Yoga Cures: Simple Routines to Conquer Over 50 Common Ailments and Live Pain-Free (7 page)

the contrary. Yoga allows us to see things more clearly and gain room to move within our emotional

lives. Yoga gives us the space to observe what we would like to do without getting wrapped up and

consumed with the moment. The results of this balanced perspective can be tremendous in nearly every

aspect of our lives. We are more productive about work when we are less emotionally involved, tense,

and worried. We can cultivate lasting and meaningful relationships when we have a little space from our

emotions and so are able to communicate with compassion, focus, and ease.

Australian researchers at Deakin University in Melbourne conducted a study using yoga as both a

preventive therapy and a treatment for symptoms of mental illness. Participants went through a six-

week yoga program that included breathing techniques, yoga poses designed to enhance strength,

vitality, and flexibility, and guided relaxation and meditation. The aim was to see if participants would

increase their resistance to emotional distress by developing greater calmness, self-acceptance, a more

balanced perspective on life, and enhanced concentration—all things the researchers believed could

potentially be gained from yoga. They compared symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression across

three groups: regular yoga practitioners, beginners practicing yoga as therapy for depression and stress

for the first time, and a control group that did not practice yoga. The study also looked at the

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participants’ sense of intrinsic spirituality (an inherent sense of spiritual connection or fullness) before

and after the six-week yoga practice.

REAL-LIFE CURES: Dave’s Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Meet Dave, a Strala regular (one of the early adopters, from the time I led yoga classes out of my apartment). For quite some time, he suffered from OCD, an anxiety disorder in which a hyperactive mind finds often arbitrary

obsessions and rituals to keep itself occupied. Those who have OCD relate that at times the brain feels a bit like a pinball machine: pinging from one subject to the next, out of control.

Dave says he has experienced a 60 to 70 percent improvement in his OCD symptoms over the last two years of

sporadic yoga practice. Dave says he feels breathing and meditation are the activities that are most directly useful in slowing down his brain.

If you search online, like Dave did, for connections between OCD and yoga, you may find information on the

benefits of meditation and alternate nostril breathing (a technique that is a huge cure for anxiety among other things), but likely not all that much on yoga’s usefulness with this disorder. You will find a slew of medical sites, and a slew of medications available as the first suggested treatment for the disorder. What’s the harm in giving yoga a try, like Dave did, and seeing if this “old school” treatment can’t help?

When the three study groups were compared at the end of six weeks, the people in the beginners’

yoga group on average had lower levels for symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress than before the

beginning of the study. The people who already practiced yoga and the people in the control group, not

surprisingly, showed no change. In addition, the participants in the beginning yoga group showed

growth in their self-reported level of spiritual connection.

YOGA CURES: ACHES AND PAINS

From day-to-day body aches that result from too much office or desk time—and neck, shoulder, hip,

and wrist tension—to more chronic issues like back pain, sciatica, and sports injuries, or even problems

caused by improperly practiced yoga, a regular yoga practice has improved symptoms and often

reversed these conditions. Even arthritis and fibromyalgia and their resulting pain, discomfort, and

decreased range of motion have been helped by yoga.

Scientists from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore divided a group of thirty sedentary adults with

rheumatoid arthritis (RA) into two groups: one participated in an eight-week program of yoga and the

other was put on a wait list and served as the control. The people in the yoga group participated in two

one-hour classes per week and were instructed to practice at home as well. Traditional yoga poses were

modified as needed to accommodate any physical limitations from the disease. Also included in the

sessions were deep breathing, relaxation, and meditation techniques. The research team found that those

who participated in eight weeks of yoga had significantly fewer tender and swollen joints than they did

before starting class. The wait-list group saw no significant changes.

James Carson, PhD, a researcher and psychologist at the Oregon Health and Science University in

Portland, enlisted people suffering from fibromyalgia in a weekly two-hour yoga class and found that

symptoms such as pain, fatigue, and stiffness were reduced by 30 percent in more than half of the

participants. A control group continued their regular treatment regimen and reported no change in

symptoms. Carson believes that the yoga program used in the study is a low-impact way for

fibromyalgia patients to get moving, and performing yoga may even change the way the central nervous

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system responds to pain.

REAL-LIFE CURES: Heidi’s Car Accident

Heidi Kristoffer, a yoga teacher, has healed her body’s pretty dramatic trauma and limitations through yoga. She had suffered a herniated disc in her neck from a car accident, and for as long as she could remember, she thought she just had a bad back and that her back pain was normal. After a while Heidi started getting sciatica down her left side.

This is when doctors discovered that she’d actually broken the L2 and L3 vertebrae in her spine. Because the

fractures were not diagnosed, they didn’t heal properly, and her doctors didn’t think they ever would. One doctor told Heidi that he had never seen anyone with her injuries standing, much less moving around. One thing her doctors did agree on was that yoga was good for her back and had probably saved her from further injury.

Heidi has avoided surgery by building up the core muscles surrounding the spine that keep everything in place.

The more she worked on strengthening and focused on alignment and on listening to her body, the stronger and

healthier her back became. Now Heidi wakes up every day pain free, happy, and excited about life.

WHAT’S YOUR “FIX” GOING TO BE: YOU OR A PILL?

The stories I’ve included in this chapter are but a small handful of anecdotes from my studio; there are

so many more. From a friend with MS who found help with the spasticity of her muscles to someone

who claims that yoga even cured her psoriasis.

There is a pill to fix pretty much everything that goes wrong with your body or your mind. There is

fast, cheap, addictive food available everywhere we look. There are diets that promise to shed excess

pounds in days. There is workout equipment that promises to minimize physical effort while getting

your body strong, lean, and toned. But none of these solutions are sustainable. In fact they lead you to

ill health, not strength and wisdom. But yoga done properly is different.

When we do yoga we realize that we are one expansive, malleable unit: body, mind, and spirit are

entirely ours to shape. From this realization, we can begin to approach our lives in a grounded,

informed way that is useful for living a happier, healthier, and joy-filled life.

Since we cannot separate ourselves into mind and body, it is very useful to treat the entire person

rather than individual parts. The cures you’ll find on the following pages address your whole self. Your

body and mind are interconnected, so it’s important to address your entire self, instead of isolating

problems and ailments. Sure, healing individual parts is useful when it comes to dealing with a cut

finger or a broken bone, but when we get into more complex ailments like stress, insomnia, and

depression, it’s essential to take all of you into account. More and more Western-trained medical

doctors are recommending yoga, meditation, and relaxation techniques to promote health, and also

prevent and heal ailments and disease. I’ve seen a big shift over the time I’ve been teaching. People’s

doctors have sent them to yoga classes for a wide range of problems—everything from backache to

anxiety, high blood pressure to obesity, and even to aid in things as serious as cancer.

You know now from this chapter’s brief walk through the research that meditation, yoga, and other

relaxation and visual techniques can serve as a great benefit to anyone who practices.

As I said before, science is finally catching up to what yoga practitioners have known for years: yoga

has always been able to cure the body and mind. Yoga is something that belongs to all of us, so we all

have the power to cure ourselves. The more research illustrates the healing power of yoga, the more

opportunities our generation and the generations to come will have to access their own inner healer and

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enjoy a transformation into radiant health. Okay, let me step down from the pulpit here. I know this has

gotten a little heady and preachy. But as I’ve just shown you, you don’t have to believe me, trust the

science and trust yourself. Your health will thank you for it.

Now you know you want to give it a try. Where to get started? Just turn the page … and follow your

nose.

Chapter 3

To Get Started, Just Follow Your Nose

Thinking is useful in our everyday lives when we have to solve problems, make decisions, and cross

the street. But to build the tools we need to heal ourselves—intuition, feeling, and self-awareness—we

need to quiet our minds. The answer to doing so? It’s right at the tip of your nose.

Often, we walk around mindless, muscling and forcing our way into and through things. When we

start with the breath, we begin with the air we take in. More air means everything becomes lighter,

easier, and more efficient, like a nice warm breeze blowing through your body’s house.

When we learn to pay attention to our breathing, we end up bringing in a breath of fresh air to the

rest of our lives, too. Life changes, expands, becomes easier, lighter, and more fun the more we bring in

breath, space, light … air. Good stuff.

Breathing is something everyone must do to stay alive. Meditation is something that anyone can do

to thrive. You can meditate for five seconds, five minutes, or an hour. Take as much or as little time as

you have. Make time if you can. The benefits of meditation are astounding and range from feeling a

sense of ease, to reducing stress, to creating focus, experiencing heightened creativity, and dissolving

negative urges, as well as creating a powerful feeling of connectivity and purpose. Once you dive in and

experience the benefits, hopefully you will make time often to return to the breath.

What is meditation? Simply, it’s calming the mind by watching the breath, instead of tuning into our

rapid-fire, worry-filled thoughts. And it is a powerful practice. It connects us to our core. The more we

do it, the more we realize that everything we need is right there inside.

Something interesting happens when we go from someone who is breathing to someone who is

watching the breath come and go. We click into observer mode. In the moment of switching to being

mindful of our breaths, space begins to open up for our minds to calm. Our heartbeats slow down and

we have room to breathe. Observation becomes meditation.

TIME TO MAKE THE YOGA: CATCHING YOUR BREATH

Let’s go over a few things that happen with the breath, both when it’s in control, and out of our

control. We’ll cover some techniques that are useful, whether you are practicing yoga, relaxing at home,

or commuting to work.

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Short, Fast, Out-of-Control Breathing

We’ve all experienced this type of breathing, whether we’re racing up a flight of stairs, engaged in a

heated argument, or hearing some exciting news. When your breathing becomes short and fast in yoga,

that’s a sign to back off with the physical stuff until you can lengthen and deepen your breath. Short

and fast breathing happens, but when it does, take the time to guide it back.

Next time you race up a flight of stairs or are rushing to get somewhere, notice your breath. If it’s

short and fast, take a moment to bring it back to easy breathing. If you can keep coming back to easy,

full breathing even when doing difficult things, this translates into all kinds of great benefits in the rest

of your life.

Easy Breathing

Hopefully this is the quality of breath we have for most of the day when we are at rest. Easy inhales

and exhales. This is a good place to start when you are practicing meditation. You can stay with easy

breathing when you meditate, or deepen your inhales and exhales even further. There is no one absolute

way to meditate; it is good to be aware of some options and of course to be aware of your breath.