Practicing Yoga Mindfully (Rerun)

by Nina

Raindrops and Reflections by Nina Zolotow

Although it’s a rather new concept, approaching yoga poses as a mindfulness practice is a very powerful tool for improving your physical and mental health. Whether you are trying to change your eating habits, reduce your stress, or heal from disease, learning to listen to your body is crucial. In his wonderful book Full Catastrophe Living, Jon Kabat-Zinn points out what happens if we simply operate in automatic-pilot mode:

"One very important domain of our lives and experience that we tend to miss, ignore, abuse or lose control of as a result of being the automatic-pilot mode is our own body. We may be barely in touch with our body, unaware of how it is feeling most of the time. As a consequence we can be insensitive to how our body is being affected by the environment, by our actions, and even by our own thoughts and emotions. If we are unaware of these connections, we might easily feel that our body is out of control and we will have no idea why."

Kabat-Zinn goes on to say that physical symptoms are the messages your body is giving you that allow you to know how it is doing and what its needs are.

"When we are more in touch with our body as a result of paying attention to it systematically, we will be far more attuned to what it is telling us and better equipped to respond appropriately. Learning to listen to your own body is vital is improving your health and the quality of your life."

And one of the best ways to pay attention to your body systematically is to bring mindfulness into your asana practice. I, myself, have learned to recognize certain physical symptoms that tell me when I’m overstressed (for example, a burning feeling in my chest). When I experience those sensations, I know it’s time for me to scale back temporarily and practice the yoga poses that calm me down. In my interview with Elizabeth (see Meditation and Healthy Eating) about mindfulness and eating, she talked about learning, from both meditation and asana practice, to recognize when she was actually hungry versus thirsty or had low potassium and that has helped her lose and keep off 50 pounds.

So how you make your asana practice a mindfulness practice? Kabat-Zinn writes:

"We practice the yoga with the same attitude that we bring to sitting meditation or body scan. We do it without striving and without forcing. We practice accepting our body as we find it, in the present, from one moment to the next. While stretching or lifting or balancing, we learn to work at our limits, maintaining moment-to-moment awareness. We are patient with ourselves. As we carefully move up to our limits in a stretch, for instance, we practice breathing at that limit, dwelling in the creative space between not challenging the body at all and pushing it to far."

If that’s not enough—or if you have fallen into a rut with your practice that’s putting you in automatic-pilot mode, I have some specific suggestions:

1. Practice yoga at home. Practicing on your own, without the distraction of the teacher telling you what to do you or other people in the room, forces you to pay more attention to your own experience of being in the poses.
2. Pick a single physical sensation to follow throughout your entire practice, whether it is the quality of your breath in every single pose, the even distribution of weight on your feet—the balls as well as the heels—in every pose, or even something more arcane.
3. Change your routine. If you do practice at home and are in stuck in rut, try doing something different. Practice on the left side first instead of the right. How does that feel? Or, do all your twisting poses, even all the standing the poses, without turning your head. Twist from your spine only and leave your head looking down at the floor. Notice how hard that is, and how different your neck feels.
4. Try using props if you never have. See what difference it makes. Or, if you use props regularly, try a different height (lower or higher) or try practicing without props for once and see what a difference that makes.
5. Try holding poses for longer periods of time than you usually do. Notice the resistance that comes up in your body (as well as your mind).

Anyone who has additional suggestions, please chime in!

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Healthy Diets for Healthy Aging

by Nina

Kale by Melina Meza

“One lesson of science, though, is that if the best you can do isn’t good enough to establish reliable knowledge, first acknowledge it — relentless honesty about what can and cannot be extrapolated from data is another core principle of science — and then do more, or do something else. As it is, we have a field of sort-of-science in which hypotheses are treated as facts because they’re too hard or expensive to test, and there are so many hypotheses that what journalists like to call “leading authorities” disagree with one another daily.” —Gary Taubes, New York Times

If you’ve been reading our blog for a while, you may have noticed that something is missing: even though we discuss yoga for healthy eating, we never really define what healthy eating is, and we certainly never provide any specific dietary guidance (and never, ever mention dietary supplements!). But this is no accident. In fact, from the very beginning, we made a policy decision not to discuss diets for healthy aging on the blog. In an early Friday Q&A Brad addressed the issue by saying:

As a scientist who also studies aging, I am especially intrigued about how diet can influence lifespan and health. However, that is not something I want to discuss here, as I am not a nutritionist or trained in this area. It is also something that is hugely complicated, and some of the better scientific controlled studies are not done in humans, but rather in mice or other animal models. For example, I recently attended a symposium in Cape Cod in March on Metabolism and Aging sponsored by Cell Symposia and Elsevier. Data is clearly emerging about how diets high in fat and/or cholesterol are contributing to metabolic dysregulation. But defining the precise molecular pathways that regulate and control our basic metabolism and how diet can contribute to age-related diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension, is still in its infancy. At this point I would recommend only common sense. You know, the stuff your grandma was supposed to teach you: eat in moderation and eat your vegetables.

Unfortunately, although it is commonly acknowledged that a “healthy” diet is an important aspect of healthy aging, there is so much controversy about what that healthy diet entails (dairy, for example, is recommended in some diets and not in others) that we decided not to publicly support one theory over another. (I say publicly because obviously all of us make our own dietary decisions in our day-to-day lives.) You see, even with scientists and MDs on board to study the research, we had no real proof that any one theory made more sense than the others. And a recent opinion piece in The New York times confirmed this decision for me. The article Why Nutrition is So Confusing describes the “dysfunctional” research on nutrition as follows:

"The 600,000 articles — along with several tens of thousands of diet books — are the noise generated by a dysfunctional research establishment. Because the nutrition research community has failed to establish reliable, unambiguous knowledge about the environmental triggers of obesity and diabetes, it has opened the door to a diversity of opinions on the subject, of hypotheses about cause, cure and prevention, many of which cannot be refuted by the existing evidence. Everyone has a theory. The evidence doesn’t exist to say unequivocally who’s wrong."

The problem has to do with the particular nature of research on nutrition. The challenges of actually testing out the different theories of what foods and/or diets foster good health and long life are great:

"In nutrition, the hypotheses are speculations about what foods or dietary patterns help or hinder our pursuit of a long and healthy life. The ingenious and severe attempts to refute the hypotheses are the experimental tests — the clinical trials and, to be specific, randomized controlled trials. Because the hypotheses are ultimately about what happens to us over decades, meaningful trials are prohibitively expensive and exceedingly difficult.  It means convincing thousands of people to change what they eat for years to decades. Eventually enough heart attacks, cancers and deaths have to happen among the subjects so it can be established whether the dietary intervention was beneficial or detrimental."

Unfortunately this hasn’t stopped various “experts” from making claims about particular diets and even individual supplements based on less than reliable science. As Taubes says:

Nutritionists have adjusted to this reality by accepting a lower standard of evidence on what they’ll believe to be true. They do experiments with laboratory animals, for instance, following them for the better part of the animal’s lifetime — a year or two in rodents, say — and assume or at least hope that the results apply to humans. And maybe they do, but we can’t know for sure without doing the human experiments.

They do experiments on humans — the species of interest — for days or weeks or even a year or two and then assume that the results apply to decades. And maybe they do, but we can’t know for sure. That’s a hypothesis, and it must be tested.

For now, all we can recommend is, as Brad said, a common sense approach to a healthy diet. So eat moderately, load up on fruits and vegetables, limit the processed foods and try to maintain a balanced diet—we’re leaving it up to you to judge exactly what a balanced diet means to you. But once you make your own decisions about how you want to eat, yoga can help support you. Conscious relaxation practices help foster healthier eating habits by reducing stress eating and building will power. And mindfulness practices help you discover which foods are right for you (some of us have particular allergies, food intolerances or sensitivities), and replace old habits with new, healthier ones.

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Stress Eating and the Healthy Eating Meditation Practice

by Baxter

Breakfast of Champions by Melina Meza

Recently I had the good fortune to present an all-day workshop on Yoga for Healthy Eating at the Yoga Journal Conference in San Francisco. The workshop was in many ways a distillation of all of the ideas and information we have presented here at YFHA over the last 2+ years. And as I prepared for the day, and while I was presenting the workshop, the stories my students and workshop attendees shared with me really brought home once again how powerful our daily modern stresses are in derailing our attempts at healthy eating.

As we have addressed here previously, the stress response, which usually is NOT to a true life-threatening emergency these days, causes an immediate impulse behavior that is essential in a true emergency, when you need to act, not mull over what to do. But because we are usually at the desk or behind the wheel and not actually fleeing or fighting and expending energy, the impulse tends to override our commitment and willpower to maintain healthy eating habits. So sometimes we grab a snack as our impulsive reaction.

On top of that, the stress reaction releases extra cortisol into our blood stream, which hangs around a lot longer than the fast acting adrenalin and CRH hormone. And cortisol tends to increase our appetite, even if it is nowhere near mealtime. So we have yet another urge to eat. And since the body releases energy-rich sugar molecules into our bloodstream in those first moments of our stress response - molecules that have been stored in the body for emergencies - we tend to be more likely to want to replace them by reaching for carbohydrates that are rich in similar sugar molecules when that post-event cortisol appetite strikes. So we make another unhealthy choice by going for the snack foods and sugar-rich soft drinks so readily available at work and at the store! What’s a determined yogi to do?

Nina has suggested that a regular stress-reduction asana practice—with an active portion (such as a few rounds of Sun Salutations to address held physical tension in the body), followed by several restorative poses or even a supported easy inversion—combined with meditation and breath awareness -- is a good option for beginning to deal with the overall stress in your life. And we have also talked about how the stress response causes that immediate impulsivity, which Kelly McGonigal, PhD says reduces your willpower in the moment of the stressful event. But she also notes that a regular meditation practice tends to build willpower, possibly offsetting the stress response impulsivity and getting you through those daily stressful bumps. According to one study, even 10 minutes a day starts to do the trick after you rack up as little as three hours of total meditation time over several weeks.

All of this made me think about the times when you return home from a stressful day, fatigued and not wanting to or having the energy to do your stress management practice. So I came up with a 20 minute practice to address the general effects of stress and to support our resolve and will power to eat more healthy, that just about anyone can do when you first get home.

Before I share this fairly simple practice, I want to reiterate our recommendations on what to do in the moment of the stress event. Consider any of the following:

• Get up and take a short, brisk walk.
• Try one of our short office yoga practices, which you can do at work or just about anywhere.
• Drink a big glass of water and sit quietly, observing your breath for five minutes before acting on the impulse to eat.
• If you really feel you need to eat something, be prepared with healthy whole-food snacks you bring to work each day, or have in your purse or backpack before you leave home for the day.

For the 20-minute practice, I’m proposing a two-part meditation. You can practice this when you get home or, honestly whenever it suits your schedule. But I suggest you do it every day (we’ve said before and I’ll say it again: your bad habits never change without work and practice!).

Part 1:  This is your Stress Reduction practice, a 10-minute simple, reclined meditation. Before practicing, set a timer so you don’t have to worry about what time it is, because that is not relaxing. For this practice, lie in Relaxation pose for 10 minutes, and simply focus on your easy, natural breath as it enters and exits your body. That’s it. Try to stay gently awake. You can use a blanket support under your spine and head, or just a pillow to lift the head slightly. The purpose of this first meditation is to trigger the Relaxation Response that Herbert Benson first described back in the 70’s.

Part 2: This is your Willpower Boosting practice, a 10-minute seated meditation practice. Come up from your reclining position and sit with or without support on the floor, or use a chair if you prefer. Set your timer again for 10 minutes. Now, establish a nice inner lift from your sitting bones up to the crown of your head. Then pick a simple word or phrase to use as your mental focus, and repeat it to yourself mentally on each exhalation. You might use the phrase “healthy eating” as your intention, or pick something that works better for you. When you notice that you’ve become distracted, immediately return to repeating your phrase. This second meditation is not about relaxing, but about staying focused and concentrated on your intention. That does not mean you might not still feel relaxed at the end, but that’s not the purpose. Remember, studies have shown that meditations like this not only make meditating easier over time, but also improve a wide range of self-control skills, which is what we are after!

So there you have it—the 20-minute, two-part Healthy Eating Meditation practice! Give it a go for the next month. And let us know what changes you notice. No time like the present to make the change you want to see in 2014!

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Yoga for Healthy Eating: An Overview

by Nina

Both Baxter and I have already written a number of posts exploring the topic of Yoga for Healthy Eating. But seeing that it’s the beginning of a new year—when people often make resolutions regarding their health—I thought now would be a good time to provide an overview of the topic. Basically, between the two of us, we’ve come up with a four-pronged approach to support healthy eating:

• Understand your digestive system

• Practice stress management
• Cultivate mindfulness
• Strengthen Will Power

1. Understanding Your Digestive System

Baxter has recorded a short audio tour of the digestive system (see Audio Tracks) that you can use to learn about how your digestive system works and what happens to your food as and after you eat it. It’s especially helpful for you to learn about how your digestive system interacts with your Autonomic Nervous System and higher brain function. When you’re in a state of stress (see Stress, Your Health and Yoga), your nervous system diverts your body’s resources away from your digestive system (you don’t need to be eating or digesting your food when you’re running away from that tiger or that car that looks like it’s not going to be stopping before the crosswalk!). So chronic stress can cause digestive problems. In addition, even thinking about stressful situation can have a potential negative impact on digestion!

2. Practicing Stress Management

Chronic stress may not only cause digestive problems as I mentioned above, but the cortisol that is released can cause weight gain by stimulating your appetite (Yoga, Stress and Weight Management). So one of the most important things you can do to improve digestion and move toward healthy eating is to use your yoga practice to reduce your stress levels. See The Relaxation Response and Yoga for basic information on using yoga to switch your nervous system from the Fight or Flight response (stress mode) to the Rest and Digest response (relaxation mode). It’s not called the Rest and Digest mode for nothing!

3. Cultivating Mindfulness

Many poor eating habits are just that—habits! Practicing yoga asana with mindfulness and meditating will help you tune into your body, and not to ignore it. And as you tune into your body, you may learn about foods you are currently eating that are compromising your health (see Got Mindfulness?) or notice poor eating habits, such as eating beyond satiety (see Meditation and Healthy Eating). Cultivating mindfulness can teach you to recognize:

• which foods are good for you and which are not (not just junk food, but maybe food intolerances or allergies)
• when you are full and don’t need to eat more
• when you are thirsty instead of hungry
• when you are eating for stress, not for hunger

See Yoga for Healthy Eating for more information.

Mindfulness will also help you start to recognize habitual thoughts that are getting in the way of healthy eating. You can then work on changing your perspective (see Cultivating the Opposite).


4. Strengthening Will Power

Once you’ve identified your habits or have decide to eliminate or cut back certain foods, it takes will power to change! According the Dr. Kelly McGonigal, being in a state of stress can increase impulsive behavior and decrease will power. So practicing stress management as we describe above will help with your will power (see Healthy Eating, Stress and Self Control). However, you can also use a meditation practice to intentionally strengthen your will power.  Meditation teaches you to return to your object of meditation (your focus) and tune out distractions (temptations):

“Neuroscientists have discovered that when you ask the brain to meditate, it gets better not just at meditating, but at a wide range of self-control skills, including attention, focus, stress management, impulse control, and self awareness. People who meditate regularly aren’t just better at these things. Over time, their brains become finely tuned willpower machines. Regular meditators have more gray matter in the prefrontal cortex, as well as regions of the brain that support self-awareness." —Dr. Kelly McGonigal

See Meditation and Healthy Eating for more information.

Tune in tomorrow to hear from Baxter on the same topic! He’ll discuss stress eating and recommend some specific yoga practices for you to support your goals for healthy eating. 

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