Diet & Inflammation, Part II

The old Johnnie Taylor song reminded us that where there's smoke, there's fire. In the human body, where there's pain, there's inflammation. In teaching therapeutic yoga, I rarely find pain without accompanying inflammation.

Inflammation is the body's response to irritants. In some cases the irritant may be faulty biomechanics, while in other cases the cause may be mental stress. In both cases, Yoga is a powerful ally in healing. Quite often, however, yoga breathing and postures alone do not root out the cause of the inflammation. Without getting to the cause, the benefits of Yoga are often short-lived.

As mentioned in the previous blog, inappropriate food choices are a common cause of inflammation. Food choices that are clearly detrimental to health include too many refined foods, lack of fresh fruits & vegetables, or excess consumption of fried foods. Quite often, however, the food choices responsible for chronic inflammation are not so obvious. Frequently we'll find the food (or foods) that sparks inflammation in one person's body works just fine for someone else. I've observed students relieve their chronic pain by eliminating foods as varied as pasta, jellybeans, chocolate, green-tea and peanut-butter. This specific reaction to food is often referred to as a food sensitivity.

Food sensitivity is remarkably common. Food sensitivity is such a common barometer of poor health & pain, that I often discuss diet when teaching therapeutic yoga. When I begin speaking of diet, many students assume I'll insist they become vegetarians. While I appreciate the many benefits of vegetarianism, I rarely find a relationship between systemic, chronic inflammation and a diet including a modest amount of meat. Systemic inflammation arises when we eat the foods that our immune system identifies as a threat.

For those suffering from Hay Fever, an inappropriate immune system response is a yearly curse. While friends and neighbors enjoy the sights & smells of Spring/Summer, some people's immune systems register these pollens as body-invaders, and launch a full-scale immune system attack. The runny nose and itchy eyes are the body's way to fight the perceived invader. With allergies, what bothers one person, can delight another. The key is in the immune system - if your immune system considers an outside substance an invader, whether right or wrong, it will mobilize a response to the perceived invader. While we're accustomed to immune responses such as runny nose and itchy eyes, these are just a few of the possible immune system reactions. Symptoms of food sensitivity rarely mimic hay-fever, even though the immune system reaction is similar. In cases of food sensitivity, the immune system reactions can be as varied as foggy-thinking, low energy, joint pain, anxiety, headaches, sinus trouble or ringing-in-the-ears. Each body is unique, as is the response of its immune system!

What are the wrong foods? This is where our work becomes interesting. There are very few bad foods. There are, however, those foods that are inappropriate for an individual's system. The trick is tracking down those specific foods. Thankfully we find patterns to food sensitivity. While any food can potentially cause an immune-system reaction in an individual, certain foods are the most common irritants. The most common culprits are foods containing dairy-products, wheat, corn, and soy.

Tracking down food sensitivity is best accomplished through an Elimination Diet. As the name suggests, this diet involves eliminating potentially irritating foods from the diet for a period of time, usually 2-4 weeks. By eliminating the potential causes of an inappropriate immune system response, the body's level of inflammation will normalize - sometimes within just a few weeks. Once the system has normalized, by slowly adding one food at a time back into the diet, potential food sensitivities can be readily identified. For those interested in attaining optimal health, I strongly recommend following an Elimination Diet for 4-weeks. While the Elimination Diet may look cumbersome, compared with a life of pain, medications or low-energy, the Elimination Diet is a cheap & easy path to greater vitality!

To derive the best results from an Elimination Diet, I suggest keeping the following foods out of your diet for four weeks:

-wheat products (pasta, breads, processed foods)
-glutenous grains (rye, barley, oats, spelt, kamut, seitan, hops)
-dairy products (milk, cheese, yogurt, cream)
-corn products (tortilla, chips, polenta, cornstarch, thickeners)
-peanuts (peanut butter, peanut oil)
-soy products (tofu, tempeh, soy milk, soy protein powder, soy oil)
-red meat (usually more a problem with additives than with the protein itself)
-caffeine (coffee, tea, colas)
-chocolate
-sugar substitutes (aspartame, saccharine)
-food colorings, dyes
-pesticides and chemical spoilage retardants
-sulfites (canned vegetables, tuna, albacore, fruits, wines)

The Elimination Diet requires discipline and vigilance - as the name implies, it's all about eliminating the potential irritants. Decreasing consumption of these foods has little benefit if you're intent on discerning a food sensitivity. Even a trace of the wrong food mobilizes a powerful immune system reaction. If you have Hay Fever, you're inhaling a very small amount of pollen, yet this pollen mobilizes a powerful response. If you're consuming the wrong foods, even in microscopic quantities, you'll feel just as poorly as if you'd eaten a lot. While I hope you all take the time & effort to try a period of Elimination Diet, unless you're going to be vigilant in completely eliminating the consumption of potential irritants, there's little point to going to the trouble unless you're thorough and detail-oriented about reading labels.

Be particularly watchful of corn, wheat and dairy sneaking into your diet. Many spices are made more pourable by the addition of wheat and yeast. Many cheese-substitutes contain cassein, the protein found in milk. Soy appears almost everywhere - read labels, even if you're sure there's no way the product can contain a potential irritant!

Quite often the body goes through a re-calibration period in the first week of an Elimination Diet, and people often feel worse before they feel better. This is the point where many people revert to their old habits. If you can make it through the first week or so, you'll find yourself feeling so much better that it becomes easier and easier to follow these strict guidelines. I've found many people stick with this diet for the long-haul, as they haven't felt so good in decades!

Once you've cleansed your system, you may want to experiment with bringing foods back into your diet. Like a good scientist, make sure you don't have too many variables. Start with adding one food back into your diet, and watch the results for a few days. If things are OK, then add another food a few days later. It can be useful to keep a journal to document how you feel. Be sure to note how you feel after eating a particular food, how you sleep, your digestive function and any unusual sensations that may arise. As mentioned previously, the symptoms of food sensitivity can be surprisingly broad.

I've seen many people resolve long-standing health concerns by eliminating the foods that irritate their system. If you've found your health improve by changing your eating habits, I hope you'll share your story with us.

Diet & Inflammation, Part II

In my work as a Yoga Therapist, I’m fortunate to meet many interesting people. Some of them come in search of Yoga’s inner rewards, though the vast majority are drawn to yoga as a means to relieve their body’s pain. It’s gratifying work, and I find many people find the yogic path so interesting that they stick around long after they’ve eliminated their pain!

When taking information during the intake session, I’ve found a couple questions integral to a rewarding outcome; is there a history of ankle/foot injury or abdominal surgery? Both of these experiences, particularly when occurring in childhood, alter the body’s movement patterns in ways that often reveal as pain or injury in the second half of life.

Depending on the student’s history, I’ll teach them a handful of techniques that will help resolve their imbalances. These techniques may focus on postural-imbalances or breathing disturbances – usually it’s a combination of the two that yields lasting, rewarding results. While this roadmap has yielded benefit for thousands of students, it’s not infallible. Sometimes students are practicing regularly the techniques that promise to re-align their body and restore healthy breathing, and still they’re plagued by pain. What’s missing?

The missing piece is often dietary. If you’ve spent much time in the yogic realm, you're aware of the emphasis placed on a vegetarian diet. While I cannot argue the philosophical and ethical benefits of the former, with regards to pain, I’ve yet to find a compelling relationship. In my personal and professional experience, choosing the appropriate foods for the individual is the key to optimal health. There are few foods that can be categorized good or bad – though individual choices of specific foods may bring beneficial or deleterious results.

As we’ve discussed in previous blog entries, the path of yoga is not one of duality, or black & white. As a non-dual philosophical system, yoga reminds us that our divinity isn’t something external that we have to strive to achieve, but that it’s latent within us. The practices of asana & pranayama can be tools to resurrect our latent connection to the inner spark, and our dietary choices can be an extension of our yogic practices.

There are very few foods that fall neatly in the categories of good or bad, though there are clearly dietary choices that are harmful to an individual’s system. In working with people living with pain, invariably we find their dietary choices are at odds with their body. Whether they get recognizable signs such as runny nose or gastric distress, the consumption of foods that are at-odds with our system will create a ripple of disturbances. Very often these ripples include an inflammation of the tissues. Where there’s chronic inflammation, there’s usually pain.

My intake questions are now; is there a history of ankle/foot injury or abdominal surgery, and is there evidence of systemic inflammation? In an upcoming blog entry I’ll explore in greater detail what I’m referring to in regards to systemic inflammation, and suggest tools for your own decision making with regards to food.

Win-Win Alignment

I sometimes wonder whether some of the old cars running around Madison support their bumper-stickers, or whether the bumper-stickers offer a sort of exoskeletal support structure for the cars? Regardless the nature of this symbiotic relationship, there is occasionally wisdom to be found in unlikely places.

A decade or so ago, we saw the bumper-sticker no one is free when others are oppressed on many of Madison’s aging Volvos. In this simple statement, we saw a fundamental tenet of yoga revealed. By gently invoking the Yama of Ahimsa (non-violence) this bumper-sticker reminded us of our essential connectedness. As the yogis understood eons ago – we are interconnected in ways that often elude our perceptions.

For the aspiring Yogi(ni), the starting point of yoga practice is an understanding of Ahimsa (non-violence). While many interpret Ahimsa as an imperative toward vegetarianism, violence comes in many forms besides hitting people or eating animals. If we parse violence to its essence, we find an undertow of separation – the creation of us/them. When we hold somebody (or something) down to create our personal gain, we’ve practiced a form of violence. The philosophy of Yoga repeatedly reminds us that the goal is win-win.

Virtually every week I encounter practitioners with a solid understanding of the yogic philosophy. They’ve studied the Sutras, and perhaps even acquainted themselves with the Bhagavad Gita. As I watch them practice the postures, however, their bodies demonstrate a reluctance to release old ways of being. The tendency to create us/them situations and snatch a short-term benefit without consideration of long-term fallout is the dominant paradigm of modern Hatha Yoga practice. It’s a shame, as there are opportunities missed on all fronts.

No one is free when others are oppressed applies to our bodies, just as it may in our society. To congest one part of the body in striving to liberate another part of the body is a zero net-gain. Why do so many practitioners compress and tense their neck to open their throat? Why do many yoga practitioners congest their upper back in the effort to open the chest? It’s an expression of the faulty beliefs we unconsciously act out, and if we can see these habits in our body, we have a much better chance of ferreting them out of our mind. All it takes is awareness and regular practice.

Opening any given part of the body does not necessitate congesting or compressing another part of the body. The belief that another must suffer for our gain is a fundamental expression of violence. As we deepen our commitment to the Yogic path and embrace the path of Ahimsa, it’s imperative to study how old habits & beliefs can be pernicious. Through the physical practice, we can observe how we hang onto outmoded ideas, and with this awareness, the practice of Hatha Yoga can create lasting change from the inside out. Without this awareness, the potential benefits of the ongoing yoga boom may go the way of rear-wheel-drive Volvos.

In Alignment Yoga, we practice Win-Win alignment in the yogic postures and breathing. With Win-Win alignment, we do not sacrifice one part of the body for the short-term benefit in another region. Creating space in one region can simultaneously foster deeper levels of awareness everywhere else, which has powerful health-giving benefits. Win-Win alignment also reveals the abundance of benefit-for-all, which reveals the inner state of Ahimsa. The balanced practice of yoga reveals infinite possibility, and Win-Win alignment is the physical expression of this ideal.

Best wishes on your yogic journeys, and have a safe & happy Memorial Day Weekend.

One Size Fits All?

The notion of one-size-fits-all can be captivating. There's something appealing about erasing our differences, and we'll frequently turn to our physical form to express this desire.

Many years ago I worked as a bicycle mechanic. The early-90's weren't such a robust time for budding yoga teachers, and the day-job provided a modicum of financial stability. (As day jobs go, you could do worse than wrenching bikes) While fixing another rusty hybrid bicycle, Jason observed that the hybrid bicycle did nothing very well. It didn't go offroad very readily, nor did the hybrid bicycle offer much in terms of on-road performance. In the hybrid bicycle's attempt to do everything, it ended up doing nothing very well. The negation of excellence in the pursuit of homogeneity has left us the poorer in more arenas than bicycling.

It used to be that clothes billed themselves as one-size-fits-all. In the age of rampant obesity, only the muu-muu can make good on that claim. In response, we're finding clothing that bills itself as one-size-fits-most. While this is more honest, it's still far from ensuring a good fit. If we're after survival, there's an element of truth to one-size-fits-most... if we're out to thrive, then we may want a better fit.

The same hold true with yoga practice - one-size-fits-all routines are easily packaged and readily transmitted. There's something comforting about all the beginners practicing one routine, before everyone graduates to the intermediate routine, and so forth. While it's comforting, it doesn't take into account all the variability of the human experience.

The varieties of the human experience include: age, injury history, current season, work stresses, emotional strain, constitution and gender. These are all factors that may weight into developing an optimal practice routine. Rather than shoe-horning each individual into a given routine, the maturing practice asks practitioners to self-reflect and develop practices that are geared toward the individual person on any given day.

At the other extreme of the one-size-fits-all approach is the sink-or-swim approach. We'll often find beginning yoga students are interested in practicing at home, though are unclear what to do and when to do it. Yes, with years of training the students will one-day/some-day develop an understanding of practice sequencing, though most students will have long since abandoned their practice before acquiring this level of understanding.

The Practice Recipe is an integral part of the Alignment Yoga path. The Practice Recipe provides a container for constructing a dynamic and vital yoga practice that provides the beginning practitioner the comfort of a roadmap, while granting the more experienced practitioner the latitude to explore their creative understanding of the yogic practices.

For the beginning student, there a handful of routines available, and practice is largely sculpted by balancing the available time with the intended benefit of the practice. As practitioners develop deeper levels of understanding, the options expand proportionally to their level of understanding.

I'm currently working on the practice manual for beginning students that outlines the Alignment Yoga Recipe, and my goal is to have this resource available by mid-Summer. I look forward to hearing about how you sequence your home practices, and what resources you've found useful.

Namaste.

Homer's Bowling Ball

While Homer’s bowling ball is unlikely to enter our vernacular like Occam’s razor or Schrodinger’s cat, there’s still a lesson to be learned from Homer Simpson. In an early Simpsons episode (#7G11), Homer Simpson purchased his wife Marge an expensive birthday present – a bowling ball engraved with Homer’s name. Marge was understandably incensed, though Homer tried mightily to rationalize his behavior.

Homer observed that Marge was unlikely to use the bowling ball, and rather than this beautiful bowling ball sitting unused, Homer thought himself cleverly proactive in monogramming his name on it.

Clearly Homer’s gift wasn’t about Marge, but about himself. All too often, we find yoga teachers unconsciously behaving like Homer. Rather than teaching a class suited for the diversity of the students in their class, teachers often stick with the techniques that they’ve found relevant in their own practice. I’ve heard many teachers state confidently that their classes are based on their personal experience. While I’m a firm believer that an effective yoga teacher practices most every day, I find teaching from personal experience can be more exclusive than inclusive. We’re all limited by our perceptions. What has worked well for us has little bearing on whether the specific technique is useful or not. It’s more a commentary on our individual constitution & history.

The master-teacher understands deeply what works for them, and understands that these techniques may or may not be useful for others. The master-teacher’s worldview includes an understanding of individual differences and the role of constitution in perception. With this understanding, the master-teacher can predict how to reach individual students, and are less likely to project their own experiences onto others.

When we expect our favorite techniques to work for others, we will often unconsciously judge those who don’t share our experience. By the same token, we often shine more warmly on those who share our experiences. This tendency has caused a lot of suffering for the human animal over the millennia, and every day we can read the news to learn more examples of how this tendency gets us into trouble.

Can we utilize the yoga practice to see ourselves more clearly? In that process, we’ll find that our perceptions are highly colored by our constitution and history. When we hold others accountable to the standards we’ve set via our personal perceptions, we’re likely to hold ourselves apart from the richness of the human experience. May this yoga practice help us melt those delineations, and see that underneath our constitutional differences and life-history we’re all made of the same stuff.

Namaste.

Active Feet

Form Follows Function

The phrase Form Follows Function is often considered the rallying cry of modernism, and over the past century, has been pivotal in shaping our man-made world. The utensils we use, the buildings we inhabit, and the cars we drive are often based on this design paradigm.

This design paradigm isn’t entirely a man-made phenomenon. When we study the natural world, we’re continually reminded that form follows function. While the bright colors of a particular bird, or the puzzling bumps found on the femur may appear to be randomly selected, deeper study often reveals how these traits are integrally related to the whole. Generally the question is not if a particular trait has function, but in determining how many functions are served by that trait.

As a long-time student of anatomy & physiology, I’m continually amazed at the level of genius contained within our physical form. What may at first appear accidental or random is often found to contain a remarkable depth of function. The yoga practice has served as my laboratory for these studies, and consistently yields a deeper level of appreciation for the intelligence contained within the tissues.

The ancient Yogis were exceedingly observant, and found yoga-asana is circular in nature. By placing the body in a specific position, there are observable changes internally. When internal shifts happen, this alters the outer alignment. It’s a wondrous inner dance that we learn through a dedicated practice of yoga. By learning this dance, we tap into a reservoir of health & vitality that propels us joyously through our days. This wisdom has survived for thousands of years, though I sometimes wonder if it will survive our current generation? While the ancient yogis found that form follows function, modern yogis have relentlessly pursued the path of function following form.

Over the past thirty years or so, yoga practitioners have become increasingly interested in the form of the postures. The precise location of muscles, joints and bones has become the locus of the practice, while discussions of the inner functioning has been strangely absent.

In the realm of the physical, the power of the yoga postures is about toning and balancing the organ systems. The benefits in the muscles, bones and joints are desirable, though secondary. Rather than fussing over the minutiae of the alignment, the advanced yoga student may be better served learning their organ systems. Is a given posture toning the liver, or is it straining the kidneys? Is a particular pranayama technique cooling to the lungs, or drying them out? While this is beyond the reach of a Beginning student, it’s well within the reach of an Advanced student. Is your teacher showing you this?

In yoga, Form Follows Function in the realm of body, mind and spirit. To impose the postures on the body and expect a given result is often a disappointing path. To move the body into the postures, then adjust the alignment on the basis of inner observation - this is leading the practitioner closer to the heart of yoga.

It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,
Of all things physical and metaphysical,

Of all things human and all things super-human,

Of all true manifestations of the head,

Of the heart, of the soul,

That the life is recognizable in its expression,

That form ever follows function. This is the law.
-Louis Sullivan, The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered, 1896

Best Wishes on your ongoing practice, and may Spring bring bird-songs and blooming flowers to your locale!