Yoga and Dementia: Welcome News

by Nina

A Rainbow at the Dam by Melina Meza

"Dementia Rate Is Found to Drop Sharply, as Forecast”

Now that’s the kind of headline I like to see! Yes, an article in the New York Times this week Dementia Rate Is Found to Drop Sharply, as Forecast announced the results of two different studies that showed that the incidence of dementia—in one case in England and Wales and in the other case in Denmark—was declining. And the reasons for this are very exciting to us here at Yoga for Healthy Aging.

“Yet experts on aging said the studies also confirmed something they had suspected but had had difficulty proving: that dementia rates would fall and mental acuity improve as the population grew healthier and better educated. The incidence of dementia is lower among those better educated, as well as among those who control their blood pressure and cholesterol, possibly because some dementia is caused by ministrokes and other vascular damage. So as populations controlled cardiovascular risk factors better and had more years of schooling, it made sense that the risk of dementia might decrease.”

So what they are saying here is that, along with being better educated, controlling blood pressure and cholesterol can help prevent dementia. And that means yoga can help. Foremost, yoga’s stress management tools can help you keep your blood pressure low. As I discussed in Chronic Stress: An Introduction, living with chronic stress can cause high blood pressure. So practicing stress management (see The Relaxation Response and Yoga and Stress, Your Health and Yoga will help you keep your blood pressure in check as it benefits your health in many other ways. Stress management can also help you maintain a low cholesterol diet by reducing stress eating and giving you more willpower to stay away from high cholesterol foods (see Yoga, Stress and Weight Management and Healthy Eating, Stress and Self Control). Healthy eating is also fostered by mindfulness (see Meditation and Healthy Eating) so if staying away from high-cholesterol foods is a problem for you, a meditation practice may be helpful.

For me, yoga even provides an ongoing education. Yoga philosophy is food for my intellect as well as providing inspiration for living my life with greater equanimity. Why, just this week I learned a lot from Ram’s post LINK, and the week before I learned from writing my own post Modern Yoga and Hinduism. So if yoga philosophy and history are of interest to you, a whole world of new knowledge and intellectual stimulation awaits you.

The New York Times quoted Dr. Anderson, of the National Institute on Aging, saying:

“With these two studies, we are beginning to see that more and more of us will have a chance to reach old age cognitively intact, postponing dementia or avoiding it altogether. That is a happy prospect.”

Balancing Your Emotions with Your Breath

by Nina

Close-Up of the Falls by Melina Meza

As I wrote in Your Breath: The Key to Your Nervous System, while you cannot tell your nervous system directly to slow your heart beat, digest your food more quickly or to start relaxing right this minute, you can control your breath. And because your heart rate tends to speed up on your inhalation and your heart rate tends to slow on your exhalation, this enables you to consciously access your nervous system. By intentionally taking in more air (either by speeding up your breath or by lengthening your inhalation) you can stimulate your nervous system. And by taking in less air (by slowing your breath or lengthening your exhalation), you can calm yourself down.

Last week, I wrote about emotional counter-poses that you can use to balance your emotions. You can use various yogic breath practices in the same way. You can use breath practices when nothing serious is wrong but you’re just feeling slightly hyper (see anxiety or stress) or slightly down (see clinical depression). And you can also use them as a supplement to other treatments if you are suffering from anxiety, agitated depression, clinical depression or chronic stress.

(Note that yogic breath practices have evolved over thousands of years as yogis experimented on themselves and passed on discoveries their students. And while some schools of yoga teach yogic breath practices (pranayama) to beginners, the type of yoga that I’m trained in, Iyengar style, considers breath practices to be so powerful that pranayama is introduced very gradually. So if you start experimenting with breath practices to balance your emotional condition, do take it easy.)

Anxiety and agitated depression. Because anxiety and agitated depression—which is anxiety based—are so often related to an overactive sympathetic nervous system, for these two conditions it’s best to focus on your exhalation. You can simply work on exhaling completely or lengthen your exhalation a beat or two (by pausing after your exhalation is complete). Or, you can try a more formal practice that focuses on lengthening the exhalation, such as Viloma with interrupted exhalation, where you actually pause twice during your exhalation and once at the end. This is the practice that Iyengar himself recommends in Light on Life in his “Asanas for Emotional Stability” practice.

If manipulating your exhalation causes you to feel any agitation whatsoever, stop the practice. In addition, practices that lengthen your inhalation or even that bring your awareness to the inhalation (which can cause you to unintentionally lengthen or deepen your inhalation) may aggravate your condition, so you may want to avoid them.

If you’ve noticed that you are a chest breather—a type of breathing that seems to be associated with anxiety—and it doesn’t make you feel more anxious to work with your inhalation as well as your exhalation, you could practice abdominal breathing. In abdominal breathing, you focus on slowly inhaling into and exhaling from your belly rather than your chest, as you intentionally keep your abdominal area relaxed. You could lie on your back, and place a block or other light weight, such as a 1 pound bag of rice, on your belly to bring awareness to your abdomen, and keep your abdomen relaxed as you slowly inhale and exhale. Or, if lying on your back makes you anxious, you could lie in Crocodile pose (on your belly with your arms out to the sides, elbows bent, and forehead resting on stacked hands) so you can feel your abdomen moving toward and away from the floor as you slowly inhale and exhale.

You can also use any of these techniques if you're just feeling mildly hyper and want to calm down.

Clinical depression. For clinical depression, which tends to make people feel heavy and lifeless, focusing on your inhalation or breathing more quickly can stimulate your nervous system and bring you out of your lethargy. This is one reason why an active vinyasa practice, such as the Ashtanga series or Sun Salutations, can be helpful to those with clinical depression because when you move with your breath, you tend to breathe more quickly and take in more oxygen. So for you, it may be helpful to focus on your inhalation. You can simply work with inhaling more completely or lengthen your inhalation by holding it for a beat or two. Or, you can try a more formal practice that focuses on lengthening the inhalation, such as Viloma with interrupted inhalation, where you actually pause twice during your inhalation and once after. In Yoga As Medicine, Timothy McCall recommends Ujjayi breathing, which tends to lengthen both the inhalation and exhalation, as well as the version of Viloma with interrupted inhalation

Some people who are depressed tend to have a slumped posture, with a collapsed chest, so focusing on opening your chest and inhaling into that area can be beneficial. In Yoga As Medicine, Timothy quotes Patricia Walden, who herself has suffered from clinical depression, saying:

“When you start focusing on your breath, and taking the breath into your chest and breathing deeply, you begin to feel the presence of your breath. What comes with that is a feeling of life returning, a feeling of warm that percolates throughout your chest at the beginning, but then throughout your entire body.”

You can also use any of these techniques if you're just feeling mildly depressed or blue.

Because stress is often a trigger for clinical depression, it’s possible that working with your exhalation as described for anxiety rather than your inhalation, could be helpful for you. So don’t hesitate to give it a try if you feel so inclined. As I said in my post Anxiety, Yoga and the Front Body, when it comes to emotional balance, anything that makes you feel better is working.

Stress. Because chronic stress is the result of an overactive sympathetic nervous system, it makes sense to focus on pacifying your nervous system by working with your exhalation as I described for anxiety. However, from my observations of people doing pranayama, some people find any kind of pranayama relaxing (I, myself, do not, by the way). If you do find all breath work relaxing, go ahead and do whichever breath practice quiets your mind and relaxes you. Simply slowing your breath in general, with long, slow inhalations as well as exhalations, could be helpful in reducing stress. Practices where you speed up your breath will no doubt stimulate your nervous system. So if you are doing an active vinyasa practice to burn off your excess energy, end your yoga practice with a calming breath practice or an emotional counter-pose (see Balancing Your Emotional Body With Counter-Poses) that triggers the relaxation response.

Balancing Your Emotional Body With Counter-Poses

by Nina

Last week in my posts about anxiety Anxiety, Yoga and the Front Body and Soothing Yourself With Supported Forward Bends, I discussed yoga poses to rely on when you’re feeling anxious (supported inversions and forward bends) and yoga poses to avoid when you’re in that state (backbends, twists, and Sun Salutations).

It makes sense if you’re in a crisis period to practice the poses that calm you down and avoid stimulating poses that might exacerbate your condition. However, if you’re in a state of chronic anxiety, avoiding backbends, twists, and many of the active poses for a long period of time will move your body toward imbalance. The same is true if your practice is focused on any emotion-based condition, such as agitated depression, clinical depression, or even just chronic stress.

In this case, I feel it is better to return to a more well-rounded yoga practice (see A Week of Yoga Practice) but consider how you end your practices. By choosing an appropriate counter-pose to end your practice, you can counteract any negative emotional effects of your practice without negating the beneficial physical ones. That way, you can move on to the rest of your day with your nervous system and emotions more in balance. Some people with anxiety or agitated depression even find that beginning with a very active practice can help burn off excess energy, which makes the soothing or relaxing counter-poses at the end of the sequence more effective (or even possible, as it can be hard to stay still when you’re feeling very anxious).

My post Yoga and Your Emotions describes the emotional effects different types of poses have on most people. So if you’re interested in practicing for balancing your emotions, take a look at that and consider how a given practice (standing pose, Sun Salutation, twist, backbend, forward bend, restorative) might affect your current emotional state. Then choose one or more counter-poses—especially passive poses that can be held for long periods of time—that you can add on to the end of your practice to counteract the poses that were the main focus of the practice. For example, if you’re already feeling anxious or hyper yet need to practice backbends for the health of your body, you can end your backbend sequence with a long supported inversion, such as a Chair Shoulderstand or Legs Up the Wall pose, to calm yourself down. 

Anxiety and Agitated Depression. We’ve already said that supported inverted poses and supported forward bends are the best poses to counteract anxiety. These may also be helpful for agitated depression as that is anxiety based. So at the end of a more active sequence, try resting in Supported Child’s pose for a few minutes and then practice Legs Up the Wall pose (Viparita Karani) for 10 minutes or more. If Child’s pose is uncomfortable for you or you can’t kneel for some reason, try a Supported Seated Forward Bend with a chair (see Soothing Yourself With Supported Forward Bends), with a straight back. If Legs Up the Wall pose doesn’t work well for you, try Easy Inverted Pose (Featured Pose: Easy Inverted Pose). If having your front body exposed makes you feel vulnerable, try covering yourself with a blanket. 

Clinical Depression. On the other hand, for people who are suffering from clinical depression, forward bends, with their inward turning quality, can cause you to brood. For you, therefore, a couple of mild, active backbends, such as Purvottanasana (Reverse Plank pose) or Bridge pose, would be good counter poses after practicing a forward bend sequence. Generally speaking, an active practice is best for those with clinical depression, especially one that includes backbends, because that helps counteract feelings of lethargy. But if you are tired and want to practice restorative poses, focus on passive backbends rather than forward bending poses, and be sure to end your sequence with a backbending position, rather than a forward bending one. Rather than doing Savasana flat on your back, try doing it with your torso supported by a bolster or stack of blankets, so your chest is open and your back is in a slight backbend. Or, maybe even reverse the typical pattern of a practice, begin your sequence with resting poses and moving slowly onto more active ones so you are left feeling a bit energized. Often I'll end a restorative sequence by standing in Mountain pose and inhaling as I raise my arms overhead into a slight backbend and exhaling as I return my arms to my sides. 

Stress. For people who are suffering from chronic stress, standing poses, Sun Salutations, backbends, and twists can be over stimulating. So try to end a sequence that is focused on any of those types of poses with any long supported inversion, such as Legs Up the Wall pose or Easy Inverted pose, or any restorative pose that you enjoy.

Even a long Savasana of 10 minutes or more, with a mental focus, such as your breath, would be helpful as an emotional counter-pose (see Savasana Variations) or any form of yoga nidra (see Audio Tracks tab above). Stressed out people tend to skip these ending poses because they think they don’t have time and that restorative poses are not “productive.” However, when you’re suffering from chronic stress, the most beneficial practice for you is some type of conscious relaxation (see The Relaxation Response and Yoga). As with anxiety, you may need to first burn off excess energy with a more active practice, but always leave time for conscious relaxation at the end of your sequence.

 I, myself, have been practicing like this for many years, with focused, nervous-system pacifying sequences during particularly challenging times, and balanced sequences with emotional counter-poses the rest of the time. But what if you, like many other people, do not practice often at home and do most of your yoga practice in classes or with videos? In this case, there is no reason why you can’t do just the counter-pose after the class or video. For example, if an evening backbend practice has left you feeling agitated or even just hyper (I can’t tell you how many people have told me that backbends at night cause insomnia), there’s no reason why you can’t just practice a supported inverted pose or conscious relaxation on your own before bed. This will help pacify your nervous system and may even lead to better sleep.

Soothing Yourself with Supported Forward Bends

by Nina

As I discussed yesterday in Anxiety, Yoga and the Front Body, supported forward bends can be wonderfully quieting and soothing. You can use these poses 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. By that I mean that the poses need to be completely comfortable. If they’re not completely comfortable for you, they’re going to be irritating and maybe even aggravating, which defeats the whole purpose of practicing them.

To be comfortable in these poses, you need to:

• Pick the seated position that is best for your body (crossed legs, straight legs or wide angle legs). Experiment and see which of the three poses described below are most effective for you.
• Choose the propping (bolster, pillows, stack of blankets or chair) that is truly comfortable for you. Be honest with yourself about the height you need to be comfortable, rather than imitating a photograph.

Crossed-Legs Forward Bend

If your hips are more flexible than the backs of your legs, you might prefer sitting with crossed legs (Sukasana) as in the following two photos.

Unless you are super flexible, start by sitting with crossed legs on a height, such as a folded blanket, with the bolster, stack of blankets, or chair in front of you. Then, bending from your hip joints without rounding your back, slowly fold forward. When you reach the full extension of your spine, allow your back to gently round as you come down toward the prop. (If rounding irritates your lower back, do the version with the chair and keep your back straight.)

Fold your arms, with elbows out to the sides, and stack your hands on the prop. Then rest your forehead on your hands, gently tugging your forehead skin down towards your eye. Stay for two or three minutes (or longer if it's delicious), switching the cross of your legs half way through.

Straight Legs Forward Bend

If your legs are more flexible than your hips (this is somewhat atypical but some people—like me—have this body type), you might find it easier to do the pose with straight legs (Paschimottanasana), as in the next two photos.

Unless you are super flexible, start by sitting with straight legs on a height, such as a folded blanket, with the bolster, stack of blankets on top of your legs or chair over them. Then, bending from your hip joints without rounding your back, slowly fold forward. When you reach the full extension of your spine, allow your back to gently round as you come down toward the prop. (If rounding irritates your lower back, do the version with the chair and keep your back straight.)

Fold your arms, with elbows out to the sides, and stack your hands on the prop. Then rest your forehead on your hands, gently tugging your forehead skin down towards your eye. Stay for two or three minutes (or longer if it is delicious), keeping your legs lightly active.

Wide Angle Forward Bend

People who are relatively flexible in both the hips and legs often find wide angle legs (Upavistha Konasana) the most comfortable position for a forward bend, as shown in the next two photos. Unless you are super flexible, start by sitting with wide angle legs on a height, such as a folded blanket, with the bolster, stack of blankets, or chair in front of you. Then, bending from your hip joints without rounding your back, slowly fold forward. When you reach the full extension of your spine, allow your back to gently round as you come down toward the prop. (If rounding irritates your lower back, do the version with the chair and keep your back straight.)

Fold your arms, with elbows out to the sides, and stack your hands on the prop. Then rest your forehead on your hands, gently tugging your forehead skin down towards your eye. Stay for two or three minutes (or longer if it is delicious), keeping your legs lightly active.

Sequencing

Of course, there is no reason why you can’t do more than one of these poses or all three. And by doing more than one pose, you’ll increase the quieting effects. If I were to sequence them, I do them as follows:

1. Seated Crossed Legs Forward Bend (Sukasana)
2. Wide Angle Forward Bend (Upavistha Konasana)
3. Straight Legs Forward Bend (Paschimottanasana)

But you can sequence these poses in any way that feels good to you. Before practicing these poses, you might like to do some Reclined Leg Stretches (see Reclined Leg Stretch Sequence) as stretching your legs and hips beforehand can make the forward bends more comfortable. And if your lower back feels irritated after the forward bends, I recommend doing Legs Up the Wall pose (Viparita Karani), with your lower back supported by a bolster (tailbone hanging just off the bolster) as a counter pose. In Viparita Karani, your lower back is in a slight backbend, which will help restore the curve to your lower back, but since the pose is overall a quieting one, it allows you to maintain the quieting effect of your practice.

Finally, some people just do not enjoy the effects of a long forward bend; they find that the poses elicit an unpleasant, heavy feeling that is kind of deadening rather than soothing. If that’s true for you, supported inverted poses (see Just In Time for the Holidays: Inverted Poses) may be better options. Remember, when working with yoga for emotional wellbeing, your own reactions to the poses should be your guide.

Anxiety, Yoga and the Front Body

by Nina

I’m going to be tackling the subject of anxiety in the coming weeks, and I thought that I’d start today by addressing an aspect of yoga for anxiety that is rather, well, subjective. Much of the information we have on the blog is science based, whether we’re citing scientific or medical studies, or exploring anatomy as Baxter did yesterday in Which Way Should Your Shoulder Blades Go?. However, when it comes to the yoga and the emotions, there is very little science that we can turn to for guidance. Fortunately, when working with our emotions, our own experience is key. I mean, with emotions, it’s not like, say, cancer. As Andrew Solomon wrote in his book about depression, The Noonday Demon:

"It is my absolute belief that in the field of depression, there is no such thing as a placebo. If you have cancer and try an exotic treatment and then you think you are better, you may well be wrong. If you have depression and try an exotic treatment and you think you are better, then you are better."

The same is true for anxiety. So for people who are feeling anxious, one strategy is to start taking a look at how certain yoga poses make them feel. And this might lead to the discovery that poses that are generally considered “relaxing,” such as Reclined Cobbler’s pose or Savasana, might actually be increasing your anxiety. That’s because for many people, just lying on your back, with your front body exposed, can make your feel vulnerable. Perhaps this is a primitive, instinctive reaction because we are descending from four-legged animals, and for them lying on the back means taking a submissive position and exposing their vital organs. But who really knows? All I can say is that yoga tradition tells us this reaction is common, and I’ve confirmed this theory with many yoga practitioners who suffer from anxiety. Likewise, opening the front of your body in a backbend or twist is considered stimulating and can therefore also feel agitating and increase your anxiety.

Maybe Not So Relaxing!

So my suggestion is that when you are in a state of high anxiety or are battling chronic anxiety, consider avoiding poses where you are lying on your back or are opening your chest. Definitely avoid active backbends and twists, and consider avoiding even passive, restorative backbends and twists. In general, look to forward bends for soothing and calming effects. Supported Child’s pose is a good option.

Maybe More Relaxing....

Supported seated forward bends with your head and arms resting on a bolster or, if your hamstrings are tight, the seat of a chair, are generally very soothing. But even an active forward bend practice, especially for those who are more flexible, can be quite effective for reducing anxiety.

And instead of doing Savasana, consider doing 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 closing your eyes in any of the forward bends or prone poses causes you to brood or worry, let your eyes remain open, with a soft, diffuse gaze.

In the end, always allow your own experiences in these poses to be your guide. What if you find that forward bends and prone poses cause you to feel more anxious rather than less so? In that case, I’d say, by all means, avoid them. And what if you were to say that backbends make you feel less anxious? To that, I’d answer, go for it. Traditionally twists are considered stimulating and potentially agitating, and therefore probably not a good solution for insomnia, but I once had a student who said twists made her sleepy. Hearing her say that was a lesson for me that I keep returning to when I teach yoga for emotional wellbeing.

Living Proof: Increasing Shoulder Flexibility

by Nina

Photo by Erin Collom

Last week, my friend Erin Collom (thank you, Erin!), a Bay Area yoga teacher, took some photographs of me doing some of my favorite stress management and anti-anxiety poses. It was kind of nerve wracking for me because I’ve never been photographed doing yoga before (I’m typically somewhere behind the camera). But I decided we needed an older woman on the blog, and I was the handiest one around, so....

When I saw this photograph of me doing Downward-Facing Dog, I was actually quite pleased. My alignment looks pretty good! Even my shoulders look good, which I wasn’t expecting. A well-balanced Downward-Facing Dog takes flexibility in both the legs (the hamstrings especially) and the shoulders. Back in the day, before I hit menopause, I had a lot of flexibility in both areas (some of it was natural and some of it was earned through consistent practice of the asanas over a period of years). But the hormonal changes brought on by perimenopause and menopause triggered a condition for me called a “frozen shoulder” that drastically limited my range of motion in my shoulder.

“Frozen shoulder (adhesive capsulitis) is stiffness, pain, and limited range of movement in your shoulder that may follow an injury. The tissues around the joint stiffen, scar tissue forms, and shoulder movements become difficult and painful. The condition usually comes on slowly, then goes away slowly over the course of several months or longer.” — from Web MD

The only quibble I have with that definition is that the “stiffness, pain, and limited range of motion” should be more like “extreme stiffness, constant pain, and drastically reduced range of motion”—yes, it’s that bad.  After getting over the first one, which was on my left side, I managed to get one on the right side as well. But through both of those, as painful as it was, I continued to do non-weight bearing shoulder openers to try to prevent the permanent formation of scar tissue and gain back as much of my former range of motion as possible. (I also did strength building, because the arm and shoulder muscles may become withered as a result of the condition.) And after the condition had cleared up, I continued to work with these shoulder openers because I noticed I still did not have the range of motion I had originally and I could actually feel the presence of lingering scar tissue. While I was not necessarily expecting that I would regain what I had lost, I thought it worth trying, and besides, who doesn’t need to keep stretching our shoulders as we go through the aging process?

This photograph made me realize how much I had accomplished. So I thought I’d share my story in the hopes that it would inspire those of you who have or have had a frozen shoulder as well as anyone with tight shoulders who wants to make some changes.

Tomorrow Baxter will be presenting a sequence for tight shoulders. Some of these poses are ones that he teaches on a regular basis. But others are ones that I suggested to him because I had practiced them on a regular basis while my shoulder was “frozen” and painful as well as after the condition cleared up, always holding them for at least 90 seconds. These included the three different versions of hands up/on the wall and the doorknob version of Cobra. So if tight shoulders are a problem for you maybe give these a try. (See Friday Q&A: Tight Shoulders for information about why people have tights shoulders and how it can be a problem in both asanas and everyday life.) I'm living proof that they actually do work!

Supported Forward Bends: Peaceful Poses for Stress, Anxiety, Neck Pain and Headache Prevention

by Nina

We finally took some new photographs, and now I’ve got a portfolio of my favorite poses for stress management and anxiety! So I thought that today I’d introduce you to some of favorite quieting poses: supported forward bends. A supported forward bend is one where you use a prop, such as a bolster, stack of blankets or a chair seat to support your head and arms as you stay in the pose. Relaxing onto the support helps remove straining from the pose and enhances the quieting quality of the forward bend. These are gentle, inward-turning poses that both calming and nurturing.

You can do supported forward bends in two forms: standing and seated. Standing supported forward bends are particularly good for stress as they are partial inversions. See Just in Time for the Holidays: Inverted Poses for information about why inverted poses, including partial inversions, are so beneficial for stress management.

Because the supported seated forward bends are less active than the standing versions, they are more quieting. And because you’re resting the weight of your head and relaxing your neck, these poses may also help with neck pain and headache prevention. I love supported seated forward bends, especially when I’m feeling anxious, however, some people do not enjoy supported seated forward bends, finding them rather too quieting, in other words, sort of deadening. And they’re probably not the right poses for people suffering from depression. So you’ll have to try for yourself and see what you think.

In general, when setting up for these poses, it’s important to be honest with yourself about how many props you need to be truly comfortable. The aim here isn’t to feel a stretch, much less any pain, but to use the pose to quiet yourself physically and emotionally.

As you come into the pose, bend from your hip joints and keep your back straight. This will help prevent back strain that comes from rounding your back. If you need to sit on a folded blanket to encourage the bend from your hips—most of us do—then add that prop as well (see photo).

When you bring your head onto the prop, do not force your head down. If your head doesn’t reach easily, you need a higher prop. For the Standing Forward Bend, you can stack two blocks, with one on the lowest height and the second on the highest. Stacking two blocks end on end, however, is unstable, so be honest with yourself and get your chair! (Besides, if you compare, most chair seats are lower than two blocks end on end, anyway—check it out and see.)

If you want to sequence these poses, I recommend starting with the standing versions first—they are better for warming up your legs and hips, and are more active—and then moving onto the seated ones. Of course, any of these can be done alone, or as part of any restorative or stress management sequence (we’ll have some of those coming in the near future). And there’s no reason at all why you can’t end an active practice with a supported seated forward bend of your choice, followed by Savasana.

1. Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana), with your head on a block or chair
2. Widespread Standing Forward Bend (Prasarita Padottanasana), with your head on the floor or on a block or chair
3. Wide Angle Pose (Upavista Konasana) or Seated Crossed Legs, with your head on a bolster or chair
4. Seated Forward Bend (Paschimottanasana), with your head on a bolster or chair

I hope these poses bring you peace.

Update: Wondering where those photos are? It turns out, they're not quite ready yet. We took them, but I don't have access to them this afternoon. I'll add them to this post as soon as I get them, so check back again.

New Contributor: Melina Meza

by Nina

I’m excited to announce we have a new contributor to our blog, Melina Meza, who will be contributing photographs on a regular basis. What’s particularly interesting to me about Melina is that in addition to being a photographer, Melina is a well-known yoga teacher. And taking photographs has become a daily practice for Melina like meditating or doing yoga. She believes that being creative is food for the soul and is as important as eating your organic kale. To learn more about the creative process last year, she embarked upon a project called “Photo of the Day,” for which she committed to taking and sharing one photograph a day for 365 days with her Facebook community. You can see the project in its entirety on her website at www.melinameza.com as well as information about her regular teaching schedule and workshops around the country.

Having this intention of adding one new element—taking photographs—to her daily routine helped her understand that practice is simply practice, not the final performance. In letting go of the end result, she discovered a freedom to respond more intuitively to the moment and to others around her. Here are some of her thoughts about the concept of practice as it applies both to yoga and photography:

"Abhyasa (diligent and continuous practice) and vairagya (non-attachment, unattached awareness) are two Sanskrit words that capture the essence of what my Photo of the Day project was all about. Abhyasa urges us to go deep into life experiences rather than stay shallow. Vairagya is what keeps us humble and reminds us on a regular basis that we may not be ultimately in control of everything.

As daunting as it might sound to add one more practice to your already busy life, I found that the rhythm of daily practice became its own habit and therefore grew easier over time. In fact, taking pictures became the highlight of almost every day! To me, abhyasa was like a lighthouse—a solid, stable, shiny beacon that drew my attention back home to my shores when I felt overextended by life’s busy-ness and my muse was lost at sea. Daily picture-making created its own fuel that energized me rather than depleted me, fostering a surplus of energy and joy that allowed me to do more each day!

Hibiscus by Melina Meza

I feel that abhyasa kept me on course and vairagya allowed me to adjust to the unexpected. Having the companionship of abhyasa and vairagya strengthened my relationship to self-inquiry, art, people, and nature. It allowed me to trust that what I do daily makes a difference in this journey and adventure called life.

In the early phase of this practice I observed many fears. These included “stories,” such as “I won’t have time,“ “I’m not an artist and therefore the photos won’t be interesting,” “I’ll get bored or distracted,” “ I’ll be too busy to do this everyday,” and “What was I thinking making a commitment such as this?”

How many times do you repeat these kinds of phrases to yourself? How many times do these mantras interfere with your creative process? One of the amazing things about these self-talk statements is that they are usually not experience-based. For example, we anticipate that we will be bored with an experience that we never had; it is only a hypothetical outcome that we are projecting since we really can’t know whether or not we will truly be bored. We make a judgment based upon some rattling of fear or inhibition that only serves to get in the way of undertaking an activity that will likely surprise us with how much it can actually offer to our personal and creative unfolding.

Within the first month of my practice, I discovered that all of the fears I had held were false. In fact, I discovered that the opposite of the assumptions I had held were true. For example, there always was and is time. I understood that it was simply a matter of how I chose to structure or spend my time. Some days I dedicated only five minutes to taking pictures and it was the perfect amount of time. Other days I spent all afternoon hunting for images. Regardless of which range of the spectrum the practice fell upon, there was always the perfect amount of time to create what wanted to be created that day. I learned that every day is different and how important it is to be flexible with different amounts of free time or lack thereof. It was helpful to honor the natural rhythms and flow of the day in relationship to work, social life, eating, and other self-care practices, and try not to force the creative process to happen. And when I did this, it just happened.

In some ways, my year with the Photo of the Day practice ended up being the practice I needed to discover my own truths around time management and commitments, as well as to experience the healing potential in nature and art. I also saw how having a creative practice helped to round out and balance my wellness focus. For example, I found that being out in the late afternoon was the best time to catch light, step away from work, and tap into the changing rhythms of the day. And as I did this and enjoyed the sense of vitality that came from it, it energized me so greatly that I found I wasn’t turning as much to coffee or chocolate for a late afternoon energy pick-me-up!

After this year of making pictures, I am completely transformed. I am able to see myself with a much wider lens than ever before. Who would have known that such a simple daily practice could have produced such a deep and lasting gift?

Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote, “A single new habit can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us.” This was my personal experience as I discovered and danced with this beautiful new stranger, who was truly none other than facets of the unexplored me."

—Melina Meza

Yoga Relaxation Techniques: They're Not Interchangeable

by Nina

Patterns in the Sand 2, by Brad Gibson

Okay, I admit it. It’s probably my fault. I’ve been going around saying that you can trigger the Relaxation Response (see The Relaxation Response and Yoga) using any of the following: restorative yoga, inverted poses, Savasana, pranayama, meditation, and yoga nidra, etc. as if all those practices were somehow interchangeable. This has led to questions like the following comment left on a Friday Q&A: Yoga Nidra, Restorative Yoga, Meditation and Savasana:

It is very helpful to read the distinctions between these four practices as I try to practice all of them, but it's hard to find the time. I'd be really interested to get your thoughts on whether it's important to do all four? For example, if you do restorative while listening to a nidra CD, do you also need to meditate? I'm interested to know what the various benefits are of these four practices, or are the benefits all the same?

Let me start by saying that what I said previously—that you can use any of these practices for stress management—still holds true. And it is also true that you can choose whichever techniques you prefer to trigger the Relaxation Response. However, these practices each have different roles to play in a balanced yoga practice.

The role of meditation in a balanced yoga practice is particularly important. That’s why I asked Timothy to write an article on the purpose of meditation (see his absolutely wonderful post Is Meditation an Essential Par of Practicing Yoga?). Basically, although you can use meditation for stress reduction, its role in classical yoga is to quiet the mind to allow union with the divine or “liberation”:

1.2 Yoga is the cessation of movements of consciousness.
1.3 Then the seer dwells in his own true splendor.

— from Yoga Sutras, trans. B.K.S. Iyengar

Meditation is also, as Timothy mentions, a “fabulous tool to study your mind and slowly gain more control over it.”

Pranayama is also an important component of classical yoga, which precedes meditation as one of eight steps on the path to samadhi (union with the divine). It is considered an instrument to “steady the mind” and a gateway to dharana (the first phase of meditation).

“Pranayama removes the veil covering the light of knowledge and heralds the dawn of wisdom.

Its practice destroys illusion, consisting of ignorance, desire and delusion which obscure the intelligence; and allows the inner light of wisdom to shine. As the breeze disperses the clouds that cover the sun, pranayama wafts away the clouds that hide the light of intelligence.” — Sutra 2.52 trans. by B.K.S. Iyengar

On the other hand, the two types of asana I recommended for triggering the Relaxation Response, restorative yoga and supported inversions, are brilliant 20th century inventions, mostly developed by B.K.S. Iyengar, which are designed specifically to maximize physical relaxation and reduce stress. Judith Lasater, one of the most renowned teachers of restorative yoga, writes in the introduction to her book Relax and Renew:

“The antidote to stress is relaxation. To relax is to rest deeply. This rest is different from sleep. Deep states of sleep include periods of dreaming which increase muscular tension, as well as other physiological signs of tension. Relaxation is a state in which there is no movement, no effort, and the brain is quiet.

"Common to all stress reduction techniques is putting the body in a comfortable position with gentle attention directed toward the breath.”

Likewise, yoga nidra is also a 20th century invention (though you may see some claims to the contrary) developed by Swami Satyananda Saraswati. The first sentence of his book Yoga Nidra defines the practice like this:

“Yoga nidra, which is derived from the tantras, is a powerful technique in which you learn to relax consciously.”

In yoga nidra, you lie in Savasana while the voice of a teacher (or a recording) guides you through a physical and mental relaxation process. So, like restorative yoga, yoga nidra is specifically intended as a relaxation technique, and as such does not replace meditation or pranayama in a balanced yoga practice. This would be true of any form of Savasana in which an external voice is providing instructions and/or imagery for you. Unlike other relaxation techniques, yoga nidra includes a sankalpa (an intention) that allows you to influence your subconscious (or so it is claimed). For example, “I will awaken my spiritual potential,” “I will be a positive force for the evolution of others,” or “I will be successful in all that I undertake.” So this may be something you wish to take into consideration when choosing your relaxation practice.

Unlike the modern restorative postures, Savasana is a much older pose. Based on what I’ve read about the original practice, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Savasana is a reclining form of meditation. For some traditional yogis, it was a meditation on death, hence the literal translation of the name Savasana is “Corpse pose,” and it was sometimes even practiced alongside actual corpses. To practice Savasana properly, however, you must actually do the work of meditating while you are in the pose (and make sure you don’t fall asleep). If you don’t actually meditate while in Savasana, then, well, you are simply relaxing. But that's okay, too, if that is what you are after.

So there you have it. Which of these practices you decide to adopt really depends on what your goals are as well as your preferences. If you’re just after stress management and better health, it doesn’t really matter which you chose. However, if your goal is the “liberation” that is yoga’s ultimate aim, both pranayama and meditation are essential steps along the path.

Sorry if I caused any confusion!

Ultimate liberation is when the gunas, devoid of any purpose for the purusa, return to their original [latent] state; in other words, when the power of consciousness is situation in its own essential nature. —Yoga Sutra 4.34 trans. Edwin Bryant

Energizing Yourself: Overcoming Styana and Alasya

by Nina

I don’t know about you, but Ram’s post yesterday The Dangers of Being Sedentary scared me a bit.

Findings from a recent study showed that individuals who sat for more than 11 hours daily were 40 percent more likely to die within the next three years than those who sat for four hours or less daily—even when people’s physical activity at other times of the day was accounted for. Studies have also indicated that sitting daily for less than 3 hours and watching TV for less than 2 hours extends life expectancy by an estimated 1 to 2 years. Studies reported in the prestigious journals Lancet and the British Medical Journal suggest that a sedentary lifestyle is the cause of one in 10 deaths worldwide. It’s now known that Americans are working less (26 minutes a day less compared to Y2007) and idling off more. Adults in the U.S. spend an average of 55 percent of their day engaged in some kind of sedentary behavior (see Sedentary behaviour and life expectancy in the USA: a cause-deleted life table analysis).

In his post, Ram identified two obstacles that cause us to be sedentary: styana (inefficiency, idleness, procrastination, dullness) and alasya (laziness, sloth). The problem is, how do we overcome these obstacles? I mean, we all basically know that sitting around all day isn’t a good thing, but after hours of doing it—so many of us sit at desks all day or have long commutes—inertia tends to set in. And this can create a lot of resistance to the idea of getting up to practice yoga, even if you know it will be good for you and that you’ll feel better afterward. You think: Oh, I just don’t feel like it today—maybe tomorrow.

"Old man, stiff man, weak man, sick man, they can all take practice but only a lazy man can't take practice." — Sri K. Pattabhi Jois

I know this because even after years of practicing yoga at home on my own, I sometimes notice that tendency in myself. I do have some tricks up my sleeve, however. And I thought today would be a good day to share them, so you’d have some new ideas for fighting both styana and alysya.

My first trick is a mental one: I tell myself that I don’t need to do a full practice, that I can just do one single pose, you know, like Downward-Facing Dog. But I might want to warm up a bit before that one, so, let’s see, maybe a Half Downward-Facing Dog at the wall followed by a full Downward-Facing Dog on my mat. And guess what, by that time, my energy starts flowing and my momentum starts to build, and I end up doing a full-length practice.

My second trick is to pick a pose to start that will energize me, even just a bit. I know that moving with your breath is a good way to fire up your energy. So standing in Mountain pose and raising arms overhead on the inhalation and down by your sides on the exhalation is a good way to energize yourself, maybe even shake off a feeling of depression, and that can lead to some other vinyasas or who knows where.

But if you don’t feel like standing up—yeah, I know, sometimes you just don’t—you can get on your hands and knees and do the Cat-Cow pose, inhaling as you come into the Cow position (the sway back position) and exhaling as you come into the Cat pose (the arching position). That leads very nicely into Downward-Facing Dog pose, and then maybe Standing Forward Bend, by which time you might feel ready to stand up on your mat!

My third trick is that when I’m feeling particularly tired or lazy, I tell myself that I can start lying down. Ah, yes, lying down sounds real good.

Often I start with Reclined Leg Stretch and other reclined hip openers, and even just moving my legs around gets me in the mood for a Downward-Facing Dog pose (and helps make that pose easier), which in turn leads....

Another way to energize yourself is to open your chest, and that’s also a good way to counteract all the forward bending you’ve been doing by sitting down for hours. Good news is this is also something you can do lying down. Try a passive backbend over a blanket roll or a bolster for three or more minutes. Then roll over and see what you might feel like doing next. Lately I’ve been starting by doing a reclined shoulder opener that my teacher often has us do in the middle of class: lying on your back, with a strap just above your elbows, bring your arms up and overhead (if they don’t reach the floor, try holding a block between your hands). Three minutes of that, and if I’m not ready for Downward-Facing Dog pose, I might procrastinate a bit with some reclined hip stretches. It’s all good.

And if this strategy doesn’t work? What if you only end up doing just the one or two poses? Well, that’s much better than nothing. It might even start a new habit that will allow you to gradually grow into a longer practice over time—my own home practice started with me practicing just a few poses. And, besides, you can always try again in a couple of hours....

Of course, what I’ve mentioned here are just a few of many possibilities. Readers, how do you shake off your lethargy and start moving? I’d love to hear your recommendations.

Fast Exercise vs. Slow Yoga

by Nina 

Image "Borrowed" from The New York Times

The exercises should be performed in rapid succession, allowing 30 seconds for each, while, throughout, the intensity hovers at about an 8 on a discomfort scale of 1 to 10, Mr. Jordan says. Those seven minutes should be, in a word, unpleasant. The upside is, after seven minutes, you’re done. —New York Times

Did anyone else happen to see the recent New York Times seven-minute exercise routine? Well, I did. And my first response was irritation. Something seemed so wrong to me about the routine. At first, I thought it was the seven minutes part. That seemed to me a crazy amount of time for doing twelve exercises, and I thought it would be healthier and more effective to divide up the routine into, say, three or four different routines, and cycle between them on different days. That way, you could spend more time on each exercise and not do the same thing every day (which could lead to boredom or even injury).

But even after I had my private little rant about the subject, every time I saw that picture I continued to feel irritated; it was like a grain of sand in the soft belly of an oyster (not that this rant is going to turn out to be pearl, mind you). But it wasn’t until a few days later that I realized what was really bothering me: it was the phrase “seven minutes of steady discomfort.”

“In 12 exercises deploying only body weight, a chair and a wall, it fulfills the latest mandates for high-intensity effort, which essentially combines a long run and a visit to the weight room into about seven minutes of steady discomfort — all of it based on science.” — Gretchen Reynolds

It seems to me if exercise is something so unpleasant that you do just to get it over with, you’re never going to be able to incorporate it into your life on a regular basis, something people in our exercise-averse culture desperately need to do. I mean, why would you want to add seven unpleasant minutes to your life every day? I can’t help but feel that half an hour of enjoyable exercise has got to be better for you than seven minutes of “steady discomfort.” It’s kind of like the difference between fast food and slow food. For me, yoga asana practice is truly an enjoyable, sensual experience, where I'm present in my body and appreciating what it can do and how it feels. Why would I ever want to trade that for fast, efficient, and unpleasant? (Actually the phrase “all of it based on science” irritated me a bit, too. I’ve had food concocted by nutrition scientists and food made by with love by friends and family members, and, of course, no contest there.)

Granted, sometimes it’s a bit hard for me to get started with my yoga practice—there’s a certain mental inertia that makes me reluctant to switch to that activity—but once I begin, I almost always enjoy myself. Of course, there are moments of unpleasantness (the mild painfulness of a stretch, the frustration of falling out of a balance pose, the feeling of mild fatigue after holding a strenuous pose for an extended period of time), but these are interspersed with moments of pleasure and even joyfulness. (I’m thinking now of a fellow student in my weekly class, who, when we do her favorite pose, now always says to me with a twinkle in her eye, “Oh, boy!”) Then, there’s the huge bonus that a mindful asana practice confers in addition to strength, flexibility, balance, and agility: stress reduction.

Maybe I’m preaching to the choir here, but for our physical and emotional health (not to mention healthy aging), we each need to find a form of exercise that is a life-affirming experience rather than a form of torture that we must submit to. And it’s worth the extra time, even just, say, 20 minutes rather than 7, to make that kind of practice a part of your life. Of course, I love yoga, so I’m always here singing its praises. But if you hate every minute of the yoga you’re currently practicing, try some different styles. And if you hate all the styles, maybe it’s not for you. Walk, run, cycle, swim, work out in a gym, dance, play golf, tennis, basketball or soccer, ski—get out there and live!

Mission Statement

by Nina

Above the Fog by Brad Gibson

Recently I received a question from a reader asking two questions; the first question was yoga related. The second, which was not yoga related, asked which supplements we recommended for a certain condition. After letting our reader know we would be happy to address the first question (and in fact, an answer to her question will be coming this very week), I wrote:

But regarding the second question, we don't address nutrition and supplements on the blog. None of us are trained in that area, and recommending supplements is a very tricky issue for a number of reasons. So, from the beginning, we established a general policy against writing about anything except yoga and the science of aging. So we're going to have to decline to address that one. I hope you understand!

The reader graciously—we love our readers!—wrote back saying that she did understand. But as we have a number of new readers since we published our original mission statement (see In the Kitchen), I thought I’d take a moment to let you all know a little bit more about our mission. Of course, we’re blessed here at Yoga for Healthy Aging to have an extraordinary staff, including two MDs (Dr. Baxter Bell and Dr. Timothy McCall), two scientists who study aging (Dr. Bradford Gibson and Dr. Rammohan Rao) and a practicing physical therapist (Shari Ser, P.T.). Naturally with so much available expertise, you might assume that we’d be able and willing to address subjects other than yoga that know quite a bit about, especially if they are related to the aging. But even we were first discussing the blog, we understood that for differing reasons, some subjects needed to be off limits. So without further ado....

What we will take on: 

1. Yoga asana, meditation, pranayama, and other practices, especially as they relate to healthy aging.
2. Yoga philosophy and yoga history.
3. The science of aging and various theories of aging.
4. Scientific studies regarding yoga.
5. Medical conditions in general and how you can use yoga to address them.

What we won't take on:

1. Diet
2. Supplements.
3. Medical advice. (Yes, we have doctors here, but as with any doctor, our doctors cannot dispense medical advice without examining you in person. Besides, this is a yoga blog!)

Even after declaring those three topics off limits, we can assure you, we've still got an enormous wealth of useful and inspiring information to share with you. Plus, we've added three new regular contributors (Timothy, Ram, and Shari) since we first started the blog, who have even more ideas and new points of view. During the very first discussion Baxter, Brad and I had about the idea of the blog (we were in the kitchen, preparing a meal together), Baxter was initially concerned that we might not have enough material, but Brad said, "No way. We'll never run out of topics!"  

Preventing Migraines (and Other Headaches), Part 2

by Nina

Yesterday I wrote about preventing migraines and other headaches through stress reduction (see Preventing Migraines (and Other Headaches), Part 1). Another way you may be able to prevent and/or reduce your headaches, is to practice yoga poses that release muscle tension in your back, shoulders, neck, and head. As Timothy says in the headache chapter of Yoga As Medicine:

“Yoga teaches that releasing the tight muscles improves blood flow to them, and can help relax the mind a well.”

But as Timothy also reminds us in all his writings about yoga therapy, everyone is different and yoga therapy, whether for migraines or any other condition, needs to be individualized. So with that in mind, I’m just going to toss out a lot of ideas for poses you can try to work with your back, shoulders, neck and head; you’ll have to figure out which works best for your body and your yoga experience level. In fact, I have so much to say on this topic, I’m going to—gasp!—use subtitles on this post.

Working with Your Neck

There are two basic ways to release tension in your neck: stretching your neck and relaxing your neck. To stretch your neck, you can do gentle neck stretches, either while standing or sitting. Baxter recommends not doing full head rolls. Instead, he recommends Owl Turns, which involves looking to the right or left as far as you can go with a bit of stretch, and Curious Dog Tips, which involves tipping your head ear to the shoulder to the right or left, as far as you can go with a bit of stretch, ear to shoulder on that side. Another way to stretch your neck (along with your back and chest) is to do seated twisting poses, such as Bharadvajasana, Marichyasana, and Arda Matseyendrasana. As you move into the twist, make sure to turn from your spine first, and then, moving mindfully, let your head follow your spine (so you don’t over-twist your neck).

To relax your neck, try seated forward bends with your head resting on a support. Before bending forward, place a bolster or folded blankets on your straight leg (or a chair over your straight leg if your hamstrings are tight), and rest your head on the support as you come into the pose. Prop yourself high enough so you can stay in the pose for three minutes or so. You can even do the pose seated in a chair, in front of your desk. You can also use gravity to release your neck in a Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana) or Wide-Legged Standing Forward Bend (Prasarita Padottansana). Instead of having your hands on the floor in this pose, try clasping your elbows so you can just hang. To make the pose more relaxing, try practicing with your buttocks against a wall and your feet about six inches from the wall.

Working with Your Shoulders

To release your shoulders, which helps release tension at the base of your neck, you can try any number of targeted shoulder stretches. See Standing Shoulder Stretches for a good, short sequence that stretches your shoulders within their full range of motion. In general, most of the standing poses also help release tension from your shoulders, because your arms are either overhead, out to sides, or behind your back. So all varied standing pose practices will help both strengthen and relax your shoulders.

Working with Your Back

To release tension from your back, you can practice the seated twisting poses I mentioned above for releasing your neck, or any reclined twist that you prefer. You can also try passive backbends or restorative backbends, such as lying over a bolster with your arms either out to the side or overhead. Just make sure to keep your head supported so that your neck and head is in line with your spine or only in a mild backbend (and not fully extended, that is, in a full backbend position). And, finally, you can try an easy forward bend, such as a Child's pose (Balasana) with your knees together or a Supported Restorative Child's pose, or a Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana) with your knees bent to release back tension from the extensor muscles of spine.

Working with Your Head

Timothy mentions that poor posture, especially head forward syndrome, is a possible trigger for headaches. So working in Mountain pose, learn to keep your neck aligned with your spine and your spine aligned with your neck. You can also do passive backbends, holding for at least three minutes, to open your chest and active backbends to strengthen your back. These and the shoulder stretches mentioned above will compensate for all the forward bending of your upper body that you do at your desk, car, gardening, etc., and help improve the position of your neck and head relative to your spine.

As far as relaxing your head goes, wow, I have to say, I’ve never thought about how to relax my head before! The main thing that comes to my mind—which is actually very relaxing—is to lie in Savasana with enough support under your head so your neck is in a neutral position and your chin is pointing toward your chest. Then, using the power of your mind, consciously move from one part of your head to another (including, one by one, your sense organs) and intentionally relaxing that area. Be sure to include your forehead—lots of tension there—your scalp and the crown of your head.

About Backbends and Headaches

And, finally, a little warning about backbends: Extreme extension of the neck (the bending you do when you take your head back behind your shoulders) can actually trigger headaches! So if you are doing a backbend where you can control the back-bending in your neck, such as Cobra, Upward Facing Dog, Bow pose, try to work with your head in a more neutral position instead of automatically thrusting it back. If the backbend is one where you can’t really keep your head in a more neutral position (such as Urdva Dhanurasana, called Wheel or Upward Bow), try eliminating the pose from your practice to see if that helps your headaches.

Preventing Migraines (and Other Headaches), Part 1

by Nina

Supported Child's Pose

A dear friend of mine, with whom I’ve stayed on many vacations and have traveled with, suffers from terrible migraines; the kind where all you can do is curl up on the fetal position for 24 hours in a dark room. So even though I don’t have migraines myself, I’ve witnessed first hand how awful they can be. Baxter had some good suggestions yesterday (see Yoga for Migraine Headaches) for how to use yoga to get through a migraine headache. But wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to get a migraine in the first place?

Unfortunately, since there are many different triggers for migraines, including different types of food,  it is impossible for us to give you any guaranteed solutions. However, we do have some recommendations for yoga practices you can try. Suffering from a migraine is such a miserable experience and these yoga practices will benefit you in many other ways, so it really seems worth giving them a shot. And everything we’re going to suggest here applies to ordinary tension headaches as well as to migraines, so listen up, everyone!

In his book Yoga As Medicine, Timothy McCall identifies two possible triggers for migraines and other headaches that we can address with yoga: stress and muscle tension in the head, neck and back areas. Today I’m going to talk stress and tomorrow I’ll post something about muscle tension (see Preventing Migraines and Other Headaches, Part 2).

Okay, now to address stress. In his book, Timothy says, “Since stress is a major factor in both tension headaches and in migraines, yoga can certainly play a role in prevention.” And he goes on to say that “There is scientific evidence that relaxation techniques and biofeedback can be effective for both tension and migraine headaches, lessening the duration as well as the frequency of attacks.” That sounds pretty promising to me!

I’ve been ranting about the subject of chronic stress and the importance of stress management since we started the blog (see Chronic Stress: An Introduction  and The Relaxation Response and Yoga), but as a reminder, I’ll simply reiterate that yoga provides a huge selection of possibilities for stress management and you can pick and choose from amongst them according to your experience level, temperament, schedule, and/or personal preference. All of the following yoga techniques reduce your stress levels by switching your nervous system from stress mode (Flight or Fight) to relaxation mode (Rest and Digest). This type of relaxation is something you cannot achieve with a nap or even a full-night’s sleep (see Conscious Relaxation vs. Sleep).

•    Meditation. See How to Meditate for information on how to meditate.

•    Breath practices (pranayama). See Your Key to Your Nervous System for information your nervous system and your breath. For stress reduction and headache prevention, be sure to avoid stimulating and/or overly complex breath practices and focus on simple, calming practices.

•    Restorative poses with a focus for the mind (such as your breath or the relaxation of your muscles).

•    Inverted poses. Studies by Dr. Roger Cole proved that inverted and semi-inverted poses, where your heart is higher than your head, trigger the relaxation response through the mechanisms that control your blood pressure. This is why supported inversions, such Legs Up the Wall pose and Easy Inverted Pose (legs on a chair), are so effective for stress management (See Just in Time for the Holidays: Inverted Poses).

•    Corpse pose (Savasana) with a focus for your mind (such as your breath, the relaxation of your muscles, or peaceful imagery). See Savasana for information.

•    Yoga nidra (yogic sleep), a long, structured form of Savasana. See What is Yoga Nidra? for information about yoga nidra and the Audio Tracks tab at the top of the page for a mini version of yoga nidra that you can stream or download.
 
If you find it difficult to settle in and relax because you’re too restless or anxious when you lie down, first try any active asana practice to burn off steam (although you might want to be careful with backbends—I’ll address that tomorrow) and then move on to relaxation practices.

If you are interested in practicing a combination of inverted and restorative poses, you might like to check the headache sequence in Yoga As Medicine, which includes the following poses:

1. Legs Up the Wall pose
2. Supported Reclined Cobbler’s pose
3. Chair Shoulderstand
4. Half Plow Pose (with chair)
5. One-Legged Forward Bend with head support
6. Full Seated Forward Bend with head support
7. Breath Awareness

Note that this sequence was designed for an experienced practitioner, and if you aren’t familiar yet with or can’t get comfortable in Chair Shoulderstand and Half Plow pose, you may want to skip over those two poses. An easier alternative to those two poses would be to do a Supported Straight Leg Bridge pose (must photograph that for our blog one of these days!). The teacher who designed this sequence also recommended his student use a head wrap (a large bandage that is wrapped around the head to relax the eyes) while practicing, so that may be something you could experiment with. Start wrapping the bandage clockwise at your forehead, go down to your eyes, and then come back up again. Tuck the loose end to secure the bandage.

If the sequence from Yoga As Medicine is too long or complicated for you, any simple restorative sequence could be very effective. Try our Mini Restorative Sequence, which includes three classic restorative poses that almost everyone can enjoy.

So how often should you do these stress reduction practices? I think that if you are chronically stressed out and suffering from debilitating headaches, you should practice six or seven days a week for at least 15 minutes (keep in mind that could be 15 minutes of meditation or 15 minutes in Legs Up the Wall pose). I realize that sounds like a lot. It will take some work—if you can call relaxing “work”—to bring your overall stress levels down. Keep in mind that the payoffs could be huge, as stress management can result in many additional health benefits besides reduced headaches, such as lower blood pressure and a stronger immune system, as well as quality of life benefits, such as increased equanimity and maybe even happiness. And if any of you take up this headache reduction challenge, I’d love to hear back from you about the results.

Check back tomorrow for tips about how to use yoga poses to release neck, shoulder and back tension that can trigger headaches.

Got Salt? Yoga, the immune system, and the problem with some scientific studies

by Nina

Currents in Salty Water by Brad Gibson

So I’ve been seeing these articles about a particular scientific study circulating in the blogosphere that claimed the study was proof that yoga improved your immune system system. One example is from Can Yoga Boost Your Immune System? at salon.com, which claimed:

“This latest study confirms those findings, links them to the body’s immune system, and suggests this effect may be instantaneous.”

Naturally, as a dedicated yoga blogger, I decided I needed to check these articles out because I need to share the good news with our readers, too, right? But my initial readings left me scratching my head a bit (for example, “a comprehensive yoga program rapidly produces internal changes on a genetic level”), so I decided to consult with my handy scientist co-bloggers to find out more, specifically what the relationship is between changes in gene expression and the immune system.

Dr. Ram Rao put it this way:

“The article describes effects of Yoga on genes that influence the immune system. There are so many factors that affect gene expression (environment, diet, pollutants, stress etc) and so the authors looked to see if Yoga did the same.”

That makes sense, right? So far, so good. But Dr. Brad Gibson said it this way:

OK, what they were measuring was gene expression profile changes in PBMC.

"Right before and after each regimen, 20 ml blood was drawn, PBMCs were immediately isolated, total RNA was recovered and used in gene expression profiling experiments interrogating >47,000 independent transcripts in two hybridization runs"

First, PBMCS (according to Wikepedia) are "peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) is any blood cell having a round nucleus. For example: a lymphocyte, a monocyte or a macrophage. These blood cells are a critical component in the immune system to fight infection and adapt to intruders."

So, what they are suggesting is that the observed changes in the gene expression profiles in blood immune cells (PBMCs) in Yoga practioners is correlated with an improved immune function. However the second bit is pure speculation.  They see a change, but it's anybody's guess if this represents a better or healthy immune system.  They provide some guesses, but….

Okay, I admit it, that phrase “the second bit is pure speculation” was a bit disappointing. I’d just wasted my time (and theirs) on an idea for a blog post that I couldn’t really use because, after all, on this blog anyway, we try to back up our claims with good science. But a few days later I realized I actually had more of a contribution to make on the topic than some of the other blogs because while everyone else was simply parroting some kind of good news about yoga they didn’t really understand, I had an actual real-life scientist weighing in on the significance of the study and he said to take it with a giant BUCKET OF SALT.

However, before writing the post, I decided to do a bit more research by looking an the original scientific journal article that everyone was quoting from Rapid Gene Expression Changes in Peripheral Blood Lymphocytes upon Practice of a Comprehensive Yoga Program—you know, just in case. And here is the abstract from the study:

One of the most common integrative medicine (IM) modalities is yoga and related practices. Previous work has shown that yoga may improve wellness in healthy people and have benefits for patients. However, the mechanisms of how yoga may positively affect the mind-body system are largely unknown. Here we have assessed possible rapid changes in global gene expression profiles in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in healthy people that practiced either a comprehensive yoga program or a control regimen. The experimental sessions included gentle yoga postures, breathing exercises, and meditation (Sudarshan Kriya and Related Practices – SK&P) compared with a control regimen of a nature walk and listening to relaxing music. We show that the SK&P program has a rapid and significantly greater effect on gene expression in PBMCs compared with the control regimen. These data suggest that yoga and related practices result in rapid gene expression alterations which may be the basis for their longer term cell biological and higher level health effects.

Whoa, I’m thought, somehow we went straight from “wellness” and “benefits” to specific claims about the immune system. Then there were all those vague words like “suggest” and “may.” But, of course, I’m not scientist, so again, I consulted with Brad. Here is what he said: 

Look at their last sentence:
"These data suggest that yoga and related practices result in rapid gene expression alterations which may be the basis for their longer term cell biological and higher level health effects."

That is, they don't know whether the change in gene expression patterns they observed has anything to do with the yoga practice, let alone a more healthy immune system.  This is a general problem of small correlative studies of this type.  At best I would say this is an intriguing pilot study (low N, not really statistically significant enough to establish even correlation), which will need considerably more work to establish:
(1)  'causation' (i.e., yoga practice causes these genetic expression changes as opposed to some random or other variable that wasn't accounted for)
(2) 'benefit' (the expression changes that are observed are actually beneficial and lead to an improved immune system)
(3) 'mechanism' (why these gene changes lead to a more healthy or robust immune system).

My translation? The number studied was so low that correlation couldn’t be established. Causation definitely was not established. And then there was a bunch of speculation. So, yes, get out the salt everyone, and sprinkle liberally! (For you non-American readers out there, we have an expression “take it with a grain of salt” that means you should be skeptical about something. So I like to joke about buckets of salt, when I think a lot of skepticism is warranted. And, as much as we love yoga, this is not the first time we’ve looked at scientific studies of yoga that indeed warrant quite a bit of skepticism.)

Note: I’m pretty sure that yoga is good for the immune system, however. Stress compromises the immune system—this is known medical fact—and yoga reduces stress. Spending more time in Rest and Digest mode (where your body restores itself) rather than Fight or Flight mode (where your body depletes itself) is therefore good for your immune system.