The Better Baby Book (27 page)

When combined with breathing exercises and meditation, yoga detoxifies the body and stimulates the endocrine system. It also promotes a greater awareness of one's body. A tangible objective in yoga is to become calm enough to sit with a quiet mind (that is, meditate). When this becomes refreshing, yoga is starting to work.

We've already discussed the significant, lifelong effects that stress in a mother can have on a fetus. The powerful ability of yoga to reduce stress makes it our exercise of choice for having a healthy baby. Yoga reduces stress by increasing our awareness of the ways in which our bodies create and store stress and tension. When we become more aware of stress and stress patterns, we're better able to identify the sources of our stress. Once you know what's causing your stress, you can remove the conditions or change the behavior.

Prenatal yoga classes have the added benefit of giving you a social network of other expectant mothers. It's okay if you've never done yoga before. All yoga studios offer beginners' classes, and most provide mats for you, too. All you have to do is wear loose or stretchy workout clothes, show up, and do what the teacher says. You're better off at a dedicated yoga studio than at a health club or gym that also offers yoga. The classes are smaller at studios, and the teachers are usually better, so you'll get more and better attention.

There are many forms of yoga; we encourage you to try several until you find one you like. Yoga videos are fine once you've learned how to do the postures, but you'll need a teacher in a yoga studio for the first few months, at least. The following types of yoga are the most common:

• Iyengar
  . A traditional form that focuses on precisely aligned postures.
  
• Ashtanga
  . A traditional form that focuses on an ordered series of postures. It's important to have a good instructor so you learn the postures without hurting yourself. This is best tried before pregnancy.
  
• Anusara
  . A newer form that focuses on alignment, fun, and opening the heart. This is our favorite form of yoga.
  
• Vinyasa
  . A form in which you flow from one posture to another.
  
• Bikram
  . A form completed in a saunalike heated room. It's great for detoxing, but you should not attend a class if you are pregnant or think you might be. It's too hot.
  

Doing yoga two or three times a week will completely transform your body, and we think it fully satisfies the exercise part of our program. This goes for men, too. It's not unpleasant to go to yoga and see your significant other dressed in tight, stretchy clothing, flexing his or her muscles!

T-Tapp: Get the Most Exercise in the Least Amount of Time

If you're short on time, the absolutely best way to pack the most exercise into the least amount of time is Teresa Tapp's program, Fit and Fabulous in Fifteen Minutes. Tapp is a renowned fitness expert and exercise physiologist in Florida who has designed many of her own workouts and has worked with professional fashion models. Her program is known, for short, as “T-Tapp.”

T-Tapp workouts are short, less than twenty minutes each. They are a variety of very specifically designed movements you perform without weights, sort of like an aerobics class. The difference here is that the goal is not aerobic training but muscle fitness and circulation and excretion of toxins in the body.

The T-Tapp workout we like best is called the Basic Plus Workout. It takes just fifteen minutes and covers all of the basics of exercise in just the right amounts. Like many forms of yoga, T-Tapp has the following outstanding effects:

• Detoxifying the body
  
• Increasing insulin sensitivity
  
• Reducing stress
  
• Increasing energy level and mental clarity
  
• Boosting metabolism
  
• Improving cardiovascular function
  
• Helping the brain to gain better control over the body (building the neurokinetic function)
  

T-Tapp Basic Plus is the premier preconception detox workout, because so many of the movements are designed to maximize lymphatic circulation. The lymphatic system is one of the body's primary ways of eliminating toxins. There are lymph nodes and pathways that appear much like blood vessels and run throughout your body, which uses them as channels for eliminating toxins. The lymphatic system is not pumped by the heart, however; it's pumped when we move. That's why T-Tapp is so effective at detoxing.

T-Tapp is one of our favorites in terms of consistency because you don't have to drive anywhere and it takes just fifteen minutes; it's so convenient that it's easy to stick with it. T-Tapp will also dramatically improve your physique. Dave was the first one of us to try T-Tapp, while he was in a hotel room on a business trip for several days. When he got back, Lana noticed he had developed tighter abdominal muscles and wondered what he'd been doing. Soon she started it for herself. You truly will see the effects within days. We highly recommend doing T-Tapp if you're short on time, on days you don't make it to yoga, or if you're just not a yoga fan. We include links to our favorite workouts on
www.betterbabybook.com/exercise
.

Other Exercise Options

If none of our suggestions thus far appeal to you, here are a few principles to consider when designing your own exercise program. You'll probably see the best results by focusing on resistance exercises. This is exactly what yoga and T-Tapp do.

For aerobics, low-impact exercises like swimming or riding a bicycle are the healthiest. Jogging on pavement or even on a treadmill is hard on the body, especially the joints. Soon after you're pregnant, your body will produce a hormone called relaxin that makes your ligaments stretchy, which is not always comfortable if your joints are accustomed to being pounded on pavement. Walking at a fast pace is better for you than jogging, whether you're on a treadmill, the pavement, or grass. If you have trouble getting a vigorous aerobic workout from walking alone, try increasing the incline of the treadmill. If you're walking up a ten- to fifteen-degree incline, you can get an excellent low-impact workout just by walking quickly. Do not do this in the third trimester, however, because your ligaments become so loose in preparation for birth that this type of exercise can cause your lower back to become less stable.

Lifting light weights once or twice a week is a good resistance routine. Our experience is that most forms of yoga are incredible muscle workouts. Dave stopped lifting weights entirely in favor of doing yoga and actually increased his muscle mass.

Whether you choose weightlifting or yoga, exercising to the point of not being able to continue gives you the best workout. Weight-bearing exercise makes your bones stronger, and it will make your growth hormone spike if you eat protein within fifteen minutes of finishing your workout. A spike in growth hormone can help you get pregnant because it rejuvenates your entire system.

Overexercising

Earlier we mentioned that exercising too much can promote infertility. This is because overexercising increases the stress level throughout the body, which can disrupt a woman's menstrual cycle. Low-stress exercises like yoga or T-Tapp are our top choices, because they combine powerful stress-reducing effects: exercise, deep breathing, detoxification, and meditation. Reducing stress promotes fertility in men and women and creates an environment in a woman's body that welcomes her new baby.

If you're doing regular workouts, we recommend forty-five-minute-or-less workouts only two or three times a week before pregnancy. If you want to exercise every day, you can do the T-Tapp Basic Plus Workout or go for a light walk on the days you're not doing cardio or yoga.

During pregnancy, prenatal yoga and low-stress exercises like cycling, Pilates, swimming, and walking are best. Many women have also done T-Tapp throughout their pregnancies with great success. After the fourth month of pregnancy, avoid exercising while lying on your back. The expanding uterus can compress the vena cava, the main vein that carries blood back to the heart. Lying on your back will increase the chance of this compression. Also avoid exercises that require holding your breath, because maintaining your baby's oxygen supply at this time is critical. Finally, avoid prolonged or overheated exercise. An unborn baby thrives only when its mother's body temperature is below 102.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

What Exercise Does for Your Baby

When you exercise the right way, it benefits your baby. The American Physiological Society reports that safe exercise during pregnancy helps a fetus's nervous system to develop. The study demonstrated that the fetuses of exercising mothers had better control during breathing movements than the fetuses of nonexercising mothers. Also, just like their exercising mothers, the fetuses had lower average heart rates than the fetuses of the sedentary mothers.

When to Avoid Exercise

If you have any of the following conditions, you should avoid exercise during pregnancy:

• Intrauterine growth retardation
  
• Pregnancy-induced high blood pressure, uncontrolled blood pressure, a systolic (top number) over 160, or a diastolic (bottom number) over 100
  
• Premature rupture of membranes or placenta previa (in which the placenta blocks the opening from the uterus to the cervix)
  
• Persistent bleeding during the second and third trimester
  
• Preterm labor, in either the current pregnancy or a previous one
  
• Incompetent cervix (in which the fetus may spontaneously abort) and cerclage (a surgical procedure to close the cervix and keep the fetus intact in the uterus)
  
• A history of chronic high blood pressure, overactive thyroid, cardiovascular pulmonary disease, or miscarriage
  
• Multiple fetuses (twins, triplets, or more)
  
• Asthma
  
• Unstable angina
  

If you experience any of these situations, we recommend consulting with a holistic physician before beginning an exercise program.

Breathing Techniques (
Pranayama
)

Pranayama
is a system of breathing used in many forms of yoga. The Sanskrit word
pranayama
means “breath control.” Yogis (yoga masters) believe that breathing brings life energy (
prana
) into the body. They consider
prana
to be divine.
Prana
can also be taken into the body through natural foods and loving relationships.

Yogis believe that
prana
is drained from the body by stress, physical illness, prolonged strenuous exercise, an unhealthy diet, or a negative mindset.
Pranayama
is a powerful stress-reduction technique, because it increases and purifies our life energy and counteracts activities like stress that reduce
prana
.

Breathing itself is a highly unique bodily function, because it falls under both conscious control and unconscious control. For instance, you can think about breathing and breathe in certain ways, but if you stop thinking about breathing, your body will still do it for you. There's a deep mutual connection between the mind and breath control. The mind controls how we breathe, and our breathing affects how we think.

Consider how when you're upset you breathe faster, and when you're relaxed you breathe more slowly. Telling someone to “take a deep breath” when they're upset is good advice, because breathing more slowly really does serve to calm you down. The physical benefits of
pranayama
are extensive, and they include reduced cortisol level, decreased heart rate, and increased blood flow.
Pranayama
techniques are very powerful; no matter what you believe about
prana
and divine energy, we know you'll feel a big difference if you practice it every day.

We think it's important to take classes from a trained teacher or a yogi on a regular basis. Breathing in this conscious manner for at least ten minutes a day helps tremendously. If you don't practice this breathing technique every day,
pranayama
won't be nearly as effective when you get into a stressful situation and really need it.

Breathing techniques like
pranayama
have been shown to noticeably improve the quality of life for asthma patients. In addition, the Art of Living Foundation of Bangalore, India, which teaches breathing exercises in 152 countries, has taught breathing exercises in a number of U.S. prisons. In the prisons where it was taught, a 38 percent decrease in fighting was reported.

Meditation

Meditation is simply becoming more aware of your thoughts and feelings. When a thought comes up, instead of engaging it emotionally or intellectually or judging it, you acknowledge it and send it on its way, emptying your mind until the next thought surfaces. In a sense, you act as a third-party observer of your own thoughts. Sometimes further thoughts won't surface, and you'll be able to maintain a calm consciousness free of interruption for as long as you like. With practice, it becomes easier to reach and maintain this quiet state.

The positive health effects of meditation have been well documented for more than fifty years. Meditation lowers heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, and cortisol level. It promotes the release of thyroid-stimulating hormone and human growth hormone and increases L-arginine and vasopressin levels. Arginine and vasopressin help with memory and learning. Meditation also reduces stress and fear and promotes clarity of mind.

Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School is the founder and president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute. He found that Americans who practice meditation have lower oxygen metabolism (that is, they require less oxygen for healing and stress responses). Dr. Benson conducted a study of ninety patients with chronic pain. When the patients were put on a ten-week meditation program, they showed significant reductions in pain, negative body image, anxiety, and depression. Their use of drugs for pain management declined after the program, and most of the ninety patients continued meditating on their own.

Heart Rate Variability Training

Since the early 1990s, researchers at the Institute of HeartMath in Boulder Creek, California, have studied the relationship between the heart and the brain. Their findings are nothing short of astounding. They found that the heart actually has its own independent nervous system that makes decisions separately from the brain. Of all the nerves that run between the heart and the brain, 80 percent carry information from the heart to the brain, and only 20 percent carry information from the brain to the heart.