consistent practice

Surviving Winter – It Takes a Village

by ultrapeg

Ah, winter in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  This is an area characterized by challenging and unpredictable weather all year.  A few days ago our temperatures went from -21 degrees to +40 in the span of about 24 hours.  We often say that we can experience all 4 seasons in a single day, sometimes in a matter of hours.  A visitor once asked me “what is typical weather for this time of year?” and I could only reply “there is no ‘typical'”.  The best advice on any given day is to dress in layers and be prepared for anything.  During my years in New England I kept a running log that included what I wore each day to accommodate weather conditions.  Using this guide I was able to decide how to dress within 5 degree increments of temperature change in either direction.  After arriving in South Dakota, that guide soon went out the window.  There are so many variables affecting outdoor comfort here that it is almost impossible to know what to wear.  Even though I subscribe to the theory that there is no bad weather – only poor clothing choices, it’s worth repeating that my best advice is still to dress in layers and be prepared for anything.  Since I try to get outdoors as much as possible all year long, I also advocate carrying a backpack big enough to allow for the addition and subtraction of clothing as conditions change.

Having said all of that, there are hazards to outdoor activities in the winter.  After a stint of super cold and snowy weather it is not uncommon to experience a welcome break in the action featuring sunny days and temperatures that can even reach the 50’s.  As attractive as these periods of respite are, they bring with them a pattern of thaw and freeze that can create dangerous ice.  This past week pretty much everyone I talked to has had some kind of fall on the ice, myself included.  Each new storm spreads a new layer of snow on top of the previous layer of ice.  The new snow sometimes provides extra traction, but it also masks what’s hidden beneath it.  A layer of black ice underneath a shallow layer of snow brought me down.  Fortunately I was not significantly injured, but it was enough of a scare to drive me indoors to the dreaded treadmill.  It takes a lot to get me on the treadmill , but as I get older the possibility of serious injury from falling looms large.  As much as I love being outdoors, it’s not worth the risk.  A few mild and sunny days in a row can be sufficient to clear one of my favorite winter walking areas.  It’s worth the wait.

The good news is I don’t have to use the treadmill every day.  There are other indoor options.  It’s times like these that I am especially grateful for my yoga and Pilates practices.  Both disciplines supplement and support my walking so that I can stay strong and mobile throughout the long winter.  There are many other reasons to bring mind/body practices into your life at any time of year, but winter can be a particularly good time.  Despite the fact that we’ve passed the solstice (yay!) the days are still short.  Little by little we are seeing changes in the extent of daylight in the afternoons, but mornings are still really dark.  An article from Harvard Health Publications titled “Let the Sun Shine Mind Your Mental Health This Winter” points out that winter can throw off the circadian rhythms of our natural internal clocks.  This can affect moods and even overall mental health.  We’ve all heard of “Seasonal Affective Disorder” which, as defined by the Mayo Clinic, is a type of depressions that occurs with the changing of the seasons.  The Harvard Health article emphasizes the importance of physical exercise as an antidote for this problem.  Just 30 minutes of daily exercise not only helps relieve stress but also “may help your body release endorphins, your natural ‘happy hormones'” which can help elevate your mood naturally, without drugs.  The article further advocates yoga as a meditative practice that can help quiet the mind and mitigate symptoms of depression.

Another article in Harvard Health Publications titled “How Simply Moving Benefits Your Mental Health” provides additional support for exercise as a mental health booster.  The article states that regular exercise “can reduce anxiety by making your brain’s “fight or flight” system less reactive”.  In fact, according to this article exercise can “be as effective as medication and psychotherapies“.  Exercise boosts mood “by increasing a brain protein called BDNF that helps nerve fibers grow.”  The article specifically identifies yoga and other practices “in which you pay close attention to your bodily sensations, position in space, and . . . breathing as you move. . .  can reduce the severity of symptoms in post-traumatic stress disorder. Changing your posture, breathing, and rhythm can all change your brain, thereby reducing stress, depression, and anxiety, and lead to a feeling of well-being.”  The article goes on to say although you can practice these disciplines on your own, “a recent study found that when you try to move in synchrony with someone else, it also improves your self-esteem.”  I love this result!  Not only are mind/body movement disciplines shown to improve mental health, but moving with others makes the practice even better.  There are many reasons to take classes but here is another one we can add to that list.  Since “synchronizing” can imply mimicking, I don’t necessarily advocate doing this in a class, especially if you are new to the practice. However, especially in Pilates we do think about the rhythm of our movements so perhaps we could consider the class like an orchestra with each of us moving in concert with one another – not necessarily mirroring others but still making individual contributions to the presentation as a whole.  What a great concept!

If you still need more reasons to find a way to keep moving even when conditions outdoors may be discouraging, let me cite one more article in Harvard Health Publications.  This one, titled “Challenge Your Mind and Body to Sharpen Your Thinking Skills” by Heidi Godman, an intriguing title all by itself, highlights the advantages of both movement and social engagement. The article cites Dr. Kathryn Papp, a neuropsychologist and instructor in neurology at Harvard Medical School, who says “Until the mid-1990s, we thought that people were born with however many brain cells they would die with. We now know that the growth of new cells — a process called neurogenesis — occurs throughout life, even in older age.” And the good news is “researchers have found that physical exercise leads to the release of cellular growth factors that are important for neurogenesis.” Furthermore, the “combination of growth factors and new brain cells that comes from healthy living, challenging the brain, and staying socially connected in a meaningful way may actually help protect the brain or keep it more resilient against changes that cause dementia”.  Classes in yoga and Pilates accomplish all three of those goals – challenging the brain through connecting the mind to physical movement, social connections with other class participants and, as Dr. Papp puts it, “the grand poobah of them all: exercising.”  Seems to me that this is one more reason to give classes a try.  Although there are no guarantees, it certainly can’t hurt.

If you’re new to regular movement practices, my advice remains to take it slow, go at your own pace, don’t worry about what you look like and just keep at it.  Remember that the goal is practice, not perfection.  But keeping all of the advantages mentioned above up front in your mind might help keep you motivated when you’re tempted to quit.  And if you continue to practice you just might find that you begin to notice the difference in both your mental and physical well-being.  What is that worth to you?  Seems to me it’s priceless!

Am I Making Progress?

by ultrapeg
mhpjoggeropti
Am I Making Progress ?

By Peg Ryan
Mile High Pilates and Yoga

A friend and I were talking as we walked this morning about some of the ongoing controversies within the health and wellness communities.  One example: how do cholesterol levels really impact our health and what are optimum levels?  For many years this seemed to be settled science.  High cholesterol was linked to “bad” fat in the diet.  Everyone jumped on a reduced fat or fat-free diet.  Then research began to show that heredity and genetics also play a part.  Dietary cholesterol intake might not be such a significant factor after all.  Further research began to distinguish between types of cholesterol and also types of fat.   The subtleties of determining optimum levels in diverse individuals began to present additional complications in diagnosis and treatment.  There was a time when some doctors were advocating putting cholesterol-lowering medications in the water supply.  Fortunately, subsequent research has begun to question whether or not previously established optimum cholesterol levels are really applicable to all people.  So even when we think modern methods have settled certain questions, inevitably more questions tend to surface.

To complicate matters even more, increasing interest in holistic approaches to health care recommend taking the whole person into consideration instead of just isolated symptoms or systems.  This means recognizing that our internal mechanisms are not only interconnected but also impacted by our minds and emotions. Add to this the fact that each of us has our own individual responses to various medical interventions, none of which is always true for every person, regardless of the statistical results of clinical trials.  As human beings we have much in common, but we each have unique characteristics that make generalizations difficult if not downright dangerous at times.  My feeling is that we are all an experiment of one.  Getting to know our own bodies is just one step in the direction of learning what is right for each of us as individuals, regardless of what the latest study seems to show.

For many years there has been an ongoing discussion in the fitness industry.  It goes something like this:  is it healthier to be a thin couch potato or an overweight exerciser?  There are, of course, advocates and plausible arguments on both sides.   But in my opinion, all of this points to the many questions that still exist in our knowledge of how human beings work.  We are just beginning to learn about nutrition, what a body actually requires and the best way to provide it. This is no small task since each of us has different needs. This subject is still not well-taught in our medical schools and or even well understood by researchers. We get sound bites of research, most of which is flawed, that the media jumps on as the next magic solution. People hop on the bandwagon only to find that what worked for their neighbor simply doesn’t work for them. Then the next study comes down the pike which contradicts the one before it.  “Coffee is good for your heart!” shout the headlines only to be followed a few months later by, “Don’t drink coffee, it’s bad for you” or “Drink 3 cups of coffee, but not 4”.   It seems that each time some question finds what looks like an answer, a whole new set of questions arises.

Having said all of that, there is one thing that all of us have been hearing for many years and that a mounting body of evidence from many different sources continues to support.  We all need to move more for better health.  Many years of sedentary lifestyles have affected our health in negative ways.  This is just one factor in modern life that affects our health, but this is one we can choose to change.  But how to move, when to move, how often, how fast – all of these still remain questions that each of us as individuals need to answer for ourselves.

So what happens when you finally take that big step forward and make that change?  You’ve made the decision, committed yourself and incorporated a regular movement practice into your life. How do you know if you’re making progress toward better health?  Maybe despite attention your diet and consistent exercise you just don’t seem to be seeing results.  You were expecting to feel stronger, have better balance, ease some of your pain, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.  This can be discouraging.  You may even begin to doubt your own capacity for feeling better.  Thoughts like “I’m no good at this” or “I will never get any better” may begin to creep into your consciousness further sabotaging your efforts.

In the fitness industry we often speak of “exercise plateaus”.  Many people make noticeable gains in the early days of an exercise program.  Of course, this is not true for everyone.  In some cases the very act of beginning a movement practice is so stressful that it can take time for the practitioner to begin to feel better.  In all cases the body gradually adapts to the changing demands on its systems.  Sometimes this results in what looks like a levelling off of change.  But the changes that are continuing – and it is my opinion that they are, in fact, continuing – to take place may simply have moved into a more subtle realm.  This is the time when it becomes more important than ever to focus on continuing your practice and going deeper into the subtle aspects of mind-body connection to find the changes.  Here are some questions you might want to consider:  How do you feel?  If your goal when you began your practice was pain relief, perhaps your pain is still there.  But are you better able to live with it since beginning your practice?  Can you move more easily?  Are you better able to do at least some of the things that were beyond your ability when you started?  Do you have more stamina?  Try focussing on the improvement instead of the lingering limitations.

If your goal was weight loss, but you can’t seem to get there from here, ask yourself:  Do my clothes fit better?  Do I have more color in my cheeks?  How are my energy levels?  Do I fatigue less easily?  Am I sleeping better?  Am I standing taller?  Posture improvement is an important result of many mind-body movement systems including yoga and Pilates.  Another consequence of our sedentary lifestyle is erosion of good posture and resulting back, neck and shoulder problems.  In a recent article in Yoga Journal, Dr. Ray Long speaks of the immediate difference in his patients’ moods when he gives them a simple exercise that allows them to sit upright in a chair.  They change from describing themselves as being “tired” or “sad” to being “alert” and “bright”.  Which brings up another question:  Has your mood improved?  Remember, your emotions, mind and body are all interconnected.  Has working your body helped you to better respond to situations in your life?  Are you better able to relax and find stress-free moments? Maybe you don’t get irritated as easily by little things.  Perhaps you are more in touch with the present moment rather than regretting the past or fearing the future.  There is every reason to believe that your movement practice has contributed to these changes as well.

Going back to the concept that we are each an experiment of one, each of us will respond differently to whatever interventions we adopt to address our health needs.  As you begin to examine the more subtle changes in your mind and body, you will no doubt think of other ways to note your progress.  What works for the person next to you in class may not work for you and vice versa.  We each have to find our own way.  But it helps if you gear your measurements to your own needs rather than the needs of others or anything you read about in the popular press. Develop your own yardsticks of progress and if one ceases to work, find another.  There is no one perfect measurement.  After all what is progress?  Make your own definition.  But if it means positive change then I am confident that you will find it if you take the time to look.

The important thing is to stick with your practice no matter what.  Don’t give up. Change it if you need to reignite your enthusiasm or cut back if your body demands it.  But don’t stop moving. Whatever your definition of progress, it will certainly stop if you do.  And it is much more difficult to re-start after stopping than it is to just keep moving at whatever level you can.   Even if you think you aren’t getting anywhere, you are exactly where you need to be.  Be kind to yourself, practice patience, be grateful for your ability to move and breathe and honor your body’s desire to maintain that ability.