Yoga for COVID Recovery

After the brute force of COVID runs a train through the body, many of us are on bed rest. We are fatigued from fighting, have no energy, and aren’t thinking clearly. It’s similar in some respects to post-surgical recovery in the hospital. Except in a hospital patients are given a device called an ‘incentive spirometer’ that expands the lungs, keeping them active throughout the recovery process, by helping patients breathe deeper and fuller. Thankfully (hopefully) you are not in a hospital, and luckily there is yoga.

Introducing SoCal Life Center

Life doesn’t move in a linear direction. Life follows the path of least resistance while maximizing potentiality. Ever notice how quickly we move through the 5 breaths X5 in Navasana, while staying in Janu A a little longer or practicing Bakasana an extra time? We are simply doing what is natural.

Fear, Back Pain, & Winter . . . Happy Holidays

The holidays are an emotional rollercoaster. This year it was the first time my family has seen Mako because of restricted travel, safety, and Stephanie’s fears related to COVID.

Fear is sometimes referenced as an acronym for; False Expectations Appearing Real. It is dismissed on 90’s t-shirts (NO FEAR,) and in the Ashtanga community, ‘Why fearing, you?’ as someone takes control of your body and limbs pulling you into a deep back bend.

Traditional Chinese Medicine links the emotion fear to the Foot Shao Yin channel, the channel that maintains fluid balance. Think, Kidneys, which happen to reside near the lumbar spine, the low back. This channel also happens to have the strongest effect during the winter time.

Nostril breathing in asana practice

Your meditation practice, and your pranayama practice help to cool the fire in the head. Generally the body switches between nostrils every 2 to 2.5 hours and the left nostril corresponds to the parasympathetic (rest and digest) system and the right to the sympathetic (fight or flight) system (PMID: 24741554) which one ‘should’ you be breathing through during your asana practice?

When we have a sensory overload, like being inside Sephora (when it was safe to be inside) it can lead to heat being locked in the head. Eating super spicy Indian food is the same heat trapping scenario as the perfume overload for the olfactory nerve. Heat locked in the head can lead to headaches, and heat in the digestive system can lead to constipation, indigestion, diarrhea.

yoga, wellness, HealthMorgan LeeDecember 14, 2020pranayama, breathing

Is pain keeping you from your yoga practice?

Yoga, Qi Gong, or Tai Chi, when taught as a connection between breath, movement and focus, can be a tool that the individual can use with their response to the variability between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Read about that (here)

That doesn’t mean that a yoga practice is itself ‘without pain.’ On the contrary, there are two types of physical injuries that are associated with a yoga practice. Acute injuries occur suddenly, such as a muscle strain. This often happens when learning a new asana or stubbing a toe on the refrigerator at 4am.
Using analgesics and OTC NSAID’s for a chronic pain without actually addressing the aggravating factor is like placing a band-aid on an arterial bleed without applying pressure. You can change the dressing all you want but that alone isn’t going to stop the bleeding and your patient will die. Habitual use of OTC medications or illegal drugs to alleviate the pain isn’t actually stopping the cause of the pain, nor is it teaching the patient how to cope with the situation. Unrelieved pain is a common symptom in methadone treatment programs and associated with mental distress and function as well as clinician frustration.***

Is one teacher the correct method?

You don’t have to listen to me as a teacher, as a nurse, or as an acupuncturist. In any and all of these professions, I am not responsible FOR you. I am responsible TO you.

Being responsible TO you in the medical field, we should be encouraging patients to seek a second opinion. Doctors are human too, sometimes they may be missing something, or not recognizing another option that is available. When I fractured my clavicle, the first surgeon wanted to operate that week, the second opinion said we can wait to see how it heals. He said that if it doesn’t heal correctly we can always go back in with surgery and straighten it out later. If I went and did surgery right away, there would be no going back. Which would you do?

There are times that we as students NEED to get a second opinion. We need another teacher to look at our practice. There are times when the teacher we study under is not seeing our potential, AND there are times when our current teacher may have pushed us too far.

So should a student only have one teacher?

wellness, yoga, HealthMorgan LeeOctober 5, 2019Ashtanga, yoga, motivation, healing, wellness, ashtanga yoga, health, medicineComment

— Ashtanga Nurse —