Our Body’s Built In Cleansing System

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I recently posted an article about our Spring Cleanse & Ayurvedic De-Tox in which I outlined some details of the program and some of the reasons we recommend it. And while the very proactive approach of doing a cleanse is a good idea for keeping ourselves healthy, it turns out that our bodies are doing their own cleansing every day on their own.

Our body has the ability to clean and repair its own tissues by employing specialized cells in our immune system called macrophages. This cellular cleansing process is called autophagy, and it is a process whereby the macrophages digest and remove old and dysfunctional proteins that build up inside other cells, as well as anything that our immune system identifies as foreign.

These macrophages are large white blood cells and they are concentrated in our lymph nodes. Their job is to perform phagocytosis – locating foreign bodies and biological debris, engulfing them and then breaking them down into a form that neutralizes them and allows them to be eliminated or assimilated. Phagocytosis helps keep pathogens, old or unhealthy tissue and other potential disease causing materials from lingering in our bodies so that they don’t have the chance to make us ill.

As I mentioned, this cycle of cleansing and repairing is going on on its own all the time, but there are actions we can take to facilitate it and help it to work better.

Here are 3 things that we can do to help keep the autophagic function of our immune system working its best.

1. Fasting and/or restrictive eating

There is a lot of research which shows that fasting helps improve the ability of the macrophages to do the job of cleaning and making way for new and healthier tissue. Intermittent fasting in particular has been shown to be effective in boosting autophagy.

Here are some suggestions on how to do intermittent fasting:

The 12-16 hour daily fast: I have found this to be the easiest way to fast on a regular basis. Finish your dinner by 7pm and do not have anything to eat again until 8am the next morning. This amounts to a 12-13 hour daily fast.

The 5/2 plan: Eat whatever your normal food intake is 5 days of the week, and on then on the other 2 days eat very small meals. An example would be to have your regular meals Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday and on Tuesday and Friday have only steamed vegetables or a light soup.

The 6/1 plan: Have whatever your regular meals are 6 days a week, and then completely fast from food the other day. This plan would work best for highly disciplined persons who is do not have a physically demanding job.

Bear in mind that if you decide to try one of these plans, there are CAUTIONS. 

PLEASE DO NOT FAST IF YOU ARE:

*Pregnant

*Younger than 18

*Frail or elderly

*Undergoing chemotherapy or radiation

*Dealing with hormonal diseases that require medications

*Have a history of eating disorders

***If you are not sure if intermittent fasting is appropriate for you, please discuss it with your doctor first.***

2. Exercise

When we exercise appropriately we put our body into a controlled, beneficial state of stress. When muscles are challenged with resistance, like lifting weights or doing a plank posture, it causes tiny micro-tears in our tissues. These tears stimulate minor inflammation which then triggers a cycle of cleansing and repair by the microphages. The macrophages from the lymph system then go into action, both stimulating the process of inflammation and doing the clean up of waste products left behind after the inflammation resolves.

Inflammation generally occurs in the first 24-36 hours after exercise. It typically feels like soreness or fatigue from the exercise. After 24-36 hours the body begins to lay down new collagen to both repair the established tissue and regenerate healthy new tissue. During this cycle a crew of macrophage cleaners are busy releasing soluble substances in our lymph system to remove debris, thereby making the tissue repair, regeneration and growth possible.

3. Sleep

When we sleep, our body and brain get the needed rest for recovery and rebuilding of tissue. During sleep the waste removal system of the brain, the glymphactic system, works to keep cellular debris from accumulating in the brain. The glymphatic system is a functional waste clearance pathway for the central nervous system. This pathway is composed of the cerebrospinal fluid housed in our spinal column and brain. The clearing of soluble proteins, waste products and excess extracellular fluid increases in this pathway during slow wave sleep.

*Research is being done to look into the possible role of the lymphatic system in preventing degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimers.*

In conclusion, our bodies have their own systems for “cleansing” the tissue and promoting tissue health. This system is greatly improved, as is our overall health when we avoid overeating, exercise regularly and appropriately and get enough quality sleep. And while eating right, exercising and sleeping enough are basic to human health, they’re not necessarily easy for everyone. Perhaps appreciating the amazing work our immune system does for us, day in day out, can inspire us to do our own part in keeping ourselves vibrant and well.

DNS Warm Up

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This short video gives guided instructions for learning some DNS principles and using early developmental movements as a warm up for any movement practice you choose. I like to use this sequence as preparatory sequence before doing classical yoga postures, but it could also be done before a gym workout, a run, a bike ride or a hike.

We’re hoping to offer more video sessions like this and we’d love your feedback. Let us know what you think!

Why Do A Spring Cleanse?

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Now that I’m wrapping up with several clients whom I’ve guided through our Spring Cleanse and Ayurvedic De-tox, and now that Tiffany and I have finished our own annual spring cleanse, I have a few thoughts that I’d like to share with you. First, I recognize that a lot of you are interested in the cleanse but you’re not sure if the program we offer is one that will fit your timeframe, commitments and/or lifestyle. Let me provide a few more details on our program so that you have a better idea of what you’d be getting into if you, should you decide to try it.

Our program generally takes about 2 weeks to complete, give or take a few days. For daily coffee drinkers I generally recommend tapering off in advance of starting the first week of the cleanse. If you count these days you’re reducing your coffee intake, then it can add a little extra time to the program. I also think it’s a good idea for people who drink alcohol regularly to stop for 2 or 3 days before beginning to make other changes to diet and lifestyle. It’s not essential, but even moderate drinkers can sometimes experience a bit of withdrawal from stopping all intake of alcohol and it’s good to get this out of the way before starting this process.

Ayurvedic cleansing is partly about taking as much pressure off the digestive system as possible so that it can do it’s job more efficiently. That job, to transform the food we eat into a form that we can easily assimilate and transform into healthy tissue, can be made more difficult in multiple ways. Eating too fast, eating inappropriate food, eating at the wrong time and eating under stress are just a few of many examples of behaviors that make it harder for our digestive system to transform our food in an optimal way.

Some of these examples, such as eating under stress, may be due to circumstances beyond our control. But others, such as our choice of food, are well within our control and provide opportunities to make choices that are more favorable to our digestive health, better for assimilation, and helpful for producing better quality tissue along with better health overall.

When we make good choices with diet and lifestyle, good digestion and good health tend to follow. But we don’t always make the best choices and our digestion may suffer as a result. When this happens we tend to have poor transformation of food, poor assimilation and may sometimes begin to accumulate toxicity in the digestive tract.

Let me pause here a moment as say that while the above scenario is far from optimal, it is typical for most of us. Life gets in the way of making good choices and as I said, sometimes things are beyond our control. So this formation and accumulation of toxicity in the G.I. tract is something we all tend to have to some extent or another. And when this toxicity sticks around long enough it will eventually be absorbed and follow the food path into our tissue where it can damage tissue health and cause disease.

Again, this accumulation of toxicity is going on to some extent in all of us. However, a proper cleanse is a way of clawing back some of the health we lose as a result of these accumulated toxins, and while I can only offer anecdotal evidence that it works, my experience and that of the clients I’ve guided through the cleanse is a sense of renewal and clarity. The body and mind feel cleaner, better lubricated and they begin to hum along like a well tuned machine (I’m not generally crazy about the machine analogy when discussing the human body but I’m hoping it speaks to you in this case).

In addition to eliminating various foods and beverages to take stress of the digestive system, our spring cleanse also helps eliminate the toxicity that has already made its way into the tissue. This is what makes it different from other popular cleanses or fasts. Our program goes this extra step and and I think that’s what makes it so effective.

Tiffany, myself and our clients have experienced quite a few specific positive changes as a result of doing the spring cleanse. One is less pain in our bodies. Last year a client who has some arthritic joints saw a dramatic reduction in arthritic pain. This year some minor hip/back pain I’d been having resolved during the cleanse. For some clients, minor aches and pains completely disappear.

Another positive change that we’ve noticed in ourselves and in our clients is an improvement in mental clarity. Nearly every person that we’ve guided through the spring cleanse has commented on feeling more clear mentally during and after the cleanse.

The cleanse has also proved helpful to  clients with long standing digestive issues, and some of them have seen those issues significantly reduced or even eliminated during the cleanse. These are folks who have already tried making substantial changes to their diet in the past, such as eating a gluten free diet or eliminating dairy, without really seeing a signifiant change in their symptoms.

The dietary changes in our spring cleanse starts with an elimination of alcohol and caffeine and a short list of hard to digest foods. These changes can have a big impact on how we feel physically, but can sometimes be difficult psychologically (I know they sometimes are for me). I try to remind myself and my clients that however difficult some of these changes might be, they are only temporary and we needn’t feel that we must take on a major overhaul of our diet and lifestyle going forward – FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES!  This is not the point of the cleanse anyway. This cleanse is about making short term changes that have specific intentions meant to have specific effects, and once those effects are achieved then we should feel very free to go back to our normal diet.

Still, longer term changes can and do happen and most clients will decide to continue with some of the changes they’ve made during the cleanse even after they finish. Last spring, for instance, one client decided not to go back to caffeine after her cleanse. She decided she didn’t need it and gave it up. I’m not sure I could ever do that but I fully support her choice and was impressed with her resolve.

I’d also like to emphasize that our spring cleanse is not about pain and suffering. You will be eating three squares a day and will be encouraged to avoid anything that creates a lot of stress for you. In the same way that the cleanse design is partly about taking stress off of your digestive system, it’s even more about taking stress off of you. This give you space to see yourself more objectively and gain some clarity – about your diet, your lifestyle, your body, your mind and your health in general. This space allows the foods, substances or behaviors that aren’t serving you to be brought into focus and it begins a process of letting some things go. Ideally this happens gradually, naturally, and without difficulty.

Still, for those of you who aren’t up for any or all of the above, there are some good ways of making smaller changes this spring that will still have a significant impact. Here are a few:

  • Take a break from alcohol : If you drink alcohol regularly, it’s a good idea to take a break now and again. Try taking 2-4 weeks off entirely and see how you feel. Remember. It’s only temporary!
  • Lighten your diet : The qualities of moist and heavy tend to accumulate over the winter in the form of excess kapha. Look at all of the light green vegetables nature offers us this time of year. Asparagus, sugar snap peas and spring onions help reduce excess kapha and improve digestive health. Don’t like those foods? Just try eating less cheese.
  • Reduce Raw and Favor Cooked : Fresh raw veggies are so healthy right? Well yes, but they contain little or no fire element and can be too cooling for some and place a drag on our digestive fire. The solution – cook your veggies well. Worried about losing their valuable nutrients? Consider all of the nutrients you’ll be getting from your food when your digestion is really working its best!
  • Stop Snacking: Small meals more often is in my view, unhelpful for most people. Our digestive system needs time to complete the process of digestion and having a new meal after 2 hours, however modest, doesn’t allow that process to reach completion.
  • Try Intermittent Fasting: This can be as simple as not eating after a certain time or leaving at least 12 hours between your evening meal and your breakfast. Feeling more ambitious? Try skipping dinner one day a week.

There’s still time to schedule your Spring Cleanse and Ayurvedic De-Tox. If you’re interested or have more questions, feel free to email me any time.

Happy Spring!

 

 

Why Ghee and How to Make It

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Ghee, or clarified butter, is commonly used in Indian cooking and especially Ayurvedic cooking. When made from good quality butter, especially butter from grass fed cows, ghee is loaded with fat soluble vitamins and beneficial fatty acids. And because ghee has a high smoke point, these nutrients aren’t destroyed in the cooking process.

From an ayurvedic perspective, ghee is considered a digestive in that it helps to improve absorption and assimilation of nutrients. Therefore ghee not only provides valuable nutrients on its own but makes the nutrients in our food more available to our tissue. Ghee is also used in ayurvedic medicine as an important carrier of herbs because helps to deliver these herbs and their effects to all of the tissues in the body.

When we make ghee, we are removing the moisture and milk solids from the butter. This includes the lactose and casein protein and therefore ghee is fine for people who are lactose intolerant or have a sensitivity to dairy sometimes caused by exposure to casein.

Ghee can have high concentrations of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and butyrate. There is some scientific evidence to suggest that CLA my help reduce body fat, inflammation and blood pressure. One study suggested that CLA may also prevent the formation of cancer cells.

Butyrate or butyric acid is a fatty acid important to gut health. Our gut flora make butyrate as it is an source of nourishment to the cells in our colon. Some studies have suggested that butyrate may support healthy insulin levels and thus may help regulate blood glucose. Studies also suggest butyrate may help reduce inflammation in the digestive system and might therefore be helpful for individuals with ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease.

Best of all, ghee is delicious and when made properly has virtually an unlimited shelf life. It can be used in place of any other cooking oil when sautéing vegetables or pan frying fish or tofu, and it’s great spread on toast!

 

Guided Relaxation (Shavasana)

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This is a long time coming. I’ve had students asking me for a recording of my guided shavasana for at least a decade. For those of you who’ve been asking for it, I hope it was worth the wait.

For those of you who are non-yogi’s, this recording is basically a guided relaxation. Before starting the audio, lie in an appropriate position. If you’re not sure which position to lie in, I can recommend Psoas Release on a Bolster. You can watch a video demonstration of this posture here.

As this is my first try on recording a guided relaxation, I am aware that there is plenty of room for improvement. I welcome your feedback!

Namaste’

STRENGTH TRAIN YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM – Health and the Autonomic N.S.

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Your autonomic nervous system is composed of two parts – the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems.  The sympathetic is the body’s accelerator or stimulator, increasing muscle contraction, heart rate and blood flow.  The parasympathetic is the resting aspect of this system and promotes muscular relaxation, slowing of the heart rate and relaxation of blood vessel walls.

When the autonomic nervous system is in “good shape” it transitions easily between these component systems and their functions  at the appropriate times. This ability to transition from the “fight or flight” response of the sympathetic N.S. and the “rest & digest” response of the parasympathetic is akin to a dimmer on a light switch that increases and intensifies the light when more light is needed to see and concentrate and then dials down the light, perhaps later that evening, for a romantic, candle light dinner.  Thus a well functioning autonomic N.S. gives us the ability to react quickly and forcefully to a dangerous situation at one moment, then relax and rest, maybe even take a quick nap and wake up refreshed a while later.

This aspect of our nervous system is called “autonomic” because its functions can operate without our having to think about them.  At the same time,  the autonomic  N.S. allows for a certain degree of conscious control. A great example of this is the role of the autonomic N.S. in respiration. We typically breathe without thinking about it,(thankfully) but we do have the ability to speed up or slow down our breathing at will and ideally with relative speed and ease. So despite the fact that many of our autonomic functions can occur unconsciously, we do have the ability to affect these functions consciously and therefore we can practice or “train” this part of our nervous system to perform its functions better.

A strong autonomic nervous system intelligently uses aspects of both the sympathetic and parasympathetic and is able to switch gears when needed without taxing the body.  We can consciously train our nervous system to seamlessly make this shift between stimulation and relaxation, and this will help keep our cardiovascular system strong and supple and facilitate muscle recovery. Thus “training” our autonomic N.S. not only improves the health of our nervous system but also the health of our muscles and cardiovascular system.

Most modern humans spend significant time  in situations and engaged in activities that stimulate the sympathetic nervous system to a mild degree.  This constant low-grade stimulation can become a habit, leading to missed cues that our body is neither resting nor fully engaged.  It’s as though we forget our light switch has a dimmer and leave the light on at the same brightness constantly, no matter the time of day or need for more or less light.

This “sympathetic overdrive” is also like a car running at idle, occasionally revving  the engine but never actually driving anywhere and never completely shutting off.  This can happen to all of us occasionally, and its not a big problem until it begins to manifest consistently when it will weaken our nervous system and its ability to shift from the sympathetic N.S. to the parasympathetic and it’s important functions.

Some signs of sympathetic overdrive include:

  • Digestive problems
  • Sleep problems
  • fatigue, exhaustion
  • shallow breathing
  • moodiness, anger, upset easily
  • high muscle tension
  • muscle pain
  • frequent colds or easily getting sick
  • metabolic disorders
  • high blood pressure
  • blood vessel problems

To train your nervous system to be adaptable and functioning optimally, here are some key steps:

1) Breathe diaphragmatically all the time

Diaphragmatic breathing is the easiest way to turn on the parasympathetic response. When you breathe well, your shoulders relax, your whole abdominal wall gently expands 360 degrees and there is a slight pause between the inhale and exhale.

Signs of breathing dysfunction include:

  • Spending your day sitting with a rounded back
  • Lifting your chest or shoulders up while inhaling
  • A chronically stiff and tight upper back
  • Breathing in and out of your mouth
  • Yawning or sighing frequently
  • A resting respiration rate higher than 12 breathes a minute

Your diaphragm is one of your largest back muscles.  In order to draw air into the deepest part of the lungs, it has to contract during inhalation. This contraction is a downward movement and in order for it to move down, the abdominal wall has to expand.  This is virtually impossible to do if you are slouching.  Conversely, correcting a slouch with a military style posture of arching the back and pulling the shoulder blades together will also restrict the movement of the diaphragm and interfere with breathing.

See our earlier blog post on diaphragmatic breathing for more on this subject.

2) Learn to relax the body

Our muscles are designed to do two things very well- contract and relax. Consciously relaxing our muscles helps them to contract more easily.  A muscle that forgets to relax is more prone to strain, pain and adds to overall discomfort in the body. Training your muscles to relax is just as important as doing your daily workout at the gym.

Some techniques that help include:

  • massage
  • yoga
  • tai chi / chi gung
  • biofeedback
  • meditation
  • warm baths.

Try giving yourself permission to relax and rest in small chunks throughout the day. Also, check out this video showing a great way of relaxing the psoas muscle. It will help you remember how to let go of tension in the body and the nervous system.

3) Learn to relax the mind

The workings of the mind distract us from being in our body and hence being able to perceive the habits that contribute to sympathetic over-stimulation. Habits like holding our breath, tensing parts of our bodies, straining our eyes and getting frustrated with little things often manifest as result of tension in the mind. Taking a few minutes every day to let the mind relax is renewing and refreshing to the body.

My favorite way to do this is to sit or lie down in a quiet area, scan through my body to note areas of tension, visualize the tension melting with the image of sunlight and then letting my mind be free. Letting the mind be free is as simple as giving permission for your thoughts be free of any particular focus.

4) Exercise on a regular basis with a large variety of challenges.

Your exercise should be varied and daily.  Each day should include walking, weight resistance, stretches and movements that challenge your balance and your movement skills.  The more muscles you use, the more blood flow you will have and this increased blood flow will feed nerves and removes waste products from all of your tissues. Stimulating the nerves meanwhile builds their resilience and adaptability.

*Personal Alignment Training is ideal for training the nervous system along with muscles, bones, joints and the C.V. system!

5) Get deep rest

How many times have you felt ready for bed at 8pm but for various reasons, ignore the signals?

Try this experiment once a week:

Forgo TV after dinner and read something relaxing, like a good book (not the news). Dim the lights in your home after the sun sets. Adjust the light so its just bright enough to read. Put away your phone and computer- you can check them in the in the morning. Notice when your body starts to send the signals it is ready for bed (not the mind!).

Place no significance on the time…

Just go to bed…

…and notice how much more rested you feel the next day!

If you have ever been camping you are likely familiar with this type of letting go.

6) Spend time in nature

Being outdoors is very soothing to the nervous system.  Exposure to the natural colors of blue and green have been shown to calm to our sensory nerves.

Try getting outdoors more on your lunch break.

Or instead of going to the gym, do a hike instead.  Exercising outdoors will engage the nervous system differently than an indoor workout with all of its distractions.

7) Be mindful of the quantity of stimulants you are consuming

Caffeine causes your blood vessels to restrict which can result in more muscular tension. Coffee and tea are delicious and enjoyable but consuming more than 1-2 cups a day or having caffeine after lunch can interfere with your body’s ability to relax and get a good night’s sleep. For anyone struggling with sleep issues, I recommend slowly reducing your intake to 1 cup a day and perhaps switching to tea most days as it contains less caffeine and delivers it more gradually.

A well functioning autonomic N.S. is essential to our long term health and quality of life. These “training” tips will help you build a stronger, more resilient nervous system that will serve you now and for years to come!

Adaptation and the Psoas

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When we’re faced with pain it’s easy to wonder, “why did this happen to me?” Seeking a cause for pain can be helpful, but only if we’re willing to consider the possibility that the pain is the result of how we’ve been using our body, or in many cases, not using it.

Human beings as a species have been successful on this planet largely due to our uncanny ability to adapt to our environment. Our bodies are extremely well adapted to the hunter gatherer lifestyle of our distant ancestors, for example, and like these ancestors we thrive on a wide variety of foods and the great number of human movements once required to collect them.

The breakneck pace of technology, however, has placed great demands on our ability to adapt to changes in diet and lifestyle. With very high calorie foods so easy to come by with so little physical effort, even relatively young people must all guard against diseases unheard of in the few hunter gatherer populations still remaining on this planet.

Perhaps the solution is getting more exercise, but this is highly debatable. The true purpose of exercise is to provide a substitute for the movement we’re not doing and the calories we’re not using in our increasingly technologically driven and sedentary modern lifestyle, but most of what we do for exercise these days reinforces the very lifestyle habits we’re already spending most of our days doing. Is sitting on a bike pedaling for an hour better than siting still in a chair? Maybe a bit, but it’s still sitting and can still contribute to many of the same health consequences.

In her 2015 book Don’t Just Sit There, Katy Bowman speaks to this issue when she says “the sitting itself isn’t really the problem, it is the repetitive use of a single position than makes us literally become ill in a litany of ways.” She goes on to give several examples including that “muscles will adapt to repetitive positioning by changing their cellular makeup, which in turn leads to less joint range of motion.”

I find myself telling my clients and students constantly that muscles adapt to the position we put our bones in. For instance If I stand with my hip joints forward of my knees and ankles, my hamstrings and calve muscles will shorten, limiting my ability to bend forward from my hips and placing greater demands on muscles and joints in my lower back.

These “adaptive” changes manifest to a certain extent over a period of time, but in some cases this type of adaptation can be very quick, even instantaneous. In the hips forward misalignment described above, the affects on muscle length and range of motion can actually happen rather quickly. Standing with the hips pushed forward turns off the muscles in the posterior hip and lower back. This doesn’t take any time at all, it simply happens as a result of doing it.

This turning off of the hip muscles is also a kind of adaptation and I actually consider this good news for us modern humans. It demonstrates that our bodies have the ability to make some changes rather quickly and that these changes can just as easily be good for our health and function as bad.

My favorite example of soliciting a positive change in the body that can have huge benefits to our health and function is what happens in the Psoas Release. I use this posture as much as any I teach my students and clients because I’ve seen how effective it can be in retuning the psoas muscles to a more functional length. This is important as psoas that are too short have a huge impact on our health and function in a variety of ways.

The psoas muscles are rather large muscles that attaches to the inner, upper femur at one end and to a number of locations along the lumbar spine at the other. The psoas run through the pelvis but do not attach directly to it. The psoas do however have a big impact on the alignment of the pelvis as well as the alignment of the lumbar spine. One impact they can have on the pelvis is the very misalignment pattern described above – causing the hips (and the pelvis along with them) to sit forward of the knees and ankles and therefore shortened psoas can directly contribute to limited hip strength and limited hip range of motion.

Other possible effects of short psoas muscles are numerous. Here are a few more:

  • Compression of the lumbar discs
  • Excessive load on the sacroilliac joints
  • Increased risk of sciatica
  • Restriction of the diaphragm and disruption of healthy respiratory function
  • Inhibition of the pelvic floor tone
  • Increased risk of high blood pressure
  • Decreased circulation through the abdominal aorta
  • Impairment of the digestive system
  • Impairment of the urinary system
  • Impairment of the reproductive system
  • Ongoing activation of the sympathetic nervous system

Clearly there are a number of compelling reasons for have a longer, more functional psoas. So let’s look at the Psoas Release and learn a rather simple, gentle and effective way of bringing the psoas back to a more functional length. And did I mention that this pose can be very relaxing?

“3 Months Prone” posture

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You’ll see in this video my tendency to use the buttocks to stabilize my pelvis. This tendency should really be minimized or eliminated all together. Give it a try!

A Short Progression for doing Plank Posture

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A common mistake made doing plank pose is using the hip flexors to support the weight of pelvis. This is shown in the photo below.

If the hip flexors are active, they tend to tilt the pelvis forward (anteriorly), relative to the rib cage. This results in a mis-alignment between the pelvis and the rib cage and inhibits the deep abdominal and pelvic floor muscles, severely compromising pelvic and trunk stability and placing much more of the load on the shoulder girdle and lower back.

 

 

When the hip flexors are relaxed, it allows the pelvis to align with the rib cage in a way that allows the deep abdominal and pelvic floor muscles to respond to the weight of the pelvis and lower trunk. With the help of the quadriceps and toes, the total weight of the body is then distributed evenly between the feet, legs, pelvis, trunk and shoulder girdle.

 

Thoughts on Communication and the Breath

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In an earlier post I offered some thoughts on communication, specifically communication between ourselves and our bodies. That post emphasized how our muscles respond differently depending on what we’re telling them, and it highlighted the fact that we can solicit the response we want, muscularly, when we’re clear about our intentions and effective in communicating our message.

Now this topic is coming up again and I find myself talking about it frequently with my students. The difference is that I’m talking more about the ways our bodies seek to communicate with us, how we sometimes fail to listen and how this typically leads to a smaller, more manageable problem becoming a bigger one.

Yoga teachers will often speak of listening to our bodies for guidance. This is in part because a failure to listen to what our bodies are telling us inevitably leads to injury. I have asked my students to pay attention to what their bodies are trying to communicate. I have also mistakenly assumed that a student who is clearly not paying attention to their body’s message, or mine as the inststructor, is doing so intentionally.

I have made this extremely unfortuate and damaging mistake more than once and I aspire to never do it again. It’s the rare occasion when a student deliberately ignores their body’s message. The fact is, listening to our bodies for guidance is very difficult and actually following that guidance, should we hear it, even tougher. Therefore we need to be generous with ourselves as we practice and as teachers we need to be generous with our students and assume they are doing their best, even when they appear not to be listening.

We also need to remain vigilant when it comes to fostering this type of communication. In his final book, Light On Life, B.K.S. says:

“Overstretching occurs when one loses contact with one’s center, with the divine core. Instead, the ego wants simply to stretch further, to reach the floor, regardless of its ability, rather that extending gradually from the center. Each movement must be an art. It is an art in which the Self is the only specatator. Keep your attention internal, not external, not worrying about what others see but what the Self sees.”

Iyengar’s statement reveals how the highest aspiration in yoga, to know the Self, is undermined by our most pedestrian of limitations, the ego. The ego,which we all have and must have to be well functioning human beings, runs interference between ourselves and the messages our body conveys. Iyenger illustrates here why the ego must be addressed if we’re to succeed in yoga.

I believe that most of my students aspire more to use yoga and/or movement to keep themselves out of pain and to function better and managing the ego may not be primary among their ambitions. My view is that these aspirations are not at odds with self knowledge but, on the contrary, are a necessary part of it. To resolve pain and improve movement we must be able to pay attention and hear the messages our body and mind are communicating to our intelligence, and this is also an essential skill for Self knowledge.

When two people are trying to communicate and they are having difficulty, often a moderator of some kind is helpful. Married couples might use a marriage counselor, for example, whose job it is to hear what a person is trying to say and then to convey that message to his or her spouse in a way that he/she will hear it. When we’re having difficulty communicating a message to our body, or hearing the message that our body is sending back, a moderator of a different sort can also be useful. The best moderator I’ve found in this instance is the breath.

When I use the word “breath” in teaching, as in the cue “use your breath,” I basically mean the mechanism by which the act of breathing relates to the body structurally and pschologically. When we inhale, for example, our diaphragm moves downward and increases pressure in the abdominal and pelvic cavities. This intra-abdominal pressure or IAP, as its known, is a powerul stablizing force that can be used to maintain functional alignment both in static postures and during motion. The IAP keeps our abdominal muscles and the pelvic floor working the right amount and at the appropriate times. The resulting trunk and pelvic stabilization facilitates greater mobility in our hips and shoulders and allows for freer movement.

These physical affects of IAP are also extremely reinforcing psychologically. When my IAP is working well, or said a different way, when my breath is working well, I feel stronger, more relaxed, more free in my movement and overall more at ease. In other words, when my breath is better I just plain feel better. Conversely, if my breath is not working well I don’t feel as good and it is likely an indication that my alignment is also not good.

This illustrates how my breath acts as a moderator to help me hear the messages my body sends and how it provides a powerful mechanism for responding to these messages when necessary. Even if I’m not quite sure what the source of my misalignment is, I can still make a correction by observing how the change affects my breath. And perhaps more importantly, even if I can’t improve my breath at that moment, at least I can use it to recognize that I need to come out of the posture or suspend my movement so that I don’t risk injury.

In Iyengar’s words, the breath can serve as “one’s center,” one’s “divine core,” and when he describes “extending gradually from the center” as opposed to an ego driven “overstretching” he alludes to how the breath can serve as the foundation for our postures and our momement. For this to happen we must recognize the difference between what “the ego wants” and what our body is telling us, and this requires that we “keep (y)our attention internal.” It requires that we remain in constant communication with the body and are not drawn away from its message by ego driven thoughts.

It is so important in yoga and movement that we don’t work at cross purposes. We need to keep asking ourselves the questions “why am I doing this” and “is this serving my primary interest.” If my answers are “to punish myself with exercise” and “yes but it’s not quite painful enough yet,” this is perfectly fine but then we need to recognize that my ego is the source of my motivation and not the needs of the body and mind I’m tasked with looking after. If we do recognize this and decide to move forward with the work anyway, at least we’re clear about why we’re doing it.

If on the other hand we see that the ego is driving the conversation then we have an opportunity to reevaluate our approach and seek other input. Our bodies are extremely good at giving feedback. Let’s strive to learn their language and hear their message.