Doing Yoga. Why
bother? Time stands still.
So, how’s it going this week with my year of total
health? Things are well. It is winter here, our worst in half a
century, so that takes its toll on you.
It is true that laughter is the best medicine. This video is a John Cleese visiting a
laughter clinic in a prison in India.
Watch.
So, in the middle of the winter, it is very important to
practice laughter, in whatever way you can.
Right now, I am directing a comedy, so that really makes me laugh to
work with students on relieving stress.
It boosts your immune system and raises your serotonin levels. Laughter is how I am making it through this
long winter.
Yoga is also helping me.
I am now doing yoga four times per week.
Bikram yoga at the Funky Buddha Yoga Hothouse. The name just makes you laugh. Yoga is
laughter for the body in a different way.
It is so good for you, it can heal all sorts of diseases and this is
probably because it alters your mind, not just your body. All exercise does that, but yoga takes it a
step further, using meditative body practices.
Here’s a Yoga Journal article that shows these benefits clearly:
I think my favorite benefit is that it lowers both blood
sugar and LDL cholesterol, plus it gets rid of cortisol. Yummy!
If you don’t do yoga, start. You
can start small. There are hundreds of
great short videos on the web for 10 minute yoga, 20 minute and on and at all
different levels. If you enjoy
community, join a studio or go to class at a community center. That’s what I’m doing because I can tend to
isolate and I want to be around people.
I’ve even gotten some students from Calvin involved in going to Funky
Buddha! And even at 6 am!!! The power of yoga is real. Once you do it, you know.
Usually I enter yoga cold, tired, stressed, with pain
somewhere in my body. Usually I leave
warm, awake, calm and pain free. If this
is what it can do for me, just imagine what it could do for you. It is also a practice, like meditation or
learning a musical instrument or any other skill. It takes a lifetime to learn and every body
does it differently. There is just total
acceptance of your “soft animal body” as Mary Oliver says. Nobody is there to judge. Instead of correcting you, the instructor
gently eases you into a better position.
No forcing. And because it is
slow, there is time.
I love that time stands still for the 75 minutes I’m in
yoga.
This week, yoga went really well. Laughter went really well. My whole foods diet is going OK. I ate a bit of sugar, but I am going to get
it back on track this week. We are beginning
a Lenten cleanse on March 5, that will clean out my whole system. I’ll talk about that next week. I have to say that my fasting day (when I do
my 18 hour fast) is one of my favorite days of the week. I feel tons better after it. More focused generally, so I will write about
that one of these days too.
What’s not going so great?
Well, there’s the sugar cravings which I SWEAR never leave me. And if it’s not sugar, it’s simple
carbs. Tortilla chips, rice chips,
whatever. I do better if they’re not
around and yet I just really do crave them.
Loneliness isn’t going so great for me. I have been feeling very lonely. And that makes me sad. So, again, it’s a good thing I am directing a
comedy. Emotional health is difficult to
keep when you feel isolated. That’s
something I need to figure out even more and I will write about it soon, as I am
reading a new book about emotional health right now with the new studies on
drugs that have been coming out…the drugs that really don’t seem to work for
anxiety and depression.
This coming week I have the goal of keeping myself away from
sugar and simple carbs which tend to make me just totally crash and feel even
more stressed. Whole foods health this
week. And then I will keep you posted on
how that goes. The rest of my list I am
keeping fairly well, minus a few things that I will write about as I am
discovering that I don’t really enjoy them (bee pollen being number one).
Sanitas!!
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