health

by Shari This is the second part of my response to William Broad�s assertion that women�because of their inherent flexibility�are more apt to injure their hips in a �dangerous� yoga class or perhaps during a home practice. I think it is important to understand that whether or not women are more inherently flexible than men, there are significant physiological and anatomical differences in the male and the female pelvis. Have a look at these two pictures! Female Pelvis Male Pelvis As you can see here, the female pelvis is typically larger and broader than the male pelvis, which is taller narrower, more compact and stable. The female pelvis is thinner and it is more mobile partly due to hormonal changes that a woman cycles through and partly due to inherent structural attributes. There is also a difference in the size of the pelvic outlet specifically due to the reproduction capacity of the female The weight-bearing surfaces of the pelvis are larger and more irregular in the male, wherea...

by Shari The latest New York Times article from William Broad Women�s Flexibility is a Liability (in Yoga) sparked a conversation between Nina and me, both whom are long-term yoga practitioners who have grappled with orthopedic injuries. Broad states that he has recently learned that women are at higher risk of hip injuries in a yoga class because of their inherent flexibility compared to men. He quotes a single yoga teacher, Michaelle Edwards, saying that �women�s elasticity became a liability when extreme bends resulted in serious wear and tear on their hips. Over time the chronic stress could develop into agonizing pain and, in some cases, the need for urgent hip repairs.� He also says of arthritis researchers: The investigators found that extreme leg motions could cause the hip bones to repeatedly strike each other, leading over time to damaged cartilage, inflammation, pain and crippling arthritis. They called it Femoroacetabular Impingement � or F.A.I., in medical shorthand. The ...

by Shari The Diaphragm (with ribs cut away) In my �day job� as a home health physical therapist, I see a lot of clients who have significant breathing difficulties. One of the most common breathing ailments is Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). COPD is similar to asthma in that some of the symptoms are the same but the etiology of the disease is different. Most significant is the inability to get air out and not being able to get enough oxygen in. Let me give you a bit of background about breathing and normal airways. Air travels into the lungs via the trachea. It goes down a series of branching airways called bronchi. These bronchi branch into smaller bronchioles and then into millions of tiny air sacs called alveoli. Oxygen in the air passes through the thin walls of the alveoli into the tiny blood vessels nearby, attaches to red blood cells and is carried into the blood vessels to the rest of the body. Carbon dioxide is passed out into the alveoli from the red blood cells...

by Nina, Shari, and Bonnie Grasses and Reflections by Brad Gibson Shari Ser and her teaching partner, Bonnie Maeda, who is a registered nurse and a yoga teacher, will be teaching a special workshop on yoga for chronic pain this coming weekend, on Saturday, September 21 (see Brentwood Yoga Center ). So I thought that it would be a good time to interview the two of them about this important topic. �Nina NINA : Why did you two decide to teach workshops on yoga for chronic pain? BONNIE : As I began teaching yoga with a therapeutic approach, it was evident that discomfort and pain were often a component for the student living with a chronic illness or injury. With the philosophy of teaching yoga to the whole person in a holistic way, I felt that there needed to be an awareness in the practice of the individual's experience of pain. As a teacher, I was also aware of another component for these students: the fear of pain (or of increasing their pain) was present as they practiced yo...

by Shari Trees in the Ocean by Brad Gibson I recently looked into physioyoga (aka "fizzy yoga") because I was very displeased with the knee rehabilitation I was currently receiving from a local and very well-respected (in the medical community) orthopedic physical therapist. I was displeased for a number of reasons but the most glaring issue was my feeling that she was myopically looking at my problem. She focused solely on my injury, not on the many parts of  the �whole me� that predisposed me to injury, and when I brought up the various imbalances in my body, she politely listened but refocused the visit on my acute injury. I would leave feeling frustrated, but I would dutifully do my home exercise program and feel my mind disconnect from my body as I was doing them. Though we could �talk shop� about my injury, she didn�t understand or appreciate my yoga practice and couldn�t recommend anything other than �take a couple of weeks off and rest your knee.� Well in my world tha...

by Shari Shari's Go-To Pose I feel a little foolish presenting this topic because until quite recently I didn�t associate my various injuries or aches and pains as part of menopause. I didn�t really connect the dots; I just figured that I must be doing something wrong to cause myself injury. This has really come home to roost with my current knee injury that could be something I might have to address with surgical intervention! And my conversations with Nina about menopause prompted me to take a closer look at this problem that isn�t just my own personal issue. It turns out there is actually a term for this experience: arthralgia. A diagnoses of arthralgia is given when the joints become swollen, stiff or painful during menopause. Joint pain associated with menopause is also referred to as �menopause arthritis.� It can affect hips, knees, back and extremities (how about the whole body?).  In the journal "Semin Arthritis Rheum 2009," the researchers state that genetic alte...

by Shari Mushroom in Winter by Melina Meza Nina and I were talking a while back and we realized that we hadn't yet written any posts on menopause. Well, considering that this physiological episode is a major event in every woman's life, we thought it was about time to take this on, and decided that I should start the ball rolling so to speak. Although each woman�s experience of menopause is very personal and individual, there are certain similarities that we all experience, including the end of the ability to give birth! Now this is not to imply that all woman make the decision to become pregnant and raise a child, but the physiological ability to become pregnant is age-related. To begin our exploration of menopause, I read the book Yoga and the Wisdom of Menopause. A Guide to Physical, Emotional and Spiritual Health at Midlife and Beyond by Suza Francina. This book was published in 2003 but the information it contains is still pertinent. It provides good background informatio...