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 tragedy: we were never designed to be couch/mouse potatoes. Consider, for instance, the perils of sitting in a chair. In   addition to not moving our bodies, sitting all day on our derriere results in loss of flexibility and awareness in our spine. Without a flexible spine, we can’t have a flexible body. The fleshy, slouched, awkward and painful bodies so many modern folks inhabit reflect such an anti-biological sedentary lifestyle.

“Take care of your body, it’s the only place you have to live.”

~Jim Rohn

Yoga is an antidote to the ravages of our sedentary, unnaturally slumped lifestyle. Rather than hunched over a desk, we’re standing upright in Mountain. Rather than staring at a screen, we’re staring at a spot on the wall (dristi) to help us balance in Tree. Rather than wearing shoes which can deform and squish toes, ruin posture and cause problems like corns and bunions, shin splints and plantar fasciitis, we’re barefoot on the mat. Rather than filling our heads with constant worry, we’re present in the moment.

Yoga Returns Our Body to Its Essence

Perhaps yoga’s worldwide popularity is an ancient evolutionary call to return to our essence.

Through the forward bends, backward bends, sideward bends, twists and inversions in a yoga practice, our bodies move the ways they were built to move. In fact, a fundamental aspect of yoga practice is the awakening of the spine to undulate backwards and forwards, undulate side-to-side, and to twist. Such awakening straightens out the spine to enable one to sit upright longer in meditation—the true purpose of yoga.

With a healthy, flexible spine, bodies stay fit: posture erect; shoulders retracted; bones strong.

In my twilight years, my spine remains flexible. I stand tall at 5’3”—the same height I was at 17—and peer down at many of my hunched contemporaries as their stiff, slumped bodies shrink into the ground.

One of my most memorable and life changing moments came a few years ago when, out of nowhere, Gerry, one of my yoga teachers sauntered up to me, gave me a hug, and said, “I love your yoga body.”

Wow! In my 70’s I still had a yoga body—upright, solid, firm and toned. From that day on, whenever I felt not up to going to class, or wanted to binge on a pint of mocha almond coconut ice cream, Gerry’s words would ring in my ears. “Nope. I can’t lose my yoga body.”

Having a yoga body also makes me happier. Research has found that by standing up straight our attitude changes. We feel more enthusiastic and less discouraged; more courageous and less fearful; calmer and less jumpy; alert and less sluggish just by getting us to stand and sit straighter: “Up!” is the magic word in yoga.

Other strenuous exercise, like aerobics bathes the nervous system with power sensations, calming and relaxing us, but doesn’t have the same effect on posture. Moreover, research confirms greater emotional stability and well-being from yoga practice than other type of exercise. 

“I Do Yoga to Burn Off the Crazy,” touts a yoga T-shirt so popular it’s sold in the mega giant Walmart.

Excerpted from Yoga Bliss, How Sensory Input in Yoga Calms and Organizes the Nervous System. 

www.sharonheller.net. Email:info@sharonheller.net.