10 Ways to Soothe Anxiety With Yoga

by Nina

Morning Glories by Melina Meza

1. Lengthen Your Exhalation. Simple breath practices where you lengthen your exhalation (such as pausing briefly at the end of the exhalation) can help head off a panic or anxiety attack. Practiced on a regular basis, breath awareness and simple breath practices can reduce your overall stress levels, helping to reduce anxiety. See Balancing Your Emotions With Your Breath. 

2. Practice Conscious Relaxation. Although sleep is vital for good health, conscious relaxation provides benefits for anxiety that you cannot get from sleep. During conscious relaxation, there is a marked decrease in blood lactate, a substance associated with anxiety attacks. Blood-lactate levels fall rapidly within the first 10 minutes of conscious relaxation, while sleep has no effect on blood-lactate levels. As you relax, your thoughts stop racing and your mind quiets while your body is resting and digesting. See The Relaxation Response and Yoga for a large number of options. Because anxiety and panic attacks are related to chronic stress, practicing some form of relaxation on a regular basis can help prevent the anxiety and/or panic attacks from occurring in the first place.

3. Exercise Before Relaxing. If you’re too restless to settle down into a relaxing practice or pose, try an active yoga practice, such as standing poses or Sun Salutations (or any other vigorous exercise you prefer) to tire yourself out before practicing conscious relaxation.  

4. Practice Supported Forward Bends. These poses can be wonderfully quieting and soothing. You can use supported forward bends to calm yourself when you’re feeling anxious or to turn inward when you’ve been over-stimulated. However, you do need to set up for them properly. See Soothing Yourself With Supported Forward Bends. Since backbends tend to be energizing—and can sometimes trigger feelings of vulnerability and anxiety—you may want to avoid them during periods of intense anxiety. See Yoga and the Front Body.

5. Practice Supported Inverted Poses. Using supported inverted poses for stress management is one of easiest ways for many people to calm yourself because all you have to do is set yourself in the pose and stay there for a while. The shape of the pose itself causes your baroreceptors—the pressure sensors that help control your blood pressure—to switch your nervous system from Fight or Flight (stress mode) to Rest and Digest (relaxation mode). See All About Supported Inverted Poses for options.

6. Practice Restorative Yoga. This form of yoga uses props to support your body and allow your muscles to relax completely. With your muscles completely relaxed, you can then turn your attention inward, focusing on your breath, physical sensations, or any other object of meditation, which allows the relaxation response to switch on. See Restorative Yoga: An Introduction for more information and options. You can practice restorative poses both on their own or at the end of a more active practice.

7. Practice Yoga Nidra. Yoga nidra or yogic sleep is a form of guided conscious relaxation, in which a teacher or a recorded voice provides imagery and mental exercises for you to follow as you relax in a comfortable reclined position. Since one hallmark feature of an anxious mind is the tendency to have urgent, repetitive thought patterns full of worry and fear that are hard to turn off, having a voice to guide you can help you turn off your anxious thoughts and start to calm down. We have two short guided relaxation tracks of our own on our Audio Tracks page but there are many other yoga nidra recordings out there for to you choose from, some of which are quite long (if you want a full hour of practice).

8. Keep Your Eyes Open. If closing your eyes in any forward bends or prone poses causes you to brood or worry, let your eyes remain open, with a soft, diffuse gaze. 

9. Practice Crocodile Pose instead of Savasana. For some people with anxiety, lying on their backs makes them feel vulnerable. So instead of doing Savasana, consider practicing Crocodile pose. Fold a yoga blanket in a rectangle and place it cross-wise on your mat. Then lie down with your lower belly on the blanket (this reduces the over-curving of your lower back that tends to occur when you lie on your belly). Take your feet slightly apart from each other and fold your arms so your elbows are out to the sides and your forearms are parallel with the front edge of your mat with your hands stacked. Then rest your forehead on your hands, gently tugging your forehead skin down toward your nose (an action that seems to be very calming, who knows why). If Crocodile pose doesn’t work for you, you can try a side-lying Savasana. See Corpse Pose Variations for info on these poses.

10. Customize Your Yoga Practice. Since anxiety and panic attacks are related to chronic stress, practicing some form of relaxation on a regular basis at home can help prevent the anxiety and/or panic attacks from occurring in the first place. As you practice on your own, notice how individual poses and practices are making you feel. This might lead to the discovery that poses or practices that are generally considered “relaxing,” such as Reclined Cobbler’s pose or meditation, might actually be increasing your anxiety. See Yoga Solutions for Anxiety and When Relaxing Isn't Relaxing for more info.

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Learning to Sit on the Floor, Part 2

by Baxter

Last week, our resident physical therapist and yoga teacher Shari Ser began a discussion about learning how to sit well on the floor. While sitting on the floor is frequently the first position we take in most modern yoga classes, there is often little attention given to the various ways we can sit comfortably either at the start of a class or for home meditation practice. So if you did not have a chance to get to it last week, I suggest you read Shari’s post now (see Learning to Sit on the Floor), with special attention to the last half of the post that covered yoga poses to strengthen the supporting muscles of the spine and back, as well as ways to improve flexibility of the spine, especially in the area of the rib cage. 

Today I’m going to address a follow-up question one of our readers left on Shari’s post: 

Something missing for me here: I can't sit cross-legged because my knees won't go down and my ankles can't stand the bend caused by knees less than halfway to the floor. I couldn't do this even when I was young, flexible, and lean. Help? 

This reader highlights a reality that many of my students encounter when trying to take a comfortable seat in yoga: their bodies don’t allow them to sit easily in cross-legged position, not due to lack of work on the poses that can open and strengthen them to improve their ability to sit, but due to structural realities of their bodies. It turns out some people’s skeletons and connective tissue just don’t permit enough movement—particularly in the hip joint—to allow the pelvis and femur bones (thigh bones) to take their ideal positions. This usually becomes apparent after a practitioner has spent a reasonable amount of time trying to improve his or her sitting position without seeing any changes in those joints.

So today I’m going to make some suggestions for those individuals, and I suspect many of our readers fall into that category! First, make sure you have an adequate support under your sitting bones to elevate your entire body for sitting. Shari suggested a folded blanket or pillow on a chair seat to start to get the idea of your hips being slightly higher than your knees. For challenged yogis who are sitting in Seated Crossed Legs position (Sukasana), I suggest sitting on two to three folded blankets, on a block, or on the edge of a firm bolster.

You will have to experiment with how much height you need to get your hips high enough so they are even with or higher then your knees. Sometimes, if your support is high enough, you might feel a release in your pelvis and hip joints, and your knees might drop a bit more than expected, even for those like our questioner today. Second, provide some support under your knees. Using a block on each side may immediately resolve any pain that is occurring in you knees or hips (and maybe even your ankles). 

If you do all that and your ankles are still uncomfortable, try rolling a blanket and wrapping it around your ankles and under your knees. This alone may support and cushion your ankles and support your knees.

Unfortunately, even with all of these props, some of my students are still unable to get comfortable Seated Crossed Legs position. So this is where my personal favorite way to sit comes in: Hero pose (Virasana).

In Hero pose, the challenges for your body are different than Seated Crossed Legs position (Sukasana), so you may still need some support. If your knee joints and/or ankles are stiff, the propping I will show here today will likely take care of those difficulties. If your lower spine is stiff or your front thigh muscles are tight, you may still need a lift under your hips to get that slight forward pelvic tilt that allows your lumbar spine (lower spine) to take on its natural curve. In this pose I personally always sit on at least one block on its lowest or middle or lower height, so I suspect you will need to experiment on you own to discover the height that is best for you.

Start by placing a folded blanket on your mat to support your shins. Then kneel on the blanket, with your knees near front of blanket, and your ankles and feet hanging off the back edge. Have your knees hips-distance apart, but splay your shins a bit wider apart in back. Place a block on its lowest or middle height (or a stack of two blocks) sideways between your feet, so both sitting bones can rest on it). Then carefully sit back on the block. Adjust your pelvis, as you might move it in Cat/Cow pose, until your lower back feels like it has a nice natural arch. 

Many practitioners have ankles that are very stiff and inflexible. So if your ankles are uncomfortable in this pose, you can use an additional blanket under your ankles to relieve that tension. (To improve ankle flexibility in the long run, practice poses such as Child’s pose (Balasana) and Cobra pose (Bhujangasana) that stretch your ankles and the tops of your feet.)

Finally, if you do end up adopting Hero pose as your preferred sitting pose, I’d suggest you exit from it carefully—especially if you end up sitting for longer periods of time—because your knees have been deeply flexed in this position. To come out of the pose, carefully shift forward onto hands and knees and stretch one leg at time back behind you to open up your knee joints.

And with whichever sitting pose you choose to work on, as you build strength and flexibility in your spine with our other recommended yoga poses, add in an inner action I call the “inner lift.” This simply means that as you sit, you imagine lengthening up from your sitting bones to the crown of your head through the center of your spine. Notice how long you can maintain this feeling of inner lift before you begin to sag and lose support. Then, try to re-establish the feeling again for a while. If you start to fatigue and can no longer easily maintain your inner lift, stop for the day and note how long you sat. Try to gradually spend more time in your seated position, so that eventually you, like our reader who is preparing for his wedding, will be ready to sit for longer periods of time! 

And if you do find yourself in a situation where you need to spend a long time sitting on the floor and you realize that even in your preferred position your legs are starting to go numb or you are feeling pain, switch to another seated position to give your legs a rest (switching between supported versions of Simple Crossed Legs and Hero pose works well for many of us).

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Can Meditation Delay Aging?

by Brad and Nina 

Gaudi Ceiling by Brad Gibson

Since the early days of Yoga for Healthy Aging, we’ve been blogging about the research of Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, who studies the effects of stress on cellular aging (see Stress, Telomeres and Aging). Dr. Blackburn is so convinced that chronic stress affects aging on a cellular level that she is studying the effects of meditation and yoga on aging, thinking that these practices might actually slow aging and lengthen life.

In particular, Dr. Blackburn has been studying the affects of meditation and yoga on telomere length. Throughout your life, your cells may reproduce many times to repair and strengthen their host organs, to grow or to fight disease, and the telomere at the end shrinks each time the cell divides and duplicates itself. A chemical called telomerase helps restore a portion of the telomere with each division, but after 10 to 50 divisions or so (the number varies by tissue type and health, and biologists still do not understand the system well), the telomere gets so short that the cell is no longer able to replicate. Because some cells or tissues in our body (skin, blood cells, etc.) continue to replicate and be replaced as we age, or to be repaired after injury, if the progenitor cells needed for these processes cannot replicate due to telomere shortening, this can contribute to the aging process and increase our susceptibility to disease.

Dr. Blackburn’s research has demonstrated that chronic stress actually accelerates telomere shortening and that anti-stress practices such as meditation and yoga can in turn slow the process by “boosting” telomeres. A recent BBC article Can Meditation Delay Aging?  gives a good overview of Dr. Blackburn’s current research. Here’s an excerpt that explains why meditation and yoga might boost telomeres.

Theories differ as to how meditation might boost telomeres and telomerase, but most likely it reduces stress. The practice involves slow, regular breathing, which may relax us physically by calming the fight-or-flight response. It probably has a psychological stress-busting effect too. Being able to step back from negative or stressful thoughts may allow us to realise that these are not necessarily accurate reflections of reality but passing, ephemeral events. It also helps us to appreciate the present instead of continually worrying about the past or planning for the future.

But while telomeres are still getting a lot of buzz these days, I for one know that this is only one of many theories of aging out there (see What is Aging, Anyway?). So I turned to Brad for his take on the article (and the issue of telomeres in general). 

—Nina

Overall, this a reasonable, well-written and—for the most part—balanced article. I think when it gets into how the established medical profession and scientists are reluctant to get into this area, it is largely correct. However, there is so much confusion and outright snake oil sales in the “anti aging” field right now that it’s no big mystery why people (and scientists) are cautious. In addition, it is important to keep in mind that the role of telomeres in aging is still very controversial. This statement late in the article is a bit problematic:

"Conventional medical tests give us our risk of particular conditions - high cholesterol warns of impending heart disease, for example, while high blood sugar predicts diabetes. Telomere length, by contrast, gives an overall reading of how healthy we are: our biological age. And although we already know that we should exercise, eat well and reduce stress, many of us fall short of these goals."

For one, the role of cholesterol levels is (surprise!) being hotly debated again. And some of the longstanding wisdom about what levels are good or bad—especially for women—may be wrong.  The idea that telomere length is a read-out of our “biological age” is simply not supportable by solid scientific evidence. It is telling us something, but it’s not exactly clear what that is precisely. There are some big efforts going on right now to identify new “biomarkers” of aging, and I'm under the impression that telomere length is no longer being considered as major player in these efforts.

—Brad

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Friday Q&A: Stretching, Science and Autoimmune Diseases (Rerun)

Above the Fog by Brad Gibson

Here in the USA, it's Independence Day today. So we're taking the day off and rerunning an older post. To stick with the "birth of a country" theme, I thought I'd rerun the questions we answered the very first week we started blogging. If you're newer to this blog and are wondering where our questions come from, well, they come from you! You can leave questions for us by asking them in the comments section of any post (see How to Comment), by contacting Nina via the Contact Us page, or by leaving them on the Yoga for Healthy Aging Facebook page. —Nina

Q: I'm wondering to what extent, and at what rate, we should expect to be able to increase our flexibility as we continue to age. I've made significant progress over the years, and have generally learned how to be mindful enough not to overdo. However, every so often I overstretch without realizing it - whether it's my back trying to get a fuller forward bend, or my Achilles tendon while pushing the envelope. I'm in my 50s and have been doing regular yoga for about 5 years. It's made an immense difference in my core strength and balance and flexibility and I'm much less injury prone now. And yet, every so often, it's my yoga practice that puts me out of commission.

A: Baxter and I discussed your question, and he agrees with me that there is no fixed extent or rate for increasing flexibility as we age, as this will differ from person to person. His advice is to maximize the effectiveness of your stretches while minimizing potential injury by holding your stretches longer rather than pushing harder. He mentioned that it takes at least 45 seconds to get your muscle to fully release. And my kinesiology teacher taught me that in order to change the resting length of the muscle (the length the muscle returns to after stretching), you need to stretch it for 90 seconds. So I use a timing of 90 seconds for many of my stretches. —Nina

Q: Does yoga have any good stretches for a 60 year old stiff person?

A: Yoga has a very large number of poses that allow you to stretch a very wide variety of muscles, no matter how stiff you are. So the first question to ask yourself is: where exactly am I stiff? Some of us are stiff all over and some of us are flexible all over, but it turns out that many of us are flexible in some areas and stiff in others. Identifying which areas you need to stretch will help you chose the poses that will be most helpful to you. That being said, there are a couple of poses that we highly recommend for their versatility. Downward-Facing Dog pose is especially wonderful because it stretches your legs, hips, shoulders and arms, all at the same time.

If this pose is too demanding, you can do an easy variation, Half Dog pose (also called Right Angle pose). With your hands at shoulder-height on the wall or resting on the surface of a table, walk back so your hips are directly over your feet and your arms are parallel to the floor.

Baxter recommend that you warm up for these poses with some dynamic movement, such as swinging your arms above your head or moving your legs around in your hip joints. —Nina

Q: How would one go about investigating the effects of yoga on aging scientifically?

A: This question is intriguing and so important that Brad will devote an entire post to the subject sometime soon.

Q: Just curious about how autoimmune diseases are related to aging? Some seem to be inflammatory conditions I think, and that makes me wonder about allergies, yoga and aging.

A: This is a very big and complicated question! And there’s no quick, simple answer, as the mechanisms behind many of these diseases (not to mention aging itself) are not fully understood. But Baxter says, “Not all autoimmune diseases are created equal.” Different autoimmune diseases arise at different stages in life, so not all are related to aging. Also, not all are related to inflammatory conditions. So that’s why we’ve decided that on this blog we’ll discuss the autoimmune diseases associated with aging individually, over time. Is there any particular disease that concerns you?

We are going to try to do a Q&A every Friday, so keep the questions coming. You can leave a question in a comment or you can email us at nina@wanderingmind.com.

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The First Branch of Yoga: The Yamas

by Ram

Path in the Fog by Claude Monet

The first of the eight rungs or limbs is the yamas, which can be considered as universal morality. The practice of yamas lays the foundation from which to develop all the other subtle practices. Yamas serve as moral, ethical and societal guidelines to lead a conscious, honest, and ethical life. There are five yamas or positive guidelines that help us to behave and relate to our surroundings and environment, and to achieve oneness with it. Patanjali considered the five yamas as universal vows and preached that in order to have a harmonious life they be practiced on all levels: by way of thoughts, actions, and words. The five yamas are: 

• ahimsa=nonviolence
• satya=truthfulness
• aparigraha= noncovetousness/non-possessiveness/non-hoarding
• asteya=nonstealing
• brahmacharya= continence/sexual restraint

For more on the yamas in general, see Nina's post Yama Drama: Considering the First Branch of Yoga. 

Ahimsa: Himsa in Sanskrit means violence, which  is defined as the intentional use of force or power on self or against a person or a group that results in a physical/psychological harm, mental disturbance, injury or death. Going by this definition, himsa can mean both physical and mental violence perpetrated on self or others. Thus, there is no difference between a person who is harboring severe judgment and negativity towards self or others and a person who walks with a gun into a classroom and randomly shoots at the students. Both have committed himsa or violence, albeit to different degrees. Ahimsa (non-violence), is the opposite of himsa and refers to non-harming or non-injury, that is, physical, mental, and emotional non-violence towards self and others. Individuals who always experience natural inner peace and a non-harming attitude and who have given up on their hostilities, ill will, or aggression are practicing ahimsa. For more on ahimsa/nonviolence, see my post Ahimsa: Non Violence and Healthy Aging. 

Satya: Satya is defined in Sanskrit as "sate hitam satyam," which translates to “The path to truth is ultimate truth itself.” Thus, one who is always truthful in actions, speech, and thoughts, his or her will is naturally fulfilled since such a behavior allows a natural flow of goodness or positive feelings. Truth is considered divine and truth connotes purity. If we start living in truth, we are free from all kinds of emotional turmoil. For more on satya and its effects on healthy aging, check out my post Satya: The Truth about Lies and Healthy Aging. 

Aparigraha: Aparigraha means to limit possessions to what is necessary or important and taking what is truly necessary and no more. Hoarding is not just about accumulating material possessions but also about hoarding/holding thoughts and emotions that affect our normal mindset and thinking process. We tend to fill our minds with fear, worry, anxiety, grief, anger, rage, jealousy, judgments among others and we do not let go of these emotions. Over time, these emotions build up and accumulate as unexpressed or suppressed emotions that can trigger mental and/or physical pathological conditions. For more on this topic, see my post Aparigraha: Non-Hoarding and Healthy Aging.

Asteya: Desire or greed for material possessions can cause an individual to steal, overspend or even going into debt that is not only stressful for the individual but can ruin the family as well. The desire for material possession simply means that the individual is dissatisfied with what he/she possesses and is constantly looking to acquire more. Since the fundamental cause of acquiring more is desire, we should try to overcome our desires gradually through the regular practice of yoga.

Brahmacharya: This is a complex topic for our culture. While the original meaning in the Yoga Sutras certainly meant no sex at all for an individual on his/her path, I am not sure if this is how Patanjali would have truly interpreted. Sanskrit terms can have different contextual meanings and I like to interpret brahmacharya in two ways. First, I interpret brahmacarya as sexual responsibility. Recklessness in one’s sexual conduct can also lead to lies, violence, jealousy and pain, which leads the individual astray from the path of yoga. Second, brahma=divine/superior/heavenly and acharaya=routines/practices/tasks. So brahmacharya could also be interpreted as heavenly practices or simply put “good living practices”(GLP).  GLP is being honest, respectful, forgiving, kind, and selfless. People practicing GLP live a fulfilling life as they do not have any personal or selfish interest. Because of these virtues or positive character traits, an individual is committed to doing the right thing no matter what the personal cost, and does not bend to impulses, urges or desires, but acts according to values and principles. GLP helps us to attain wisdom, and when there is wisdom, there is no conflict. GLP helps individuals to turn into agents of social change.

In conclusion, the yamas may seem obscure and impenetrable, but I believe the principles of yamas are worth investigating. Yamas contain essential advice for daily/good living. As they offer a map or guidance that allows us to have enhanced emotional and mental wellbeing and a more fulfilling and meaningful life, yamas serve as the GPS for our lives. Practicing the yamas leads to greater happiness and spiritual fulfillment not only for the individual but also to those around him/her. 

And that is the ultimate truth!

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Featured Sequence: Agility Practice

by Baxter

Today’s sequence will focus on cultivating agility. As we wrote in our post Cultivating Agility and Yoga agility requires all of our other YFHA physical skills—flexibility, strength and balance—plus the integration of isolated movement skills using a combination of balance, coordination, speed, reflexes, strength, and endurance. Agility is the ability to change your body's position efficiently as you move through time and space. So although today’s practice will have some static poses, focus especially on the moments of transition from one shape to another, and attempt to do the poses with control, balance, and precision to the extent you are able. 

1. Cat/Cow (Cakravakasana): Come down onto your hands and knees, with padding under your knees if needed. Start with your spine in a neutral position. Then, on your inhalation, start moving from your pelvis, tipping your hips downward toward the floor. As you continue to inhale, gently lift and lengthen your spine into a gentle backbend. Lift your breastbone forward and up, and allow your head and neck to lengthen out and back, coming into the Cow backbend.

Then, as you exhale, start by releasing your pelvis in the opposite direction, moving the back of your waist upward toward the ceiling. As you continue to exhale, allow your middle back to arch up towards the ceiling and drop your chin toward your chest, coming into the Cat forward bend. 

Repeat Cat/Cow pose for six rounds, moving with your breath.

2. Hunting Dog Pose: Start by doing Hunting dog statically on both sides as described Featured Pose: Hunting Dog Pose. 

Then, create a dynamic sequence as follows: 

1. On your first inhalation, lift your right leg and left arm into the full pose, and then on your exhalation, lower your hand and knee back to the ground.
2. On your second inhalation, lift your left leg and right arm into the full pose, and then on your exhalation lower your hand and knee back to the ground. 

Repeat this pattern 3-5 more times, focusing on keeping the center of the body steady and strong.

3. Mountain Pose (Tadasana):  Stand in Mountain pose (Tadasana) for several breaths to get ready for your standing work. Notice how balanced you feel today before you head to the next series of poses.

4. Arms Overhead (Urdhva Hastasana): For today’s sequence, I’d like you to do the basic version of the pose (without bound hands or holding a block). From Mountain pose, on an inhalation, take your arms forward and up ideally aligned with your ears, but modified as needed. Take a few breaths in this position and then on an exhalation, lower your arms to your sides. Then, move your arms up and down rhythmically with your breath, inhaling your arms up and exhaling them down, about six times. This should be fairly easy. Now here’s where it gets exciting! Add to what your are doing with your arms by slightly lifting up onto the balls of your feet as you inhale and raise your arms, and lowering your heels back to the earth as you exhale and lower your arms. Focus on keeping balancing evenly on the balls of both feet. Repeat this variation for six breathsm then, come back to Mountain pose for a few breaths.

5. Sun Salutations (Surya Namaskar): Sun Salutations are wonderful for cultivating agility, and any form that you usually practice will be beneficial. But switching up to another version will be especially effective. Another idea is to try doing them with your eyes closed sometime! If you’d like to try my basic Sun Salutation, it goes like this:

1. From Mountain Pose, inhale your arms overhead, and on your exhalation, release your arms and bend into Standing Forward Bend, with your fingers on the floor if possible.
2. On your next inhalation, bend your left knee and step your right foot back into High Lunge pose, and on your exhalation, step your left foot back to come into Downward-Facing Dog pose. 
3. From Downward-Facing Dog pose, on your next inhalation, swing your shoulders over your wrists and then come into a Cobra pose by bringing your knees to the floor, moving your hips forward towards your hands, and allowing your spine to backbend. If you can’t do full Cobra pose comfortably, bend your elbows and do a low version of Cobra instead. From Cobra, exhale and swing your hips up, returning to Downward-Facing Dog pose. 
4. From your second Downward-Facing Dog pose, on your next inhalation, step your right foot forward to High Lunge pose, and then on your exhalation, step your left foot forward into Standing Forward Bend. 
5. From Standing Forward Bend, inhale your body and arms up into Arms Overhead Pose, and on your exhalation, release your arms by your sides into Mountain Pose. 
6. Repeat this pattern again, leading with your left foot this time. Feel free to slow the Sun Salutation down a bit by adding an extra breath cycle here and there, such as in Cobra or Downward-Facing Dog pose. 

Do several rounds, practicing an even number so you work equally on both sides.

If full Sun Salutations are too challenging for you, try practicing just moving back and forth from Downward-Facing Dog to High Lunge pose with your breath. Place your hands on blocks in High Lunge if you can't easily bring your fingertips to the floor.

5. Warrior 2, 1, 3 Sequence (Virabhadrasana 2, 1, 3): Linking a series of poses together with your breath, and focusing on how you in and out of the poses will help improve your agility:

1. From Mountain pose, move into Warrior 2 pose, with your right foot turned out 90 degrees, staying for four to six breaths. 
2. Then, kick your left heel back another one to two inches and shift into Warrior 1 pose for four to six breaths. 
3. Finally, shift into Warrior 3 pose for two to four breaths, either with your arms at your sides or reaching forward. 
4. From Warrior 3 pose, step lightly back into Warrior 1 to two breaths. 
5. Adjusting your left heel, come back into Warrior 2 for two breaths.
6. Finally, release into Mountain pose for a few breaths before trying the second side. 

Focus on making the moments of transition as smooth, strong, and graceful as possible. If you're not able to do a full Warrior 3 pose, try doing this sequence so that you will be facing a wall when you are in Warrior 1 pose. You can then try coming into Warrior 3 with your hands on the wall as part of this sequence.

6. Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana): As a nice counterpose the Warrior sequence, come into Standing Forward Bend for several breaths, enjoying the stability of the pose. 

7. Seated Straight-Legged Forward Bend (Paschimottanasana): To cool down a bit more before completing your easy (always a relative term!) agility practice, come down and sit with your legs out in front of you, placing a bolster over your shins, and tipping your hips forward as you come into this supported version of the pose. If you can’t do this version comfortably, try using a chair seat to support your arms and head. Stay for up for 8-10 breaths, or longer if it is feeling good for your body and your back. See Soothing Yourself with Supported Forward Bends for more information.

8. Legs Up the Wall Pose (Viparita Karani): This pose is a nice finish to your practice, as sometimes it can feel more grounding than Relaxation pose (Savasana). So, set yourself up in your favorite variation (see Featured Pose: Legs Up the Wall Pose) for 5-10 minutes. 

Cautions: If you have trouble with balance, work near a wall while doing this sequence so you can use it for support if necessary. 

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Five Reasons Why You Should Learn Human Anatomy

by Nina

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nichlaes Tulp by Rembrandt

A friend of mine surprised me the other day by saying she thought I should blog about anatomy more often. When I said that we’ve got Baxter and Shari to do that and that I thought of my post Hyperextension of the Knees and Yoga as an exception, she replied particularly liked how I wrote about anatomy in layman’s terms, making it very accessible.

The truth is that I find anatomy just fascinating. Years ago when I was in Paris, I went with my friends and family to the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle. In the Great Gallery of Evolution, there was an extensive display of the skeletons of large number of species of living creatures, both great and small. I was so excited to see for myself how all mammals, from mice to whales to humans, have the same bone structure (with different variations in the sizes, shapes, and proportions of the bones). Different species of fish, on the other hand, can have dramatically different bone structures from each other.

And my friend’s comment got me thinking about why I thought human anatomy was so intriguing, how my understanding of human anatomy related to my yoga practice, and why I thought it was a good idea for everyone who practices to learn at least a bit about human anatomy.

1. Improves your alignment. Of course, you can just do the basic shape of a yoga pose without worrying too much about subtle alignment techniques. But working with alignment cues involving specific muscles and bones has several important benefits. First, you can learn to bear your weight more symmetrically in the pose—helping to keep you safer. Then, you can learn to make the pose more comfortable—you can breathe more easily, feel more freedom in the pose, and allow the energy move through you without getting stuck in certain tight areas. (Oh, yes, that feels better, doesn’t it?) See Tucking and Tilting the Pelvis for an example.

2. Enables you to customize your practice. It seems that almost everyone has a little something different about his or her body—something that deviates from the standard, you might say. It could be some usual flexibility, such as hyperextension of knees that I discussed in Hyperextension of the Knees and Yoga or the same thing in your elbows, an asymmetry like scoliosis or one leg shorter than the other, a misalignment, such as knock knees or a carrying angle in your arms—the list goes on and on. When you learn about these differences in your own anatomy, you can use your knowledge of anatomy in general to adapt your asana practice to your particular needs and concerns. For example, in my post Hyperextension of the Knees and Yoga, I talked about how I’ve worked with my knees over the years by focusing on moving individual bones and muscles.

3. Improves your proprioception. Working with individual muscles and bones in your poses helps make you more sensitive physically (you can wake up unresponsive areas by focusing on them). Having more sensitivity in the nerves that tell you where you are in space will, in turn, make you more agile (see Yoga for Agility) and improve your balance (see Balance and Safety).

4. Allows mindfulness. Although you can work with your breath in your poses as a mindfulness practice (see No Control: Watching Your Breath As It Is During Asana), you can also use specific alignment techniques in your poses—changing them from day to day—to focus your mind on a particular body part or sensation. This provides you with wide variety of ways to harness your mind to your body, which can help you from falling into a rut in your practice. As my teacher Donald once said, “Feeling an adjustment is concentration. Feeling the adjustment ripple through your body is meditation.” See What is Mindfulness? for further information.

5. Teaches you to love your body from the inside out. Learning anatomy can give you an appreciation of the marvelous complexity the human body! Just feeling the aliveness of my body as I practice yoga is often a great joy to me. And turning your focus from how you look in a pose to how your anatomy enables you to move into the various shapes of the poses allows you to let go of body image concerns. Like a mouse or a whale or every other human being, you are made up of skin and muscles and bones and organs, all throbbing and pulsing with life. This is the real “yoga body.”

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