Almost everything I enjoy doing
involves sitting down. I love reading and writing. I knit, crochet
and scrapbook. As a computer programmer, I sit at my computer at
least eight hours a day, five days a week. In fact, I’m sitting down
right now, feet up on the couch. Most exercise I find to be a chore.
I don’t why anyone would wake up at 6 am to go running. I never
understood why chasing after a ball or hitting an object with a
stick is fun… and don’t get me started on lifting weights. I was picked last in gym class and I didn’t blame them. I’m horrible at pretty much every sport minus skiing… but even that I’m mediocre at best.
However I envy those who enjoy exercise and sports. I
know how important it is to be active and I would encourage everyone
to have do some physical activity in lives even if they don’t enjoy it.
It’ll keep you healthy, give you energy and improve your overall
quality of life.
There is one type of exercise though
that has brought me some joy and that is yoga. I started practicing
in high school and have been doing it ever since. There’s no
competition, it helps you relax and improves balance and flexibility. All things I like.
But even with something as calming and
beneficial as yoga there are risks that have recently been brought to
my attention. One afternoon my friend sent me an interview that was
aired on NPR about these risks which inspired me to look further into
how yoga can actually be harmful.
The one thing I love about yoga is it
idea of non-violence to yourself. We, as a society, are constantly in
competition with our peers and with ourselves. So, when I step in the
yoga studio I let go and give myself to permission to be unable to do
something. And that’s not just the extreme things like, I can’t put
my leg behind my head or stand on my head. I don’t care that I can’t
quite touch my toes and that I can’t do that last pose. But there are
so many students (and some teachers) who fail to follow this very
fundamental idea and it can lead to injury.
A common yoga pose, shoulder stand is
when you lay down and try to throw your legs up and stand on your
shoulders. From there you can go into plow in which you try to touch
the floor with your feet. I’m not a fan of shoulder stand and I am
unable to do plow so I was glad to have a reason to sit it out
completely. As you can imagine, neck injury is a possibility but what
you may not have known is that you can damage a vertebral artery (the
arteries in your neck). Such an injury can lead to blood clots and
swelling. Blood flow to the brain is blocked or significantly
impaired which can lead to stroke.
The next step up from shoulder stand
would be headstand. This pose can lead to thoracic outlet syndrome.
When you stand on your head, you compress the nerves going from your
neck to your arms which can lead to tingling and occasional numbness
in the hands. Not to mention you can fall over and hurt yourself in any number of different ways.
Now you are saying, “But those are hard
poses that are obviously dangerous”. Well, even a simple pose like
hero pose (where you kneel and sit back on your heels) can be
dangerous. Sitting in hero pose for long periods of time lead to a
condition known as yoga foot drop (yes it’s so common they named it). The pose deprives the peripheral
branch of the sciatic nerve of oxygen. This is the nerve that run
from the lower spine down to through the leg. The lack of oxygen can
lead to deadening the nerve and can lead to chronic pain and trouble
walking.
Something as seemingly tame as a spinal twist can lead to serious injury. There have been reports of people breaking their ribs from this “gentle” pose.
I’m not a fan of the new fad known as hot yoga but now
I have an actual reason to avoid it besides I’m not a fan of being
really hot which exercising. The idea is that the heat relaxes the muscles allowing you stretch your muscles further that normal…
which is the problem. You are actually over stretching your muscles which can lead to torn ligaments and serious muscle damage.
So I urge all of my fellow yoga
students to be careful. Yoga should be relaxing and improve your life. Don’t let it be the thing that ruins it just because you wanted to do that extreme back bend. Know your limits and know that in yoga class
it’s the one place where you are in competition with NO ONE.