Tag: yoga

Yoga is a Perfect Home Workout

namasteIf the gym isn’t your cup of tea, yoga is a perfect home workout. We’re all aware that regular exercise is important to overall health so it’s important to find a workout that works for you. A couple of years ago, I was swimming laps 3 – 4 times a week. Swimming is a great low-impact workout which I needed because of a knee injury. Then came the day that I jumped into the pool to get started, landed on that leg, and re-injured my knee. On top of the damage the chlorine was doing to my hair and the constant lane sharing, I’d had enough. I needed a new workout routine.

At my age, I’m aware it’s important to have some sort of resistance training as well as with aerobic exercise. I began searching for a good mix of the two. After months of experimentation, I now have two weight lifting routines and three or four yoga routines I rotate on a regular basis. I chose these workouts because I can do them at home and because they make me feel good. If your workout makes you feel good, obviously, you’re less likely to skip it. I now work out 5 – 6 days per week.

About 4 years ago, I attended a yoga class for seniors once a week for a few months. At that point, I didn’t even own a yoga mat. I just went to the class, threw $5 in a basket and borrowed a mat. I felt weak and shaky sometimes, but the routine wasn’t all that difficult and I enjoyed it when the instructor rubbed our foreheads during Savasana at the end. I wasn’t really hooked, but this low-key introduction helped me get past the fear that I wouldn’t be able to do the poses.

When I decided to seriously explore yoga as a primary workout, I started with two DVDs featuring Bethenny Frankel. I jumped right into the 40 minute session instructed by Kristin McGee. Occasionally, I’d switch over to the DVD led by Mike McArdle. As I became more proficient with the routines, I also became more aware of the pace and the tone of each workout. I noticed that I preferred Mike’s instruction. I also got curious about other instructors. Once I realized how many yoga options were available on Amazon Video, I was like a kid in a candy store.

There are almost 3000 yoga videos available from Amazon Video. Almost 400 of those are included free with Amazon Prime and you can watch them as many times as you want. Even if you watched nothing on Amazon Prime, but a single workout, that workout ends up costing you about 25¢ per year. I don’t know of any club you can join for 25¢ per year.

The only equipment required for these yoga routines is comfortable clothing, a yoga mat, and a way to access video. A blanket, block, or strap is sometimes helpful as well. It’s not hard to find a yoga mat for under $20 or a beginner’s kit with a mat, block, and strap for $35 – $40. And if you’re not leaving the house, there’s no clothing or gas budget required. You’re bound to have something comfortable to wear stuffed away in a drawer.

I’ve previewed quite a number of yoga workouts. If I don’t immediately feel both relaxed and challenged, I move on to a different option. I prefer those that move at a slower pace with an instructor who fully demonstrates proper alignment and form. My current favorite is, Yoga for Beginners: Poses for Freedom and Renewal with Kanta Barrios which I can watch free with Amazon Prime. It’s 30 minutes designed to tone the muscles and strengthen the core. Full of plank to Chaturanga to cobra to downward-facing dog sequences, the poses may be for beginners, but I don’t feel like I’m slacking. In fact, the reviews of this video sometimes complain that it’s too hard for beginners.

When I want a longer workout, I choose Yoga for All. Also available free with Amazon Prime, these sessions are each about an hour in length and feature 3 instructors simultaneously demonstrating beginner, intermediate, and advanced versions of each pose. Season 1 contains 4 episodes: Basic, Core, Strength, and Vinyasa. I follow the intermediate instructor and modify to the beginner level when working on an area in which I’m weak.

Obviously, your preferences may differ from mine, but with so many choices you’re bound to find something that will suit your personality, goals, and fitness level. And if your preferences change as you become stronger and more flexible, video content providers offer a never ending stream of prospective selections.

Once you land on a possible workout, be sure to watch the whole session before practicing it. This will get you attuned to the rhythm and manner in which you’ll be instructed. While you still may be a bit behind the instructor at first, a full viewing reduces frustration and allows you to more fully concentrate on form from the beginning.

Yoga makes it easy to target any part of your body that needs improvement. Have back problems – there’s a yoga workout for that. Need to relax your hips – there’s a yoga workout for that. Have digestive trouble – there’s a yoga workout to improve it. And no matter where you practice, yoga can help you gain strength, flexibility, and balance.

If you wake up stiff and sore; if you have plantar fasciitis pain; if you are losing flexibility; if you want to improve balance or breath control, yoga is a great workout to explore. You can workout when you want. Target any part of your body. Gain strength, tone, flexibility, balance, and breath control. Avoid prying eyes. Learn to be mindful. Save money. Feel amazing.

All of this is possible when you practice at home. Yoga really is the perfect home workout.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

http://www.kantabarriosyoga.com/

I Can See Clearly Now

Luckily, I can see clearly now – even when I play 2048 obsessively on my phone. In the years just prior to adopting a gluten-free diet, I suffered from many symptoms. One of those was dry eyes. When I woke up each morning, it felt like I had gravel in my eyes. I could no longer command my eyes to water at will. I sometimes asked a colleague in my office to tell me a sad story so I could cry and make my eyes feel better.
fingerglasses
I tried every over-the-counter eye drop I could find. Some didn’t work at all. I was allergic to others. My opthalmologist explained to me that my eyelids were sticking to my eyes and causing little abrasions. That sounded bad and felt awful. She insisted I use RESTASIS®. I complied.

As I struggled to get a diagnosis for my constant aching, itchy rashes, tummy pain, diarrhea, and weakness, I began to include dry eye in my research. I discovered Sjogren’s Syndrome. This autoimmune disease affects an estimated 1 in 10 dry eye patients.

It often occurs alone, but can also occur along with other autoimmune diseases like celiac, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, or scleroderma. As I began my gluten-free experiment, I was curious whether healing my gut would have a positive effect on my dry eye. My opthalmologist and I designed a plan to wean me off RESTASIS® so I could find out.

Like the itchy rashes caused by my dermatitis herpetiformis, the improvement in my eyes on a gluten-free diet has followed a much slower and sporadic path than the quick reduction in muscle pain & weakness, stomach pain, and other intestinal symptoms I experienced. My increased use of electronic devices hasn’t helped. While my eyes are still on the dry side, they are much improved as evidenced both by the way they feel and by my optometrist’s observation during yearly exams.
water
What I’ve discovered along the way is that overall hydration is important. When I drink too much tea or not enough water, I notice a difference. Wearing mascara of any sort results in drier eyes. And I’ve learned that I can supplement the eyes’ self-cleaning action by using eye wash once or twice a day. By making choices to support eye hydration, I had reached a level of adequate hydration with only occasional annoyance, but I can see more clearly now.

Recently, I found an eye cleansing yoga routine and decided to give it a try. It’s a simple set of eye movement exercises plus a period of time breathing while staring at a candle flame or small object about 24 inches in front of the eyes. As I stare and try not to blink, my eyes begin to water in the same manner I was previously able to command them to water at will.

After a few of days of this practice, I decided to try the staring technique while working. I stopped what I was doing, stared at an icon on my computer screen, and boom-bada-boom, it worked. My eyes began to water. I’m thrilled to have another simple solution at my disposal. I can see clearly now, can you?


http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sjogrens-syndrome/basics/definition/con-20020275

http://www.healthandyoga.com/html/news/meditation/trataka.aspx

Strategic Patience

formulaThis morning I ran across the term strategic patience. It wasn’t used in the context of foreign policy with Russia. This strategic patience was used to describe a technique employed by teachers in which students are asked to remove themselves from electronics and quietly observe a math formula, graph, or painting. Sometimes the duration of the assignment was only 1.5 minutes, but that time had a positive learning result.

Quiet observation, stillness, contemplation, and mindfulness are words I hear fairly often. I know a few people who practice yoga and many who claim to pray, but most everyone I know is also running as fast as they can most of the time. It is rare that anyone sits still or savors a moment alone.

I know that’s probably true of the people around you as well. In fact, University of Virginia psychologist Timothy Wilson and his colleagues at U.Va. and Harvard found in a series of 11 studies that participants generally did not enjoy even six to 15 minutes alone in a room with nothing to do but think, ponder, or daydream.

We become so accustomed to filling every moment, we schedule more and more and more and then start to rush to get it all done. And we convince ourselves that everything we’re doing is important whether or not we appreciate the value it adds to our lives. We have an idea that through this overabundance we are living more fully,varms but are we, or would strategic patience serve us better?

That’s a big question to answer in a blog post. It’s the kind of big question people write whole books about. I’m in too much of a hurry to write a book. I just need to get this post finished so I can move on to the rest of my over-scheduled day. As a result, I’ll limit the rest of this space to sharing what I’ve learned the past few years…by being still.

Being still matters. It’s important. No, it’s CRITICAL.

I don’t know why exactly except that without stillness there is no motion. Contrasts in life are the way we make sense of things. We can’t know sweet unless we know sour. We can’t know fast unless we know slow. We can’t know happiness unless we know sadness. We can’t know success unless we know failure.

Until we are able to sit still with ourselves, we cannot know ourselves fully and not knowing ourselves frightens us. It leaves us susceptible to criticism because we’re not really sure if the criticism is deserved. It leaves us unable to apologize sincerely because we’re not really sure how we feel. It causes us to bristle quickly because each time someone doesn’t follow their prescribed role in our necessarily narrow script, we feel threatened. It causes us to posture rather than stand confidently tall. It keeps us divorced from our vulnerability without which we cannot receive love. And we all want to be loved.

Now, how does any of this relate to cooking? It doesn’t, but strategic patience is ingredient number one for thriving.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/to-get-students-to-focus-some-professors-are-asking-them-to-close-their-eyes/2016/04/06/b2b019e8-e6ef-11e5-bc08-3e03a5b41910_story.html

https://news.virginia.edu/content/doing-something-better-doing-nothing-most-people-study-shows