health

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 sligh...

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...

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 Ben...

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...

by Nina 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 h...