Last Sunday I saw a documentary movie "Forks over Knives". It was an eye-opener, a new wake up call, a eureka moment! The last time I had this moment was exactly 5 years ago as I stood on the side of a cold, smoggy New Delhi road puking my guts out after a severe asthma attack. I thought I was going to die and it started me on the path of yoga. "Forks over Knives" inspired me to go "cold turkey" vegetarian only since last Sunday. I had anxiety pangs, meat withdrawals and on two occasions I cheated a bit, but all in all I stuck with the plan of mostly plant diet.
I have had several shorts stints of vegetarian diet since last year in May when I had the pleasure of meeting Geetaji (Ms. Geeta Iyengar). The Iyengar family is strictly vegetarian. But each time I would give up. Today is my 9th day and I remain committed to remaining vegetarian and I think I can keep going at it.
I have also been practicing pranayama and my second class with Jen on Thursday evening felt even better. I realized I had been practicing Ujai 4 for the last many days on my own. I would say that makes me feel the best. I also increased my exercise regime, with short bursts of intense cardio, interspersed with brisker walking and more yoga stretches at gym.
On Friday I went for my physical exam and my blood pressure was was 98/68 from the typical 140/90 type. My pulse was 88, when its usually in the high 90s. The nurse was shocked. The doctor checked it again and it was 98/70. He suggested dropping dosage or stopping one of my BP-meds all together. I suggested waiting.
I am not sure if its just one thing, but even a few weeks of diet, regular exercise and yoga practice is making a difference in my health. My energy levels are higher and stress levels lower. "Long interrupted practice", is my mantra for diet, exercise and yoga! I will keep repeating this in my head as I travel to Hawaii/Maui tomorrow AM. I will be packing my own fruit salad as lunch to take on flight - a first!
Change happens slowly - one step at a time. A deep inhalation, a pause, followed by a deep exhalation - Shubh Ratri, Good night - Namaste!
Showing posts with label yoga for lower back ache. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yoga for lower back ache. Show all posts
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Fight the pain!
My writer's block has continued. It has been hard to motivate myself to collect my thoughts and put the "electronic pen" to the "electronic paper". I had prepared a synopsis of my India trip, especially 5 days I spent in Pune where I had the opportunity to visit Abhay's studio and get 2 hours of yoga every morning. It did wonders for my sciatica and lower back. I also took a very fun "Sports yoga" class where we did "fast poses" and the whole class.
I arrived in India and spent the first week in excruciating pain and the last 5 days were bliss despite long hours and nights at work. I got a chance to say goodbye to some friends from Chile, who had not only spent a year in Pune practicing at the institute, but travelled extensively and absorbed the culture to the fullest. I highly recommend this to folks who want to come and practice at the institute. I know many come for a month and have a packed schedule. But experiencing the people and culture is as important as 5-6 hours of yoga at the institute where you live in a bubble.
In addition to being in Pune, I had the pleasure to connect with my past from 28 years, my classmates from grade 10 and visiting the place I grew up. I left with a profound message from Abhay as I struggled with chronic back pain. "Don't try to avoid it, fight it"! I am fighting it..
Namaste
I arrived in India and spent the first week in excruciating pain and the last 5 days were bliss despite long hours and nights at work. I got a chance to say goodbye to some friends from Chile, who had not only spent a year in Pune practicing at the institute, but travelled extensively and absorbed the culture to the fullest. I highly recommend this to folks who want to come and practice at the institute. I know many come for a month and have a packed schedule. But experiencing the people and culture is as important as 5-6 hours of yoga at the institute where you live in a bubble.
In addition to being in Pune, I had the pleasure to connect with my past from 28 years, my classmates from grade 10 and visiting the place I grew up. I left with a profound message from Abhay as I struggled with chronic back pain. "Don't try to avoid it, fight it"! I am fighting it..
Namaste
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Hang upside down and let your aches and pain dissipate...
On Saturday I attended Nuvana's back care class at Sunset Yoga after a Friday evening back care regiment in private session with her. We determined that forward bends were aggravating it, so there were a number of supported back bends performed, along with twists. She avoided the traction with belts. My back pain was isolated to the lower left and heavy lifting was responsible in aggravating an old injury many years ago playing racquetball. Nuvana has no background in human physiology or anatomy, but she has a knack for isolating the area and using her skills to twist, stretch and turn you to relax the area. It is interesting to observe and feel your back pain slowly disappearing albeit for a short while.
Back to Saturday morning. The pain had moved to the center of the lower back and any forward bending would aggravate it. It was bearable. The class had many who were in some sort of pain. We started with some sitting poses and I could feel my shoulders tighten. Did I sleep wrong. The class was hard and eventually we ended up at the ropes. The best 10 minutes were hanging down in sirsasana. I had done rope sirsasana in some time and that just relaxed me completely. I would highly recommend it....
Namaste
The Yogi
Back to Saturday morning. The pain had moved to the center of the lower back and any forward bending would aggravate it. It was bearable. The class had many who were in some sort of pain. We started with some sitting poses and I could feel my shoulders tighten. Did I sleep wrong. The class was hard and eventually we ended up at the ropes. The best 10 minutes were hanging down in sirsasana. I had done rope sirsasana in some time and that just relaxed me completely. I would highly recommend it....
Namaste
The Yogi
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Lower back pain - A revisit
I received a nice comment from an anonymous reader on an earlier lower back pain post - his lower back melted away I guess!!! Well little did he or she know that my lower back pain re-appeared on my left side. There was heavy lifting of 60 pound munchkins and that did the trick to my lower back. Old injuries have an interesting way of re-appearing when you think yoga took care of it. Coincidentally my knee pains disappeared. Its like a see-saw. Knee pains goes Back pain comes and vice-versa.
Monday night advanced yoga was hard, I failed miserably on the arm balancing poses, the poses I love the most have become my nemesis and my back hurt horrendously. Its been a horrendous three days till this evening. But I have chosen not to be miserable and didn't give permission to my backache to make me miserable nor the person who threatened to make my life miserable in utter mindless behavior. I rejected the pain both in my back and landed in my Wednesday night class with Nuvana at the gym. There is back ache, but there is resolve to get through the class.
I cannot bend to properly complete Uttanasana, so I bend as far as I can. The poses are challenging, but I choose not make them my nemesis, especially revolved triangle pose. Nuvana is great in moving the class along, there are many new yogis, all jazzed by her precision. The class has ballooned from about 10 to 25. I manage a good Vriksasana on my left foot, but not the right. It was an hour class - there were several variations of the triangle poses from Adhomukasvanasana. We ended with a small resting pose. I had kept my backache at bay, but it would appear in sharp intervals. So I checked in with Nuvana at the end of the class.
"Get into Adhomukhavirasana" she remarked! "Now!" Yeah right now she said. So off I went in the middle of the class dismissing itself. She walked over and stretched my spine. It felt good. Then she asked me to grab her ankles and while holding my lower back down she pulled her legs back. It It resulted in an intense stretch of the spine and the back. She asked me to get up and asked if it helped. "Of course it did!" I let out... The backache just melted away...it was a 30 second yoga therapy session with long lasting effects.
I learnt another lesson - by not giving permission to the pain and misery I have permission to myself to be relieved from the pain. Fear of pain is the cause of misery in life - I freed myself from it today.
Namaste
The Yogi
Monday night advanced yoga was hard, I failed miserably on the arm balancing poses, the poses I love the most have become my nemesis and my back hurt horrendously. Its been a horrendous three days till this evening. But I have chosen not to be miserable and didn't give permission to my backache to make me miserable nor the person who threatened to make my life miserable in utter mindless behavior. I rejected the pain both in my back and landed in my Wednesday night class with Nuvana at the gym. There is back ache, but there is resolve to get through the class.
I cannot bend to properly complete Uttanasana, so I bend as far as I can. The poses are challenging, but I choose not make them my nemesis, especially revolved triangle pose. Nuvana is great in moving the class along, there are many new yogis, all jazzed by her precision. The class has ballooned from about 10 to 25. I manage a good Vriksasana on my left foot, but not the right. It was an hour class - there were several variations of the triangle poses from Adhomukasvanasana. We ended with a small resting pose. I had kept my backache at bay, but it would appear in sharp intervals. So I checked in with Nuvana at the end of the class.
"Get into Adhomukhavirasana" she remarked! "Now!" Yeah right now she said. So off I went in the middle of the class dismissing itself. She walked over and stretched my spine. It felt good. Then she asked me to grab her ankles and while holding my lower back down she pulled her legs back. It It resulted in an intense stretch of the spine and the back. She asked me to get up and asked if it helped. "Of course it did!" I let out... The backache just melted away...it was a 30 second yoga therapy session with long lasting effects.
I learnt another lesson - by not giving permission to the pain and misery I have permission to myself to be relieved from the pain. Fear of pain is the cause of misery in life - I freed myself from it today.
Namaste
The Yogi
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Fix Lower Back Pain with Iyengar Yoga Therapy
Long air travel has been never been good for my lower back and this recent trip back from Canada brought it back with a vengeance. I have been back-ache free for many many months. There was no personal class with Nuvana this week so I decided to attend her back-care class on Saturday at Sunset Yoga Center.
The class was overflowing - wow! I barely squeezed in. She asked by a raise of hands on how many of us were suffering from lower back pain. Majority raised the hands. I was expecting the usual poses, but Nuvana had a different sequence today. The class started with a Dandasana, with real focus on lifting up the spine. We quickly moved to Tadasana. From Tadasana, it was urdhava hastasana and then Utkatasana. She focused on making sure that the back was straight and the buttocks moved down. That action of pushing the buttocks down and stretching of the upper back is key to relaxing the lower back muscles. That brings immediate relief.
We then moved to doing an arm stretch on the wall and the slipping down to a half Uttanasana. The focus is again on stretching the spine, and creating some space for the lower back to relax. The next set of poses involved using a chair to perform a forward bend while sitting on the chair, but tying a strap around your lower waist. This was followed by a twist on either side while in a forward bending position.
Then a standing pose against the wall with one leg on the chair in a square position and pushing the bent leg back to the wall while pushing the opposite leg to be flush with the wall. This pose was amazing for the back as the pressure was applied to the gluteus muscles to tighten and give the relief and space to the back muscles.
By the time we approached the last asana of the class - a supported badhakonasana / savasana my lower back pain had disappeared. Its been over 24 hours and there has been no recurrence. Not only did my back get relief, I was relaxed and felt I had a decent workout as well.
As I left I had convinced one new student that this was the way to go. My colleague mentioned that her headaches had improved after her first class with Nuvana. This is the power of Nuvana's sequence of yoga poses and Iyengar Yoga Therapy. Thanks Nuvana!
Namaste
The Yogi.
The class was overflowing - wow! I barely squeezed in. She asked by a raise of hands on how many of us were suffering from lower back pain. Majority raised the hands. I was expecting the usual poses, but Nuvana had a different sequence today. The class started with a Dandasana, with real focus on lifting up the spine. We quickly moved to Tadasana. From Tadasana, it was urdhava hastasana and then Utkatasana. She focused on making sure that the back was straight and the buttocks moved down. That action of pushing the buttocks down and stretching of the upper back is key to relaxing the lower back muscles. That brings immediate relief.
We then moved to doing an arm stretch on the wall and the slipping down to a half Uttanasana. The focus is again on stretching the spine, and creating some space for the lower back to relax. The next set of poses involved using a chair to perform a forward bend while sitting on the chair, but tying a strap around your lower waist. This was followed by a twist on either side while in a forward bending position.
Then a standing pose against the wall with one leg on the chair in a square position and pushing the bent leg back to the wall while pushing the opposite leg to be flush with the wall. This pose was amazing for the back as the pressure was applied to the gluteus muscles to tighten and give the relief and space to the back muscles.
By the time we approached the last asana of the class - a supported badhakonasana / savasana my lower back pain had disappeared. Its been over 24 hours and there has been no recurrence. Not only did my back get relief, I was relaxed and felt I had a decent workout as well.
As I left I had convinced one new student that this was the way to go. My colleague mentioned that her headaches had improved after her first class with Nuvana. This is the power of Nuvana's sequence of yoga poses and Iyengar Yoga Therapy. Thanks Nuvana!
Namaste
The Yogi.
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