Video of the Week: Chair Version of Sage's Twist 3

This version of Sage's Twist 3 makes the pose accessible to those who cannot get down to the floor easily and for those with very tight hamstrings, which make maintaining a neutral spine while sitting on the floor difficult. This is also an good option for anyone who wants to do a twist while they are sitting in a chair, such as at the office or an airport.  

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Friday Q&A: Twists and Yoga for Healthy Aging

Q: What role do twisting asanas play in the Yoga for Healthy Aging framework? I use them for counter posing and when energy balancing is desired. Can it also be said they strengthen the spinal musculature and/or contribute to spinal flexibility? Most in my classes enjoy twists, and I'd love to share with them all the benefits they provide especially in relation to Yoga for Healthy Aging. 

A: There are many benefits for us doing yoga twists as we age! I’d like to begin by reminding you that twisting is one of the basic movements of the spine and one that has practical value in our activities of daily living. (see Shari’s post All About the Spine: Anatomy and Movements). So I suggest you take one day to consciously observe how many times you twist your head, rotate your chest, or twist in any fashion while lying in bed, sitting in a chair or in your car, or when you are upright. It will be a lot! So, I believe that aging well includes maintaining your ability to twist your spine, even in the face of aging changes to the spine and soft tissues around it, changes that for some could start to limit your normal range of motion if not proactively addressed. 

Of course, the obvious way to try to maintain good rotational range of motion in your spine with yoga is to regularly practice yoga poses that involve some degree of rotation. And there are many to choose poses from, from those with small amounts of rotation, such as Triangle pose and Warrior 1 to those with larger amounts of rotation, such as Sage’s Twist 3, Reclined Twist, and Revolved Triangle pose. And, of course, all the twisting poses can be done dynamically as well as statically.

In addition to helping you to maintain good twisting ability as you age, these twisting poses, if done mindfully and not aggressively, may also help to keep the spongy discs between your spinal bones healthier and stimulate the spinal bones themselves to be stronger. Another benefit of regularly twisting in your yoga practice is to maintain or improve the strength of the rotating muscles around the spine. These muscles assist the other groups of muscles around the spine to help maintain good overall posture, which tends to support overall spinal health and good functioning of the nerves that pass through this area. And as our reader rightly notes, they help us stay more flexible, which is quite handy when we are twisting to get the last item out of the back corner of the car trunk!

There are also anecdotal reports of twists having positive benefits for digestion and elimination, so I also recommend practicing twists for these benefits. Finally, twisting involves lots of right-left, left-right movement and crossing the midline of the body, activities that are stimulating to the brain and therefore may contribute to brain health as we age.

However, not everyone should be practicing classic twists on a regular basis. There are certain physical conditions for which you should either modify your twists or avoid them entirely. So please take the time to review the following posts, which describe cautions for twists as well as benefits.

Friday Q&A: Moving Your Spine in Twists

Friday Practical Pointers: Spinal Rotation

Friday Q&A: Preventing Vertebral Fractures

—Baxter

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook and Twitter ° To order Yoga for Healthy Aging: A Guide to Lifelong Well-Being, go to Amazon, Shambhala, Indie Bound or your local bookstore.

Follow Baxter Bell, MD on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. For upcoming workshops and retreats see Baxter's Workshops and for info on Baxter see baxterbell.com.  

From the Inside Out: How Our Blog Works (Updated)

by Nina

I’ve recently received a number of emails about our YFHA email service, so I thought it might be a good time to explain again some things about our blog and our subscription service. Understanding the tools that I am using (all the work is being done alone by yours truly, Nina Zolotow) to put the blog together will help you realize what the built-in limitations are and will perhaps make you more forgiving about problems that you might encounter. 

First I’ll tell you about the tools I’m using to create the blog. Then I’ll discuss glitches you might have noticed in your emails. And, finally, for those who have not yet signed up for or who are having trouble signing up for email, I say something about the process you need to go through to receive the emails.

Google Blogger and Feedburner

The Yoga for Healthy Aging blog is not a custom-designed web site. Rather than learning all about how to create and maintain custom web site or hiring someone to do it for me, I opted instead for a simple and free solution: using Google’s free tools for bloggers.

The tool I use to create the blog is called Blogger.

This tool was very easy for me to learn and is very simple to use on a daily basis. And not only do I not have to pay for the Blogger tool itself, but the site where the blog resides is also completely free! On the negative side, the format of the blog is restricted in many ways and there are features I’d love to include on the blog that just aren’t available. And it’s also true that sometimes the Blogger has weird bugs and glitches in it (why, why, why do font sizes sometimes just randomly change after I've carefully set them?), so sometimes things don’t work as they’re supposed to. Of course, I can’t fix those problems (because they are part of the Blogger’s software), but after years of using the Blogger, I’ve learned that some of these problems eventually go away (as bugs do get reported and eventually fixed by programmers who maintain Blogger).

The tool I use to allow email subscriptions is called Feedburner. 

This tool was designed to work with the Blogger and is also very easy to use. I simply provide a way for our readers to sign up for the Feedburner service (see How to Subscribe for detailed information on how to do this), and then Feedburner takes over from there. Every time I update the blog by adding a new post with the Blogger, Feeburner automatically sends you an email with the new post. Feedburner provides a few options for customizing that “feed” but there is also a lot I can’t change. (This explains why you can't reply to the emails. They are not actually from me.)

For a long time, people told me that they wanted the email’s subject line to contain the post title rather than just “Yoga for Healthy Aging,” and I had no way to make that happen, until recently, that is, which brings us to….

Email Subject Line, Etc.

Three years ago, after receiving yet another request to add the post’s title to the email’s subject line, I decided to check to see if any new features had been added or whether there wasn’t some sneaky way that I could make it happen (I have learned to tinker a bit with HTML code when I need to). Imagine my surprise when I saw this in Feedburner:

See that bit about the HOT TIP? It recommends adding a variable (that’s what that weird bit of code is) to the email subject line to get the post title into the subject. So I went ahead and added that. 

The result was this:

As you can see from this screen shot, although this trick worked for getting the title into the subject line, it also added the variable ${latestItemTitle} to the From field (as well as the Reply-to, and “you are subscribed to” fields), making it look a little weird and nervous making. More than one reader wrote to me to report their concerns about this.

So, not only does this illustrate my point above about the weird little bugs and glitches in this (free!) software, but I then had a dilemma: should I remove the ${latestItemTitle} variable from the email subject and return things back to the way they were or should I leave things with the new post title but also the confusing inclusion of the feed title variable? I decided to leave it the new way since at least some people were benefitting from getting the post title in their email (some of you are not, I learned later).

Three years later, I have now checked to see if there was anything new in Feedburner in terms of fixes or features for the feed title, but unfortunately it all looks unchanged to me. But I had a new idea about using just the variable to include the post name without the text "YOGA FOR HEALTHY AGING:" before the post name. So I tried that. But, no, that did not solve the problem. So frustrating.

So, right now all I can do is ask for help! If there are any computer nerds out there who have some suggestions for how I can finesse this or any other problems with the blog, please contact me at nina at wanderingmind dot com. Thanks!

Signing Up for Email

As I said earlier, our email subscription service is managed by Feedburner. For you to sign up for that service is a multi-step process. See How to Subscribe for a detailed walk through of the entire process (I used to be a technical writer). Yes, it’s a bit complicated, but once you’ve gone through the process, you should be all set.

I have noticed, however, that a number of you have signed up for the email but didn’t complete the process. (For privacy, I’m eliminating the email addresses from this screen shot.)

So if you have signed up or thought you signed up but have not started receiving the emails, this is because you haven’t completed the final step of verifying that you want to receive the email. So you will need to find, possibly in your junk mail folder, a message from Feedburner that looks something this:

Then you need to click on that link to verify you want indeed want the email. That’s part of the screening process the Feedburner uses and until you verify, you won't receive the emails.

Final Thoughts

Well, I hope I didn’t bore you to death today! Keep in mind that our blog is completely free to you, and is also written and maintained for free by us, the Yoga for Healthy Aging team (see About Us). We have no ads on the blog and do not receive income of any kind for our work. It’s a labor of love, people! I think that one day I might hire someone to help me put together a better web site, but for now I’m still concentrating on content rather than functionality. (See A Yoga Blog Without a Woman for information about the work I do behind the scenes on the blog.)

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Arjava: Integrating Integrity

by Victor Dubin

The Ancient of Days by William Blake

The yama arjava is sometimes translated as rectitude and is also translated as integrity. To me, integrity seems a more accessible and less severe term for a yama that can we can practice. I originally learned of arjava in Georg Feurstein’s Encyclopedic Dictionary of Yoga in his discussion of yamas: 

"...the Tri-Shikhi-Brahmana-Upanishad (II.32) mentions the following: non-harming, truthfulness, nonstealing, chastity, sympathy (daya), rectitude (arjava), patience (kshama), steadfastness (dhriti), moderate diet (mita-ahara), and cleanliness (shauca). This series is repeated in several other Yoga-Upanishads." 

The idea of expanding the field of yama and niyama practice appealed to my sense of the broader ethical implications of a practice of yoga and, particularly, a practice dedicated to integrity.

In my opinion, integrity is essential to all practitioners of yoga because it creates a foundation of deep honesty upon which a practice can best be built. It is a cornerstone of any practice of yoga, whether it includes postures, breathing, meditation, or any other yoga practices. Your integrity is expressed in the way that you, as one who practices yoga, honor your commitments to yourself, take time to be considerate of your actions, and represent your practice outwardly.

When you make a commitment to practice, each time you honor that commitment you are practicing arjava. Instead of practicing “when you feel like it,” I recommend setting a schedule and sticking to it. Feel free to put a sunset on the schedule (I like to set mine in 6 month increments, but you can choose a longer or shorter term if that is what works for you) so that you can reevaluate how things are going and if changes need to be made so that you can better meet your intentions with integrity.

This commitment to practice need not be rigid. In fact it will have more integrity if you are more honest about your needs in the moment. In other words, while you are broadly setting a schedule to which you are dedicated, what you do within the confines of that dedication need not be a rote routine.

Let’s say you decide that you are going to practice yoga postures for 20 minutes every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. You have a set of postures you enjoy or have learned that you plan to do and then you actually do this for several weeks regularly. If 7 or 8 weeks down the road you sprain an ankle tripping on the sidewalk, you have still made a commitment to practice. But in order to honor your commitment and practice arjava, there is no need to do the exact same postures that you were doing before the injury. In fact, still practicing, but modifying your practice to best support your health is a definition of integrity. This can be applied to your practice on a day-to-day and moment-to-moment basis as well. Showing up for the practice is the practice. Honoring the needs of the moment to best reduce suffering and promote healing is the practice.

You will likely find that the integrity with which you engage in your practice of yoga or applied to other parts of your life will have an effect beyond you and your mat. Like my daughter and her school, others are always affected by your actions.

Integrity is also relevant to yoga teachers. Little undermines the legitimacy of a teaching than a teacher who says one thing, but does another. T.K.V. Desikachar wrote in his book Health, Healing and Beyond, “A teacher of Yoga should live a life of Yoga – to practice what is taught.” In essence, if you are a teacher be mindful of what you say and do in and out of the classroom, be conscious of the expectations you place on others, and be attentive to the way that your words reflect your actions.

Finally, integrity is pertinent to the administration of yoga studios. Yoga studios and studio owners would be well advised to have clear communication regarding expectations of teachers and students. Written policies and practices are best, but even verbal communication is preferred to a total lack of clarity when it comes to things like how and when people pay, expiration dates, teaching ethics, teacher changes, class cancellations, and a host of other issues that arise at yoga studios.

When I was preparing to write this piece I asked my 14-year old daughter, “What are your thoughts on integrity?” She replied, “It just makes me mad.” Her response surprised me so I asked, “Why?” She told me that “integrity” is one of what her middle school calls “essentials”, a school-wide principle that she has been made to hear about over the past few years. Then our conversation ended abruptly, as is not unusual for a conversation with a teenager, and she was off to another activity.

I took time to consider why she might feel this way and it was pretty clear that what makes her mad is not that integrity is an espoused value of her school, but that it is not being practiced. In her experience teachers are very often not living up to their word and/or responsibilities and the administration has abdicated some of its responsibilities to students. As a specific example, a few months ago when students across the United States walked out of classes as a peaceful protest against gun violence in schools, her school took no proactive position. To be clear, she would have been upset if the school administration stood in opposition to student protest, but she would not have been frustrated with a lack of clarity. What the administration did in this case was to take no position on the health and welfare of students who attend the school, and in my daughter’s eyes this was not in alignment with the principle of integrity that the school claims to promote.

Yoga teachers often talk about and practitioners often give consideration to the idea of “alignment.” The alignment we most often examine is a physical one, the relationships of muscles, bones, and other physical structures to one another. These are worthy considerations that I support. But I further suggest we take more of our yoga practice time and time in our lives in general to evaluate the alignment of our stated goals with our actions and espoused principles with our practices. In this way we will practice and likely become more skilled at arjava and find the peace that flows from practicing and living with integrity.

Victor Dubin, ERYT 500 has been teaching yoga in Santa Cruz, California since 1996. He is a teacher at and co-owner of the wellness center NOURISH. Victor believes that "yoga is not about attempting to fit people into particular models of practice, but creating space for people to discover themselves."

Victor is the director of and primary yoga instructor for the NOURISH Yoga Teacher Training Program. He develops and teaches classes in anatomy, physiology, in-depth posture exploration, meditation, philosophy, and history. He also teaches How to Teach Yoga and guides student teachers in the art and science of class development and instruction. Victor teaches for the ViraVinyasa Yoga Teacher Training in Tulsa, OK and other workshops.

Class Schedule at mindbodyonline.com

Upcoming Workshops at mindbodyonline.com

Facebook: victordubin
Instagram: @victordubin

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook and Twitter ° To order Yoga for Healthy Aging: A Guide to Lifelong Well-Being, go to Amazon, Shambhala, Indie Bound or your local bookstore.

Strength Training for Depression with Yoga

by Ram

Happy Long Life by Kazuaki Tanahashi*

Depression is an extremely complex disease, and depressed individuals feel overwhelmed with sadness and loneliness for unknown reasons. While depression prevents an individual from enjoying life, its effects go far beyond mood alone as it also impacts energy, sleep, appetite, and physical health. Factors that trigger depression include but are not limited to: abuse, certain medications, personal/professional/social conflicts, death or a loss of a loved one, chronic illness, genetics, substance abuse, some traumatic experience, and social isolation. And in one of my earlier posts Depression Accelerates Unhealthy Aging I discussed research studies suggesting that severe depression may trigger rapid and unhealthy aging. Severe depression doesn't just affect the mind, but it also attacks the body on a cellular level and speeds up the aging process. The good news is that there are many steps and lifestyle changes that a depressed individual can take to overcome the symptoms and the challenges they face to bring santosha in their lives. One of the recommendations is to incorporate yoga, meditation and pranayama, which have been shown to reduce the impact of exaggerated stress responses and be helpful for people with severe depression (see Yoga Effective as An Adjunct to Western Medicine for Treating Depression). 

According to a recent review report Association of Efficacy of Resistance Exercise Training With Depressive Symptoms, strength training is good for the mind as well as the body. The study analyzed 33 clinical trials—including nearly 2,000 people—and examined the effects of resistance exercise training on symptoms of depression. The researchers found that in addition to physical benefits, resistance exercise training/strength training is associated with a significant reduction in depressive symptoms. Strength training was associated with improvements in depressive symptoms, such as low mood and a loss of interest in activities and feelings of worthlessness, regardless of a person’s age, sex, health status, specific exercise routine, or improvements. One of the ways by which strength training does this is by increasing blood flow to the brain and triggering the release of mood-enhancing chemicals, such as endorphins. Since the researchers saw improvements associated with a wide range of strength-training programs, they could not suggest a single best exercise regimen for mental health. However, they issued some guidelines, which included doing strength training at least two days per week and performing eight to 12 repetitions of eight to 10 different strength-building exercises each time. 

While the above review study specifically examined resistance training, plenty of evidence suggests that other forms of physical activity, such as aerobic exercise, cardio, and yoga asanas, may also improve depressive symptoms. In one of my earlier articles written in 2013 Yoga Asanas: Endurance Training or Resistance Training?, I argued and put forth reasons why I considered yoga asanas to be both an Endurance Training and Resistance Training exercise. 

Resistance training or Strength training involves a lot of muscular contraction thereby providing functional benefits and strengthening the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints. This type of training uses various forms of exercises to target specific muscle groups. Interestingly, yoga uses the body’s own weight as resistance to build strength and balance. Yoga poses places the body in many poses that not only require strength but also requires contraction of certain specific muscles (referred to as an isometric contraction) to hold the position. In addition, muscular contractions help to lengthen and tone the muscles and help more muscle fibers to be recruited, resulting in improved strength gains. 

The researcher’s suggestion to incorporate 8-12 repetitions of 8-10 different strength-building exercises is also evident in some yoga classes and practices. A continuous flow sequence that calls for moving into several poses sequentially is a physically demanding practice that provides students with opportunities for continued strength gains that are achieved without elaborate and expensive weight-training equipment. While strength training at the gym is focused primarily on improving a body’s physical condition, yoga asanas not only tone the body, but also the breath work, concentration, precise alignment, and the controlling power of how hard you’re pushing yourself puts the individual in a flow state. Researchers and practitioners alike agree that a combination of yoga, meditation, and pranayama is a relatively low-risk, high-yield approach not only to reverse depression and but also to improve overall health. 

The above research together with other findings suggests that depression can be turned into happiness to causally influence health and healthy aging. So how about overcoming depression and bringing that santosha in our own lives through yoga!

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Video of the Week: Sun Salutations with Fig Leaf Forward Fold

This modified version of a Sun Salutation uses our Fig Leaf Forward Fold pose to begin and end each round. Practicing Sun Salutations with this modification may be safer for some of you with lower back problems. 



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Follow Baxter Bell, MD on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. For upcoming workshops and retreats see Baxter's Workshops and for info on Baxter see baxterbell.com.  

Thinking Outside the Box

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