The teacher mentioned in the article, Glenn Black, attracted clients with yoga injuries to his bodywork and yoga classes.  He didn’t teach any inversions (such as headstand or shoulderstand), because he felt they were dangerous.  Black says that “…the vast majority of people should give up yoga altogether.  It’s simply too likely to cause harm.”  He feels that it’s better to focus on exercises that increase range-of-motion and strengthen weak parts of the body.

What Causes These Injuries?

People come to yoga with their own physical limitations, and in Western culture, we often sit all day and then push ourselves in a strenuous workout or yoga class.  The article mentions that in India, many people do different postures throughout their day, such as squatting, which can better prepare them for yoga asanas.

There were no mentions of injuries from yoga in the early books written on yoga in the 20^th century, including “Light on Yoga” by B.K.S. Iyengar.  Since then yoga has become incredibly popular, with a 5-fold increase in yoga practitioners between 2001-2011.  There are lots of yoga studios, and not all teachers may have had sufficient training to prevent injuries.

The article also mentions ego-driven teachers who push their students to do more, more, more, which tends to encourage students to push more, and possibly go too far.  This is also common in American culture in general, where the urge to compete can be really strong, and can lead people to disregard their own inner guidance and better judgment.

In some yoga poses the head is dropped back, which can be risky.  An Oxford neurophysiologist named W. Ritchie Russell found that there was a rare danger of strokes from “excessive extensions of the neck, such as occur in whiplash.”  Taking the head and neck into extreme positions “could wound the vertebral arteries, producing clots, swelling and constriction.”

That’s a scary thought!  And yoga was supposed to be so good for you!  There has been a belief that yoga only has benefits to practitioners, and no dangers.  I myself have been injured in yoga classes.

In one teacher training I was in back in 1991 we were to sit for about 45 minutes in Virasana (a pose where your knees are bent, the pelvis is seated on the floor and the feet are on either side of the pelvis) while listening to lectures.  My legs would fall asleep repeatedly, and it was hard to get up afterwards.  The article mentions a student who did a similar pose for hours daily and developed nerve problems in his legs that made walking difficult.

I also hurt my back doing a deep backbend in another yoga class, and had 2 other injuries, all of which happened when I was being assisted by the teacher or other students in the class to go deeper into the pose.  When I was younger, I loved to attend advanced yoga classes, and I would do anything the teacher proposed.  You can get away with a lot when you’re in your 20’s that may not work so well a few decades later!

Making Yoga Safer

After I met Jean Couch in 1994, I changed my yoga practice completely.  Since Jean had studied with Noelle Perez-Christiaens from Paris, she had given up practicing and teaching advanced yoga poses.  Noelle is the author of many books (most are in French), including, “Attention! Le Yoga peut etre dangereux pour vous; pathologie du yoga.”  My best translation of this (helped by Google Translate) is “Attention!  Yoga can be dangerous to you; pathology of yoga.”

This book was published in 1980, many years before yoga hit the big time.  Noelle studied with B.K.S. Iyengar for decades before that, and feels that she ruined her body by doing extreme yoga poses that were better suited for Indians.  Urged by Iyengar, she studied posture around the world and discovered that less industrialized cultures had a different and healthier posture than Western industrialized countries.  They also had less back pain.  Noelle’s and Jean’s work is the basis of my teaching (the Balance Posture Method).

Man in Balance in Oaxaca, Mexico

When I began studying with Jean I had to let go of many poses that I practiced regularly, and I started over with doing yoga in a safe way, with a precise focus on alignment of the spine.  I have had no yoga injuries since then.

It is essential to respect the limits of your body, to know when to push and when to stop.  It can be fine to feel that burn in a muscle when you’re on a long bike ride or hike, or a deep stretch in a yoga asana/pose.  But there are also warnings to pay attention to – any sensations of ripping, popping, strain, joint pain, or just a sense that you shouldn’t go any farther.  Trust yourself!  It’s better to be safe than sorry!

Should You Do Yoga?

So, can yoga wreck your body?  If done aggressively, competitively, and without paying attention to your body’s needs – YES.  If you do poses where you drop your head back – yes.  If you come from a culture like ours where our daily posture is misaligned – yes.  But, you can also use yoga to heal from those injuries.  I teach classes focused on this and I’ve studied with other teachers who specialize in this as well.

For some tips on how to practice yoga safely, check out these previous blog posts:

http://www.sonomabodybalance.com/blog/2011/02/3-tips-for-a-safe-yoga-practice/

http://www.sonomabodybalance.com/blog/2010/03/how-to-do-yoga-without-back-pain/

Just to counterbalance all that other information, the article in the NY Times also states that “yoga can lower your blood pressure, make chemicals that act as antidepressants, even improve your sex life.”  I have experienced many benefits from doing yoga, from increased relaxation to strength and increased flexibility, especially since I’ve changed my way of practicing.

To keep yourself safe and experience the positive side of yoga, find a teacher with training in healthy alignment.  Listen to your body.  Go slowly at first.  And do it for yourself, not to compete with someone else.

By the way, the teacher in the article, Glenn Black, had to have back surgery eventually.  He had done enough damage at that point I suppose.

If you learn to have healthy posture in your daily life (see my classes at www.sonomabodybalance.com), you can support the health of your spine and other joints throughout your entire day, every day, not only in a yoga class.  And that really can help you prevent injuries, in yoga and anywhere else!

References: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/magazine/how-yoga-can-wreck-your-body.html?scp=1&sq=how%20yoga%20can%20wreck%20your%20body&st=cse

© Dana K. Davis, 2012

The Effects of Stress

Modern life is stressful.  According to the Centers for Disease Control, 40% of workers rate their job as very or extremely stressful.  People with heavy job stress have 50% higher health-care costs.  We also can experience stress from family conflicts, illness, unemployment and distressing events in the daily news.

According to Dr. Bruce McEwen, prolonged or severe stress weakens the immune system, strains the heart, damages the memory cells and deposits fat at the waist – a risk factor for various diseases.   Stress is also implicated in aging, depression, heart disease and diabetes, among other conditions.  Stress is worsened by the fact that we live in a world where we are “always on”, and our systems never get a chance to return to a baseline level of relaxation.  Because productivity is highly valued in this culture, relaxation can be viewed as time wasted.

Dr. Andrew Weil states, “I must say that as a practitioner, I’m more and more convinced that stress is the primary cause or the aggravating cause of the majority of illness, the majority of reasons that people consult physicians; and if that isn’t taken into account, you’re very limited in your therapeutic options.”

The Relaxation Response

When a stressful event occurs, we usually go into what’s called the “fight-or-flight response“.  This is characterized by increased heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, and blood flow to muscles and brain activation.  The sympathetic nervous system controls these kinds of reactions.

In contrast to this is the “relaxation response“, a term coined by Dr. Herbert Benson, who wrote a book by this same name.  When this occurs, heart rate and blood pressure decrease, and the parasympathetic nervous system is activated.  This system is responsible for things like digestion and repair of the body, which are not top priorities when you’re faced with a stressful situation.  You want to enhance the relaxation response, and restorative yoga is designed to do exactly that.

Restorative Yoga

Restorative yoga grew out of the teachings of the yoga master BKS Iyengar, and specifically the therapeutic poses he gave to those with illnesses or injuries.  It was popularized by Judith Lasater’s book, Relax & Renew.

Restorative yoga is done mostly on the floor, supported by many props, such as blankets, bolsters, yoga mats, and chairs.  The intent is not to feel stretching or do any “work” in the pose.  Rather, you relax, let the props support you, and allow the healing properties of the pose to work on your body and mind.  These poses are accessible to even the stiffest individuals or those with chronic illnesses.  Some poses are of general benefit, while others focus on stimulating specific organs.  The poses are held for several minutes, up to 30 minutes or so, because it takes time for the stress chemicals to decrease in the bloodstream.

What benefits can you expect from restorative yoga?  It enhances the relaxation response, so it can help to lower blood pressure.  It reduces anxiety, relaxes the muscles and quiets the mind.  It also can improve energy levels.  It gives you a way to return your body to a baseline state of relaxation rather than living with chronic stress.  Research has shown that relaxation training can positively influence physical problems like high blood pressure and heart disease, according to Dr. David Spiegel.  Dr. Dean Ornish has also written about the benefits of relaxation in treating heart disease.

Though stress has a profound effect on our bodies, relaxation is innate in us.  We just need to create the conditions for relaxation and allow it to unfold in time.  Restorative yoga sets up the conditions for relaxation so your body can heal itself.  So, the next time you feel your stress level rising, why not go to a restorative yoga class and give yourself the gift of renewal?

© Dana K. Davis, 2011

It showed that Iyengar style yoga was helpful for chronic lower back pain – more helpful than only conventional medical treatment.  The study was done in the UK and lasted 12 weeks.  Participants who did yoga in addition to conventional medical care experienced improved back function and more confidence in performing daily movements, compared with those who did not do yoga.

More than half of the participants in the study kept up their yoga practice after 9 months, and the benefits continued for 9 months.  It’s really important to continue to practice, because you can lose gains you’ve made if you stop moving your body in healthy ways.  As the familiar saying goes, “Use it or lose it!”

The Yoga of Daily Life

If you blend Iyengar-style yoga with the postural alignments of the Balance Method, you can have even more impact on your pain and discomfort.  If you are changing your daily posture (how you sit, stand, bend, and sleep) as well as practicing yoga with healthy alignment, you can make a powerful difference in your comfort level.  Bringing healthy postural guidelines into daily movements gives you the leverage of many more hours per day to relieve and heal your back.

Not every style of yoga may help.  Be careful which classes you attend if you have back pain.  You can see previous posts on my blog for more information.  Just go to www.sonomabodybalance.com/blog and search for “yoga” under the Categories index.  In those posts I’ve given you tips for practicing yoga without hurting your back.  Here are a few more tips.

3 Tips for a Safe Yoga Practice

1) Don’t push past your limits.  Yoga is not a competition, though in our American culture it’s easy to get competitive about everything.  One of the “yamas” or ethical disciplines in traditional yoga is called “ahimsa”, which means “non-violence.”  This can be applied to how you treat your own body.  Do you treat it like an object which you try to force into whatever position you want it to do?  Or do you treat it lovingly, and create a partnership with it, working with both its strengths and weaknesses?

2) Be very cautious with rounding of the lumbar spine.  While deep forward bends may be impossible without some rounding of the lumbar (lower) spine, people with Balanced posture keep the spine elongated even while in forward bends.  They also have a “universal curve” in the spine where the curve is evenly distributed throughout the spine rather than having a sharp apex in one spot.  Rounding of the lumbar spine, especially when lifting or twisting, is a very easy way to hurt your back!

3) Feel your stretch in the “belly” of the muscle, not in your joints.  It’s fine to feel a stretch in your thigh or calf, but if you feel pain in a joint, it’s best to come out of the pose.  Pain in your knee, in your hip joint, in your shoulder joint, or in your spine signals a potentially dangerous situation.  Back off until you feel the stretch in your muscles rather than pain or pulling at these joints.

If you don’t do yoga, you can practice some simple stretches to maintain or increase flexibility, and bending in “Balance” (at the hip joints) will help to keep your hamstrings flexible over the years.  So remember to use your body wisely, keep it moving, and include your daily movements as part of your practice.  Bringing this awareness to your body movement will really pay off for years to come.

© Dana K. Davis, 2011

What Causes Osteoarthritis?

Causes of OA include sports injuries, some types of work, genetic predisposition and unhealthy posture. When the joints are misaligned, the cartilage at the end of your bones can get worn down, so that eventually you may have bone rubbing on bone. This cartilage, when healthy, allows the bones to glide easily in the joints, cushioning your movement.

According to dictionary.com, cartilage is “a firm, elastic, flexible type of connective tissue of a translucent whitish or yellowish color.” You have cartilage in many parts of your body, including the intervertebral discs in your spine. You also have cartilage at the ends of bones, where they meet other bones to form joints (such as your knee joint).

Stress can also aggravate OA. Stress can lead to tight muscles, which then pull on the joints in an unhealthy manner. This can lead to loss of range-of-motion, and then you may begin to limit your movement more and more, so that it becomes a vicious circle.

How Yoga Can Help

Yoga can be beneficial for OA sufferers. It helps to reduce stress, increase body awareness, increase flexibility and improve range-of-motion.

Movement is essential for joint health. Synovial fluid is secreted into the joints to reduce friction. As there is no direct blood supply to cartilage, movement is required to get nutrients in and old fluid out. Healthy synovial fluid aids in ease of movement of the bones in the joint, preventing the wear and tear of bone on bone. Practicing yoga brings increased range-of-motion and circulation to the joints, which can help your cartilage stay healthy.

Timothy McCall, MD, in Yoga as Medicine, states, “Most people who aren’t actively working to maintain flexibility in their muscles and other tissues, and range of motion in their joints, become more restricted in their movements as they age.”

Of course, it’s essential to practice yoga with healthy alignment. Otherwise you could make matters worse by stressing joints or causing flare-ups. If your joints are painful and stiff, start slowly with short, gentle movements, working up to bigger movements or longer held postures.

Marian Garfinkel did a study on yoga for arthritis that was published in the Journal of Rheumatology in 1994. She found that with 25 patients, “a program of adapted Iyengar yoga and relaxation resulted in significant reductions in pain and an increase in range of motion.”

Other Components of Healing

Acupuncture can be helpful for pain relief from OA. Aerobic exercise is recommended, though you may need to start slowly if you haven’t been active recently. Yogajournal.com suggests massaging your wrists with sesame oil. Drinking enough water is important for optimum health of your joints as well.

Diet is another important component of healing OA, particularly eating foods that reduce inflammation. Click here to read nutritionist Julie Halpin’s dietary recommendations for optimum health of your muscles, joints and bones.

The Importance of Healthy Posture

One of the main things I focus on as a teacher of the Balance Method is healthy joint alignment. In my yoga classes I carefully check knee alignment in poses to ensure that students aren’t stressing their joints. In my posture classes I teach healthy joint alignment in sitting, standing, bending and other daily movements. How you hold and move your body during the course of your day has a huge impact on the health of your joints.

The Balance Method is based on studying populations of people with natural, healthy posture, like the posture of young children. In American culture, our joints are so misaligned that we have an epidemic of joint replacement. While you may not be able to completely erase the damage of decades of misalignment (I had it too!), changing your posture to align your bones with gravity can make a huge difference in your comfort and long term health.

An Exercise to Help Painful Wrists

If you have painful wrists, start with some simple movements such as wrist circles. When I was a Flamenco dancer, I learned how to do these “flores” movements with my wrists.

• To do this, relax your arms down by your sides with your palms facing your legs.
• Now bend your wrists, bringing your fingers towards your inner wrists.
• Now turn your fingers to face behind you, then out to the sides.
• When they’ve gone as far as they can in that direction, bend your wrists the opposite way, so that your inner wrists are stretched.
• Continue by bringing your fingers to point forward.
• Now you can start the cycle again, moving slowly at first, and then gradually making smooth and continuous circles with your wrists. Your left hand is moving clockwise and your right hand is moving counter-clockwise.

Try a couple first, see how you feel afterwards, and then if you feel good, you can build up to doing 5-10 circles in each direction (each wrist goes clockwise and counter-clockwise).

If you’d like some guidance in healthy joint alignment, come to my “Yoga for a Healthy Back” class or to one of my introductory Balance Method workshops. For the schedule, visit www.sonomabodybalance.com. Taking good care of your joints will really pay off as you get older, and can help you stay active and comfortable for many years to come.

© Dana K. Davis, 2011.

Sources:

McCall, Timothy, M.D., Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing, Bantam Books, New York, 2007.

Monro, Robin, M.D., Dr. R. Nagarathna, Dr. H.R. Nagendra, Yoga for Common Ailments, Fireside/Simon & Schuster, 1990.

www.yogajournal.com/for_teachers/2694

1) Warm up before moving to more difficult poses or deep stretches

Don’t start your practice with Uttanasana (a standing forward bend) in a cold room (I pulled my hamstring muscle once doing this!). Instead, you can do a pose that will warm your body up, such as Utkatasana (“chair pose”).

In this pose you stand with your feet about hip distance apart and bend at your hips and knees as if you are sitting in a chair. You can decide how much to bend your knees. Be careful not to lift your chest and overarch your lower back. Let your front ribs descend to keep your back long. Make sure your knees are as wide as your feet, and keep your weight mostly in your heels.

Once you feel warmer (which this pose will definitely do for you!), you can move on to poses that stretch your hamstrings. Sun Salutations are especially good for warming up and stretching the whole body.

For an interesting article about stretching, you can check out: http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/flexibility/a/aa022102a.htm

2) Make sure you know the alignment details of a pose when you’re doing it

Don’t just jump into a new pose (especially a difficult one) without some instruction in how to do the pose safely. So if you practice yoga with the help of a book or DVD, you might want to have a live yoga teacher check your alignment when you add a new pose. It’s hard to correct yourself, and a teacher can show you what to focus on and what to avoid. This will help you when you’re practicing at home.

3) Don’t rush your poses

If you move fast, you don’t have time to check your form and can more easily hurt yourself. This is one of the dangers of practicing a fast flow-type class. A “slow flow” or Iyengar style class will be easier to navigate with safe alignment. Iyengar style yoga is usually done slower with an emphasis on alignment.

Yoga is a mind-body discipline rather just a form of exercise. It’s important to be aware of your body when practicing, rather than rushing. Going slower helps you to have more body awareness, which helps to bring you into the present, to relax, and to prevent injuries.

Want More Tips?

In March of 2010 I wrote an article on “How to do Yoga Without Back Pain.” You can go to my blog to find the 5 tips I gave there as guidelines (www.sonomabodybalance.com/blog).

Use these tips to help you stay safe while you’re enjoying your yoga practice. If you’re interested in attending one of my “Yoga for a Healthy Back” classes, you can find the schedule at http://www.sonomabodybalance.com/html/yoga.html.

©2011 Dana K. Davis

In 2007, I attended a Yoga Therapy conference where one of the presenters said, “I make my living helping people who got hurt in other people’s yoga classes”.  You might be surprised to find out that people can get injured doing yoga.  After all, yoga is considered to be a health-promoting form of exercise (of course, it is more than just “exercise” when you include the more subtle aspects).

What kinds of injuries are common in yoga classes?  Typical injuries can include strain and overstretching of the low back, hamstrings, knees, wrists and SI joints.  I’ve heard from people who injured themselves in a yoga class, and then quit doing yoga.  This is one important reason to avoid injury – so you can keep doing yoga as long as you want to.

Everyday Yoga

You might believe that alignment in yoga poses is very important, and pay special attention to it.  Yet your postural alignment in daily life strongly influences your alignment in yoga.  If you have unhealthy alignment when you are standing and sitting, you will tend to carry those patterns into your yoga asanas as well (I know I did!).

Because of this, it’s best to learn healthy alignment in simple daily movements, such as sitting, standing, bending and walking, before doing a new physical activity.  Healthy alignment will protect you in your daily life and in your exercise life.  (For help with healthy daily movements, I recommend my “Balance Your Body” program).

Noelle Perez-Christiaens, who studied with the yoga master B.K.S. Iyengar beginning in 1959, pushed herself very hard in her yoga practice for many years and injured herself as a result.  Prodded by Iyengar, Noelle began a study of people with healthy posture, which she has continued for decades.  She changed how she did yoga as a result of this study.

By studying with Noelle, and with Jean Couch of the Balance Center, I have completely changed the way I do yoga.  I stopped doing some of the more advanced poses, and I changed my alignment in almost every pose.  It’s made a huge difference in my comfort and I now trust that I can do yoga safely for decades to come.

Here are 5 tips to help you enjoy your yoga practice while safely avoiding injuries (so you can keep practicing for years):

1) Don’t tuck your pelvis.  This includes in tadasana, in other standing poses, in forward bends – pretty much any pose you do.  You may have tried this for years because a teacher told you to do it, but it is very dangerous to the spine.  It flattens the “natural arch”, which is essential to a healthy spine.

2) Don’t lift your chest – it compresses your back.  There is a common misunderstanding in yoga alignment with instructions that say you need to “open your chest”.  It is somewhat like the “military position” of standing at attention.  What I see over and over again is people lifting their chest, tightening their back muscles and compressing the spine.  This is not healthy for your spine in the long term, even if you feel no pain initially.

To see the difference between a pose (Warrior I) done with the chest lifted versus with the back elongated, check out: http://www.balancecenter.com/yoga.htm.

3) Don’t lock your knees – in standing poses or forward bends – or ever.  Don’t press your knees back when you straighten your legs.  This can cause strain on the knee joint.  Focus on lengthening down the leg as opposed to pressing back on the knee.

4) Tell your teacher if you have any injuries or conditions that might interfere with your practice (herniated disc, high blood pressure, glaucoma).

5) Choose a teacher who has experience with healthy alignment.  This will help you to practice safely in class and at home.

If you pay attention to these tips, you’ll be on your way to enjoying your yoga practice without suffering injuries.  Practicing healthy alignment in yoga will allow you to continue to practice for many years and enjoy the many benefits yoga offers.

If you’d like help with finding safe alignment in yoga, come to one of my “Yoga for a Healthy Back” classes offered Tuesdays & Thursdays from 5:15-6:45 pm.  During the month of March, I am offering a “2 for 1” Special at these classes.  If you bring a new student, they can get up to 2 classes for free (or you can split the cost with them).

I’m wishing you many years of safe, enjoyable and enlivening yoga!