Asana for connecting with your pelvic floor

Last evening, we finished up a 3-week series intended to help folks connect with their pelvic floor to find greater balance and support in their practice and in their life.  The following is the practice we did last night - all postures either stretch or strengthen your pelvic floor.  Most postures give the opportunity to do both at once.  Move through the practice with a breath that carries as deep as you can get it, preferably so deep you can feel it moving your pelvic floor subtly. I hope you enjoy it - let me know how it goes!

Relaxation - legs up the wall, feet on the wall 90/90/90 angles, or savasana with sandbags on thighs.
Hip circles on all 4s with low back as neutral as possible
Hip circles in knee down lunge with foot to outside of hand
Downward Facing Dog - bending and straightening knees with breath
Upward facing dog
Vimasana
Frog - lifting one foot at a time
Plank
Warrior 1
Uttanasana bending and straightening knees
Mountain Pose
Hula Squats - reach arms up as you stand up, draw hands to waist elbows back as you take utkatasana
Viniyoga Warrior
Wide Angle Forward Fold
Malasana
Reclining Hero
Active Supta Baddha Konasana
Happy Baby with Sacrum on the floor
Jathara Parvritti with hips/knees 90/90.  Holding 1/2 way down.
Supta Baddha Konasana with back on bolster - can press heels together to engage pelvic floor
Mula Bandha

*A special shout out to Leslie Howard, whose work with yoga and the pelvic floor was a huge inspiration for this practice.

Start each day by falling in love with yourself!

Fabulous Post from Claudia Welch at www.prana.com, essentially on loving your self and just how healthy that is.  Those of you with kids, sounds like starting early can make a huge difference.  Ayurveda gives us such a great map for exploration!  Check it out below :-)

Ayurveda Life: Using Love and Focus To Change Our Lives

Monday, October 20th, 2014

We are excited to bring you another post in a comprehensive series on the practice of Ayurveda. ‘Ayurveda Life’ is a weekly series of posts from some of the most influential Ayurvedic authors and organizations. We are proud to partner with Banyan Botanicals and hope that you enjoy and share these posts with your communities.

“Yoga and Ayurveda are sister sciences that developed together and repeatedly influenced each other throughout history. Yoga and Ayurveda work together to enhance their great benefits on all levels”.

“The link between yoga and Ayurveda is prana, or the life force. Yoga is the intelligence of prana seeking greater evolutionary transformations, while Ayurveda is its healing power…” ~ Dr. David Frawley

Using Love and Focus To Change Our Lives

One of the powerful tools of healing and change in Ayurveda, is dinacharya, or a healthy morning routine. Ayurveda recognizes that, when we change our mornings, we change our days and….voila! our lives change.

But for morning routines to really serve to transform us on a deep level, we can’t…er…hate them.

A healthy morning routine can feel boring. Like a forced march. Like one more component of a life already too filled with obligation and chores.

There are many places a student of Ayurveda, or of life in general, may learn the important physical components of a healthy daily routine, but all too often, she may find herself temporarily adopting all these healthy practices, becoming overwhelmed, and ultimately choosing, instead, to hit the alarm, turn over and fall back asleep and continue in the momentum of her life…even if it is a life she is not enjoying. A life tainted with attachment to mental, emotional or physical habits that serve her poorly. Habits she knows she had better break, lose or change, in order to improve and enjoy her life, but finds she simply cannot.

Replacing unhealthy habits and patterns with boring ones is…not likely to work for long. The unhealthy ones are stubborn and the boring ones are…boring. Why are the unhealthy ones so stubborn, and what can we do to support the new, healthy habits to supplant them?

When we experience stubborn patterns of behavior, thinking, or illness that, despite a great deal of effort, won’t budge, it is like these were etched in cement. They’ve been with us so long that they might as well be. Often these are patterns that reach back into our early childhoods or even infancy.

In our formative years—when we are infants and young children—the matrix of our consciousness is like wet cement, into which patterns are easily etched. During this entire time, a part of our brain called the nucleus basalis, related to efficient creation of new neural pathways, is turned on 24/7. Somewhere around puberty, the cement dries, and the nucleus basalis turns off. This is useful, as keeping all those pathways alive requires a tremendous amount of energy. By preserving active patterns and pathways, and pruning away ones that are dormant or rarely, we are able to conserve more energy. However it also makes it harder both to erase old patterns and to create new ones.

Hence the difficulty in changing stubborn emotional, mental or physical patterns when we are older.

Wouldn’t it be great to have some magic softening serum that we could pour into that cement so we could more easily change our patterns?

There is such a serum. It is called oxytocin, and it renders the matrix into which impressions are made in the brain, more vulnerable to new impressions. It is precisely like softening the cement.

Oxytocin, sometimes called the “love hormone,” or the “cuddle hormone,” is a hormone that increases when we feel a loving connection to someone or something. When we love, we get softer, and so do our brains.

When oxytocin rises, our neural pathways are rendered more receptive to new impressions. Love makes us more receptive to change.

Almost every time my guru would put us into meditation in the mornings, he would say, “Do your meditation lovingly. Don’t think of it as a burden.” As with anything the saints say, there are secrets to this that go deeper than the obvious meaning, but my guru said it so often that I stopped hearing it. That is, until many years after His passing, when I learned about oxytocin.

Once we have softened the cement, we need to consider how to make a new impression. Wouldn't it be great if we could turn that nucleus basalis back on?

Ahh, but we can. Through focus. Concerted focus is one of the few “on” switches that reactivate the nucleus basalis, allowing us, once again, to more efficiently create new neural pathways.

The combination of love, which stimulates oxytocin and softens the matrix into which impressions are made, and focus—which reactivates the nucleus basalis—is therefore a powerful combination that makes real change more within our grasp. If we employ this duo in our morning routines, we create an even more powerful agent of change.

If we are tense, rushed, distracted, or result-oriented while we do our morning practices, oxytocin is not flowing and the nucleus basalis is dormant. When we apply love and focus, the combination has a calming effect on the nervous system, body, and spirit and allows us to more efficiently create new patterns. This dynamic duo can help us truly replace stubborn patterns. A loving and focused morning routine serves as medicine to remedy old patterns and establish healthy new ones.

So, it is not sufficient to go through the motions of a healthy daily routine. We need to be willing to fall in love every morning. This could be with a piece of music, a representation of the Divine, a pet, a parent, a child, a spouse, Nature…the object of our love is not as important as the act of loving itself. It may be useful to pick something impersonal to love, like nature or a representation of the divine or the Good Orderly Direction (the G.O.D.) of the universe, so that it is a stable recipient of our love, unable to be threatened, but the most important thing is that we fall in love. Every morning.

A healthy morning routine, the most important component of a dinacharya—a healthy daily routine— may eventually become habit, then nature, and change our lives, but it will do so more quickly and enjoyably if we employ love and focus.

~Dr. Claudia Welch

Dr. Claudia Welch, author of Balance Your Hormones, Balance Your Life: Achieving Optimal Health and Wellness Through Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine and Western Science, is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, an Ayurvedic practitioner and speaker.  Dr. Welch lectures internationally on Eastern medicines and Women’s Health, joyfully exploring how ancient idea apply to, and explain, today’s reality. Learn more atwww.DrClaudiaWelch.com.

The Ocean's Breath

I've spent alot of time in the ocean this past week , as I explore Maui.  The ocean is not a place I've always felt comfortable but it's really growing on me.  Its like a good friend that it just took a while to connect with.  As I connect with it more and more, I've been noticing the subtleties of how it moves, how it breathes, the rhythm and flow.  It's like a pranayama.  I'm not quite sure of what is movement, breath or energy but it all comes together into this amazing, life affirming experience.

As the tide is rising and the waves are getting more intense, I've noticed there is a distinct pattern that lets you know how big the wave will be.  There is a moment where you feel everything pulling out to sea, even your feet if you don't anchor yourself.  Then there is a moment of stillness.  Finally the wave rises behind you, a gentle arc, then rolls over itself into shore, crashing and rushing yet still maintaining its calming essence and energy.  

If I try to breathe like a wave, I find myself with a steady inhale til I am completely full, a pause at the top, then I let the exhale come rushing gently out.  That gentle quality is important.  The wave maintains all the way to shore, it just gets smaller; it doesn't become anything else, its still a wave.  Less about change, more about the cycle.

Combining this breathwork with my asana practice gave a lovely vinyasa.  Ebbing and flowing from posture to posture, using the wave to inspire my movement led to undulating, spine releasing postures that move the whole body and balanced my energy, carrying me into a state of bliss.  My favorite flows? There were three...  Inhale to child's pose --> pause --> exhale to cobra.  Inhale to downward facing dog --> pause --> exhale to upward facing dog.  Inhale to bridge --> pause --> full puvana muktasana/apanasana.

The movement changes, but the breath, the breath keeps its cycle - taking you deeper into each expression, inside and out.  

Blissed out at the beach...

Bedtime Yoga

It's late at night, you have a big day tomorrow, you know you should go to bed (maybe on your Casper mattress - they requested this yummy post :-).  Your body is exhausted but your mind is racing.  How on earth will you ever get to sleep?  How about a little yoga to soothe your soul?

Forward folding poses all help create deeper relaxation and internal focus.  Any of your favorites are good options - paschimottanasana, resting pigeon, wide angle forward fold, and especially child's pose.

Twists help to wring out the tension that builds along your spine during the day and help you integrate one side of your body (and mind!) with the other.  As it is evening, reclining twists are especially nice - jathara parivrtti, supta matsyendrasana.

Any pose you choose, you will want it to be relatively static with deep conscious breaths throughout your hold.  Dynamic poses (and backbends) tend to raise your energy, the last thing you want when you are trying to wind down.  So leave the sun salutations til you actually see the sun!

My number one best bedtime practice?  Viparita Karani (legs up the wall) with pranayama (conscious breathing).  This one is especially great as, if your bed is against the wall, it can be done in bed. It will help your circulation as the return toward your heart is easier with your legs up and it will help move the lactic acid from your legs so you won't be sore from that workout you did earlier.  What pranayam pattern to do?  Use your favorite as it will relax you more.  And lengthen your exhale slowly and consistently - this signals to your nervous system to switch from fight or flight to rest and digest, jut where you want to be.

Finally, after you have completed your practice, however short or long, and are starting to feel relaxation and calm settling in, go to bed. Take your savasana here.  Focus on your breath and let yourself drift away....

How Yoga Changed My Life - new blogging from local yogini!

Our local yoga community is full of interesting people!  Bridget Hales started a blog this spring and has been posting about yoga, wellness, parenting, and food (yum!).  I encourage you to check out her blog, she has such a lovely writing voice - http://hotteatravelandthyme.blogspot.com/ - her latest post is How Yoga Changed My Life :-)  Enjoy and let her know it!

Can you believe it? Humans prefer an electric shock to being left alone with their thoughts

This experiment blew my mind!  We clearly need more practice being with ourselves... what do you think?  Do you spend time with yourself, alone?  Honestly, its one of my favorite things to do but I do still distract myself an awful lot (especially with all my electronics). *I am inspired now to put them down more often, less I get to a point where I'd rather shock myself than do nothing with myself*

 Read on for the article From The Verge - http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/4/5870573/rather-electrocute-ourselves-than-be-alone-with-thoughts  By Arielle Duhaime-Ross 

Humans prefer an electric shock to being left alone with their thoughts

The experiment was simple. All the participants had to do was enter an empty room, sit down, and think for six to 15 minutes. But without a cellphone, a book, or a television screen to stare at, the assignment quickly became too much to handle. In fact, even when individuals were given time to "prepare" for being alone — meaning that they were able to plan what they would think about during their moments of solitude — the participants still "found it hard," Timothy Wilson, a psychologist at the University of Virginia and lead author of the study, told The Washington Post. "People didn’t like it much."

So the researchers decided to give each participant the option of doing something else, besides just thinking. But what they came up with wasn’t exactly pleasant because, instead of just sitting there, participants were now also allowed to shock themselves as many times as they liked with a device containing a 9 volt battery. Still, for many, that option seemed like a better deal.

Most of the people who decided to shock themselves did so seven times. These results baffled the researchers. "I mean, no one was going to shock themselves by choice," Wilson, told The Washington Post in reference to his initial position during the conception of the study, published yesterday in Science. One man even gave himself 190 electric shocks over a period of 15 minutes, Wilson told The Atlantic, but his data points weren’t included in the final analysis. "I’m still just puzzled by that."

Still, the fact that they chose to shock themselves at all, on their own, was unexpected. And this had nothing to do with curiosity about what the shocks would feel like, because the researchers made sure that each individual received a shock before the beginning of the session.

Yet, people voluntarily shocking themselves repeatedly wasn’t the only surprise. According to the researchers, men showed a marked preference for the negative stimulation. Out of 24 women, only six decided to shock themselves, but 12 out of the 18 male participants figured electric shocks were worthwhile. This, the researchers hypothesize, might have to do with the fact that men appear to be more willing to take risks for the sake of a intense and complex experiences than women.

The results of this study are tentative, however, and the sample sizes — a total of 11 experiments that included between 40 and 100 university students each — were fairly small, so researchers will need to repeat them. But for now, it would appear that humans, especially men, seem to prefer receiving negative, even painful stimulation, to suffering through the bouts of obligatory "mind-wandering" — which you could also call "boredom," depending on how you want to look at it.

Finding Your Happiest Yoga Hips - Integrated Practice and Pelvic Floor Awareness

Our final class incorporates some awareness of the pelvic floor and exploration of how the many ways our hips move can enhance our postures...

The pelvic floor isn't really a part of the hips, but it can have a very significant impact on the hips if it is tight. This will impact flexibility in the hips as it inhibits ROM for the pelvis and sacrum – as you already know most of the hip muscles attach to these two boney structures.

Go ahead and lie down and let's find the muscles groups that form the pelvic floor. The contraction of these muscles can be very subtle, especially if they are tight, so focus and be patient with yourself. Lie in Supta Baddha Konasana (knees apart, feet together), this stretches the pelvic floor a bit and can make it easier to sense.

- The first (outermost) layer of your pelvic floor attaches public bone ↔ tailbone. Draw these bones toward each other, can you sense the layer? What else happens in your body?

• The second layer attaches SITZ bone ↔ SITZ bone. Draw these bones toward each other, can you sense the layer? What else happens in your body?
• The third layer attaches sacrum ↔ pubic bone. Draw these toward each other, can you sense the layer? What happens elsewhere in your body?
• Try engaging all the layer – what does that feel like, what do you notice?
• Deepen your breath – can you feel it as it moves your organs toward your pelvic floor? If you can, try contracting the pelvic floor, then the belly as you exhale – really moving the breath UP.

For our hips purposes, we are not going to work on strengthening these muscles, rather we will focus on awareness to bring a greater understanding to their role and maybe a little extra relaxation. For all intents and purposes, these muscles are really a part of your core, working with your central body muscles, i.e. abs.  As you move through your practice, take a moment in each pose and see if you can sense the role of your pelvic floor.

As you practice, explore the engagement and release of different muscle groups toward the enhancement of the pose.  How would it feel to engage more internal rotation in your utkatasana or uttanasana?  How would it feel to engage more flexion in your anjaneyasanas?  Experiment, play, develop your awareness.  Each body is different, find what support you best, find what opens your pose more deliciously.  Consider working antagonist groups against each other (these are muscles that oppose each other - flexors/extensors, adductors/abductors, internal rotators/external rotators).  Incorporate this new knowledge into your everyday practice for happier hips.

Note – I am working on a pelvic floor series class and will offer it as soon as I find the time. Stay tuned!