Hello, and welcome to The Own Your Health Podcast,
I'm Cyndi Lynne, and I can't wait to
help you step into your health power.
So, in continuing our ask me how series, ask me not
what I think about or my evaluation of, but ask me
how I think about today's topic, which is yoga.
Yoga is a topic I get asked about a lot.
There seems to be this draw to it, this
mystique, even about it, where very, very many times
clients, especially my female clients, are drawn to yoga,
but they don't really know how to approach it.
They don't really know it's for them.
And so some of the common things I'll hear
is, I would really love to do yoga, but
I'm really stiff and not flexible, or I could
never do yoga because I can't bend at all.
And this is one of those cases that's
really kind of the chicken and the egg.
If you are completely inflexible, you probably need
yoga much more than someone who is very
flexible and can move very easily.
So it's not, you know, flexibility is not the
skill you need to have to start yoga.
It is an outcome,
it's a byproduct of practicing yoga.
So when somebody says to me,
what do you think about yoga?
I say, well, are you asking what I think about it
as a practice, or are you asking how you might choose
or how yoga might apply to you and your health journey?
And if that's the case, I would
encourage you to consider it this way.
First of all, there's lots of types of yoga.
There's probably 10, 12, 14
types and variations of yoga.
There's some of the more common ones that people are familiar
with is a vinyasa yoga or a flow yoga, where you
move from one motion, one posture, into the next.
Coordinated breathing.
It's very dynamic, okay? That's a,
it's a fabulous yoga for revving things up.
It's a little bit challenging for beginners because you
move from one pose to the next so quickly
there isn't a lot of time to learn
individual poses or to work on alignment.
Figure out how your body is really
working into each of these positions.
So, as an aside, these, these postures, or asanas,
asanas really translate to being the seat
and how you sit into, how you
settle into a particul ar posture or pose.
So Vinyasa moves from one pose
to the next very quickly.
There's kind of on the opposite
end of that - restorative yoga.
And this yoga is done almost passively in
that you have a lot of props and
positioning to help your body relax.
It's designed to calm your nervous system.
And for someone who's go, go, go
type a constantly buzzing, that can be as
challenging as a super fast flow yoga.
To really be able to settle and let your legs
rest upon a bolster or rest in a position, let
your shoulders rest and relax, can be super challenging.
Another type of yoga that you may
have heard about is hot yoga.
And this is, this can be a very
prescribed, like bikram, a very prescribed series of
poses done in a very hot, humid room
or it can be much more loosely
choreographed kind of series of poses.
And even sometimes time to work on your
own again in a very heated room.
So that's another way for the body to face a challenge.
There is yin yoga.
This is a series of yoga poses
that would be planned or choreographed, if
you will, coordinated with the breath.
But each pose is held much longer, so you have more
time to settle in to find that seat in any given
pose, especially if you're working with a good instructor who does
hands on adjustments or cueing in order to help you find
what the pose is supposed to be doing.
One of the interesting parts about yoga is that you
can make the picture, you can make the shape of
your body and still not necessarily be using the parts
of the body, the muscles, the joints that are intended.
So a good instructor will help you find the purpose
in that pose, the reason that you're doing it, the
ability to find that seat there and then hold it
for a time in something like yin yoga.
Now there's also yoga that can be done in chairs.
I taught chair yoga in a number of retirement
and assisted living facilities for a number of years.
And then there's Ashtanga yoga.
And that's the one that I often get the
most questions about, because when I get approached by
a lot of my clients, who tend to be
women in their thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, they're very
often looking for very athletic yoga.
They want the yoga experience, but
they want kind of gym results.
And this one I find most fascinating, because ashtanga yoga
was actually developed well, really all yoga, the movement that
we do with our bodies is a part of a
system, and the function of the movement of the body
is to use that energy to get,
to get kind of get all the
wiggles out before you sit for meditation.
So the physical practice of yoga is
typically done prior to sitting for meditation.
Ashtanga yoga especially was practiced by young boys, men, adolescents,
with lots of energy to burn off, huge amounts of
energy to burn off in order so they could sit
and learn or be lectured by their teachers.
So I find it fascinating that women who get
to that middle age kind of category, who typically
don't have a lot of energy to burn off,
are drawn to that type of yoga.
But it fits in a way that these are usually women
who are pretty driven in their career, they're driven in, goal
oriented, and this is just really what they want.
They want to make something happen.
But often what your body needs is
the opposite of what it's drawn to.
So that's just kind of a brief overview
of the different types of yoga, and I'd
be happy to answer any questions.
There's a lot of information available on these,
but it brings us back to the fundamental
question about, okay, what about yoga for me?
And it really depends on what kind of
shape your body's in, what your goals are,
what your intention is for doing yoga.
I believe that there is a yoga for
everybody, but not all yoga is for everybody.
And so finding the type of yoga that suits
you for this season in your life, for this
time, for this month, for this week of your
life, can be a very different process.
And so I would encourage you when you think about yoga,
and if I want to have a daily yoga practice or
a weekly yoga practice, what does my body need?
What is my overall approach?
Why do I want to do this?
Do I want work for my body?
Do I want a means by which to relax?
Do I need to ramp up my energy?
Do I need to settle?
Do I need to calm a busy mind?
Do I need, I need more movement?
Do I need less movement?
Do I need more precision?
Do I need to really get my mind inside my body
to understand what's going on, what it needs, what it wants?
And I usually, that's usually the question that people really
stop and think about the most, because if we're doing
faster activities, or if we're doing activities that happen very
quickly that require a lot of cueing and a lot
of instruction, we follow along in a class, that's great,
and it gets us our physical activity, but it also
keeps our mind targeted on what that person is saying
and trying to do it.
If we do something, for example, like a
yin yoga, where you receive instruction, you carry
out those instructions in your body.
You have time to settle in to that, to
feel what's working, what's not working, what's supposed to
be working, to potentially have someone come around and
help you with adjustments, help you find the seat
of that pose and the purpose of that is
not so that you look like everyone else or
you look like the pictures in the magazines.
The purpose of finding that right seat, that right
Asana in the pose, is so that you are
using the correct parts of your body to achieve
that position, that pose, that shape.
And when you are using the right parts,
there's an amazing comfort that you find.
You actually do find a seat.
There may be effort, but it's
not a straining at the edge.
You find this resting place within the posture.
So ask yourself, what does my body need right now?
What does it need today?
I have had yoga practices that have lasted for years.
I've taken breaks from it.
Sometimes I wonder why I took,
I don't know how it happens.
Life happens.
And then it's a while before I get back
on my mat, and I really crave that.
I really look forward to being on my mat.
What I found is, excuse me, I can't
do the same practice every day because my
body really isn't the same every day.
So I have ways that I practice methods that I use
when I need a little bit more support, and methods that
I use when I have a little bit more energy and
really want to kind of go after it.
And that is back to the fundamental principles of owning
your health is knowing where your body is, where your
mind is, what your capabilities are right now, in this
moment, and then choosing the correct tool.
So choosing the tool amongst the yoga practices would be
knowing that you have at least a cursory kind of
understanding of what the different types of yoga are.
So that if you're going to take a class, if
you're going to select a class online, if you're going
to select a class in the studio that you can
look, and they usually have descriptions in there and a
little bit of something about the teacher so that you
can find something that matches up with what your body
needs today to support you.
Now, I do not teach classes.
I do teach individuals.
I do use yoga and Pilates for that matter, in,
in my practice, in office, individually
with clients, one on one.
And I can tell you, it's interesting because I have
had clients come with injuries from yoga, from either choosing
the wrong type or pushing a little bit too hard.
And I've also used yoga with even those same clients
in order to help them rehab from those injuries.
So it's an amazing tool.
I would like to say if you are
here in the Twin Cities, Minneapolis St.
Paul, in the area, I would love to give you an
introduction and help you select a starting point for your program
and I put a link to the show notes.
If you want to meet with me and
do that, I am accepting new clients.
And if you just want to call, if you just
want to consult, if you want to talk about.
All right, where do I start?
How do I start thinking about this?
For me, I would be more than happy to talk to you.
Again, a link down in the show notes.
You can book time with me.
And if you have a girlfriend, if you have a
buddy who has been saying we should go to a
yoga class, we need to sign up for yoga.
Go ahead and share this so that you're both working
from the same information so you can both start doing
the same research to figure out what's best for you.
Again, owning your health is all about knowing where you
are and what you need at any given moment.
So if you like this, share it.
Go ahead and subscribe so you
don't miss any of these episodes.
And until next week, let's go out and own it.
