Monday, May 20, 2013

Yoga

Another of my favorite holistic modalities is yoga. One of the things many do not realize is that yoga is more than the postures you may see people doing at a gym or fitness center. That is one piece of yoga, known as hatha yoga, which also includes breath work. It's an important component, to be sure, and many people do practice hatha yoga without exploring the other six "limbs" of yoga much or at all.

While I find it useful to consider the whole of the eight limbs of yoga, like most Westerners, I primarily focus on the postures and breath work of hatha yoga and the health benefits associated with them. The style or approach to this that I find the most resonance with is Kripalu. This is probably in part because this was the first type of yoga I experienced, and I found it to be a very gentle "accept you where you are" approach that was far less intimidating for a beginner with some health challenges than, say, going into a heated Bikram class or a vigorous power yoga class. The gentler, more meditative approach I've experienced with Kripalu yoga is also one that I find aligns well with my own purposes in practicing yoga.

Regardless of style, hatha yoga is about using various postures and breathing patterns to bring the body and mind into alignment. Stress, something many if not most of us find a major challenge to health and wellness these days, often seems to arise from a disconnect between mind and body, particularly the need to override the body's fight-or-flight response because neither punching your boss/customer/whomever nor simply running away from them is usually the best plan. We can and do override the fight-or-flight response, but it is less stressful to do so if we have already taught the body and mind to work together rather than at odds with one another.

An example of how this can work is use of the warrior posture, also known as Virabhadrasana, which has several variations: Warrior I, Warrior II, or Warrior III. I have often experienced teachers encouraging the class to enter into this posture and then bring to mind a challenging situation and breathe through the feelings that arise until what is left is a sort of calm resolve. This is one way to train the mind and body to work together when such situations arise, and the practitioner can recall and evoke that sense of calm resolve in those situations rather than allowing stress to take over. The more practice one has at doing this, the more automatic the response becomes.

At the moment, the main way practicing yoga intersects with my practice of nursing is helping me maintain and improve my own physical health. The healthier I am, the better I can do my job, after all. Are you a holistic nurse who includes yoga in your practice of nursing? If so, I'd love to hear how you do so.

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