah!), a short statement from Dr. Fishman about how physical movement and the breath are connected caught my eye:

“…something that is really very poorly recognized in the medical or the yoga literature: that moving your joints is one of the strongest stimuli to breathing properly and deeply. There are little movement receptors inside all of our joints, and they send signals that go directly and indirectly to the apneustic center, one of the centers in the brain that regulate breathing.”

You may remember that a while back Nina and I wrote a post Falling for Yoga Myths about some of the things that really do stimulate and regulate our breath, and that I also did a post How Breath Affects Your Nervous System detailing the relationship between the Autonomic Nervous System and the breath. Part of my purpose for writing these posts was to correct some common misconceptions about breathing that continue to exist in the yoga community. You may recall that I mentioned that the levels of carbon dioxide (NOT oxygen) in the blood stream are monitored by the deep brain structures, and it is the CO2 levels that have some of the greatest influence on changes in breathing moment by moment. In addition, the brain and the periphery of the body are also assessing the acid/base balance of the blood, or the pH.

But now, Dr. Fishman adds in a new twist to our understanding of breath! Turns out that the same nerve receptors we have talked about in relationship to balance, called proprioceptors, which are located in the muscles, tendons and joints, affect breathing, too. Not only do they tell the brain where you are in space, how fast you are moving and in which direction, but also the movement of joints, tendons and muscles stimulate part of the brainstem that regulates breath called the apneustic center. Located in the part of the brainstem called the pons, the apneustic center is involved in stimulating our inspiration or “in breath.” Movement—physical movement—stimulates increased depth of breathing, known technically as “hyperpnea.” In a serious, life-threatening situation in which the breathing was slowing and shallow, moving someone’s limbs could stimulate the breath back to healthier levels. Cold water and pain can have a similar effect on breathing.

This connection between bodily movement and improved depth of breathing is helpful news, especially when it comes to people who have been previously inactive, have become stiff, suffered a loss of vitality and notice that their breathing does not respond well to physical stresses such as an increase in work load for their body. By beginning to move the joints and limbs systematically, as we would do in a beginning level yoga class, we are (without even mentioning how to breath) going to stimulate an increase in the depth of breathing. I am sure many of you have had this experience: at the start of class, during an initial sitting meditation or centering practice, the breath and chest feel slightly tight and restricted, but when your attention is brought to the breath at the end of a balanced yoga asana practice, the breath seems to have greater freedom and depth with less effort. This body-to-brain connection of the proprioceptors and the pons of the brainstem are likely at work. Just one more reason to keep moving your body!

To read all kinds of nerdy details on the physiology of breathing, check out the article Regulation of Breathing.

Subscribe to YOGA FOR HEALTHY AGING by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook

Read More