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How Long Does Your Peace Last? |
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 I'm a yoga practitioner, been at it since I was in my teens and it was an elective in gym class. My spiritual mentor taught yoga and I've learned several different styles that I really like. Currently practicing Yin Yoga, Vinyasa and Hatha.
I admire the writing of several yoga practitioners whose blogs I read
regularly. In the "personal bliss" category would be Diane Cesa and her blog
"Everything Yoga".
Diane writes today on extending the benefits of practice into the rest of your day (assuming you practice in the morning). She says:
How long do the benefits of your yoga practice last? Until you walk
into that first business meeting of the day, during the commute to work
just as you hit a traffic snag, the moment before your child has
his/her first tantrum of the day, right before your teacher announces
that you have a very big assignment due tomorrow? Let's face it -- life
can be challenging. And habits can be hard to break. Sometimes the
peace and bliss of that 20, 30, 60, or 90 minutes of yoga just doesn't
get us through the day. My question is -- who says that you have to
relegate your yoga to one specific time slot during the day?
I
use my yoga constantly throughout my day -- it doesn't end when I step
off the mat. Just before writing this I was engaging in some deep yogic
breathing to calm my rising ire towards my slow as molasses computer.
If you've lost that yoga feeling and you want to get it
back, try incorporating one -- or all -- of these yoga breaks into your daily routine.
I agree with Diane. I too practice many times throughout the day. You can too for destressing, and it doesn't need to be "a yoga session" of an hour, just a few minutes. Here's how:
- Waiting for a bus - use the bus sign as a wall to stretch those tight achilles tendons in an arm-supported Warrior Pose.
- When sitting down for the first few minutes, allow the top of your body to drape over your thighs and touch the floor. See how long you can stretch your torso forward, out and down.
- When rising from your chair, take no more than a minute or two to do tadasana - mountain pose - by standing tall and decompressing your spine and ribs upward. Stretch arms up and reach for the sky until you feel/hear your joints strain slightly. Then back off and into an easy hold.
- When you're picking up something you dropped on the floor, get all the way down on your hands and knees into Virasana, or Hero's Pose for a few moments, then down into Balasana, or Child's Pose. Relax there for a minute before picking up your dropped object.
If you're like me with joint issues, you'll find that you want to stay down in Balasana for more than a minute just because it feels so good. But where to go from there?.
Here's a restorative "Eight Pose Micro Flow" sequence you can do in less than five minutes. Click the name of each pose to go to Yoga Journal articles on how to safely perform each:
Sart out on the floor in Balasana, the Child's Pose, followed by Uttana Shishosana or Extended Puppy Pose, followed by Marjaryasana , or Cat Pose, stretching the midback upward, then relaxing it down in Bitilasana, or Cow Pose. Switch between these slowly stretching the spine up then down. Sitting up come into Bhadda Konasana or Bound Angle pose and end with Paschimottanasana, or Seated Forward Bend. I come briefly into Sukhasana or Easy Seated Pose (cross legged sitting) and breathe into a state of Presence before rising briefly into Uttanasana and rolling up vertebrae by vertebrae to go about my day.
Whenever I sit for a long time, I do the above Eight Pose Micro Flow before going on with whatever else I was doing. Takes all of three minutes unless Balasana feels so good I end up staying there for a few minutes by itself. ;-)
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