More year-end reflections: sleep, drink, organization, and mindfulness!

Some more reflections on the questions I asked last January now that my year of yoga has come full circle.  I asked, by doing yoga every day for 360 days, will I:

• Sleep better? Make smarter decisions about what I eat and drink?

On days when I’ve done yoga late, in the 7 to 9 PM window, I think it has helped me get relaxed and sleep ready.  Otherwise, I can’t really say how much it has helped my overall quality/quantity of sleep.  Likewise, I think that I’ve made smarter decisions about what to eat during the day before my yoga practice, but not necessarily afterwards.  Finally, drink. The ~two times I’ve practiced with a hangover this year were not fun. But whether I do yoga or not, I really dislike hangovers and always drink in moderation to avoid them.

Funny or not, this is the quality of my hangover yoga practice. (image registered trademark of YogiBarra)

That said, yoga has served as a great indicator to me of my body’s needs in terms of sleep, food, and drink.  When I get light-headed during the up and downs of sun salutations, that is a great indication that I’m deficient in one of these three necessities, likely hydration.  When my endurance is particularly low, I’m short on rest and/or fuel. And my balance poses REALLY suffer when I’m short on sleep.  So, while the activity of yoga hasn’t changed my patterns of sleeping, eating, and drinking, yoga has made me take notice of where I’m neglecting my body’s needs, and to act accordingly to remedy that situation.

• Be more organized with my time and space? Keep my apartment cleaner so I have room for my yoga mat and to do handstand at the wall? Improve my focus and attention in other parts of my life?

not too shabby...

Why yes, my apartment in general has been more organized to accommodate my daily need for mat space.  And yes, my time has been more organized.  Putting in a physical activity like yoga or running into one’s days is a great organizational block around which to build other activities.  When to get up, when to eat breakfast, when to go running, when to shower, when to make my lunch, and when to head to the office—these things have been informed by my yoga practice.  And in turn, this has helped me focus better in other aspects of my life.  

• Be more mindful of others in my words and actions, even my thoughts? Be kinder to myself, love myself more, forgive myself for not being perfect?

There’s this expression you sometimes hear thrown out in yoga and meditation classes, “turning inward.”  It is true; there is a lot of getting in touch with yourself in yoga, and not always so much getting in touch with the world around you when on the mat.  Additionally, the act of blogging does breed a degree of narcissism.  But I do feel that my time on the mat—particularly when practicing in classes—often does facilitate more awareness of and empathy for the struggles of others, particularly in the physical realm. 

Yup, that's what empathy looks like.

There’s also an innate consideration that typically grows in the yogini the more she practices with others—more patience standing in line to put props back, an eagerness to scoot one’s mat over to make more space, a willingness to partner up with strangers and to spot them in poses in the most helpful way for their particular physical capabilities. I find this mindfulness lingers as I walk out of a yoga class into the “real” world.  Maybe not all day, but for a little while. 

I’ve already written about my mental state and self-esteem after my year of yoga here and here. 

• Levitate????

Aw, a girl can dream!

Namaste!

Day 348.

But sadly, I still don't look like this.

In this post, I continue to reflect on this list of questions I posed when I first began this project, 348 days ago.  I asked, after a year of daily yoga practice, will I:

• Grow a few centimeters in height?

Okay, so to assess whether I grew any in height, I'm employing a highly unscientific method of standing shoeless against a wall, attempting to draw a pencil line in the exact right place at the top of my head, and then using measuring tape to figure the distance from pencil mark to floor. This process is made all the more unscientific by the fact that I didn't measure myself at the beginning of the year.  On my driver's license, it says I'm 5 foot 6 inches tall, but the last time I got measured at the doctor's office proved that I am one of those people who round up to seem taller.  According to the doctor, I was more like 5 foot 5-1/2 inches tall.  ANYWAY, this morning, I measured myself as 5 foot 6-1/8 inches tall.  Hmmm.... Did my pencil mark aim too high?  Was I slouching at the doctor's office?  Or did I grow a little bit?  We'll never know for sure.

Nope, still too short for Splash Mountain!

I also asked, after a year of daily yoga practice, will I:

• Look different--be slimmer or have more muscle bulk?  Be stronger in my core? Be more stable in my pelvis? Have better posture/alignment? Develop those tiny muscles in my inner hips and the arches of my feet to protect my knees and to help stave off genetic physical ailments? Reduce the frequency of migraines? Improve my circulation? Achieve super healthy blood pressure readings?

Let me start by saying that this here body of mine has served me pretty well during my year of yoga. Yes, I've incurred some injuries. I'm happy to report that none of them have been incurred practicing yoga.  I can't put a value on how many injuries I may have avoided by practicing yoga or staved off "genetic physical ailments," but I know that stretching my limbs and building muscle tone protects me a lot when I do high impact aerobic activities, like running, and even doing little things like getting into my car from a funny angle. The body can get hurt in really small, ridiculous ways.  Trust me, I once re-sprained my ankle trying on a ski boot 

Has my body changed? Of course it has, the body is always changing.  Lately, I feel like my core is kind of weak, but it was super strong in June. It is winter after all, and my body and energy cycles just like the seasons. People have remarked on my fantastic posture over the year, but alignment and keeping my pelvis stabilized seem like things that need lifelong attention and continual adjustments.  I don't know if yoga has helped prevent any migraines, though gentle yoga has been soothing when I've had one.  Circulation?  Sure, while I'm actually practicing, but in general?  Who knows?  And my blood pressure readings, they were pretty dang healthy before this year began, and they still are.

So now for the million-dollar question: do I look different, slimmer or have more muscle bulk?  Honestly.... I think I look pretty much the same as I did last January. My clothing sizes haven't changed. My weight has fluctuated within the same 5-pound window all year. That said, my body has never been in as great shape as it has been at times this year.  Particularly in the spring and summer months.  I definitely am stronger than I was last December, even if my core is a little wimpy at present.

And here's the real triumph: I have never felt so secure with this body as is as I have this year.  And sexy.  This body of mine is strong and sexy and I'm so happy to live in it.  The time I spend every day doing yoga allows me to witness and appreciate my body, while it also puts me in touch with what my body needs and what it likes to keep it healthy and happy.  Even when my muscles burn like crazy from holding a challenging pose, yoga feels like the most incredible gift to my body. 

Maybe I do look different.  Maybe I do stand taller.  Maybe the incredible confidence and respect I've developed for my body on the inside has transformed how I appear on the outside, in ways that have nothing to do with slimness, muscle mass, or the number on the scale. 

Namaste!

Yes, but can you do that with just one hand?

If only I were as tough as you, Jack Palance....

Over a month has passed since my last blog.  Not only that, but I haven’t been dutifully writing my minutes down on my calendar.  Now don’t panic, I haven’t fallen off my every-day yoga train.  The reason I haven’t been writing down my minutes is simple: for the last month or so, I have done yoga for ~30-35 minutes every single day.  Even stranger, I have done yoga around the same time in the morning on each of those days.

This degree of regularity in my yoga practice was unheard of in my yoga 360 until a month ago.  For the first seven months of this project, I've been consistent in practicing yoga every day, but I sure as hell haven’t been consistent in how much (other than meeting my imposed 30-minute daily minimum) or when I practice.  So what happened to make my yoga practice so dang routine? 

I got hurt.

Really, that’s the reason behind my incredible regular practice.  That’s what it took to turn my daily yoga practice into something as automatic and predictable in my day as getting out of bed.

Now, this isn’t the first time this year I’ve had to work with an injury. But this time I hurt my wrist.  My right wrist.  I hurt it after a long day of digging.  That night, I ached all over, but especially about 2 inches up from my wrist on my forearm.  When I did yoga as usual the next day, it wasn’t too uncomfortable.  But opening jars, washing dishes, using my car’s stick shift, washing my hair, writing, fastening and unfastening my bra and pants, and about a hundred other things...now those things were SERIOUSLY uncomfortable!

I would be holding the baby in this picture, if it didn't make my wrist cry...

“Well, it isn’t broken,” the doctor said when I went in to have my wrist checked out.  “It’s tendinitis of the wrist flexors.”  He strapped a big black Velcro brace on me, told me to take 4 ibuprofen 3 times a day, ice my wrist for 15 minutes three times a day, and to rest it. He told me it could take 2 to 4 weeks for my wrist to heal.  “But I do yoga every day,” I told him.  “Can I at least do downward-facing dog and plank on my forearms?”  To which he gave me a curt "No.”  

No swimming either?!!!  Bending the rules with a Cookie Monster water wing.

And thus came the end of my quest towards 360 days of Adho Mukha Svanasana (that’s Dog pose, yo).  But not my quest towards 360 days of yoga!  When I began this project, I anticipated that I might get hurt and I committed to adapting as necessary to continue my yoga practice.  So when I hurt my wrist, I started adapting.

Tendinitis can't keep me from climbing a mountain, with MY EYES CLOSED!

I couldn’t go to any classes as almost every single yoga class I’ve ever been to has heavily featured downward-facing dog.  Dog is like the complex carbohydrates of a yoga class—substantial and unavoidable in the yoga studio.  But it is possible to omit it from one’s home practice, and all other poses that require any sort of weight bearing on the wrists. So that’s what I did.  No dog, no plank, no cobra, no handstand, no wheel, no crow, no cat and no cow, no, no, and no. I also had be careful and make modifications in other poses like triangle or side-angle pose to make sure I didn’t put much weight on my right hand/arm.

After eliminating those poses from my asana practice, I was left with a lot of standing and balance poses, seated twists, and stretches on my back.  Honestly, during that first week, I found it a little difficult to fill up more than 30 minutes with this limited catalog of poses, which explains my string of 30-to-35-minute-long practices.  I also struggled with boredom; I really missed having all those other poses to toss into my daily mix.  My typical yoga practice does have a degree of order to it, poses I generally do before certain other poses, but there is still a lot of flexibility.  But with my wrist's limitations, I found I did the same poses in more or less the same order (vinyasa) every day.  (Please note that while this is unusual for ME, there are many types of yoga, like Ashtanga, in which one always does the same vinyasa sequence, no matter the class, the instructor, etc.) Maybe this order to my asanas is behind the development of a regular practice time of day in my yoga life; does one routine begets another routine?

I didn’t anticipate a painful wrist injury to bring such stability to my yoga life.  It has been interesting to observe how I’ve responded to a more structured, albeit limited, practice this month.  I’ve enjoyed the additional structure to my day for the most part.  But I really miss classes—sharing the time with other yogis and yoginis, holding poses longer, and being led through different poses I’m not so familiar or comfortable with, etc.

While my wrist is still weak, I’m virtually pain-free and only wearing the brace when I’m doing yoga.  I added dog and plank on my forearms back into my repertoire about ten days ago.  In the last few days, I’ve started pushing into full downward-facing dog.  I often wonder if I’m capable of doing more than I’m allowing myself in my practice. Could I be doing handstand without any issues right now?  But I think there is wisdom in showing restraint, recognizing that I may be more limited from the injury than I notice.  I’m trying to look beyond that 35 minutes on the mat and think about the rest of the month, next month, and beyond!

 Namaste!

Holy Tired, Batman!

I'm working on a longer post about the body's natural state, but it isn't ready (not sure if I mean my body or the post here....).  I don't expect to finish that blog today as the natural state of my mind presently is similar to tapioca pudding.  My body and brain are TIRED. It was such a beautiful weekend here in Seattle, and I did my best to soak it up.  I went to a yoga class with a new instructor who was so refreshing and just great; I got tomato plants and put them in pots; I planted carrots, beets, beans, kale, Brussels sprouts, and cilantro; I took myself on a 7-mile run (and oh, it was long); volunteered at the Ruby Room; took a day trip to Bainbridge Island; and ate a lot of ice cream.  And woke up totally exhausted to start my Monday!  So while I try to finish this blog on the body's natural state in my body's sluggish state, I figured for the time being, I'd post my yoga minutes!

FYI, I hit the 1/3 mark of my 360 days of yoga this past Wednesday--120 straight days of yoga.  You don't have to be impressed with me, because I'm plenty impressed with myself.  Woot!

April 27: 30 mins
April 28: 90 mins
April 29: 35 mins
April 30: 30 mins
May 1: 40 mins
May 2: 30 mins
May 3: 90 mins
May 4: 30 mins
May 5 (120th day!): 90 mins
May 6: 90 mins
May 7: 35 mins
May 8: 80 mins
May 9: 30 mins

And now, here is a little yoga humor, compliments of the lovely octogenarian and comedienne, Betty White, and the folks at Saturday Night Live.  This skit was cut from the Mother's Day broadcast, but IMO, it is a lot funnier than that Latino dancing talk show skit.   I don't know if Betty White does asana practice or not, but if I can only dream of being so sharp, healthy, funny, and beautiful at 88 years old!  Apologies for Hulu's ads in advance.  Enjoy and Namaste!