Tag Archives: yoga

Self-Care Challenge Month 3: Physical Activity & Exercise

Posted on by

If you’ve joined me on this Self-Care Challenge since the first month, thank you! I hope you’re progressing well, learning a lot, and achieving a few goals you may have set for yourself. If you’re new to the Challenge, feel free to join us now. Briefly, here’s what you’ve missed.

The first month we spent identifying symptoms and/or health challenges we’d like to work on. I introduced you to six categories of Self-Care practices. We became familiar with the Health Storylines app. During Month 2 we focused on Diet & Nutrition. In the Glass Half Full Group on Facebook we shared information related to Diet & Nutrition. You’re welcome to join this group at any time to deepen your exploration of self-care practices.

The challenge this month is all about moving your body, and it’s not just called Exercise. That’s a scary word for some people. Even scarier for me is the term…physical education. That brings back miserable memories for me throughout elementary, middle, and high school. The competition, humiliation, and mandatory one piece gym suits never fostered a love of exercise. But I did enjoy other activities involving movement. I loved dancing in high school and college and never thought about it as exercise.

Recently I purchased a Fitbit Charge 2 device which I wear daily. The data feeds into the Health Storylines app. The wrist device tracks my steps which motivates me to walk more. There are days when I don’t officially exercise but do house and garden chores and I can hit 10,000 steps. That’s movement and it certainly counts.

But my feet and legs don’t work as well as they used to. I have drop foot and often am too fatigued to walk. That’s when classes such as gentle yoga and chair fitness classes are a big help. I’ve attended a variety of chair yoga classes and tomorrow I’m going to a Seated Tai Chi class. Adaptive exercise classes are wonderful. 

But maybe you don’t have these adaptive exercise course offerings where you live? Or perhaps you just don’t want to leave your home? That’s when the DVD player becomes your coach. I am a big fan of gentle exercise DVDs especially when it’s hot outside and I don’t feel like driving to the gym. Here are some of my favorites: Yoga for the Rest of Us, Chair Dancing through the Decades, Simple Qigong, Sitting Fit Anytime, and Tai Cheng.

Join us in the Facebook group for a month-long focus on moving our bodies. I’ll share some evidence-based research studies as well as ideas for boosting your daily physical activity.

YouTube is a great place to find motivating movement video segments; here are a couple from the Glass Half Full archives:

Sound Therapy: I had to do this every day if I wanted to become well again

Posted on by

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Sound Bath? Sound Meditation? Sound Symphony?

Melissa Felsenstein – sound practitioner – plays crystal bowls and gongs to usher in the summer solstice.

It’s become a wonderful therapeutic tool to access deep relaxation. For many, it is a gateway to meditation. Melissa Felsenstein of Inner Sounds Meditation shares her story of how playing crystal bowls and metal gongs helped her heal from symptoms of anxiety and depression. A self-proclaimed Nervous System Advocate, after several years of exploring these musical instruments, she now shares her process to help others.

Check out a video from this Summer Solstice Sound Bath.

Yoga & Healthy Aging: Maintaining Independence, Activities of Daily Living, and Equanimity

Posted on by

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Baxter Bell, MD with yoga students in a restorative pose

Baxter Bell, MD is not just a family medicine physician, he’s also a certified acupuncture practitioner and yoga therapist. Together with co-author, Nina Zolotow, they wrote the book, Yoga for Healthy Living: A Guide to LIfelong Well-Being. Baxter talks about his journey and shares insight about what aging people care most about — increasing one’s health span, maintaining independence over time, and cultivating equanimity. The thousands of people that have attended his trainings or follow his blog are concerned about cardiovascular health, brain health, and stress management. Yoga can assist with each of these.

Please check out Baxter’s Yoga & Healthy Aging Blog, his YouTube channel, and his book.

Terms discussed in this podcast episode:

  • Asana: In yoga, an asana is a posture in which a practitioner sits; asanas are also performed as physical exercise where they are sometimes referred to as “yoga postures” or “yoga positions”. Some asanas are performed just for health purposes. Asanas do promote good health, although in different ways compared to physical exercises, “placing the physical body in positions that cultivate also awareness, relaxation and concentration.” (Wikipedia)
  • Savasana: corpse pose; is an asana usually done at the end of a yoga practice in which practitioners lie flat on their backs with the heels spread as wide as the yoga mat and the arms a few inches away from the body, palms facing upwards. (Wikipedia)
  • Pranayama: breath or life force; the word is composed from two Sanskrit words: prana meaning life force (noted particularly as the breath), and either ayama (to restrain or control the prana, implying a set of breathing techniques where the breath is intentionally altered in order to produce specific results) or the negative form ayāma, meaning to extend or draw out (as in extension of the life force). (Wikipedia)

If your interest is piqued, check out these earlier podcast episodes on resilience and equanimity.

Pranayama

Posted on by

Yesterday I went to my second Pranayama class at a well-respected yoga institution celebrating 40 years of yoga education in the San Francisco Bay area. It’s a monthly session focused on different methods of yogic breathing. I’ve always wanted to learn more about pranayama (a Sanskrit word that translates to “extension of the prāṇa (breath or life force)” or “breath control”).

Alternate nostril breathing. There are many pranayama techniques; this is just one.

In traditional yoga, as I understand, the natural progression is from asana practice (yoga postures or stretches) to pranayama to meditation. And I want to take up Gareth Walker’s challenge to me — start a daily meditation practice. With pranayama I can practice respiratory health and integrate daily meditation into my life.

I have felt the benefits of meditation — even with isolated short practices. I crave that stillness.

In yesterday’s 1.5 hour class we began on our backs in a restorative pose. For most of the class we reclined in different poses and focused on breathing in our lower back — expanding the space for our kidneys. During the final third of the class we were in a seated position. And that’s when I felt it…sort of like floating. Momentary bliss. If I could capture and bottle the sensation I couldn’t use it that much. I couldn’t write a blog post feeling blissed or could I?

My bliss may be different than your bliss. I felt the release of all tension in my body. The release of all thoughts of past and future and was firmly rooted in the now. No physical or emotional pain or stress.

So I asked the teacher how to begin a regular practice. She told me a good way is to practice for 20-minutes at least 4x/week. Start in a relaxed pose and work up to the seated position. Sounds simple enough.

Accessible Yoga for All

Posted on by

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Accessible Yoga includes persons with disabilities, seniors, at-risk-youth, and many others not comfortable in more traditional yoga classes.

Jivana Heyman — registered yoga therapist and teacher — talks about the origin of the Accessible Yoga organization and the upcoming conferences in New York and San Francisco. Want to know what Accessible yoga is all about? Tune in to find out more.

During our conversation Jivana mentions Dean Ornish’s book, Love and Survival: 8 Pathways to Intimacy and Health. Why not buy it now?

The Science of Yoga

Posted on by

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Murali in the cow-face pose

In this episode my guest, Murali Ventkatrao, discusses the yogic perspective on health and current scientific research exploring how yoga, pranayama (breathing), and meditation affect human physiology and has the potential to treat many pervasive diseases.

For additional information about Murali and an introductory webinar delving deeper into the science of yoga, visit the Ananda Institute.

 

Yoga Therapy: Cancer

Posted on by

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

What is yoga therapy? This podcast episode explores the question as it applies to people with chronic health conditions and most specifically those undergoing or post-cancer treatment. Cheryl Fenner Brown, a yoga therapist, talks about her work with the Cancer Support Community and the research project which helps frame the training she does with yoga teachers and health care practitioners.

To find a yoga therapist in your community, check this website.

Exploring Self-Care: What is Urban Zen?

Posted on by

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Valerie uses Reiki therapy, one of five modalities used in Urban Zen Integrative Heealing

Valerie uses Reiki therapy, one of five modalities in Urban Zen Integrative Healing

Urban Zen integrates the practices of Reiki, aromatherapy, body scans, breath awareness, and movements/restoratives to initiate self-care and healing. In a conversation with Valerie Jew, I learn how these modalities can help not just people with chronic health conditions but caregivers as well as health care providers.

You can visit the Urban Zen Foundation website to learn more about this program.

Valerie recommends the following books to learn more about any of the specific modalities used:

 

Yoga teaches us to listen to our body – A conversation with JoAnn Lyons

Posted on by

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Any body can do yoga. With teachers like JoAnn Lyons of the Piedmont Yoga Community making it possible, that is.

In this conversation JoAnn mentions different styles of yoga — Iyengar, Integral, Vedanta, and Sivananda. Check out these links if you want to learn more but this podcast is geared toward anyone with either an advanced or limited understanding of yoga.

For those wanting to know more about yoga for people with disabilities, JoAnn recommends the books Recovery Yoga and Yoga and Multiple Sclerosis.

Here are two books with great illustrations of people doing yoga using chairs: All I need is this Chair Yoga and A Chair for Yoga: A complete guide to Iyengar yoga practice with a chair.

Additional resources include the International Association for Yoga Therapists (this is where I search for yoga instructors in locations outside of the SF Bay Area) and the Accessible Yoga Conference.

Matthew Sanford is an inspirational yoga instructor who shares his personal story of surviving a car accident as a teenager in his book, Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence.

Yoga

Posted on by

I can’t remember when I started doing yoga. I may have tried it for the first time during my college years in New York. Or, an introductory class I took in the late 80s in Fort Lauderdale. That is my earliest memory of doing yoga postures, or asanas, in a classroom environment.

I did start doing the seated lotus position when I was very young. Maybe all children can do this but I continued doing it and now it’s easy to maneuver into. It’s comforting to fold my legs into a pretzel.

But, I digress.

Continue reading →