We will be talking {and practicing - of course!} all things balance for the month of November. But for now, the first week of November is integration week #2!
*A quick reminder: make up class for next Thursday, Oct 9th is on this Saturday, October 4th at 2:30 pm.
No new info this week, except for some of you {those in the Gentle Beginner class} asked to share the Warrior 2 sequence that we've been working on.
Here it is:
Here is what we've covered in October:
Stress And Self Regulation:
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You are, no doubt, already aware that stress heightens our perception of pain (more on that and what we can do to change that in this week’s Pain Care Yoga follow up).
Did you know that stress also changes the way we recruit and use our muscles – changing our body mechanics, compressing our joints (think friction that leads to pain!), and making us move like a tin man instead of a human
creature?
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Breath Week: Good. Bad. Ugly:
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Breath is like water: whenever we see someone drink, we instantly remember that we haven't had a sip of water in a few hours. So before you tune out of what I have to say, and tune into your breath (which is actually our final goal - and the global goal of yoga), let's chat about our breath mechanics and breath awareness. |
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CORE RESTORE: Stress, Muscle Recruitment, and Movement |
Whenever there's stress (and, of course, fight or flight response), brain "primes" certain muscles to help you escape.
This is great in the short term - you get ready to run away or fight by "priming" big long muscles such as hamstrings or trapezius. These big muscles are best suited to do this job because they can produce a great deal of torque, partly because they cross
more than one joint and partly because they can shorten a great deal.
In the long term, continued over activation of big long muscles – whether it is in the back, or anywhere else in the body – is not smart. |
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CORE RESTORE: Pressure and Stability |
We have talked (mostly I talked!) about a huge variety of factors contributing to our stability. None of them is as important as our breath - I saved the best for last!
We did touch on breathing briefly a few weeks ago in a discussion about rib cage alignment.
Here is some more intel:
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PAIN CARE YOGA: Stress and Pain
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As you now know, pain is our body's internal alarm system.
It only makes sense to assume that chronic stress - yet another trigger for that internal alarm system - will heighten our pain perception. You may - as most of us have, of course, - experienced that in real life.
Let's take a look at the mechanism of chronic stress <=> more pain
relationship.
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PAIN CARE YOGA: Breath and Pain: Try The Gasp Test
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You already know - from Pain Care Round-Ups and also first hand, from the mat practice - that breath can change our perception of pain.
And, if you had a chance to read through today's general class round - up, you have an idea how sticky and inefficient breathing patterns can alter our reality.
Here is a quick way to
test whether the way that you breathe contributes to your pain perception.
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