I was feeling too depleted of energy and strength to go to my usual vinyasa flow class with Susan Bowen at Thrive this morning. Although my sinuses have tried up, thanks to the recent rains, I am still hoarse and congested in my lungs. I just have to keep this from developing into something more serious, as it has in the past.
Yesterday, however, I made a point of taking a yin yoga class with Michelle Fry at Thrive. This style of yoga is the opposite of most vinyasa classes: you need to release and relax into pose and hold it for 3-5 minutes. I constantly had to remind myself to pull back my effort, that I did not have to push until I reached my edge. I liked it because it was a kind of yoga lab in which I By the end of the class, I had made up for some of the yoga missing from my life during the week (I had not been able to make it any classes since Sunday).
For the past week, I've been treating myself to 20 minutes of spinal twists before I go to bed. I find that the practice releases the muscular tension that I have built up during the day in my lower back. I've noticed that I am tighter on my left side and have doubled up the time I hold that side to see if I will eventually even out my alignment.
I don't know how I do it, but every time I sit down to write something for this blog, something comes up that requires my immediate attention or addles my brain so much that I can't string words together. This week, I've been hit between the eyes by my sinus allergies. Spring is in full bloom here in DC, and my nose is running like a fountain. Last night, I felt as if I had drained out my brain along with the mucus.
This is exactly the kind of blog you're not supposed to write because who wants to read about why I can't find time, energy or focus to write. Excuses are plentiful, but they don't pave the way to enlightenment.
Kelly McGonigal sent me a copy of her book Yoga for Pain Relief: Simple Practices to Calm Your Mind & Heal Your Chronic Pain (New Harbinger Publications, 2009) and I've been sitting on it for nearly two months.
Kelly does not need another review of her book. Eighteen endorsements from yoga experts, health advocates, pain relief specialists, and scientific researchers are spread over four pages. Timothy McCall, the medical editor of Yoga Journal and author of Yoga as Medicine, wrote her foreword. She got a review from Yoga Journal in the March issue and also publishes an article on Surya Namaskar (Sun Salulation) in the same issue.
She has a blog, The Science of Will Power, on Psychology Today (looks like it comes out twice a month), as well as her personal blog, Science and Sutras.
She's giving seminars at the Omega Institute (New York). She's quoted in Time magazine and the New York Times, the Washington Post (her listing of interviews). She's starting to make appearances on TV.
As a psychologist at Stanford University, she's uniquely positioned to see where yoga is interfacing with Western scientific investigation and medical practice, both in terms of theory and practice, at a time when neuroscience is redefining and re-dimensioning our understanding of the human mind. She's also an accomplished yoga instructor and teacher of instructors, as well as the editor for the International Journal of Yoga Therapy.
Do we see a pattern developing here?
She definitely does not need another book review or endorsement from a blogger.
New Harbinger has produced an understated book format, looking similar to the scores of other "Yoga for .... [name your disease, symptom or preferred body part]." Clean design, large font size, gray scale photos. So what sets this book apart from all the stock in the self-help section?
Once I started reading her book, it impressed me as an important blueprint for yoga in the United States. It's a book that I would recommended to anyone who wants to understand what you can get from yoga/meditation. The book hits a kind of "sweat spot:" this is yoga's entry point with the minimal initial physical investment, the lowest opportunity cost and the biggest pay-off. You don't have to get in shape, build up your aerobic capacity, muscular strength and flexibility before seeing results. You don't even need to know what's wrong with you for yoga to do you some good.
The book is extraordinarily accessible: No jargon, either from the Sanskrit or from the academic/scientific lingua franca, no intellectual arrogance, no magical incantation, no gateway to esoteric wisdom, no complicated sequences of poses. Within the first 25 pages (out of 183 pp), she's giving you easy routines to start using what's she teaching, in this case, observing your breath.
One of the things that Kelly said five years ago has stayed with me and she repeats it in the book: people seek out yoga because they are suffering, either physically, psychologically or spiritually. Human suffering is a great motivator and a constant of human existence. The book's virtue is simplifying yoga down to a concise, clear message: Relieve your suffering; start with these easy steps. If Patanjali had written like Kelly, yoga would have taken over the world (kidding -- a little).
Kelly also understands the value of personal narrative alongside the findings of randomized, blind control experiments, and she has included compelling stories of people impacted by yoga throughout the book.
I also appreciate her thoughtful listing of resources: meditation and yoga instruction books, audio/DVD, music for movement, meditation and relaxation, books for people with pain, non-profit organizations supporting people with pain, and organizations supporting research, education, and professional training in yoga and meditation. In addition, she has 50-item bibliography. If you poke around her blogs, personal website or her book site, you'll find lots of pointers to central reference texts, scientific studies, resource centers and specialized knowledge hubs -- stuff that she did not include in the book because they would have gotten in the way.
Labels: health, reading, yoga_resource
Not much posting here in this corner of the blogosphere lately. The reason is that my mother fell this past weekend and fractured her hip and right elbow. She was hospitalized for four days and then released to a rehab home where she will probably spend a couple of weeks, if not more. The experience of seeing my mother in intense pain and not being able to do anything about it gives new meaning to the definition of helplessness . At 90 years old, she's not prepared for this type of painful injury, and the whole bundle of medical emergency and information overload has been overwhelming for her and my dad. This has meant that Judy, my sister, and I will have to take a more active role in their health issues.
Of course, you can also through in the overload of work from by my 9-to-5 job because of the extended downtime due to the DC blizzard, so I've been forced to work extra time to catch up.
All that has meant that my yoga classes have been confined to the weekends, and anything that I can fit in on my own at home.
I was talking to a friend about how I could really use a yoga class and she responded with the question "Why wait?" I can deploy tools that I already have in hand from my practice. We immediately set up two little postures that I could use when I felt I needed the boost in prana:
- Standing posture - a disguised mountain pose with my arms held in front with one palm over the other in a shiva or Buddha mudra (tends to have less muscular tension than other mudras) that seals in my energy.
- Seated posture - in a chair, weight firmly over my sit bones, no slouching back, my legs crossed at the shins to relieve any tension in the legs; again, a mudra helps focus my mind.
Whenever I slip into one of these postures, I get the sensation that I am deploying my invisible superhero powers and they expand around me like an aurora.
-- and I haven't even read it yet. Kelly McGonigal has written a book Yoga for Pain Relief: Simple Practices to Calm Your Mind & Heal Your Chronic Pain (New Harbinger Publications, 2009). Kelly is a health psychologist at Stanford University (and got the PhD to prove it) and teaches multiple classes on campus and in the San Francisco area, as well as workshops and teacher training. She is also the editor of the International Journal of Yoga Therapy, a peer-reviewed journal of research on yoga and meditation.
Why am I so sure that Kelly's book would be worth reading? Because I took an online course on the question of "Can Yoga Really Change Your Life?" and I followed her career over the past six year. She was instrumental in steering me through the first year (maybe, more) of my yoga immersion. She came to yoga because of her own pain, helped others by becoming a teacher, applied the rigors of Western scientific methodology to yoga and finally shared her knowledge, skills and gifts by writing about yoga and editing others' articles.
I'll tell you more once I get my hands on the book.
Postscript: Kelly has contacted me and offered to send me the book.
Should have mentioned this sooner, but I picked up my dad from the hospital and took him home at noon. Both he and my mom were greatly relieved that he did not have a serious "cardiac event," as the doctors like to call a more generic heart phenomenon. He has a bad valve that is causing him shortness of breath and pain. In fact, his heart is strong, but the aortic value is not performing well. The only way to fix it is by replacing it through open heart surgery and my dad is not a good candidate for that, what with kidney problems, age and other complications. The doctors are going to adjust his medications to deal with the condition. We're gong to have to watch him to make sure he does not do any heavy work.
I've been commenting here for the past two and a half years about my brother, Richard, and his fight against lung cancer. I got a call from my sister that things have taken a turn for the worse, and Richard has been hospitalized. For the past two weeks, he has needed multiple transfusions because his chemotherapy has been wearing down his defenses. I know he has been worried about what that condition may mean for him. Now it seems that his lungs are giving out on him.
I spoke with him a few minutes on the phone, but he could not talk for long; he had been through a really rough day. I just told him how much I love him and that I am praying that things turn out for the best. He's getting the best treatment possible at Baylor University Hospital, and his wife, Susan, is making sure that nothing is overlooked at this crucial time for him.
You can't believe what a courageous, hard-fighting guy he has been during his treatment. I've learned so much from him, but nothing really has prepared me for this, losing a loved one. For the time being, I am just going to hold steady because there is nothing I can do by rushing down to Texas.
New York Times Doctor and Patient - How Mindfulness Can Make for Better Doctors is not just an example of the use of meditation and mindfulness as something abstract or removed from the daily grind. Mindfulness is applied to a concrete challenge.
Last month, The Journal of the American Medical Association published the results of a study examining the effects of a year-long course for primary care physicians on mindfulness, that ability to be in the zone and present in the moment purposefully and without judgment. Seventy physicians enrolled and participated in the four components of the course — mindfulness meditation; writing sessions; discussions; and lectures on topics like managing conflict, setting boundaries and self-care.
The effects of the sessions were dramatic. The participating doctors became more mindful, less burned out and less emotionally exhausted. But two additional findings surprised the investigators. Several of the improvements persisted even after the yearlong course ended. And, those changes correlated with a significant increase in attributes that contribute to patient-centered care, such as empathy and valuing the psychosocial factors that might affect a patient's illness experience.
Labels: brain_science, health, meditation, news
The Globe and Mail Trouble on the Om front - Some Toronto yoga instructors go to the mats with as little as two days training. That's left students bent out of shape reminds us that yoga practice incorrectly can lead to injuries and a contributor to this risk is the inexperience of instructors who are not adequately trained to be aware of and adapt to the needs of each student:
Mr. Canning, who originally trained in Bikram, or hot yoga, in Los Angeles, has seen firsthand how important teacher programs are in ensuring a safe and inspiring environment. After ending up with two excruciatingly painful herniated discs in his spine from an aggressive teacher-training program that was "push, push, push," Mr. Canning built a studio devoted to a practice where instructors focus on listening to the needs of their students. And he mandates that they have a year of training behind them.
"That 'push' attitude - we all moved away from that," says Mr. Canning. "If anything, yoga should heal."
ChicagoNow's BreathBodybalance blog reminds us in A Closer Look at Yoga Chicago Magazine that local magazines or newsletters like YogaChicago don't have to try to replicate Yoga Journal to be of value:
It started at eight pages and this year it's 72. People use to come to me with ads and stories on a disc until the printer was like, you gotta go digital! (laughs). I write and edit a majority of the stories then send it off to a professional editor, Ellen Bernstein. Besides teaching three times a week, this is my full-time job. Ads pay for everything, but I try to keep the fees low because I know most studios don't make a lot of money. I even trade some articles for ad space.
CNN Prison inmates go Zen to deal with life behind bars is abou the Prison Darma Network:
There is no group tracking the number of inmates converting to Buddhism or engaging in meditation practices. But programs and workshops educating inmates about meditation and yoga are sprouting up across the country. Meditation can help the convicts find calmness in a prison culture ripe with violence and chaos. The practice provides them a chance to reflect on their crimes, wrestle through feelings of guilt and transform themselves during their rehabilitative journey, Buddhist experts say.
Labels: health, meditation, news, reading, teachers
Los Angeles Times Yin yoga: yang-style's less aggressive counterpart explains the payoff in doing less, citing Paul Grilley, Sarah Powers, Kelly McGonigal, Dina Amsterdam, Via Page and Molly Lannon Kenny:
Yin yoga's proponents say the physical effects can have a profound emotional component as well, by teaching practitioners how to handle discomfort and strong sensations. For that reason, yin yoga is being used in some addiction and trauma recovery programs.
Labels: health, mind health, news, teachers
New York Times Mental Stress Training Is Planned for U.S. Soldiers is about how to prepare soldiers for the psychological rigors of war. It's heartening to see that the top brass are finally seeking assistance in dealing with the surge in suicides, post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD), depression and other problems in the wake of nearly a decade of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan:
And in the interview, General Casey said the mental effects of repeated deployments — rising suicide rates in the Army, mild traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress — had convinced commanders "that we need a program that gives soldiers and their families better ways to cope."
The general agreed to the interview after The New York Times learned of the program from Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman, chairman of the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center, who has been consulting with the Pentagon.
In recent studies, psychologists at Penn and elsewhere have found that the techniques can reduce mental distress in some children and teenagers. But outside experts cautioned that the Army program was more an experiment than a proven solution.
The Philadelphia Inquirer had an article (Penn center to help Army on stress) on this same issue.
Seligman is the lead thinker behind positive psychology and has had a major impact on how people are treated. I recommend that anyone with an interest should visit Happier.com, an initiative to take good mental practices to the masses. Seligman and his crew have developed a series of easy to follow exercises and routines that help you shift your mind set.
Almost Buddhist in nature, the approach aims to relieve human suffering. Although not mindfulness, it asks that you change the story that you're telling yourself inside your head. It asks you to examine your thoughts, which any bodhisattva would appreciate.
Finally, this effort is far better use of psychology than what the idiotic Bush Administration by employing psychologists to develop interrogation techniques that crossed the line into torture. Ironically, the quacks that advised the Pentagon distorted a concept, "learned helplessness" that Seligman (see Wikipedia entry) developed 30 years ago.
Washington Post Yoga Activists Say Classes Shouldn't Require a Financial Stretch is about increasing efforts to broaden yoga's appeal and utility in dealing with multiple issues:
The class, for students in Upward Bound, a program that prepares low-income youths for college, is part of a growing movement to take yoga beyond its reputation as boutique exercise for the well-to-do and use it as therapy for groups such as at-risk and homeless youths, HIV/AIDS patients and torture survivors.
Of course, this trends has been going on for far more than three years; it's just that this reporter noticed the outreach efforts now and needs to cloak the article in newsworthiness.
New York Times Ricky Williams Is Hoping to Heal Others, and His Image:
To Williams, 32, this represents another step toward a career in holistic healing and away from his self-described reputation as "the poster child for marijuana." The process has been messy and public and shaped into an all-too-familiar narrative: superstar spits on the American dream, travels the world in search of enlightenment and returns reformed.
Just like yesterday's entry about baseball players practicing yoga, Ricky Williams has often fit the stereotype of edgy athlete (on the brink of falling into marijuana abuse), and this article shows he continues to amend the traditional plot line of pampered pro gone wrong and then redeemed.
Please note that I mentioned to get through this whole blog entry without saying "New Age." Until now.
I am a bit hesitant to write extensively about Richard's experience. Having been told that my brother's cancer has become terminal, with an estimated 3-6 months left, his struggle becomes an intensely intimate journey in preparation for his final destination. I don't want to put words into his mouth. It's also the privacy of Susan, his wife, who is the biggest reason that Richard has lasted this long.
Richard has the strong support of a his church, the Church of the Incarnation, which has a cancer support group and an outreach program that helps him a lot. I went to a Sunday church service with him and saw why he appreciates the congregation's efforts.
From my time with my brother and my own dealings with disease, I understand why yoga and meditation can play a healing role in any extended, life-threatening illness. So many factors can sap the physical, mental and emotional reserves of a patient that there is a vital need for restoring those assets. Treatment can do some of that work, but yoga and meditation deal with factors that are not touched by traditional medicine.
Richard gets a kick out of his T-shirt with the Monty Python line.Clarification: the blog entry title is actually a stretch of the time frame of my visit with my brother, which was six days. What I meant was that the trip occupied my mind and energies for about that time, preparing for and then recovering from the trip, both ay work and home.
I went down to Dallas, Texas, to spend a week (June 24-30) with my brother, Richard. As some may know from reading this blog, Richard has been fighting lung cancer since December 2006, as well as the consequences of treatment. I could have blogged about my time with Rich and his wife, Susan, but it was far to raw to register in daily entries. I twitted a few times just to update where I was.
The last time I went to Dallas was for his wedding in 2005. Now, my brother is fighting for his life. With his cancer now in stage 4, he is undergoing maintenance chemotherapy to slow down the growth of his tumor and prolong his life. So far, the results have been good: the tumor have not grown. Of course, he's down to 103 pounds, skin and bones. He's fought off multiple infections, which have weakened his defenses further, on top of what the chemotherapy does to his metabolism. But despite his plight, my brother demonstrates amazing courage, fortitude and perseverance. He's my little brother, but he's big in so many other respects.
Equipped for hard knocks and saw dust, Richard works in his shop.While I was there, I focused on doing tasks that were too demanding physically and energetically for Richard to undertake. I helped clean up his garage and woodworking area, which did not benefit from air conditioning in Dallas 100-plus temperatures, though it did have shade and a couple of fans. I also helped reorganize his home office so he could tackle his paperwork. Since I am the geek of the family, I next took on the two computers in the household, requiring two days of steady work to get them into shape because they had not been downloading MS updates and were running really slowly and crashing. One was infected by a virus.
Over the course of Richard's illness, we've often spoken over the phone about how yoga, meditation and other methods could aid him in his struggle. I wanted to follow through on that. I got in contact with a great group of people at the Yoga Bear Foundation, which provides cancer survivors with more opportunities for wellness and healing through the practice of yoga by connecting them with local yoga centers. The idea is that Richard would benefit from free or minimum-cost classes. I got in contact with Kelly Hollis, who's been coordinating activities in Texas. She suggested I contact the Ananda Yoga Center in Dallas to arrange for yoga classes. As it turns out, my brother had actually gone to Ananda Yoga Center for several years and felt comfortable in going there.
On Thursday evening (June 25), we went to a class. Sue, the woman who runs the center, remembered Richard and proved to be a conscientious lead in the yoga class. Four other people attended the class. Sue made sure that Richard did not try to do too much, and gave modifications in practically all the poses. My brother has a torn rotator cuff and could not raise his arm above his shoulder. At one point, Sue helped him by positioning blankets to support his shoulders and legs in a prone twist that that might have stressed him too much. In one of the pose, his joints all popped in unison and he thought he had disrupted the class with the noise. Sue's class was very serene and contemplatively paced so it was within his reach.
Now, it's in Richard's hands as to whether he wants to continue. The center is a good 20-minute drive from his home in Garland so it will require some effort to make it to classes. He certainly does not feel like doing yoga after taking chemotherapy. A few days later, I accompanied Richard to his physical therapy session for his shoulder, and the staff said that his shoulder had improved substantially. This was not due to the yoga, but rather the slow accumulation of therapy, treatment and rest over time.
In addition to the Ananda Yoga outing, I introduced Richard to yoga nidra, giving him Richard Miller's CD on the approach. This is definitely something that he could use on a regular basis. But I didn't want to insist too much because Richard has to decide how he spends his time and energy.
I flew back to Washington on Tuesday, and have been trying to catch up with what's piled up at work and at home in my absence. Now is the first opportunity to put together some thoughts about the experience.
Los Angeles Times Yoga opened doors she had long ago closed - Writer and teacher Colette LaBouff Atkinson describes how she came to her yoga practice when her body seemed to be breaking down:
But in yoga, as anyone and everyone who's ever benefited from it will say, all kinds of things became possible. I was there only to breathe; nothing to revise or make again. The yoga instructor -- more than one, really -- would walk by me and say, "Soft face." Sometimes the teacher would put her fingers into my furrowed brow as she passed.
Because of my illness (sinus infection) over the past week, I've refrained from full-bore yoga practice. Yesterday, I returned home from work at odds and out of sort (two phases that are nonsensical, but appropriate). I had been unfocused at work and less productive than I wanted to be. Once home, it was too late to go to class, but I am not going to miss it tonight. I really need it. I've also put on a couple of extra pounds so that's even more motivation. Even though I lay out my mat on the floor, I never could put in sufficient time, except for a couple of nights of ying yoga. Too many distractions at home. There is something about arriving home, stripping off the cloths, donning my yoga duds, picking up my kit and mat, and driving to the studio. It's like flipping a switch.
I am happy to report that my sense of smell has returned to normal. As reported in early March, I noted that I had a persistent scent of concentrated tobacco smoke lingering constantly in my nostrils. It seemed to intensify when I was doing my yoga practice, especially when in inversions. By about a week ago, the smell had abated to a kind of faint pine tar smell, and this weekend it completely disappeared. As suggested in my previous post, I think that I was opening up some blocked sinus cavities, which was clearing out old nicotine-saturated mucus from my previous incarnation as a cigarette smoker.
Richard at his wedding, looking Texas-tanned and nervous. Probably the happiest day of his life.
Last night I got a call from my younger brother, Richard, in Texas. The news was not good. He has been fighting cancer for the past two and a half years, first in his lungs and then his brain. His doctor told him yesterday that his condition had turned terminal. While treatment of the small brain tumor was successful, the lung tumors keep coming back and now have spread to the point that treatment can only retard their development, not kill them. He has been given 3-6 months, but knowing him, he'll be able to stretch it out longer. He has been tremendously upbeat throughout the whole process.
Whenever someone is diagnosed with cancer, there is always the prospect that the illness could win out in the end. So it did not come as a complete surprise that Richard's condition had become terminal. No matter what, he'd have to remain vigilant for the rest of his life. Now, he has to concentrate on getting the most out of the remaining time that he has.
I will continue to dedicate my yoga practice to Richard and his struggle, and keep him in my prayers. He lives in Dallas, TX, so I will probably make a trip soon to visit with him. We've only had a few opportunities to spend time together over the past decades. I was living in Peru, and when I came back to the States, he was in Texas. So it was only on the holidays and family events, like his marriage in 2006, that we got together. We'll have to find a way of compensating for that lost time.
My scent is driving me crazy. I smoked my last cigarette in January 2004. That's five years plus, 62 months exactly. I have avoided smoking environments and pray that I am never tempted to take another drag on a fag. But for the past week, I have been distracted by a persistent scent of concentrated tobacco smoke -- the kind that gets absorbed into nasal mucus when you've been smoking despite a head cold. This persists throughout the day, at my work desk, at home at the dinner table, on the Metro, everywhere. I have tried spritzing them with saline nasal spray and rinsing them out with salt water and a neti pot. To no good. The odor of nicotine tar lingers in my nostrils.
Back in my days in freelance journalism in Peru, I used to chain smoke while working on deadline. For years, my brand was a nasty Peruvian brand that stained my mustache orange. I later switched to imported Benson & Hedges, but I doubt that it was any better for my health. My office had the door opened onto a open-air stairway landing. Caffeine, nicotine and adrenaline were my antidote to stress. And there were days when I literally overdosed on nicotine. My sinsuses could not take any more abuse and would erupt in mucus, purging the poison from my nasal passages. Almost always, I'd develop a bad head cold.
My current phantasm scent reminds me of those bouts of nicotine abuse. I shutter at the memory. As I've mentioned before, for several years I had my left maxillary sinus (think cheekbone) was completely obstructed and densely packed with mucus, and have had multiple rounds of antibiotics to fight an infection. Although the inflamation abated, I don't know if the sinus ever cleared up because there was never a CT scan after treatment.
My educated guess now is that somehow the sinus has loosened up and old mucus from my smoking days is exposed to my scent glands. I am trying to give a rational explanation by identifying where the scent could come from. Another option is that my brain is playing a trick on me and there is no nicotine anywhere in reach of my olfactory system.
Although my knee injury, operation and recovery have been primary concerns for my yoga practice, a more modest injury has been holding back my practice for the past two weeks. I jammed my left toe on a one-legged jump-back (my torn meniscus, by the way, is on my right side). When it happened, I barely noticed it. It made a sound like cracking your knuckles. In the evening, it start to swell up. The next morning it was black, blue and purple, and throbbing like mad. I made it to work, but saw my doctor the next day to make sure that nothing serious had happened. He said that at most there was a hairline fracture and there was not much that could be done: I should take some ibuprofen and raise it off the ground when seated, whenever possible. By the end of the week, the bruising had gone away (so it was no longer a source of conversation at yoga class), but it will take weeks to get back to normal.
Even though the injury is getting better, it is a major speed bump for my practice (not necessarily a bad thing). I now refrain from doing jump-backs and jump-forwards in vinyasas. When the toe jam happened, I was really feeling a rush in my practice, which may have caused me to be over-aggressive. I had gone to class four days in a row, and was starting to feel some momentum. Where the toe injury really hits me is with balance: the big toe plays a big role in keep the foot (and the rest of the body) level. It's probably better to rely more on the sole of the foot (the old "four corners" mantra) as the touch points of balance, but a jammed toe affects the foot all the way back into the ball of the foot and then up the leg.I have made headway in getting back into the swing of my yoga practice. My acupuncturist says that I am ahead of the curve. He's seen several people, 40 years or older, who had have had knee surgery, and in my case, my knee has full range of movement, and I no longer have serious swelling or other side effects. With one month of yoga practice under my belt, I can see I am recovering. I know of two people at my office who've had knee surgery in the last six months, and one has already blown out his knee again because he went back to running too soon.
Knee support and rolled hand towels that are placed behind the knees when in child's pose. At Thrive Yoga this past weekend, I took a vinyasa 2/3 class with Susan Bowen and managed to get through it. The following day, I took a hatha yoga class with Marylou McNamara. It's a nice combination: the advance class tests my limits physically while the hatha class keeps me grounded in the basics of alignment and breathing, and allows me to recover from the hard work with Susan.
I keep some props with me on the mat: a knee support and two rolled-up terry cloth hand towels that I put behind both knees to create some "space" in my joint whenever i am in a stressful pose, like child's pose. The knee support is more to remind me tactilely that I should keep my awareness on my knee, rather than to brace my knee. When I fold my knee, there's always a double-ply of Neoprene between my thigh and calf, offering a minimum of protection. The support also keeps my rolled-up hand towel from slipping out due to lubricating sweat. It keeps my knee warm, too.
I took in two classes at Thrive Yoga this weekend, Vinyasa Flow I with Lisa Johnson and Hatha Yoga with Marylou McNamara. Both instructors pay close attention to the details of alignment. Marylou led us through a series of poses that really helped my psoas. I've been looking for poses and routines that will help me open my hips, but won't put pressure on my knees. A lot of poses, like One-Legged King Pigeon Pose (Eka Pada Rajakapotasana), jeopardize the stability of the knees. I want to start using the safe poses in my home practice.
I fit some core strength routines into my Sunday afternoon because level one classes rarely put a strong emphasis on building up physical strength and stamina.
I did not take another weekend class just to resist the temptation to overwork my body during this recuperative period. I still need time between class to let my muscles and ligaments heal.
I am slowly working my way back to practicing yoga. My orthopedic surgeon has given me a thumbs up on my recovery, and does not need to see me again. I have been putting in a daily average of 30 minutes walking and 30 minutes stationary bike for about a month. I've gone back to climb the eight flights of stairs of my office building. I've been doing some of the rehab exercises. I had a session of acupuncture on my knee today, and I'll get a massage tomorrow, so I've been lavishing care on my body.
If I do a lot of walking, I will have a little discomfort in my knee the following day and it will feel stiff. I've also noticed recently that I have a lot of discomfort in my right sit bone, probably due to the hamstring. I can't take sitting down for a long time.
I am aiming to start up yoga class again next Tuesday at Thrive Yoga. Pierre Couvillion will teach that evening. Although it's a relatively advanced, all-levels, vinyasa flow class, I would prefer to have the watchful eye of a yoga therapist watching as I move through the poses. He told me he could indicate modifications of those poses that might be risky for me.
I really miss the community of the yoga studio, and also the disciplined structure that a regular practice builds into my life. Even though I should have more "free time," I don't seem to get a lot more done. I really miss the big muscle movements from the vinyasa. Aerobic exercise or weight lifting does not provide the same kind of satisfaction.
I got to the gym twice this weekend, and put in two sessions of 60-minutes each on the stationary bike and another 25 minutes on the elliptical trainer. I lifted some weights, enough to make me sore two days later. During the week, I was able to do a few short sessions of rehab.
Earlier in the week, I got my sutures removed and the doc said that everything looked fine and to come back in three weeks. He suggested that I do some physical therapy to get back up to speed.
I also checked in with Pierre Couvillion who recommended that I take at least a month, maybe two, to ease myself back into yoga. Is he being overly cautious? Or am I just an ingrained overachiever who always has to push harder and farther.
More graphics than you may want to see of my torn meniscus,but I couldn't resist. Photo courtesy Dr. Graeter
Today is the first day in which I've been able to string two sentences together. I had my outpatient surgery on Friday afternoon, and was on pain medications until last night. I took off my surgical bandages yesterday, and now keep an Ace bandage to support my knee. I ice the knee as often as I can (15 minutes at a time). Yesterday, I was able to walk around without crutches. Today, I can climb stars. I can go down stairs only one step at a time, placing my injured leg first. The doctor says that I can start exercising on a stationary bicycle by next Saturday. I will get my stitches out early next week. I expect to be back at work tomorrow unless I wake up with a complication (say, overdid walking and stair climbing).
The operation itself went rather uneventfully. I had to wait about 90 minutes at the GW Hospital before they started the surgical prep. I guess they just want to make sure patients are on site and ready for the procedure, but it's boring. I was briefed about the procedure and given post-operation instructions. I was wheeled into the surgery room and I was unconscious before I could take in the full surrounding. I just noticed that it was chilly.
I got a second opinion on my knee injury about a month ago and decided to have orthopedic surgery with Dr. James Graeter because he's on my health insurance network and that will hold down costs. After he looked at my scans, he told me that yoga poses that are really dangerous for the knee are Ardha Baddha Padmottanasana, Gomukhasana A or any pose in which the knee is flexed sharply. The risk is that the meniscus will be pinched between the femur and tibia bones. In this type of pose, the leg is often rotated and that may put additional stress on the menisci or expose them to the bones in harmful ways. hero's pose (or Virasana) (or variations on it) is another risky pose because your upper body is pressing down on your legs.
Once I understood the knee's peculiar risk in yoga, I realized that precautions have to be taken. For instance, putting a rolled-up hand towel or blanket behind the knee so that the bones are stretched apart. Because you can put your knees at risk in both standing and sitting poses, you have to think hard about how best to wedge the towels between your calf and your thigh.
Because there are no nerves (or blood flow) in the menisci, there's no way of telling if damage happens. It's only when you have debris floating around in your knee bursa that problems develop. It can actually lock up your knee so that it can't move.
I sought out a conversation with Pierre Couvillion, a wandering yoga instructor and bodyworker, about my knee injury. Pierre has been filling some teaching holes at Thrive Yoga due to the August vacation absences. I wanted the opinion of someone who understood yoga and bodywork with a non-medical outlook to balance against what my doctor and acupuncturist told me. He recommended going ahead with the surgery because Western medicine deals more effectively with meniscus tears than other health alternatives.
Although I can trace my injury to the Rumbaugh workshop (part 1, part 2) a month ago because that's when it started to hurt, I can not say that it was the cause of the injury. At no time did I sense a jab of pain or feel that I had gone too far. It was only the next day that I notice a minor ache in my knee. It was two weeks after the event that the injury got in the way of my yoga practice. Pierre told me that injuries often happen at workshops because the "glow of a extraordinary teacher" frequently blind us to the limits of our bodies. I know that I was physically tired towards the end of the weekend, which is a double edge sword: the fatigue breaks down resistance in the body, but it can make me insensitive to the natural limits.
I've made major changes to my life style in the past five years. When I finished my Masters degree in May 2003, I was in sad shape. Working full time and getting a graduate degree, I smoked, ate poorly and was sedentary during work hours and at home. I was at least 30, maybe even 40 at times, pounds overweight. This blog documents my long slog back into a healthy life style. I've only been running since October last year. I've tried to increase my exercise regime's intensity gradually, both with the practice of yoga and running. That's why I adopted Chirunning, because it tried to reduce the heel's impact on the ground. But I could have abused my meniscus over the past year or worn it down over the past five years, or it could have been a problem that was just waiting for the right trigger to set it off, like a piece of paper that had been folded repeatedly in the same place and finally tore apart. Although I've tried to prevent myself from doing harmful things, like fit into lotus pose before my body was ready, I am still laboring with the body with tight hips that has sat in front of a computer for 20 years (if I had sat crosslegged on the ground all my life, I probably would not have this problem). My tight hips are going to stress my knees automatically, and I noticed that as my legs gradually moved closer to resting on the ground in easy pose, it increased the torque on the knees. I am one month short of being 59 years old, after all, and the body starts breaking down at this stage.
There are lots of adjustments that can be done to protect the knees, but when you have a torn meniscus, there's no way around it.
What I am trying to say is that my injury did not happen because I was a bad yogi who was misusing his body. It's not my fault. I think I was especially at risk because my tightly wound muscles were loosening a different speeds.
It's now confirmed: I have a torn medial meniscus that requires surgery. The debris poses a medium-term risk to the integrity of the knee, and Dr. Connell recommends cleaning up the knee by the end of the year, at the latest. He did not leave open a medical option for wait-and-see. The arthroscopic surgery is an outpatient procedure and requires three days of post-operative rest at home. It would then mean 4-6 weeks of recovery and physical therapy before taking up physical exercise. I could expect full recovery within three months.
Curiously, my knee was feeling fine today, with no pain or stiffness, so the news surprised me because I was imagining that I was recovering. If I had felt like this last week, I would never have gone to a doctor. The main problem of the meniscus is that it does not heal. It's a piece of cartilage that has no blood flow, and once it gets torn it becomes a piece of debris that can mess up the rest of the knee. Some people actually have their knees lock up on them because the meniscus moves between the bones and impedes movements.
But Dr Connell is in the business of solving problems by surgery so he has a professional, business and scientific bias to using surgery to fix injuries. He does have a reputation for not automatically prescribing surgery, which was one of my reasons for consulting him.
I already had an appointment with Kelly Welch, my acupuncturist, and so I asked him about the best course of action. He suggested waiting to see how my knee felt. He's had problems with both knees, at least one of them due to overaggressiveness in yoga poses. His biggest reservation about operating is that once part of the meniscus is removed, the knee can never return to its normal state.
He advised against future running because it put so much stress on the knee, even with the best technique. That's a kind of hypothetical questions because I don't have enough confidence to even jog. We closed out the session with acupuncture and electrical stimulus to the knee (so he's got a professional bias, too).
I woke up this morning and felt a big relief in my knee. The relief of tension that I had felt yesterday after treatment had continued after a night's rest. Yesterday, I was really sore, and felt tired from the difficulty of walking and climbing stairs. I could feel the strain building up in my shoulders as I clinched with each step with my right leg. I have started icing down my knee this weekend. I previously thought that my knee did not show any signs of swelling, but today I did detect some puffiness above my knee, which may be a sign of inflammation. Another symptom is that I get pain relief from ibuprofen.
In other words, I am treating it as if it is an injuruy, not just a nick or ding that will go away with a little rest and time.
Another consequence is that I've gone up five pounds over the past four weeks. I have to cut back on my calorie intake due to the drop-off in my physical activity.
Acupuncture chart from Hua Shou (fl. 1340s, Ming Dynasty). This image from Shi si jing fa hui (Expression of the Fourteen Meridians). (Tokyo : Suharaya Heisuke kanko, Kyoho gan 1716). Courtesy of Wikipedia.
My knee bothered me more each day as the week went on. Ibuprofen has become an essential intake several times a day. Last week, I could still feel capable of taking a yoga class. This week, it's out of the question because of the increased pain and the sensation of instability. I was lucky to already have a Friday appointment with my acupuncturist, Kelly Welch, only three blocks from my office. Kelly also practices Ashtanga yoga and had two bad knees so he has first-hand experience about dealing with the problem.
I gave him the background on the injury, which I have already laid out here in excruciating detail. He asked about where the pain was felt, zeroing in on medial side of the knee. He really did not give me a "diagnosis" in a medical sense, leaving that for a Western physician who could use MRIs and other tools to rule out things like arthritis, torn ligaments and other nasties. He gave me some pointers about how to keep up with my yoga while not injuring it further by using a rolled-up towel or blanket between my thigh and calve behind my knee whenever I have to go into hero's pose or similar poses that put pressure on the joint. He gave me the name and phone number of his orthopedist, who handles a lot of sports related cases. He also gave me the name of his massage therapist who has worked with people with knee issues, too.
Kelly did acupuncture on my right knee and left elbow (China medicine is into the yin-yang thing so a Chinese doctor would always treat the opposites to restore balance). He also applied some electrical stimulus, a slight sensation of being shocked. He adjusted it so that it did not reach discomfort or pain. And then he left me to simmer for 20 minutes. The treatment seemed to release a lot of muscular tension that had built up by the pain -- and the anticipation of pain. As always with acupuncture, the treatment seems to wash me clean of tension and compressed energy. I feel lighter, more clearheaded.
Finally, Kelly set me up for three more weekly appointments for follow-ups on the initial treatment.
As soon as I made it back to the office, I shot off an e-mail to the optometrist's office assistant and set up an appointment for next Wednesday afternoon, the soonest that he could see me.
PranaJournal.com reader Kelly Sonora tipped me off to an article on yoga, NursingDegree.net >> 77 Surprising Health Benefits of Yoga, that also contains links to other online resources:
Over the past several years, yoga has experienced an upsurge in popularity in the western world. While many associate yoga with new age mysticism or the latest fad at the gym, yoga is actually an ancient practice that connects the mind, body, and spirit through body poses, controlled breathing, and meditation. The practice of yoga has many health benefits associated with it, so read below to discover 77 benefits to be gained.
Of course, if you'd like something more substantial, you can always get Tim McCall's new book, Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing
If you ever need an intellectual motivation to get you off your butt and into an active program of exercise, read Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain
"The prescription ... varies from varies from person to person, but the research consistently shows that the more fit you are, the more resilient your brain becomes and the better it functions both cognitively and psychologically." (p. 247)
To cut to the chase, his formula calls for 30-60 minutes of aerobic exercise, usually running or equivalent intensity exercise, six times a week. On two days, he recommends five short sprints (30 seconds max) injected into a normal session (the max intervals seem to trigger the body's optimization). Strength-training helps maintain or build muscle and bone mass, which can be affected by the aging process. Ratey also suggests that yoga, tai chi, martial arts or other similar activities be added to improve balance and flexibility, as well as body awareness and concentration. Obviously, it takes time, discipline and effort to work up to the condition of being able to sustain aerobic exercise for such long periods, but you will be rewarded.
Exercise has an impact on the brain's neuroplasticity, creating new neurons as the building blocks. Ratey covered stress, anxiety, depression, attention deficit disorder, addiction, hormonal change (menopause in women) and aging in separate chapters. Far and away the best thing you can do for your brain power, mental health and physical well-being is an active daily exercise regime.
Ratey gets down to the complex, inter-related chemical processes and components that create and balance the neurotransmitters that fire up the brain within the human body. Ratey's conclusions are not new. There has been a steady drumbeat of stories in newspapers, magazines and on the web about how physical exercise can radically improve mental performance, ward off illnesses and aging and overcome mental disorders, like depression. He emphasized that it's necessary to engage in physical exercise every day, both to make it a consistent habit and to make the body respond appropriately.
Ratey is a researcher and neuro-psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School who earned a reputation working on attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). More information is available on his website and his blog, which links to news stories and features about his new book.
Labels: brain_science, conditioning, health, reading, running
The Washington Post's blog called The Checkup has a post about The NIH and The Woo-Woo Thing, which really refers to the NIH Yoga Week events taking place in Bethesda this week:
"Yoga Week is chock full of lectures about yoga's role in medicine and hands-on-the-mat opportunities to practice asana (the Sanskrit term for yoga poses)."
The writer gets an interview with Dr. Timothy McCall who's the medical consultant for Yoga Journal and also recently published a book about Yoga as Medicine. He talks about the yoga practitioners being way ahead of the medical community in knowing the good that yoga does. Speaking from the personal experience of having just come from a vinyasa class at Thrive Yoga tonight, I could not have had a better tonic. I sweated out all the toxins of the daily grind and was left at peace on the mat for the final restorative pose (blessings to Dana for a great class).
I've heard that the activities are drawing "big crowds," but I can't be real sure since I am confined to a cubicle from 9 to 5:30 (except when I escape to run around the Mall in shorts). A tip of the hat to the organizers and sponsors, especially to Rachel Permuth-Levine, who worked her butt off to make this week possible. I wish I was there to soak up the wisdom.
Back in January, I did a Personal Year-End Review. I was bowled away. It's taken me since then to assimilate what this inventory means. I'd like to share part of this review as it pertains changes in my physical conditioning and work methods over the past 12-18 months.
- I started jogging regularly by joining a running group at work and having a weekend run, giving me aerobic activity at about 12-15 miles a week. No injuries have kept me from running. I look forward to my run.
- I kept up with my daily meditation practice, focusing more on mini-sessions rather than 20-minute blocks
- I kept up with my yoga practice 3-5 times a week, and made breakthroughs in several poses, especially improving balance and flexibility
- I took at least 2 weeks of real vacation (travel away from DC) - Ontario and Quebec, Canada; Orlando; Eastern Shore MD
- I upgraded my Omega-3 pills to higher quality and increased intake.
- I found my own personal doctor and had a full physical examination
- I brought down my total cholesterol by 23 points while raising my good cholesterol (HDL) by 5 points, compared to 2 years ago
- I got a specialist to check out my sinuses, finding a long-term infection that had been a drag on my health
- I lost about 15 pounds and 6 inches off my waist while increasing muscle mass and strength.
- I am getting to the gym as often as feasible, doing a few exercises every day at home, fitting other simple things in daily routine (walking up 8 flights of stairs).
I've been doing some of these things for more than the past year and I've mentioned them on this blog, but the intensity has picked up. This progress also meant reducing time spent on other activities, like doing outside consulting, watching TV, surfing the Web, reading the news (magazines and newspapers) and some books.
Measurable success (having concrete milestones) has a reinforcing effect on my motivation. I am also aware of other benefits that I had never expected. I hope you don't think I'm just bragging on myself, but I was not really aware of what I had done until I sat down and listed them in the review -- and this is just the physical side of the change!
The most significant conclusion is that I have made physical well being as a top priority, rather than an afterthought to fit between a 9-5 job, moonlighting and TV. That decision translates into time and energy spent on taking care of myself. I made a conscious decision to take command of my body and be proactive about my health. I decided that maintaining the discipline of physical exercise was the single, most important thing I could do to ensure my mental, physicial and spiritual health and a long-term investment in my future. If I can't do that, other efforts at self-improvement have less of a chance of succeeding.
If you are scheduling your calendar around the growing number of yoga-focused events, you can block off the whole month of September, which a coalition of yoga personalities, media outlets and service companies has declared "Yoga Month." It is "a year-round awareness campaign and will peak September 2008 with millions of health and socially conscious individuals practicing yoga at thousands of yoga studios, businesses, parks and homes around the globe." The campaign will highlight the health value of yoga in dealing with obesity, hypertension, heart disease, breast cancer, menopause, chronic back pain, asthma, arthritis and depression, among other illnesses and conditions. So far, there is no event or affiliate from the Washington, DC area.
Labels: dc_yoga, health, yoga, yoga_resource
I had a colonoscopy last week, the first time in 15 years, which means that it was overdue. They found four polyps, all of which appeared to be benign, were extracted and then sent to a lab for a biopsy. I have not heard anything else since then. The procedure is intimidating because you spend a couple of days restricting your diet, a full day purging the digestive system of all contents (by taking some pills, no enema for me this time) and practically a full day recovering from the procedure because of the anesthesia (called conscious sedation) and the fasting. While I was under, I felt nothing and remember nothing of the procedure itself. I left work at midday the day before to start the purging and took the whole day off following the AM procedure.
As I've taken a renewed interest in taking care of my health over the past six months, a colonoscopy was the one health measure that needed to be put in place, especially since preventive care can dramatically reduce the risk of colon cancer. I could feel the anxiety building up inside me over the weekend before the procedure as I had to acknowledge that I should have done this a lot earlier. Fortunately, the worrying was cut short abruptly by the purging process.
I have to go back for my next one in three years because of my risk factors and my age. I will be less reticence to go because modern medicine has made the procedure as painless as possible, though it still not pleasant. But it's really a necessary test for anyone over 55 years old. As far as how this all relates to yoga, I am now more aware and appreciative of all my body parts.
Labels: health
Last weekend I walked into Metro Run and Walk and asked to be fitted for some running shoes (as opposed to walking into a discount shoe store and walking out with a pair that seemed to fit me comfortably). After watching me walk and job around the store a bit and asking me about how much I had been running, the young sales woman told me that I showed signs of some serious overpronation and needed as much support as any running shoe could give without adding orthopedic supports. In other words, when I run, my planted foot rolls inward and flattens out the arch, which in turn puts a lot of stress on the lower leg muscles and knees. In the end, I paid a pretty penny for a pair of Brooks Beasts (appropriate name). I figured that if it kept me from getting shin splints or other injuries, it was money well spent.
Once home, I examined my feet more closely and came to the conclusion that I am heading in the direction of having flat feet. If in my early stages of learning yoga, I complained about having stiff ankles and feet, I now have gone the other direction of not having tensile strength in the arches to hold up under the stress of running. I guess this news is just another sign of aging -- the body parts will wear out over time and no amount of restorative practices of yoga will return them to their youthful flexibility.
This condition does not mean I will stop running. I will just be more careful, concentrate on keeping good form and listen closely to what my body tells me. I am going to do some exercises meant to deal with fallen arches and see what happens. I am told that it's really hard to reverse overpronation.
Labels: conditioning, health, running
I was outside the country last week on a work assignment, which prevented me from posting any blog entries. I could check my e-mails a few times, but really did not focus to put together even a short item. I was in Santa Marta, Colombia at my organization's semi-annual meeting. I was able to do pranayama and meditation each day, and even fit in some yoga in my yoga room a few days. I needed the healing to recover from the wear and tear of flying and hectic meetings. You would think that being forced to sit in a seat for extended periods of time would be conducive to calm and clarity -- it's not. I will try to put something more substantive than this notice shortly.
I finished reading Sharon Begley's book, but I could have put off buying the book all together because Washington Post put out a story GET SMART(ER): You're No Genius? Don't Worry. You Can Still Beef Up Your Brain With a Little Effort. It is a breezing feature article that skims off the cream of neuroscience, types of intelligence, nutrition, health science, meditation and curiosity (and lots of name-dropping of scholars and researchers at big name universities) to let you know that you can improve your mental powers:
The idea that there are multiple intelligences -- that people can be intelligent visually, musically, mathematically, athletically, interpersonally and intrapersonally -- was introduced by Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner. (He later added naturalistic intelligence.) Still, whatever the type of intelligence, most people judge brainpower on practical factors, including how much you know, how well you can access what you know and what you do with it.
Labels: brain_science, health, reading
New York Times Exercise on the Brain is an op-ed piece by Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang, who know what they're talking about. The article looks at the computer software programs that claim to delay aging mental abilities, especially memory. The NY Times has a news article, Calisthenics for the Older Mind, on the Home Computer that deals with this type of progam. Aamodt and Wang play down their significance, but point in another direction:
"One form of training, however, has been shown to maintain and improve brain health — physical exercise. In humans, exercise improves what scientists call 'executive function,' the set of abilities that allows you to select behavior that's appropriate to the situation, inhibit inappropriate behavior and focus on the job at hand in spite of distractions. Executive function includes basic functions like processing speed, response speed and working memory, the type used to remember a house number while walking from the car to a party."
I am going jogging at lunch time with some colleagues from work. I am a bit hesitant to exposing my white calves and running habits (or slow times) to others, but it will be a nice change of pace.
Postdata: I ran for about 60 minutes with three friends from my office. We covered six miles on the Mall, running from near the Vietnam Memorial to the Capitol Building and back, and the walk of three blocks from and to our office building, in effect, our warm-up/cool-off period. I surprised myself. I ran for twice the distance as I do in my maximum workout. Once I got warmed up, I glided along at a nice clip without overexerting myself. Towards the end, I could tell that all the bounce had gone out of my legs. We are planning to continue with the CICAD Road Runners Club Tuesdays and Thursdays at lunch time. We'll see how long we can keep it up.
Labels: conditioning, health, news
Los Angeles Times Doctor's orders: Cross your legs and say 'Om' reports on the growing interest in the medical applications of meditation and mindfulness:
It appears to work. In a new study, published in October in the journal Pain, Natalia Morone, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, tracked the effect of mindfulness meditation on chronic lower back pain in adults 65 and older. The randomized, controlled clinical trial found that the 37 people who participated in an eight-week mindfulness meditation program had significantly greater pain acceptance and physical function than a similar size control group. Subsequently, the control group took the same eight-week program and had similar results.
Via SharpBrains blog which is a great place to keep track of trends in neuroscience, "brain fitness" and mental wellness. I check Alvaro Fernandez's site or news feed at least once a day. There are also brain teasers, in-depth articles, links to online resources, book recommendations and other information.
Labels: health, meditation, news
My interest in the Begley book is really part of an ongoing inquiry into the area of mind games &emdash; or rather the challenge of pushing mental ability to its human potential (self-realization), or healing from debilitating condition (depression, for instance), or warding off the effects of aging (I am 58 years old).
The Dana Foundation, a first-rate place for scientific information on the brain, recently posted Experts, Dalai Lama Discuss Meditation for Depression about a conference at Emory University in Atlanta last week. This conference was a continuation of the dialogue between the Dalai Lama and scientists that Begley wrote about. There was a similar conference, The Science and Clinical Applications of Meditation, organized with Georgetown University here in Washington in 2007.
What has struck me is that I've been moving in this direction for more four years, well before I started reading about these trends in neuroscience, mental health and wellness. I was on the right track. Probably, this meme had not gelled so cogently into an explicit message or I was picking up strands of the news and associated them in my mind. After all, this kind of research has been going on for more than 20 years. But is even more mind boggling is that I can sit on my mat and experience this same practice in a very personal way.
Labels: health, meditation, reading
My ears, nose and throat specialist told me today that my obstructed left maxillary sinus had cleared up remarkably from what he saw a month ago. I took penicillin for about three weeks and on Monday I had another CT scan done and the x-rays showed that my previously blocked sinus had air inside it. The doctor told me that he expected that I would need to have a surgical operation to clear it up. It was not completely recovered so I'll have to go back in three months to see if it's gotten any better.
Shortly after the original diagnosis, I purchased a Grossan Hydro Pulse ® Pulsatile Sinus System because my usual way of doing nasal washes, with a neti pot, did not stand much of a chance to clearing up a blocked sinus. This device seens a stream of warm water in one nostril and out the other, with a rhythmic pulse. I knew I was improving when I had to clear water out of my left sinus by standing in Uttanasana (Standing Forward Bend). It is expensive, but I feel it was an investment in my health. It was certainly less expensive and disruptive than surgery.
As I've stated here before, I am experiencing pranayama as if it was the first time. The sensation of moving larger volumes of breath unimpeded through my nose is an exhilarating feeling. I relish every time I sit down to do my kriya.
About two week, I noticed that I had a very bad sore, scratchy throat and a cough caused by the inflamed throat. I had trouble swallowing. Aside from that, I was not feeling any other symptoms. After it did not get better in a week, I knew something was wrong. I thought that I had inflamed tonsils or, at the worst, throat cancer from my long years of smoking so I got an appointment with a specialist.
I had a thorough examination of my nasal passages and throat. It was not the tonsils or cancer (thank God!). My left maxillary sinus (think cheekbone) is completely obstructed and densely packed with mucus or something else. On the CT scan, it shows up as if it were solid, not hollow like the right one. My doctor tells me that this condition has probably existed for some time, and he is surprised that I feel no pain. My body has evidently contained the infection until recently when the inflammation spread to tissue at the back of my throat.
I am on penicillin for the next two weeks to try to clear up the infection. Within two days of popping the pills, I felt some of the swelling go down in my throat.
I had not been going to yoga this past week because I didn't know if I had something that might be contagious. Today I went to class at Thrive and it was amazing. For the first time, I practiced without feeling my breathing obstructed. My sinuses had swollen so much that they partially blocked my breathing. This affects me especially at the early phase of the session before I was warmed up.
I know that this condition has existed for years because when I started my pranayama and yoga practice three and a half years ago, I noticed that I did not seem to breath fully. I also tended to make more noise breathing because I was forcing air through smaller air passages. I thought it was rhinitis (when the nasal passages get irritated and swell up) and consulted a doctor at work, but he seemed to think it was not anything serious. I started doing nasal rinses with saline water to clear out my nose. Although the use of a neti pot did (and does) clean out my nasal passages, it did nothing for my sinuses. Today on the mat, I noticed that I had adjusted my ujay breathing to take advantage of my swollen sinus, tightening my throat higher up. Now I have to relearn how to do ujay all over again.
Perhaps the most serious thought is that I've been carrying around an infection for years and my body has been fighting it off, confining it and clearing away the toxins, but never completely getting better. It has probably been a drag on my energy and health all that time. Maybe my yoga practice has helped ward off the worst symptoms.
