Life is like a challenging yoga pose!

Life is like a challenging yoga pose!

Have you ever noticed that the same patterns show up at every level, body, mind, heart and spirit.  If you can embody your deepest convictions in the performance of a challenging yoga posture, why can’t you bring those same qualities into your daily life.  The answer is, you can!  Here’s how.

Say you have an area of your body that’s tight, stuck of weak.  Take the example of tight hips or hamstrings.  When you practice, you are inevitably going to come up against the restriction of these areas.  What do you do?  Typically, people don’t storm away angry from their yoga practice saying “I’m tight in my hamstrings, I must be a bad person, I”ve always been this way, it will always be this way and this totally limits my life and always will”.  No, they stay in the poses that challenge them and learn to breathe, soften and allow these restrictions to soften, little by little, day by day, until a few years go by and they realize they’re not as tight as they used to be.

But when we come up an emotional or mental restriction, we often do rail against these places where we feel stuck or tight.  We often project our tightness in the heart onto others, calling them bad, mean, challenging, they’ve hurt us, betrayed us, or this situation is too difficult to bare and we have to get out now.  What if instead, we could see the relationships or situations that challenge us the most as difficult yoga poses that we need to stay in, learn to breathe in and figure out the optimal way to align, body, mind and heart to be successful?  Our experience in life would change dramatically.

No one is saying this is easy!!  It isn’t and won’t be.  But if we can learn to breathe in a yoga pose that’s difficult, I truly believe that we can learn to breathe everywhere.   If we’re breathing, we’re alive and more aware and able to apply active intelligence to figure out the optimal way to meet life with all its challenging moments.

Good luck!!  Write to me and tell me how you were able to keep breathing and apply your intelligence to shift your inner relationship to a challenging situation!

Deb Neubauer is a Certified Anusara Instructor and an E-RYT 500 who travels throughout the world offering the teachings with a joyful heart. For more information about Deb and her teaching events, please visit her website at:  www.anahatayogacenter.com, or www.debneubauer.com.  You can also take classes with Deb at www.yogavibes.com. 

Yoga for Anxiety!

Over the last few decades, there have been many scientific studies that give credence to how effective a tool yoga can be for managing anxiety and depression.   When practiced over an extended period of time, yoga postures combined with focusing techniques for the mind and calm, steady, deep breathing, have been shown to dramatically affect physiological markers that indicate state of mind and quality of awareness.

Researchers have been able to measure diminishing levels of stress hormones, increased melatonin levels, decreased blood pressure and respiration rates, increased levels of oxygen in the blood, and shifts in brain wave activity that all indicate shifting into deeper states of calm and relaxation.

Based on these most recent studies, I’ve come up with a 7-step approach to treating anxiety, obsessive worrying, and insomnia.  If you suffer from any of these conditions, keep in mind that it may be most appropriate for you to seek medical assistance first, and use these approaches in conjunction with the advice of your doctor, psychiatrist or psychotherapist.

Here are my suggestions for a daily yoga practice:

1.    Cultivate awareness of how continuing to engage the barrage of anxious, worried, obsessive or angry thoughts is affecting you.  This is a continuous, daily practice that you’ll get better at if you keep up with it.  It involves cultivating awareness in your body, mind and heart of how automatic negative thoughts and stress affect you, body, mind and soul.

2.    Cultivate the practice of stepping back, softening and opening yourself to something greater.

3.    Develop a daily practice of learning to concentrate the mind on a neutral word or mantra like AUM.  This can even be helpful when you are feeling anxious, worried or overwhelmed. Try silently repeating or even shouting the mantra AUM as a way of distracting your mind off of disturbing thoughts. 

4.    Learn the Ujjayi breath from a trained and skillful yoga teacher.  The Ujjayi breathing is characterized by a steady, calm, resonant sound made by toning the back of the throat on inhalation and exhalation.  It sounds like the ocean in your ears. The sound of the breath gives you something very tangible to listen to, rather than listening to the disturbing thoughts in your mind.  An attempt should also be made to make the length of the inhalation and the length of the exhalation approximately even.  At the end of each exhalation, you can pause for just one to two counts, to give your mind a chance to calmly settle into the pause.

5.    Practice poses that get your head below the level of the heart.  Poses like Uttanasana, Downward facing dog and Prasarita Padottanasana all with the head supported, as well as seated forward bends also with the head supported work well here.  These poses help to optimize functioning of the pituitary, pineal and thyroid glands as well as the hypothalamus all of which help to regulate neurotransmitter levels that affect brain function.

****  Please note that if you suffer from high blood pressure, cardiac or eye pressure conditions, you need to be very careful with putting your head below the level of the heart.  Please check with your physician to be sure this is appropriate for you.

6.    Practice poses that open up the hips and seat the thigh bones down or toward the back plane. Pidgeon pose, Badha Konasana, Gomukasana are all excellent in this portion of the practice.

7.    Practice restorative postures such as Supta Badha Konasana, Supported Setu Bandha Sarvangasana, and especially practice poses that soften the kidney/adrenal band with poses like flat back viparita karani and supported forward bends.

Whether you have 5 minutes or one hour to practice, a little goes a long way.  With loving attention, and constant dedicated practice of this 7 step approach, you will be daily empowering yourself to shit toward a more calm, relaxed and peaceful inner state which will help you meet life with more enthusiasm and joy.

In 2012, I’ll be offering several class series and workshops specifically geared toward addressing Yoga for Anxiety and Insomnia.  Please visit my website, www.anahatayogacenter.com or www.debneubauer.com to get details.

Please also write to me to share your experiences with yoga as a way of managing anxiety, depression or insomnia.
I wish you peace and calm contentment.

Deb Neubauer, Certified Anusara Instructor, E-RYT 500, has been a student of yoga since 1985, and a practicioner of meditation since 1995.  Deb’s teaching is infused by streams of light and inspiration generously offered by all her teachers, most especially John Friend who she met in 1993, and more recently, Paul Muller-Ortega.  Her teaching reflects a well-rounded blend of poetic inspiration, sound methodology, technical understanding, and the deep feeling of the heart.    Deb’s teaching embodies her deep commitment to the practices as tools for healing, transformation and empowerment.   Behind her vision as a teacher is the certainty that every human heart holds exquisitely magnificent light and beauty. The task and promise of yoga is to assist the unveiling of this light and beauty as an act of service to the world.  Deb currently resides in Western Massachusetts with her family.  She travels throughout the world offering the teachings with a joyful heart. For more information about Deb and her teaching events, please visit her website at:  www.anahatayogacenter.com, or www.debneubauer.com.  You can also take classes with Deb at www.yogavibes.com.