Moving beyond the soreness and moving when there is pain.

 Move your body in new ways, build strength, increase your flexibility  and you will be sore.   This is actually a very good thing!

  When you move deeper/more the body will feel “sore” for 24-48hours (while the body is changing); the best remedy for soreness is to move again!  with-in 24-48 hours.   This is how you move beyond soreness. Remember consistency is the key to progress. Practice 4-6 times a week.

 Try enjoying this soreness- it is a clear sign that you are changing, enjoy feeling the muscles, enjoy remembering how your body moves and feels- Enjoy being ALIVE and Vital enough to be able to get sore! See it as a challenge to move (literally) beyond.

• Yoga Asana (any vigorous exercise, sweating) is Stimulus for change. 
• Change happens in the body (it becomes stronger, more flexible) during the 24-48 hours after. (1st decay of old cells and 2nd Growth of new cells)
• If there isn't re-stimulus after 48 hours the body begins to lose that progress  (Decay)

 

To quote Dr. Harry S. Lodge co-author with Chris Crowley of, Younger Next Year and Younger Next Year for Women: "Exercise is healthy stress...When you exercise fairly hard you stress your muscles . You drain them of energy stores and you actually injure them slightly. The stress of exercise is good because it tears you down to build you back up a little stronger....It is a signal to your body that it needs to repair the damage and then some.  It needs to make the muscle just a little stronger. To store just a little more energy for tomorrow. To build a few more tiny blood vessels inside the muscle. To get a little younger."  .... " At rest, only 20 percent of your blood flow moves through your muscles: in a trained athlete, that rises, with exercise, to 80 percent. Picture it: torrents, rivers of blood flooding through your muscles with exercise, picking up the cytokines, the messengers of inflammation and repair, growth and healing, and taking them to every corner of your body....Every joint, every bone, every organ, every tiny part of your magnificent brain gets it's bath of C-6, and then the wonderful, rejuvenating C-10 each time you sweat. That's the right balance, good decay triggering growth."

 I recommend this book for understanding  how one can avoid 70% or more of disease and  70% or more of the negative affects of aging; empowering you to live an active, independent life longer.  It is also motivating and funny. We are likely to live a  much longer life than previous generations. Will it be active and independent until near the end?  or will we become increasingly helpless and dependent on "care" for years or decades of our life?  It doesn't have to be all downhill after 40, 50, 60,70 years old you can create a younger body now, and maintain it to very late in life.  ~Move it or lose it.~

 Pain is another thing all together; we tend to stop moving due to injury/pain. Rest it, stop all exercise. This is a huge mistake, keep moving, exercising all the parts you can (remember you are increasing oxygen and blood flow to the whole body)! Pain is our teacher, so do continue to move, even move the injured parts in the range of motion you are able without pain, move through soreness and to the edge of pain. If you measure the pain from 1- 10, (10 being most severe), continue to move (slowly with the breath and mindful focus) up to the 1-2 range of pain and learn. This is where to check alignment:  are you breathing correctly? is the joint supported with correct, balanced muscle engagement? Are the spine, shoulders and hips in alignment? Do you feel energy spiraling through the limbs and torso?  Move with alignment and energy in mind, noticing what feels better and doing that!   To think and focus of building new strength and flexibility in improved alignment, rather than focus on what isn’t working. This is the mindset for healing. Homeopathy, Arnica, herbs, Epsom salts baths, essential oils, and acupuncture are some options for healing, but for goodness sake keep on moving!

 Of course if the pain is 8-10 range all the time, seek medical attention. Yet keep in mind, more and more people are getting results from yoga, physical therapy and exercise thereby  avoiding surgeries and other procedures that may or may not help. 

My Teacher, James Cardinale, recently when I mentioned shoulder pain (in the 4-7 degree range) had me do handstands. I was very surprised to realize there was no pain in doing handstands! Later, even just thinking of handstands, I aligned my shoulders better throughout the day! I discovered the pain was coming from how I was holding my shoulder while at the computer and reaching to the back seat of the car to lift out stuff! Changing those habits and doing head and handstands are healing - healing more than just that shoulder too!

"The body is a treacherous friend. Give it its due; no more.  Pain and pleasure are transitory; endure all dualities with      calmness, trying at the same time to remove yourself beyond their power. Imagination is the door through which disease as well as healing enters. Disbelieve in the reality of sickness even when you are ill; an unrecognized visitor will flee." 

         ~Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri______________    

 

LEARNING

I was recently interviewed by Hakim Belamy for a blog about learning and want to share it with you.  direct link to blog I-remember-this!  or read it here-

I remember this! 

Christina Bouajila is a former K-5 art teacher who struggled with a learning disorder in grade school. Fortunately, her 6th grade year saw the efforts of a vigilant teacher and a determined mother converge as Christina was enrolled in a graduate student led program at Southern Methodist University. There, Christina saw her reading level rocket from a third grade reading level to a post 9th grade reading level as she was about to enter her freshman year of high school. She credits that leap to the passion of those young grad students and the attention she received in an environment where there was one teacher dedicated to the progress of two or three assigned students. However, later in life Christina learned a different kind of “reading”. She learned how to read and listen to her body.I loved teaching, but what I experienced was one of the failings of our education system. I had 950 students in a very large elementary school, dealing with a different classroom and different classes every 45 minutes. I was passionate about it and I loved it. I put a lot of energy into it, but it became like riding a roller coaster, you can only ride it so many times in a day. So I burnt out. It was at a time when the economy was crashing, so I was losing my house. And something started happening at the time where I wasn’t coping with stress. There always seemed to be an endless stream of thoughts, worries about the future and analyzing the past. Very little time was being spent in the present. I also happened to be getting carbon monoxide poisoning from a car that I knew had an exhaust leak, but I thought with the windows rolled down I was protected. Things got so bad that I thought, at the young age of 49, that I was developing early onset dementia. It was frightening, I would be driving places I had been numerous times and get lost. It was really frightening for myself and my pre-teen daughter. I was so afraid and aware that I was losing the ability to have power over my own mind.

So I started looking to solve my lifestyle. Deal with living in relative poverty, part-time work and not wanting to go back to education for a while, so I started going to a community yoga class that was affordable twice a week. And all of the sudden i was like, “I remember this.” I had studied dance and I had always been very active. Before going into teaching and right after college I taught fitness for many years, as well as guided relaxation at the end of intense workout classes for people. And here I was going to this class and all of the sudden I felt peace. I remembered it, and I thought “I know how create this. I know how to do this”.

I kept going to the class for about three or four months. Then, the instructor mentioned that she was going to be moving and that she was having trouble finding someone to take over the class. I’d taught it before and was beginning to practice it more while I was not at class, so I said “You know, I think I could be ready in a month, and I’d be willing to take over the class.” However, I knew in order to take over the class I had to live the example. So I began daily meditations and daily yoga, and it saved my life.

I found my way back to being relaxed, and I mean really relaxed. Not the kind of relaxed you get when you plop down in front of a TV. I was able to be deeply relaxed and calm my mind enough to just be in the present. Now, it’s been over four years of daily practice that brings me back to that place of peace.

Christina Bouajila is a yoga instructor, meditation coach, visual and performance artist. The proud mother of a fine young scholar, Christina also organizes flash mob style, synchronized meditation events called "Med Mob". Find Christina and her yoga practice at HappyMountainYoga.com. 

 

Happy New Year! 
“To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.” ~ Buddha
As a new year starts many of us make plans and think of ways to be better in the coming year.  Almost everyone I know say’s they want to get healthier in the New Year. Often though, the changes don’t get started or don’t continue past a few weeks.   I encourage you to start simple.
There is no substitute for what eating well, moving your body,
self-love and mindfulness can do for your wellbeing. The Key is Self-Love.
The way to counter-act stress is to relax, get good enough at relaxing and you eliminate stress!  If you approach your “down time” with self-love, it is likely to be a quieter, simple time where you breath deeper and truly relax, mind and body in silence.  Watching TV, internet and/or drinking alcohol, though common ways to “relax”, are actually counter-productive for true relaxation.  Try this- Sit or lie down so you are comfortable and not likely to fidget, then give yourself 10 minutes and do nothing but focus on deeper and deeper breathing. Settle the mind, relax the body. If you do this daily, just this…in time you will make progress towards all you other health goals!  So why not make one simple goal; to relax more?  I actually think this is the best place to start. The whole purpose of yoga poses (asana) was begun to get the body aligned and relaxed enough to be still in meditation. The simple 10 minute exercise above was a meditation, at least a start.
If you approach eating from a state of being relaxed and with self-love, you eat healthier foods and savor the experience of eating. Start as you are shopping; enjoy the colors and smells of the foods. Find pleasure when preparing the foods. Maybe just being grateful for all that had to happen for the food to reach you! Enjoy the textures aroma, the creativity. Start simple do it for one meal a week- enjoy all parts to that one meal- maybe share with a friend. Personally I enjoy good food with good company the most.
If you incorporate movement into your day with self-love, it will be movement you enjoy. A habit or practice for the mind and body, not laborious work-outs that you drag yourself to, but joyfully inhabiting your body as it is now and also challenging yourself to be stronger and more flexible and coordinated as you continue. Dance, Yoga, Tia Chi, walking, running, biking…It doesn’t matter what you choose as long as you can find pleasure in doing it, and do it with enough passion and energy to sweat. I say it doesn’t matter what you choose, yet it does, because if it is not a mindful practice, including inward focus, you are not going to reap the full benefits for health of mind body and spirit. Developing the breath control (and capacity) in harmony with your movement-then it is possible to get in the “ZONE” that place all athletes, dancers, martial artists, etc.. get to when it becomes a blissful moving meditation and there is harmony of body mind and spirit(consciousness).  This is a natural heightened state of being.   aka BLISS!