Autumn Lotus Yoga

Okay, fascinating article in the NY Times Well blog today.  Beloved Husband has had some bizarre muscle cramps recently, and HEAB’s blog yesterday mentioned loving pickle juice way back when!  http://heathereatsalmondbutter.com/2010/06/08/the-iron-results/

Back to the bitchin’ yoga schedule — will discuss that tomorrow!  Pickles today!

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/phys-ed-can-pickle-juice-stop-muscle-cramps/

By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS

Stockbyte/Getty Images

Recently, 10 healthy male college students filed into an exercise laboratory at Brigham Young University in Utah to drink pickle juice. Many people involved in sports are convinced that the briny fluid combats muscle cramping. In a 2008 survey, a quarter of the athletic trainers interviewed said that they regularly dispense pickle juice to cramp-stricken athletes. Many also report that, in their experiences, the stuff quickly brakes the cramping. The athletic trainers have told researchers that they believe the pickle juice must be replenishing the salt and fluids the athletes had lost to sweat. But no laboratory science had verified that theory.

The Utah volunteers began with a series of 30-minute bicycling sessions, using a semi-recumbent bicycle, configured so that only leg pedaled. The laboratory was warm, increasing the amount the exercising men sweated. Each cycled in 30-minute bouts (with five minutes of rest between) until each had lost 3 percent of his body weight through perspiration, a widely accepted definition of mild dehydration.

The young men were then fitted with a contraption on the big toe of their unexercised leg, and the tibial nerve in the men’s ankles was electrically stimulated, causing a muscle in the big toe to cramp. (The procedure causes some discomfort, making it too painful to use on larger muscles, like the hamstrings or the quadriceps.) The volunteers were told to relax and let the cramps run their course. The average duration of the cramps was about two and a half minutes.

The volunteers rested and did not drink any fluids. Then their tibial nerve was zapped again. This time, though, as soon as the toe cramps began, each man downed about 2.5 ounces of either deionized water or pickle juice, strained from a jar of ordinary Vlasic dills. The reaction, for some, was rapid. Within about 85 seconds, the men drinking pickle juice stopped cramping. But the cramps continued unabated in the men drinking water. Pickle juice had “relieved a cramp 45 percent faster” than drinking no fluids and about 37 percent faster than water, concluded the authors of the study, which was published last month on the Web site of the journal of the American College of Sports Medicine.

Exercise-induced muscle cramps are one of the continuing mysteries of physiology. Extremely pervasive, they afflict most active people at some point. But scientists remain deeply divided about what causes the cramping. For years, most people, inside and outside academia, believed that cramping was caused by sweating-induced dehydration and the accompanying loss of sodium and potassium. Sufferers were advised to load up on potassium-rich bananas or chug large amounts of salty sports drinks.

But a number of laboratory and field studies in recent years have undermined the dehydration theory. The most recent, completed by the same group of scientists who studied pickle juice, employed a similar study design. A group of college students had cramps induced in their toes. They then pedaled with one leg until dehydration set in. Their toes were made to cramp again, Presumably if dehydration were the underlying cause of the cramping, the scientists should have been able to induce a cramp with less electrical stimulation when the men were dehydrated; their muscles should have been primed to cramp. But the experiment didn’t work out that way. As detailed last month in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, the scientists had to use the same amount of stimulation to induce a cramp after dehydration as they had before. Their conclusion? “Exercise-induced cramps occurring to athletes” who are mildly dehydrated “were likely not caused by dehydration,” says Kevin C. Miller, Ph.D., ATC, the lead author of both studies and now an assistant professor in the Athletic Training Education Program at North Dakota State University in Fargo.

What, then, does probably cause athletes to cramp? The pickle-juice experiment provides some intriguing clues. “The pickle juice did not have time” to leave the men’s stomachs during the experiment, Mr. Miller points out. So the liquid itself could not have been replenishing lost fluids and salt in the affected muscles. Instead some other mechanism must have initiated the cramps and been stymied by the pickle juice.

Mr. Miller suspects that that mechanism is exhaustion, either directly or through biochemical processes the accompany fatigue. Certain mechanisms within muscles have been found, in animal and limited human studies, he says, to start misfiring when a muscle is extremely tired. Small nerves that should keep the muscle from overcontracting malfunction and the muscle bunches when it should relax. Pickle juice may work, Mr. Miller says, by countermanding the malfunction. Something in the acidic juice, perhaps even a specific molecule of some kind, may be lighting up specialized nervous-system receptors in the throat or stomach, he says, which, in turn, send out nerve signals that somehow disrupt the reflex melee in the muscles. Mr. Miller suspects that, ultimately, it’s the vinegar in the pickle juice that activates the receptors. In a recent case report by other researchers, a single athlete’s cramping was relieved more quickly when he drank pure vinegar (without much pleasure, I’m sure) than when he drank pickle juice.

At the moment, speculation about the powers of pickle juice remains just that, speculative. “It’s extremely challenging” to induce realistic sports cramps in the lab, Mr. Miller says. His technique, of causing the big toe to spasm, while useful, can’t fully replicate what happens in larger, stronger leg muscles during a cramp. Still, the work is suggestive and, perhaps most important, implies methods for finding relief. “If muscle fatigue is the cause,” he says, then training properly, building up your mileage slowly and perhaps adding strength training that focuses specifically on muscles that have cramped in the past, may help. In the meantime, if your calf or other muscle suddenly, painfully catches, “try stretching it,” Mr. Miller says. Doing so has been found in laboratory studies to significantly shorten the duration of a muscle cramp, most likely by shaking up and resetting the misfiring muscle and nerve reflexes. And perhaps, if you can stomach the idea, pack a few ounces of pickle juice on your next training session. It’s not as palatable as bananas, but unlike them, “it seems to work,” Mr. Miller says.

The pose continuum is much like the spacetime continuum. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime_continuum

I am such a geek.

Actually, it’s a concept born in my head in response to some yoga cliches I keep hearing & can no longer agree with or support.  Yes, the ever popular “There is no such thing as a perfect pose” and “There is no wrong pose” crap.

Okay, let’s look at the “no wrong pose” concept first.   Because there are some Very Wrong Poses. 

Wrong Poses: Ones that hurt, exacerbate an injury, or are inappropriate for where the student is at physically/emotionally — or, ones that are so effed up in alignment that it looks like Picasso doing yoga.   (Which would be totally AWESOME.  I want a series of Cubist yoga paintings.) 

A yoga class would then look like this!  If we were all, like, nekkid & stuff.

(Though I swear one of the Demoiselles of Avignon is doing Gomukhasana/Cowface pose arms!!  Seriously!!  Look at the second from the left!!)

Ok.  Back from art/yoga fusion geekiness.  On with the rant.

So then there is the “no perfect pose” silliness!  Yes, I understand the intention of the phrase.  But.  In a particular moment, there can be a particular expression of a pose that  fits juuuuuuuuuust right.  That feels & breaths & heals & is like a drink of water on a dry day.  It is something that changes every single breath, perhaps, but there sometimes is a really great place to be in a pose.  Right foot just in X spot, Left foot somewhere tasty, core alive, everything moving in freedom & beauty.  Yummmmmmmmm.

Hence, the invention of the Pose Continuum.   The perfect pose is frequently evasive.  The wrong pose sometimes annoyingly persistent.   The gradation between them is wide, though, & a really good playground. 

It’s the range of expressions of a pose where it’s not distorted & owchy & is unencumbered by BS projections of This Is How Triangle MUST Look.   It’s the places where a pose is workable & you’re on the journey towards Just Right For You Right At That Moment. 

(I am currently writing like Pooh Bear talks.  Hunh.   

The Pose Continuum means we have many opportunities to find goodness & sweetness in the pose.   Like Rumi wrote  (one must quote Rumi in yoga, yes?

“Out beyond ideas
of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.

I’ll meet you there.”

Pose Continuum.  Talk it up.  Tell it to your friends.  Before I trademark all the cool.

This past weekend I got to spend almost all of Sunday at Back Bay Yoga doing two amazing workshops.  I’ll pass on the gems from the first one today.  Not even gonna try to give everything that happened, but just a few of the bits I found most useful/interesting.

Christine Raffa from Raffa Yoga in Providence, RI led the workshop.   Christine is a blonde, sporty little sprite who favors patterned tanktops & boisterous ballcaps.  She also has an incredible background in a neuroanatomy, yoga & bodywork.  Here’s a link to her studio:  http://www.raffayoga.com/  and to her bio:  http://www.raffayoga.com/?page_id=41

She started us off standing at the front of the mat in Tadasana.  Same as we’ve done a bajillion times.   BUT.  She then had us roll forward, putting weight in the toes, then back a little, lifting the toes, into Active Feet.  She stood at the front of the room, facing sideways to us, and exaggerated the moves so we could clearly see the postural shift.  Newsflash.  Most of us stand too far forward into the toes, pitching the angle of the pelvis, sending the ribs on a diagonal & jutting out the head.  Active Feet puts the weight back into alignment, in a plumb line from the back of the skullbones to sitzbones to heels.

Next we all put a block between the ankle bones & practiced active feet while squeezing the block & turning on the inner line of the leg.  ZING!  Activation/energy ran up all the way into pelvic floor to the center of gravity, S2.

Big revelation of the workshop following on from the importance of the feet:  flexibility & alignment of the feet correlates profoundly with flexibility & healthy alignment in the back.

Follow the logic — how we stand or walk travels up & has direct consequences for the pelvis & therefore for the low back.  Misalignment in the feet & inflexiblity in the ankles distorts healthy standing & walking & injures the back/diminishes flexibility & spine health over time.

For yoga teachers, this means she encourages looking at the pose from the ground up rather than gravitating to “hot spots” of wonkiness.  (Teachers, you know what I mean.   The one question I have with this that I’m pondering is the imporance of also looking quickly at what is happening in the spine — David Swenson’s advice for posture assessment.

Christine gave us two especially useful exercises to increase flexiblity in the feet & release the low back.  I’ve already incorporated them into my daily pre-class warm up.

1)  Sit on your heels.  With the feet flexed, however, not pointed.  Some folks call this “Toes Pose.”  This is a doozy for stretching the feet & frequently can be done for only moments at a time at first.  For extra goodness, squeeze a block between the ankles so ya don’t rotate the heels out.

2)  Lie on your back.  Send the feet up to 90 degrees, in line with the hips.  Keep the back in a neutral, natural curve.   Arms straight up over head until they touch the ground.  Rotate the arms so the palms face down, staying on fingertips if that feels better in the shoulders.   Keep the feet hip distance & parallel.  Now point & flex the feet, at the same time.  Start slow & then speed it up.  This is fantastic for warming up the whole core cause it gets into the psoas, & for helping out feet & back in one fell swoop.

Ok, quick addendum post to share a NY Times article about new research on the power of touch to communicate emotion & enhance performance.  Check this out:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/health/23mind.html?ref=health

“A warm touch seems to set off the release of oxytocin, a hormone that helps create a sensation of trust, and to reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

Truth in sourcing — this comes from February 2010 Allure magazine, page 90.  (Yeah, sue me.  I don’t always read the Bhagavad Gita when on the T.  Though it has happened on occasion. :)

But the magazine does cite a study that supports what I’ve often felt, and it is always nice to be scientifically proved right.

“Exercising in class or with friends produces more pleasure than working out alone.  In a study at the University of Oxford in England, 12 rowers had higher increases in endorphins (as indicated by their ability to tolerate pain) when they trained in groups of  six than when they trained by themselves, despite equivalent workouts and effort.  Endorphins are believed to play a role in social bonding, notes Robin Dunbar, professor of evolutionary anthropology at the university.  These natural painkillers can help you exercise longer and harder and boost your immunity…”

Okay, not endorsing the whole “exercise” and “pain” association with yoga, BUT!  Frequently class is a huge upper, and doing asanas with others produces more pleasure & we’re also able to access more/different experiences than when alone.  It’s just plain interesting to apply the endorphin/social bonding aspect to group practice — pleasure in practice & community enhancing chemicals, all for free in the body!!

Practice yesterday was teaching a super fun inversion class (more on that later this week; I’ll post the sequence) and taking Vanessa’s Hip Hop, all at Back Bay.  Today there’s volunteering, sweaty class & maybe more Back Bay!  Go endorphins!!

So, here’s what’s been going on that prompted me to take a blogging break.   It is a long post in its entirety but summarized briefly below. 

The summary: I am of course back to practicing every day after slacking for 5 days over the holidays.  (Vegas, baby!!!)   Mostly doing Baptiste yoga because the Cambridge studio is 1) ten minutes walk from my house 2) heated to 95 degrees while the rest of Boston freezes it’s a$$ off, and 3) I am doing Forrest modifications all over the place with complete permission from all teachers.  I am also going to Back Bay to teach and take class 3-4 times a week because I love BBY.  AND!! Ana is due here in 1 week!! 

Key part of summary:  I am also taking my own frickin’ advice and seeing a professional headshrinker.  

All is well.  I am back to writing. I have missed you.

————————–

Longer version if you choose to continue: As is apparent in my blog posts and even more so in daily life, I have issues.   (Yep, welcome to the human race!)  For a long time (25 years??) I’ve thought “I need to talk to a professional,” but I’m stubborn with a tendency to think I can do everything myself and a reluctance to ask for help.  Sound familiar to anyone else?  

But I’ve hit a point where it feels like I have done everything I can think of to deal with my crap on my own and with the help of my friends/teachers.  Really, I’ve tried alot of stuff.  Things that are a really good idea to do to help oneself, and I’ve also tried things that are really dumb to try and help.  On the good mental health side: I do yoga.   I try to nourish myself and have maintained pretty good eating disorder recovery.  I’ve eliminated all the external stress a person can eliminate.  I have a wonderful marriage, adorable kitties, amazing friends. 

And I still drive myself crazy ALOT.  I can pranayama and asana and meditate and the crazy still bites me on the ass.

(Delicate phrasing, hunh? Yeah, well, acknowledging one’s feelings and employing emotional self-expression is good self-treatment so there.

After battling the medical system for the past few weeks — and I have GOOD insurance!!  — I have had three appointments in the past seven days. 

First was pretty much accidental with a straight-up MD.  She was ADORABLE.  I am already at the age where many doctors (especially interns) are significantly younger than me and damn cute.  She is a very intelligent doc, but I automatically called the little redhead (yay redheads!) by her first name and wanted to adopt her.  She did a basic medical exam and took bloodwork.  Second appt was with an MD of the Psychiatric Persuasion who wasn’t taking new patients but did hear me out and agree I needed to find someone.  Third appointment was yesterday with another headshrinker.

Yesterday’s session with Herr Doktor (his new pseudonym Chez Lotus was quite productive.  90 minutes of full mental download the likes of which I have not accomplished before — mostly because I was finally up against the wall enough to be willing to divulge anything I could think of to get appropriate insight/help.  There have been many situations where I could have talked all I wanted to about my shit, including teacher training, my friends, my husband, even this blog, but I just wouldn’t let down my guard and I don’t want my crap to define too much of my daily life.  My top priority is to have a happy day most days.   But I felt very comfortable in the environment I chose yesterday.  I especially like patient-Doktor privilege, and the fact that this is someone outside my personal circle who has heard EVERYTHING.

Herr Doktor’s conclusion was I have high anxiety, medium depression and mild OCD.  Wait for it… the sound of a bunch of heads nodding in unison.    I think a good diagnosis is one that has me, my husband and my BFFs going — “Yeah, that’s no shocker.” 

Outcome of the session was setting up continued chats and getting a prescription for medication. 

That last clause can be a hot button for some people.  Yes, I am completely okay with getting medication to try and help with my shit.  I do everything I can think of, and it’s still interfering with my life.    Yoga is wonderful.  It has kept me alive this far.  It will continue to shape every part of my healing.  Medication is another aid to that healing; I will use any tool necessary and available.  Anyone who wishes may choose to write me off as non-yogic and stop reading –  your path is your path; my path is mine.

The specifics of the prescription is two-fold.  Beta-blockers for just-in-time treatment of panic and Neurontin to work more continually. 

Of course I find any brain chemistry toy fascinating.  Beta-blockers are used usually for hypertension but also frequently by performers and surgeons to prevent the physical manifestation of anxiety.  They work by blocking the fight-or-flight chemicals epinephrine and norepinephrine, and tend to slow heartrate, lower blood pressure, minimize sweaty palms and lightheadedness. 

The Neurontin also goes by the generic name gabapentin and is used primarily as an anti-convulsant for seizures.  It’s also prescribed though for migraines, bipolar disorder, substance abuse withdrawal and — key for me – anxiety and insomnia.  Best I can understand it, Neurontin acts as supplemental GABA, a neurotransmitter in the brain.  (Don’t confuse it with “natural” GABA supplements — those have no scientific studies to support effectiveness.) GABA inhibits excitement of the nervous system, especially to block excess epinephrine.   

I took my first Neurontin last night.  No discernable effects but a bit of drowsiness.  Didn’t really fall asleep any faster and still woke up ungodly early.  But it’s a med that has to build up a little in the blood (“titrate” was my word of the day yesterday in order to be effective.

Both meds are the “lightest” Herr Doktor could come up with — low side effect profile, low chance of psychological addiction. 

This is kind of a really fascinating turn in my journey for me.  I am observing with great interest my reactions to deciding to get help, working to get help and how Iwill actually receive/process both therapy and medication.  I’d like to share it freely as part of my larger process with the goal, as always on this blog, to try and be open about my journey in the hopes that it will be useful to others.

Hope to see you tomorrow. x’s & o’s! 

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/phys-ed-can-touching-your-toes-test-your-arteries/

A few weeks ago, I posted on a NY Times article about a study showing that flexibility doesn’t improve athletic performance. (And ranted about the sit  & reach test.  It’s all right here: http://autumnlotusyoga.omblogger.com/2009/11/27/is-stretching-unnecessary/)

Well, skimming NYT on line today, found a fascinating article on how the sit & reach test can correlate with flexibility of the arteries.  The stiffer the body is, the more inelastic the arteries, increasing the likelihood of fatal heart attacks.  On the flip side, more flexible muscles correlated with more bendy arteries & better cardiac health.  Pliable muscles = pliable arteries = overall better health.

Why, we ask?

To quote: “How it is that stiff muscles in the back and legs are linked to stiff tissues near the heart is an issue that hasn’t been fully elucidated, Mr. Yamamoto says, although arterial walls are composed of the same kinds of elastic tissues as muscles elsewhere in the body. So it’s likely, he says, that alterations in the composition of muscle tissues in the lower back (including aging-related alterations in the amount of collagen within the muscles) could be occurring in the arterial walls at the same time.”

Bitchin’.

Now that is right in line with the purposes of yoga & the idea of the unity of the body.