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Yoga As Sensory Haven

  Better posture from yoga. Better focus. Better balance. Stronger muscles. Stronger core. Stronger nervous system! The list goes on. Yoga asanas stimulate and integrates all the senses, enhancing sensory integration. They do so by providing antigravity control, postural control, midline development, core control, coordination, body awareness, modulation and regulation of breath. The Senses P roprioception comes from balancing and weight bearing postures, changing body positions, and postures involving push/pull (flexion/extension) into joints and muscles (“heavy work”). All put pressure into the joint. This pressure sends information to the brain about where the body is in space to enhance body awareness. V estibular input happens with each head change as you move through space in different directions: upright, forward, backward, rotated—from up to down; from backbends to forward bends; from bends to twists . These head changes tap into the balance system and alert th...
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Get on the Yoga Mat: Body Was Designed to Move

  “You’re as young as your spine is flexible.” ~Joseph Pilates How often do you exercise? The answer is critical to your well-being. The body was designed to move. Our early ancestors hunted and foraged for food and water, carried children, and hauled tubers and melons. Hard work and much walking and running were adaptive for survival and kept bodies and minds working well. The day ended with tranquility and sleep. As little as 75 years ago, before modern technology made us sedentary, movement was woven into everyday life: we strolled to the store and sprinted to catch the bus; we carried groceries home and trekked up and down stairs, some with a baby in arms. Kids played outside, walked and biked to school, roller skated to the store, planted a garden, pushed a lawnmower and shoveled snow. Farm folks milked cows, rode horses, pitched hay, cleaned out the barn, and carried water from the well. What has happened to our bodies in modern, technological life is a t...
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Yoga Bliss & Brain Waves

  Are you jumpy and anxious? That’s because your brain is spiking with high beta waves (18-40 Hz). Are you engaged, energized, and focused? That’s because your brain is spiking with mid-range beta brain waves (15HZ to 18HZ), present during waking and driven by dopamine. Are you relaxed and meditative? That’s because your brain is spiking with alpha brain waves (8Hz to 12Hz). Brain waves are electrical flows that pass between the cranial nerves. Change your brain waves, change your mental state. Yoga will do this for you. Change in Brain Waves During Yoga Practice As you move through asanas, mid-range beta brain waves give you the mental focus and alertness needed for movement. These mid-range brain waves combine with the slower, relaxing, alpha brain waves, the state between awake and asleep. Needed for sensory perception, alpha brain waves enable us to pay attention to certain sensations and ignore others. When you focus on shifting your body in Warrior III to sta...
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What Creates Yoga Bliss?

  To many, yoga bliss comes from spiritual awakening, as described in yoga teachings. I believe neuroscience offers a more specific explanation. It’s about biochemistry. Three Power Senses & Yoga Bliss In yoga, you move through a series of poses (asanas) that involve considerable proprioceptive input (sense of body awareness from input into the joints and muscles), vestibular input (sense of balance from moving in a different plane) and tactile input from deep pressure applied to your body against floor or wall. These three “primary” senses are our power senses. Strong input into these three, bolstered by deep breathing throughout the practice is the secret behind yoga bliss. “Primary senses?” You might be shaking your head. Don’t we have only five senses: touch, vision, hearing, smell, taste? No. These five senses are only what most people are aware of. In truth we have at least eight senses, including the vestibular, proprioceptive and interoceptive. During yoga...
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How Yoga Helped Me Survive Head Trauma

      The arduous hour and a half Power Vinyasa class is at an   end. Lying on my back in Savasana (the corpse pose)— eyes closed and eyeballs fallen into the orbits, arms spread and legs open slightly wider than the hips, palms up and chin slightly pulled down—my body, heavy, melts into the floor. My breathing slows to 3 to 4 times per minute and a quiet peace   resides in my center. I am lost in the moment. Time stands still and my mind floats above the clouds. The experience is the closest I come to a   religious encounter. All the strenuous effort of the last hour and a half has been a preparation for this serene, meditative place. I never want to leave. Ahhh. Yoga bliss. Typical for me is this quiet stillness and serenity at the    end of Power Vinyasa Yoga: a vigorous, challenging Vinyasa-style practice consisting of a flowing, vigorous, dynamic seque...
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