Written by
Michele Wheat

Believe it or not, despite being small and unassuming, wrists are incredibly important and complex. During a regular day, your wrist will probably only get extended or flexed a little bit. For the most part, pushing a door open is the most extreme flexing that your wrist will get. However, in yoga, wrists get a lot of action. They bend at 90 degrees and sometimes they support some, or all, of our body weight. This isn't a bad thing though, it keeps us from losing that range of motion in an area with a complex range of movements, but is otherwise not well articulated.

Here are some tips for keeping your wrists happy and well articulated:

1. Warm Up

Take some time before you get into Sun Salutations to warm up your wrists.

• Create Space. Start by putting your hands in prayer position with your thumbs against your breast bone. Then release your hands from that position while keeping your arms where they are and turn the palm of your left hand away from your body. Position your right hand so that your fingers are covering your pinkie finger on your left hand. Without letting go of your hand, gently pull your elbows away from each other. Doing this simple exercise creates space in your joints. Do this for a few breaths before switching sides. Keep in mind that if it hurts or feels wrong in any way either lighten the amount of pressure you're putting on yourself or take a break!

• Wrist Stretch. Get on all fours with your hands under your shoulders and fingers pointing towards your knees. Keep your left palm facing up and your right palm facing down and bring your hips back towards your heels to stretch your wrists a little faster.

• Wrist Rotation. Put your arms in front of you and press the backs of your hands together. Rotate your fingers down and towards you, then up and away without pulling your wrists apart from each other.

2. Alignment

Once you've warmed up, make sure your alignment in poses where your wrist is going to be supporting some weight is working for you.
Just like in warm ups, start in prayer position. Press your hands together so that the heels of your hands are tightly pressed together while your fingers are only lightly touching. Take a look at the underside of your wrist to make sure there is no gap between the base of your hands!
Then bring your fingers upright and press your hands firmly together to create a kind of suction cup in your palms. If you turn your fingers away now you'll feel the pressure being taken off the base of your hands and wrists. Plus, it also allows you to feel the muscles in your arms activate.
Next try this pose with your hands on the floor either with you sitting on your heels or on your knees. Keep your hands shoulder width apart under your shoulders and ground through the base of your thumb and index finger to automatically roll out the forearm a little.



3. Build Strength

​Assuming you have no wrist injuries, with correct alignment and some time and effort, you can get a lot of strength and flexibility in your wrists. There are also some great yoga poses like planking, Chaturanga Dandasana, and Downward Facing Dog that can also help build up strength in those areas.
4. Modifications and TherapyIf you do have wrist injuries like Carpal Tunnel Syndrome or repetitive strain injuries, before you attempt any type of strength or flexibility poses, it's always a good idea to speak with a doctor or physical therapist for more specific advice.
Dealing With Wrist InjuriesAny kind of injury in yoga can be frustrating, but it's possible that it's especially so with wrist injuries because of how much your wrists are used both during the day and also in yoga. However, getting an injury can also be a chance to learn about your body and the finer points of different yoga poses so you can safely make modifications in order to practice without pain.
When injured, there will always be some poses that you should skip for a while like arm balances, but there are plenty more that you only have to make modifications to in order to maintain yoga practice while you are injured. Switching out poses like the high lunge instead of a plank can also help work on different parts of your core to get a stronger workout.
​
The more you recover, the more you'll be able to do in order to increase mobility and flexibility!

Thanks Cassie! 

Original Article Source: https://www.wristband.com/content/yoga-therapy-for-your-wrists/ 
More InformationNext-Level Wrist Protection Tricks
Avoid Wrist Pain
Tips for Reducing Wrist Pain During Yoga
How to Relieve Wrist Pain
Wrist Pain: Prevention Is the Best Cure
Yoga and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Plastic Wristband
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Relief
Yoga Poses for Arthritis Patients
Yoga Injury Prevention
5 Exercises to Improve Hand Mobility
Tips to Prevent Yoga Injuries
Options for Hand, Wrist & Elbow Pain
How Yoga Is a Valuable Tool for Recovery
Take Care of Your Hands
Repetitive Strain Injury
Techniques for Maximizing Arm and Hand Function (PDF)
Yoga and Pain
Special Events Wristband
Yoga Pose Handbook (PDF)
Simple Massage & Stretching Techniques to Relieve Hand & Wrist Tension
Hand and Arm Care

​"I know that I feel great after doing my Yin Yoga practice, but I wonder if Yin Yoga really works. Is there any scientific evidence you can provide that proves Yin Yoga is good for me?" 

This question, and others just like it, is often asked in emails I receive from students and teachers. Another similar question goes something like this: "I heard from another yoga teacher that Yin Yoga is dangerous and I shouldn't be stressing my joints or compressing my lower back. Do you have any scientific evidence that Yin Yoga is healthy that I can take back to my teacher?"

​The levels of scientific evidence
There are four levels of evidence that can be offered for any scientific assertion or theory:

1. Testimony (anecdote)
2. Argument (hypothesis)
3. Correlation
4. Experimentation

These are listed in increasing levels of validity and acceptability. The anecdote is the weakest form of proof, while an experiment is the strongest. While weak, an anecdote is still evidence: and if your personal experience is that Yin Yoga works for you, makes you healthier, cured your specific ailment, then what more proof do you really need? Your personal anecdotal experience should be considered strong proof that, for you at least, Yin Yoga is efficacious. Someone else's anecdote, however, is not as valuable.[2] 

This bears repeating: if your experience is that Yin Yoga works for you, why would you doubt your own experience? It is interesting to understand why it works for you, but don't deny the evidence in front of your own eyes simply because someone else is not convinced. Students who are insecure may devalue their own life experience in the face of an authoritative figure (like a senior yoga teacher or doctor who expresses strong convictions), but your own experience is the ultimate teacher. If something works for you, it is probably good; and if something doesn't work for you, no matter how prestigious the teacher or doctor suggesting it, drop it. 

Science begins with the facts; data are observations, empirically derived and undeniable. From the facts must flow the theories, not the other way around. This is not to imply that looking for a deeper understanding as to why the facts are they way they are pointless --- far from it! Understanding the "Why does this work?" can help to improve the process and obtain even greater benefits. The point is to ensure that we do not let hypothesis and experimentation on others diminish the reality that you experience for yourself. 

With this understanding, our question becomes, "Why does Yin Yoga work for me?" From a physiological perspective there are several possible avenues we can explore: effects in the connective tissues, effects within the muscles, effects within the nervous system, the immune system, the endocrine system and even within the epigenetic system. To fully appreciate everything Yin Yoga does for us in all these areas would take a book; so let's restrict our investigation to the connective tissue. This reduces our question to a more specific "Why does Yin Yoga make my connective tissues healthier?"

"Why does Yin Yoga make my connective tissues healthier?
"Unfortunately, I am aware of no studies or experiments evaluating Yin Yoga specifically. There are many studies looking at Yoga or stretching, but all of these, from what I have seen, employ relatively short stress times, on the order of 20 seconds or so. Some of these studies cast yoga in a negative light and conclude that yoga before an athletic event is counterproductive. For example, one study found that stretching before the main sporting activity reduced performance, and thus one should not stretch as part of the warm up.[3] From this, the conclusion arose in the minds of some readers that yoga will not increase athletic performance. However, this is not a legitimate conclusion given the nature of the study: the study did not look at the long term effects on health and performance of a regular yoga practice, it only looked at the effects of short term stretching immediately before an athletic event. Most yoga teachers would probably agree that doing a yoga practice right before a sporting event is not ideal. For example, it would not be a good idea to do a Yin Yoga practice just before playing a game of hockey. Reflexes will be considerably slower. ("Oh look ... there ... is ... the ... puck ...") 

In any case, all of these studies on yoga or stretching employed short hold times. Yin Yoga regularly employs much longer stress times, ranging from 1 to 10 minutes or more, but usually the postures are held from 3 ~ 5 minutes. Since we can not point to any Yin Yoga specific studies, we have to extrapolate from studies that look at the effects of longer held stresses on the connective tissues. Fortunately, there are a few studies available.

​The benefits of yoga in general
Because there are no studies looking specifically at Yin Yoga, we have to extrapolate from experiments using Yin Yoga-like techniques. This is the second form of evidence; it is not ideal but it does offer some proof that Yin Yoga does work. There are studies of the yang practice of yoga, however. A meta-study (which is a study of studies) done in 2011 summarized several significant benefits from a regular yoga practice.[12] These included

• [Yoga] practices enhance muscular strength and body flexibility, promote and improve respiratory and cardiovascular function, promote recovery from and treatment of addiction, reduce stress, anxiety, and chronic pain, improve sleep patterns, and enhance overall well-being and quality of life.
• [Yoga] practice improves depression and can lead to significant increases in serotonin levels.
• Yoga helps to build muscle mass and/or maintain muscle strength, which protects from conditions such as arthritis, osteoporosis and back pain.
• During a yoga session, the joints are taken through their full range of motion, squeezing and soaking areas of cartilage not often used and bringing fresh nutrients, oxygen and blood to the area, which helps to prevent conditions like arthritis and chronic pain.
• Yoga increases blood flow and levels of hemoglobin and red blood cells, which allows for more oxygen to reach the body cells, enhancing their function.
• Yoga also increases proprioception and improves balance.
• Yoga, breathing exercises, and meditation can reduce stress, promote healing, increase energy, decrease adverse cancer treatment effects, and enhance quality of life for patients.

While some of the above benefits are due to the yang nature of the practice (such as strengthening muscles), most of these benefits will be obtained through the practice of Yin Yoga as well.SummaryThere are no specific scientific studies of Yin Yoga, however, there are many studies of yoga and meditation in general from which we can reason Yin Yoga would generate similar benefits. There are also several studies that look at the effect of Yin Yoga-like stresses physiologically. These studies provide evidence that the stresses applied during a Yin Yoga practice can lead to greater physiological and psychological well-being. We can look forward to the day when researchers take on the challenging of directly investigating Yin Yoga's benefits in the lab, but until then, personal experience of improved health is also a valid form of evidence. If Yin Yoga works for you, why not believe your own experience? 

FOOTNOTES: 

1) There are many resources an interested reader can review for further details, such as Herbert Benson's book, The Relaxation Revolution; the studies by Jon Kabat-Zinn, or an interview with researcher Sara Lazar in the Washington Post.

2) These levels were developed by Dr. Roy Walford and are described in his book 120 Year Diet, pages 22 - 25.

3) From The Biomechanics of Stretching by Duane Knudson in the Journal of Exercise Science & Physiotherapy, Vol. 2: 3-12, 2006: "It is clear that from the standpoint of maximizing muscular performance, stretching creates an acute decrease in performance, therefore stretching should not normally be recommended prior to exercise with apparently healthy individuals, but be programmed during the cool-down after exercise training."

4) See The biology of distraction osteogenesis for correction of mandibular and craniomaxillofacial defects: A review by Subodh Shankar Natu et al in Dental Research Journal 2014 Jan-Feb; 11(1): 1626.

5) Contracture and Stiff Joint Management with Dynasplint by George R Hepburn.

6) The elastic response occurs when the tissues return to the original lengths.

7) See Stretching of the Back Improves Gait, Mechanical Sensitivity and Connective Tissue Inflammation in a Rodent Model by Sarah M. Corey et al in PLoS ONE | www.plosone.org January 2012 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | e29831

8) The above study looked at in vivo effects in rats of static stresses, and was very yin-like: the stretches were held for 5 ~ 10 minute, twice a day, each day for 12 days in a row. The stretch was a whole-body stretch. The results showed that in healthy rats, this exercise improved mechanical sensitivity to low back pain. Rats with simulated inflammation showed more robust benefits from the exercises in sensitivity to pain, gait and superficial fascia thickness (the rats doing the exercises had thinner fascia than the control group, presumably due to less inflammation.) This study seems to imply that long held, static stresses may help with non-discogenic low back pain, but we cannot infer from this one study whether the cause of the findings are due to localized effects in the fascia or systemic effects from the whole body stress.

9) From Duration and Magnitude of Myofascial Release in 3-Dimensional Bioengineered Tendons: Effects on Wound Healing by Thanh V. Cao et al in J Am Osteopath Assoc. 2015;115(2):72-82: "Documented clinical outcomes associated with MFR include improved physiologic function, reduction of pain, and increased range of motion in the affected joint. Our previous findings revealed that modeled MFR applied in vitro inhibits the cytotoxic effects of fibroblasts, alters fibroblast actin architecture, and induces the expression of various anti-inflammatory and growth factors. We have also shown that MFR downregulates inhibitory factors on protein kinase C and phosphoinositide 3-kinase to sensitize fibroblasts to nitric oxide and improve wound healing. Recent data from our laboratory have also shown that in a 3-dimensional environment, fibroblast cytokine secretion is dependent on MFR strain duration and magnitude, suggesting a correlation between physiologic response and dosed MFR." 

In this study the researchers found that a strain of 3% is ideal. Stresses above that level, which creates a strain of 9% or 12% (which is a lot!), can cause worse problems, but a stress resulting in only a 3% strain can accelerate healing. The longer the stress is applied the better. The lengths of time varied from 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 minutes, and was then slowly released back to baseline. This, in our Yin Yoga context, means less effort and longer holds is better. They concluded, "Longer duration of MFR resulted in rapid decreases in wound size."

10) See Low Back Disorders by Stuart McGill, pages 43 and 47.

11) But McGill also warns, "I am cautious about having people routinely engage in these postures following recovery from the acute episode-the spine may pay a price ... Some individuals have "kissing spines" in which adjacent posterior spines collide in full extension at one level. The involved level is usually due to a simple case of anatomic variation. These may become more frequent in people with disc height loss where the posterior spine becomes more approximated." Professor McGill is echoing the words of wisdom of Paul Grilley: everybody is different and for some people Sphinx pose may be excellent, but for others it is not a great idea.

12) From Exploring the therapeutic effects of yoga and its ability to increase quality of life by Catherine Woodyard in Int J Yoga. 2011 Jul?Dec; 4(2): 49-54

ARTICLE SOURCE: https://www.yinyoga.com/newsletter29_science.php​

​How Many Calories Should You Be Eating? 
How Much Protein vs Carbs vs Fat
​
There are three main body types: ectomorph, mesomorph, and endomorph. You can be a combination of body types, but will predominantly be one over the other. These body types are general groupings of body make-ups, as well as muscle and fat storage and distribution. 
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Are you trading your practice in for outdoor summer cycling or running?  Your Hot Yoga practice may be the key to increased performance in outdoor sports!

ScienceDaily (Oct. 25, 2010) – Turning up the heat might be the best thing for athletes competing in cool weather, according to a new study by human physiology researchers at the University of Oregon.

Published in the October issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology, the paper examined the impact of heat acclimation to improve athletic performance in hot and cool environments.
Researchers conducted exercise tests on 12 highly trained cyclists — 10 males and two females — before and after a 10-day heat acclimation program. Participants underwent physiological and performance tests under both hot and cool conditions. A separate control group of eight highly trained cyclists underwent testing and followed the same exercise regime in a cool environment.

The data concluded that heat acclimation exposure provided considerable ergogenic benefits in cool conditions, in addition to the expected performance benefits in the hot environment. The study is the first to evaluate impacts of heat acclimation on aerobic performance in cool conditions.

“Our findings could have significant impacts in the competitive sports world,” said Santiago Lorenzo, a researcher who performed the work as part of his dissertation at the University of Oregon. He is now completing post-doctoral training in the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine (University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center) at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.

The study found performance increases of approximately 7 percent after 10 heat acclimation exposures. “In terms of competitive cycling, 7 percent is a really big increase and could mean that cyclists could use this approach to improve their performance in cooler weather conditions,” said Lorenzo. However, the heat exposures must be in addition to the athletes’ normal training regimen.

Heat acclimation improves the body’s ability to control body temperature, improves sweating and increases blood flow through the skin, and expands blood volume allowing the heart to pump to more blood to muscles, organs and the skin as needed.

Another approach using the environment to improve exercise performance is a “live high/train low” regimen, which means residing at a high altitude and training at a low altitude. Many athletes worldwide now use this approach. According to Lorenzo, “heat acclimation is more practical, easier to apply and may yield more robust physiological adaptations.”
The study was conducted in the Evonuk Environmental Physiology Core lab at the UO department of human physiology. The climatic chamber was set at 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) for heat testing and 13 degrees Celsius (55 degrees Fahrenheit) for cool conditions with consistent humidity (30 percent relative humidity) for the cyclists’ exercise tests.

According to Christopher Minson, co-director of the Evonuk lab, head of the UO human physiology department and study co-author, researchers also concluded that the heat may produce changes in the exercising muscle, including enzymatic changes that could improve the amount of work done by the muscle, but he says future research will have to examine it further.

“A next step is to determine whether heat acclimation improves performance in a competitive or real-world setting,” said Minson.

He also notes possible implications for people with cardiac or other limitations such as paralysis that don’t allow for the full cardiovascular benefits of exercise. If heat can be added, “it’s conceivable that they would gain further cardiovascular benefits than exercise alone in a cool environment. These are exciting questions that deserve further study,” said Minson.

Additional co-authors include John Halliwill, UO human physiology, and Michael Sawka of Thermal and Mountain Medicine Division, U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine. The research was funded by a grant from the Eugene and Clarissa Evonuk Memorial Fellowship and an ongoing grant to Minson from the National Institutes of Health.

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I must admit: before I started my viniyoga teacher training, I’ve never heard of sacrum issues. Sure, I knew what sacrum was, but my first teacher training program never talked about it, my students never complained about it, I haven’t had any trouble myself. So I’ve moved through life blissfully unaware, until I started my viniyoga teacher training.  Then all of the sudden sacrum became front and center. I would hear “this pose can be problematic if you have sacrum issues”, “do this to take care of your sacrum”, “make sure you don’t feel any discomfort in your sacrum”, etc. You know how when you decide to buy a certain car you start seeing it everywhere? Same happened for me with sacrum. All of the sudden I’ve discovered that sacrum issues are everywhere and yoga practice often creates or contributes to the problem.

Well, to be more specific, it’s not really the sacrum that we have issues with, but the sacroiliac (SI) joints. Quick anatomy reminder: sacrum is located at the base of your spine and consists of 5 vertebrae that are fused together to form a bone about the size of your hand. It fits snuggly between the two sides of your pelvis and is connected to them via the sacroiliac joints. SI joints are weight bearing because the sacrum bears the weight of the spine and transfers it through those joints to the pelvis and then down into the legs. Like any weight bearing joint, it needs to be stable, so there are several ligaments that bind the sacrum to the pelvis to restrict it’s movement.

Now some of us have more mobility in the sacrum then others and that’s what can create potential problems. The sacrum has an ability to tip slightly forward in relation to pelvis (called nutation) or slightly back (counternutation). It can tip 5-10% at most, but even that can create the sense of instability in the pelvic area.

Who is at risk? Anybody can suffer an SI injury but the following populations are at a much greater risk:

1. Women of reproductive age. Theoretically, the movement of the sacrum is designed to accommodate the passing of the baby through the pelvis: first counternutation for the head to enter the pelvis and then nutation to get the tailbone out of the way. And we all know that in pregnant women hormone relaxin is released, which makes ligaments more lax for the same purpose of accommodating the birthing process. So whether or not your students are pregnant right now, if they are of reproductive age or gave birth before, they are more likely to have more mobility in their SI ligaments.
2. Ligamentous folks. Some of us were born with looser ligaments, which enables us to do more advanced yoga poses, but also puts us at risk for SI issues because of extra sacrum mobility.

 The problem. So that young uber-flexible girl in your class, who is happily trying to stick her foot behind her head runs the risk of pulling or injuring her SI ligaments. Her sacrum is more likely to pop out of place, usually on one side, and once it’s out of place it will pull on the ligaments that are supposed to keep it in place, causing sharp obnoxious pain on one side of her lower spine. And as we know, ligaments are highly avascular, which means that if there is a tear in a ligament, it will take a long time to heal because of poor circulation to the area. Unfortunately, once you injure the area, you are likely to reinjure it again, especially if you maintain an advanced yoga practice and ignore your body’s pain signals. We say that a student has a “hot sacrum” if her SI joints are sensitive and prone to injury. Folks like that will have to modify their yoga practice dramatically while they are in the healing stage, otherwise they will keep reinjuring it and turn it into a chronic problem.

Now what can we, as teachers, do to minimize the risk of the sacroilliac injury?

1. Approach advanced assymetrical poses with great care, especially the ones where one hip is in a fixed position and the spine is being strongly pulled the other way. Look at Janu Sirsasana, which is not necessarily an advanced posture but it typically aggravates “hot sacrums”.

It is wise to take the following precautions for any advanced asymmetrical posture:

• Do not use arm leverage to pull yourself into the pose if you sense resistance in your SI joints.
• Make sure that the students’ bodies are adequately prepared before they attempt a posture (read more on how to prepare the body for a difficult posture)
• Please, please, please DO NOT demonstrate advanced poses if you are not warmed up appropriately yourself. This is a major source of injuries for yoga teachers.
• Remind your students (and yourself) to stop if it hurts.

2. Do not teach too many asymmetrical poses on one side, it can lead to cumulative stress on the SI joint. I was recently in a class where the teacher did the following poses:

This entire sequence was done on one side first, holding each pose for 4-6 breaths, without any queuing about changing the position of the feet or using abdominal contraction for support.  Do you see a problem here? The position of your left leg is fixed, which means that the left side of the pelvis will be anchored in mostly forward-facing position. Then you move your spine through a side bend, forward bend, back bend, side bend and then twist. Your sacrum follows the movement of your spine, tugging and twisting and torquing your left SI joint. This reminds me of trying to pull off the top of a plastic bottle – to break the thin piece of plastic you would bend it forward, bend it back, twist it one way, then the other and hopefully it will come loose after that. Why would you want to do that to your SI ligaments? They won’t break off, of course, but they will get destabilized and become more vulnerable and susceptible to injury.

Solution: Switch sides more often and alternate asymmetrical poses with symmetrical forward bends.

3. Do not insist on keeping the legs straight in forward bends; it creates shear stress on the sacrum.

4. When you sequence your classes, be sure to include poses that stabilize the sacrum. In the traditional approach to sequencing summarized by Sri Krishnamacharya, prone back bends always follow the standing postures to make sure that whatever you have done to your lower back/sacrum area in standing could be neutralized via symmetrical prone poses.

Vimanasana is one of those “magic” yoga poses that does it really well. However, you need to make sure that

A. Your student’s back is strong enough to handle it
B. Your student keeps her pelvis grounded on both sides when she attempts it.

These are some simple basic ideas that are not hard to implement, but they will help protect your students’ SI joints. If your student does get injured, in the class or elsewhere, it is best to limit or eliminate the activities that irritate the area, including one’s yoga practice. Once the acute stage has passed, she can seek guidance from a physical therapist or a qualified yoga therapist on how to stabilize and strengthen the sacrum area before returning to a regular yoga practice.

Have you ever had trouble with SI joints? If so, what did you find helpful?

Additional resources on the subject:

Anatomy of Hatha Yoga: A manual for Students, Teachers and Practitioners by D. Coulter
The Female Pelvis Anatomy and Exercises by B. Calais-Germain
Protect the Sacroiliac Joints by R. Cole

Conventional Wisdom always gets an eyebrow raise from me. I can’t help it. Eventually, I take an honest look at whatever the experts are saying, but skepticism gets first dibs. I’d call it an instinct if it weren’t learned behavior from years of being burned. For example, I once took to task the most pervasive “truth” around: that everyone needs to drink eight glasses of water a day or risk kidney failure, toxin buildup, bladder cancer, and debilitating constipation. It was pretty easy to do.

But it’s not all BS. Smoking is bad for you, for example. See? I can admit when they’re right!

I wonder about the CW position on sleep, though. We generally agree on the recommended duration of sleep. “About eight solid hours” is what you’ll see everywhere, from official governmental health guides to paleo nutrition blogs (I’m sure there’s some niche community out there claiming to have “transcended” sleep, though). I’m not going to argue with around eight hours, but note the use of “solid.” What does it connote?

Unbroken. Monophasic. Constant. Actually, it both connotes and denotes these things. Solid sleep is good sleep, right? And solid sleep means sleeping for about eight hours without waking. If you wake up, you’ve got a problem. Right?

 Maybe not.

For most of human history, nighttime meant darkness. Not the blueish whitish permaglow from storefronts, billboards, and headlights enjoyed by modern city-goers. Not the yellow-orange bath radiating down from street lamps on quiet suburban streets, so ubiquitous that you only notice them when they go out. I’m talking about real, permeating darkness. Camping darkness. Small country road with the car lights out darkness. For our ancestors as recently as a couple hundred years ago, this kind of nighttime darkness lasted up to fourteen hours (well, it does today, too, but we mask it with all that lighting and housing). Artificial lighting meant candles and firewood, and those cost (money or time) and don’t really replace daylight (anyone who’s stifled yawns around a campfire knows that) like today’s artificial lighting replaces daylight. People got to bed earlier – because, unless you’re rich enough to burn candles all night, what else are you going to do when it’s dark everywhere but, as Thomas Middleton said, “sleepe, feed, and fart?” – and their sleep was biphasic, or broken up into two four hour segments, with the first beginning about two hours after nightfall.

The first segment of biphasic sleep was called “first sleep” or “deep sleep,” while the second was called “second sleep” or “morning sleep.” Numerous records of these terms persist throughout preindustrial European archival writings, while the concept of two sleeps is common in traditional cultures across the globe. Separating “first sleep” from “second sleep” was an “hour or more” of gentle activity and wakefulness. People generally didn’t spend this time online gaming or surfing the web or trolling the fridge for snacks; instead, they used it to pray, meditate, chat, or to simply just lie there and ruminate on life, the universe, and everything. It was still dark out so they tended to keep it pretty mellow. Sounds nice, huh?

Robert Louis Stevenson liked the idea, too. Sleep historian (awesome-sounding job!) Roger Ekirch writes of Stevenson who, in the fall of 1878, while trekking through the French highlands on foot, alone, made a remarkable discovery. As anyone who backpacks or spends time outdoors will corroborate, Stevenson found himself drifting off to sleep shortly after sunset. He awoke around midnight, smoked a cigarette, and, only after “enjoying an hour’s contemplation,” fell back asleep. That hour, that “one stirring hour” moved him; Stevenson had never before experienced a “more perfect hour.” He had awoken not because of an interloper, a night terror, or any other external actor, but because of what he later described as a “wakeful influence [that] goes abroad over the sleeping hemisphere” and is unknown to “those who dwell in houses.”

Ekirch thinks that the Industrial Revolution, especially the invention and proliferation of cheap electric lighting, forced modern society into its current monophasic sleep pattern by making artificial lighting that really lit up a room available to everyone. People with access to light bulbs could stay awake longer in brightly lit rooms because they were no longer subject to the circadian entrainment of natural light patterns. We’ve gone over light entrainment before. It’s likely worse nowadays, since we’re not just coping with access to ambient lighting, but also loads of interactive consumer electronics (like this laptop I’m using now) blasting circadian-disrupting light directly into our faces. Whereas Owen the London chimney sweep may have flicked on the light bulb and settled down to a good book and a bottle of ale after his shift and gotten to sleep around nine or ten, Jeff the SEO analyst stays up late arguing on Internet message boards with the laptops blue light beaming into his very soul. Sound familiar?

It’s likely that societal expectations about sleep structure – that it’s supposed to be eight hours of unbroken, deep, heavy slumber, as everyone knows – are making problems out of what may be normal sleeping patterns. Clinicians are finding that if they can make insomnia patients understand that waking up in the night is actually normal and natural, they feel better about their condition. Because they “perceive interrupted sleep as normal,” they stop stressing over waking and are able to get back to sleep more easily. Some forms of insomnia, in which people wake up in the middle of the night, might not actually be clinical conditions, but rather the manifestation of the natural human sleep cycle trying to assert itself. Insomnia may just be a problem of perception; if you look at your “problem” in a different light as explained by Ekirch, it disappears.

 Imagine the possibilities if you could work just such an hour of free waking life into your sleep cycle! You wake up and, instead of exasperatingly checking the time, making a huge huff, and angrily grumbling and tossing and turning in a vain attempt to get back to sleep…

You vigorously and enthusiastically discuss last week’s post with your significant other (whose sleep schedule is also entrained to the biphasic cycle), thus stimulating your mind and supplying a steady rhythmic stimulus to your hip extensors.

You linger in twilight mindspace, that odd world between waking and sleeping that we rarely get to explore, and ponder dreams with a clarity that the 7 AM alarm for work simply doesn’t allow.

You light a candle and quietly read for an hour or so until sleep returns.

Sleep phase entrainment isn’t that easy, though. We do “dwell in houses.” We have by and large been sleeping monophasically for probably our entire lives. Our world is the product of the Industrial Revolution, for good and for bad, and so we must work with that reality. Candles at night will help, as will camping trips when possible, and limiting excessive late night computer exposure (or installing the ever-popular f.lux) is always a good move. You can try getting outdoor light exposure during the daytime – maybe go for that hike, that walk at lunch, or that outdoor workout.

But we’ve gone over that stuff before. It’s good, but it’s been done. In light of this new (old?) information about biphasic sleep patterns, perhaps the most effective change we can make is in our perception of sleep and waking. Make like those insomnia patients and change the way you think about waking up during the night. Don’t stress and fret; welcome it. Maybe, instead of assuming that this is all a horrible mistake and your cortisol is going to spike and you’re going to crave extra sugar in your coffee in the morning next time you wake up in the middle of the night, welcome it. Ever notice how you’re not all bleary eyed and zombie-like when you wake up at 2 AM like you are at 7 AM with the alarm blaring?

I’m thinking we should all explore why that is.

What are your experiences with waking up in the middle of the night? Do you need a solid block of sleep each night, or do you just assume that’s the case? After reading today’s post, see if your next mid-night wakeup feels different.

Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/biphasic-sleep/#ixzz2wK7c2HJH

Research reveals a curved relationship between practice and automaticity.

Say you want to create a new habit, whether it's taking more exercise, eating more healthily or writing a blog post every day, how often does it need to be performed before it no longer requires Herculean self-control?

Clearly it's going to depend on the type of habit you're trying to form and how single-minded you are in pursuing your goal. But are there any general guidelines for how long it takes before behaviours become automatic?

Ask Google and you'll get a figure of somewhere between 21 and 28 days. In fact there's no solid evidence for this number at all. The 21 day myth may well come from a book published in 1960 by a plastic surgeon. Dr Maxwell Maltz noticed that amputees took, on average, 21 days to adjust to the loss of a limb and he argued that people take 21 days to adjust to any major life changes.

Unless you're in the habit of sawing off your own arm, this is not particularly relevant.

Doing without thinking Now, however, there is some psychological research on this question in a paper recently published in the European Journal of Social Psychology. Phillippa Lally and colleagues from University College London recruited 96 people who were interested in forming a new habit such as eating a piece of fruit with lunch or doing a 15 minute run each day Lally et al. (2009). Participants were then asked daily how automatic their chosen behaviours felt. These questions included things like whether the behaviour was 'hard not to do' and could be done 'without thinking'.

When the researchers examined the different habits, many of the participants showed a curved relationship between practice and automaticity of the form depicted below (solid line). On average a plateau in automaticity was reached after 66 days. In other words it had become as much of a habit as it was ever going to become.

This graph shows that early practice was rewarded with greater increases in automaticity and gains tailed off as participants reached their maximum automaticity for that behavior.

Although the average was 66 days, there was marked variation in how long habits took to form, anywhere from 18 days up to 254 days in the habits examined in this study. As you'd imagine, drinking a daily glass of water became automatic very quickly but doing 50 sit-ups before breakfast required more dedication (above, dotted lines). The researchers also noted that:

• Missing a single day did not reduce the chance of forming a habit.
• A sub-group took much longer than the others to form their habits, perhaps suggesting some people are 'habit-resistant'.
• Other types of habits may well take much longer.

No small change What this study reveals is that when we want to develop a relatively simple habit like eating a piece of fruit each day or taking a 10 minute walk, it could take us over two months of daily repetitions before the behaviour becomes a habit. And, while this research suggests that skipping single days isn't detrimental in the long-term, it's those early repetitions that give us the greatest boost in automaticity.

Unfortunately it seems there's no such thing as small change: the much-repeated 21 days to form a habit is a considerable underestimation unless your only goal in life is drinking glasses of water.

HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Greetings!

Welcome to Mai Town Yoga's January 2013 newsletter. 

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas & New Year Holiday Season! 

As we start 2013 it's been wonderful to meet so many new students so dedicated to themselves & their yoga practice. I know personally what a struggle the holiday months can be. Often with me a new year means a new start. I catch strong feelings of renewed energy & excitement towards many "things" in my life I may have been looking at pessimistically.

For myself personally what this often means more than anything is I have not kept up with one or some of my practices I have developed to keep myself from pessimism. Such as my yoga or meditation practice for instance. This is one of many reasons I'm so proud we are offering our first workshop February 9th on "Introduction to Meditation". 

I'm very excited we have added two new instructors to our awesome teaching staff. We are so grateful & proud to have the amazing Chris Engebretsen & Jessica Morgan joining the Mai Town Yoga team. The talent of the teachers we have assembled at Mai Town is really fantastic. I love what a student told me the other day; "I've not had a bad class here". All of us on the Mai Town Team; Tida, Mary, Catalina, Chris, Jessica & myself are completely dedicated to ensuring you have the best yoga experience possible.

As I mentioned above we are very happy to present our first workshop February 9th at 1:30pm on "Introduction to Meditation" taught by Tida Chambers. Below is the write-up for this special workshop we are proud to offer. 

"Meditation is considered an essential practice for those who seek self-knowledge and self-mastery. Why? Basically, meditation brings awareness of how our minds work. Over time, we become watchers, able to detach from the thoughts and emotions that play out in our minds.

With this detachment, we gain the freedom to choose whether or not to act on our thoughts and emotions. We learn to distinguish between objective reality and our mental and emotional dramas.

This workshop will introduce those interested in learning how to meditate to basic meditation techniques. In this workshop, you will learn about sitting and walking meditation. You will learn the proper alignment for sitting on a cushion/blanket and for sitting in a chair. Once your body is comfortable, then it no longer will distract the mind. You will get to experience different techniques such as focusing on the breath, counting and using visualization . We will discuss what to do about the mind wandering around, hopping from one thing to the next. Then, we will practice it. We will sit and also walk in short intervals.

By the time you leave, you will have a basic meditation practice you can use at home...and you will feel more calm and relaxed.

Let your meditation practice influence and transform the quality of your experiences and your relationship to others and the world. Find more calm in your life by developing a consistent meditation practice.

Please wear comfortable, loose clothing or work-out clothes. You may wear socks and bring a light jacket. If you are a note taker, feel free to bring a notepad and pen. If you happen to have meditation cushions, please bring them."

I want to also be sure & mention the "Holiday Challenge". Things really got exciting at the end with 2 students tying for 1st place with 29 classes from November 15th to January 31st. Don't forget... over 15 of you signed up for the holiday challenge! Way to go everyone! The "Spring Challenge" is right around the corner!  
 
"It is only when the practice is followed for a long time, without interruptions and with a quality of positive attitude and eagerness, that it can succeed." Patanjali, Yoga-Sutras 

Namaste!

Dan Cicconi RYT 500Studio Manager

Lead Instructor

  

Mental Exercise

One of the easiest ways to get your computer to run just a little bit smoother is to clear it's cache. The cache is like the computer's short term memory, inventory of web browsing, photos and other random, mostly useless items. These tidbits of information can become a burden on the computer system and occupy too much hard drive space. That information is not necessary for optimal running of our computer system so we clear the cache and let it go. But that is just our computers.

We are all inundated with the responsibilities of life. Family, work and social responsibilities all pulling at us in different directions simultaneously- and we struggle to maintain a balance. We are also in the information age, tied to our computers, our smart phones, ipads, and fax machines and to escape from the daily stresses of this technology, we turn to our televisions. If we are running a little rough, slower perhaps and feel the need to run a little bit smoother- do we have a personal cache we can clear and if so how do we do it?

Meditation can help us clear our personal caches reboot and restart regularly. 

Meditation, simply stated, is a mind body practice. A bit of a mental exercise. 

Meditation can give you a sense of calm, peace and balance that can benefit your overall well being. While meditating you can clear away the informational overload that has built up in your personal cache- freeing up some of your personal hard drive space, allowing you to run at a more optimal level- You 2.0. The emotional benefits of meditation may help you manage your stress, increase your awareness of self, focus on the here and now, and reduce negative emotions. The practice of meditation may also help you alleviate some medical conditions, specifically those made worse by stress. According to the Mayo Clinic, meditation may help some conditions such as anxiety, allergies, asthma, cancer, depression, heart disease, high blood pressure, chronic pain, sleep disorders and substance abuse. 

How does it work? 

It works differently for everyone. Meditation works as an internal practice for relaxing the body and the mind. We can think of meditation as giving our mind and body a break. Sleeping can induce respite but often our minds and bodies are so agitated we cannot get adequate rest. 

Meditation can go right into the unpleasant areas of the mind and body and change our mental attitude towards them. Many who practice meditation experience a fall in metabolic rate and decreased blood pressure as the act of meditation decrease nervous system activity.

An article from U.S. News reported, "A mindfulness meditation program can trigger measurable changes in brain areas associated with awareness, empathy and sense of self within eight weeks" (2011, HealthDay News). Other studies have shown that a regular practice of meditation increased gray matter density in the learning and memory centers of the brain. Different types of 'mental exercises' create different changes in the brain, but all have similar effects. Neuroplasticity is a term that is used to describe the brain changes that occur in response to experience. There are many different mechanisms of neuroplasticity ranging from the growth of new connections to the creation of new neurons. Research suggests that meditation can harness the brain's ability to change through relaxation and attention training. When the framework of neuroplasticity is applied to meditation, it is suggested that the mental exercise of the practice of meditation is no different from any other form of skill acquisition that can bring about changes in the brain. 

Meditation is an excellent antidote to help us regain the balance against the constant push pull of our lives. Meditation can offer us a way to create new neurons, inducing relaxation; alleviate stressors and complications due to illnesses, and a multitude of other benefits and on top of that, there is no special equipment to use and you can meditate in the sanctuary of your own home. 

Want to learn more? 

Be sure to sign up at the counter for the meditation workshop conducted by Tida Chambers happening next month where Tida will explain in detail specific techniques you can incorporate meditation into your yoga practice and to daily life.

Mary Gatmaitan 


HOUSEKEEPING, New Class Offering & Schedule Changes

Schedule changes effective March 1st will be as follows. Starting Wednesday March 6th Mai Town is proud to introduce our new "Warrior Basics" class. Warrior Basics will be an alignment, modification based class that will be awesome for beginners & individuals with serious injuries. This will also will be a donation based class with the proceeds going to a local Red Oak charity. This class will take place at 6:30pm Wednesday evenings moving "Warrior Core"  to 5pm. 

   

Don't forget about Fit For Life. Fit For Life is Mai Town Yoga's wellness partner. Anything concerning your overall health, nutrition & weight loss including 1 on 1 personal training sessions in our downstairs gym. Become an auto debit member with Mai Town Yoga & receive discounted services from Fit For Life. Fit For Life brochures are at our front counter. 

   

Remember to get the most out of your practice here are a few tips we ask you to consider.

For your convenience class descriptions, tuition rates and our schedule can always be found at maitownyoga.com

Please arrive 5-10 minutes before the class starts to give yourself time to get into the room, lay your mat down and prepare yourself for class. 

Please be mindful of other students who might be meditating, in savassana (laying down) or child's pose and keep talking & noise to a minimum. One reason many come to practice yoga is to stop the everyday stories & dramas in their minds for at least the one hour they are here.

Please leave all CELL PHONES, shoes & personal items in cubby's set up in lobby.

Hot Yoga is a work out. We want to remind you to make sure and drink plenty of water before, during and after your classes. Hydration is important and we have vending machines filled with water, coconut water, and Gatorade for your convenience.

Mat and towel rentals are $1 each. Forget to bring your own? No worries, we have them here to rent. At this time Mai Town Yoga is not offering free mat and towel service with any of it's memberships- however if you check in at Mai Town on Facebook, we will waive the mat or towel rental for that class.

Towel Monogramming is available for those who wish to personalize their Hot Yoga towels. We have partnered with a local embroiderer to personalize these for us and we will offer free laundry service for monogrammed towels. Leave your monogrammed towel with us and it will be clean and ready for your next class.



2013 is going to be an amazing year. We have many wonderful things planned for the year! Stay tuned. & remember all of us here on the Mai Town are here for you. Come & see us. 

Namaste,

 
Dan Cicconi
(469) 218 0691
dan@maitownyoga.com
www.maitownyoga.com


MAI TOWN YOGA IS STRONG MEDICINE


Mai Town Yoga | dan@maitownyoga.com | http://www.maitownyoga.com
303 E. Ovilla Road
Suite 100
Red Oak, TX 75154

NEWSLETTER DECEMBER
2012

FROM OUR HEARTS, THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Greetings!

Welcome to Mai Town Yoga's December 2012 newsletter. As stated in our November addition it's our our goal to send out a newsletter on a monthly basis to keep you updated on everything Mai Town. 

As we head into the Christmas holiday & the 2013 new year we can all celebrate Mai Town Yoga has now been opened 4 months. The teachers & I from our HEARTS would like to thank you so very much. Tida, Catalina, Mary & myself have been honored to be a part of your lives. Those of you that have stayed have all seen significant & in some instances amazing life changing if not life saving results. Your feedback has been at times overwhelmingly appreciative. The collective experience for all of us I feel can best be summed up with one word... GROWTH. 

"You're never too old, never too bad, never too late and never too sick to start from the scratch once again." 
Bikram Choudhury

Over 15 of you signed up for the holiday challenge! It's coming down to the wire & will end New Years Eve! You still have plenty of time to get classes in! 

Don't forget winners get free BMI assessments from Mindy with Fit For Life. Fit For Life is Mai Town Yoga's wellness partner. Anything concerning your overall health, nutrition & weight loss including 1 on 1 personal training sessions in our downstairs gym. Become an auto debit member with Mai Town Yoga & receive discounted services from Fit For Life. 

Everyone that practices yoga is doing it for their own particular reasons. We are very pleased our yoga class offerings cast such a huge net. We always need & want your feedback. It's always needed & desired as it's our intention toensure that we continue to offer you the best possible yoga experience.We have worked tirelessly in an attempt to bring you the highest quality & fairest priced hot yoga offering in the DFW area, & I believe we have done this. 

"Realizing that our minds control our bodies while our bodies reflect our minds amounts to understanding the most fundamental aspects of ourselves. It further equals a comprehension of the relationship between our "tools." And since the mind and body are interrelated, this understanding makes it easier to see why coordinating them is a practical way of using these tools to greatest effect-a way of using the mind and body to live our lives as art." 
H.E. Davey, Japanese Yoga: The Way of Dynamic Meditation

Dan Cicconi RYT 500

Studio Manager

Lead Instructor

Do yoga to beat holiday stress

Do you still have millions of things to do before Christmas? Join the club. This is Crunch Week for many of us. There are gifts to buy, parties to attend, goodies to bake, packages to ship, and cards to send. And then just when you think you've got it all under control, you wake up in the middle of the night and remember something else. That office gift exchange. The flowers you need to order for Christmas dinner. What else were you supposed to bring? You worry about getting it all done, if you'll eat your way into a new jeans size, and how much all of this is going to cost. It can be overwhelming, to say the least. And it makes it easy to forget that the holiday season is all about compassion, love and giving. So if you're finding yourself coming down with a case of the Humbugs, or just needing a little break in the midst of the madness, why not head up to Mai Town Yoga for a class & chill out?

Yoga is an excellent stress reducer. And you don't have to be "good at it" for it to be effective. It can also help relieve pain that can result from stressful activities. If you need a gentle reminder that your shoulders naturally sit somewhere below your neck, not hovering around your ears, yoga can do wonders. It can also help you get better sleep, stand a little taller so you'll look great in your New Year's Eve outfit, and even aid digestion. Another stress-reducing factor of yoga is that it requires you to pay attention to your breathing, and that can make all your worries float away.

Taking time for yourself in the midst of the chaos for a yoga class can make all the difference in the world. Yoga allows us to stop, focus and become much more aware of what is happening in the "now" as opposed to the past and the future. It helps us realize that most things are outside of our control, but we can control our own reactions to the events happening around us. In my experience as a yoga teacher, most stress is caused by over-thinking, or what I like to call "analysis paralysis." It's easy to get overwhelmed when we feel like there is so much to do and not enough time to get it done, and also when we feel that others have expectations of us that we are not sure we can fulfill. This is a recipe for accumulated stress in the body which manifests as tightness, sore muscles, fatigue and lack of sleep.  

If we don't take the time for ourselves to reconnect to what is truly going on inside, we can end up making ourselves sick, and then we certainly cannot enjoy all the blessings of being with family and friends. 

 "Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape." Unknown

HOUSEKEEPING &
Schedule Changes

Schedule changes effective January 1st will be as follows. We will be phasing out Friday nights 6PM Candlelight Warrior class. Thursday 9AM dancer will switch to warrior core. Monday & Wednesday 4:30pm classes will move to 5pm & those class offerings will not change. Monday & Wednesday 630pm classes will remain in their times slots however Wednesday nights 630pm class will switch from warrior to warrior core allowing for evening students to benefit from the core series. Tuesday & Thursday 430pm classes will move to 530pm while the 630pm classes will move to 7pm. Tuesday & Thursday evening class offerings will not change. Please remember as we continue to study our attendance trends to serve you best we will be altering our schedule more in the future. Our schedule should always be considered in a state of flux as you the students will dictate our class times. Thank you so very much!

Our Christmas & New Year Holiday Schedule is as follows. We will have no classes on Christmas & New Years day. Both Christmas & New Years Eve's we will have 530am, 9am & 12pm classes. The day after Christmas & New Years Day only the 530am classes are cancelled.  

We now have an interest sign up sheet at the front counter for the meditation workshop. Meditation workshop is a 2 to 3 hour class & will be taught by Tida most likely on a Saturday afternoon. We will continue to expand our workshop offerings as your different interests in all forms of yoga continue to grow.  

Remember to get the most out of your practice here are a few tips we ask you to consider.

For your convenience class descriptions, tuition rates and our schedule can always be found at maitownyoga.com

Please arrive 5-10 minutes before the class starts to give yourself time to get into the room, lay your mat down and prepare yourself for class. 

Please be mindful of other students who might be meditating, in savassana (laying down) or child's pose and keep talking & noise to a minimum. One reason many come to practice yoga is to stop the everyday stories & dramas in their minds for at least the one hour they are here.

Please leave all CELL PHONES, shoes & personal items in cubby's set up in lobby.

Hot Yoga is a work out. We want to remind you to make sure and drink plenty of water before, during and after your classes. Hydration is important and we have vending machines filled with water, coconut water, and Gatorade for your convenience.

Blankets for your Restorative classes are available at the studio. These blankets give just the right amount of padding for your shoulders, knees, and hips during the longer hold times in these classes.

Mat and towel rentals are $1 each. Forget to bring your own? No worries, we have them here to rent. At this time Mai Town Yoga is not offering free mat and towel service with any of it's memberships- however if you check in at Mai Town on Facebook, we will waive the mat or towel rental for that class.

Towel Monogramming is available for those who wish to personalize their Hot Yoga towels. We have partnered with a local embroiderer to personalize these for us and we will offer free laundry service for monogrammed towels. Leave your monogrammed towel with us and it will be clean and ready for your next class.

Please take to HEART as we head into the new year don't let yourself lose any momentum with your health & fitness. Producing the changes we want can be met with difficult challenges so we must be vigilant in honoring & loving ourselves. The Mai Town Team consisting of Tida Chambers, Catalina Oranday, Mary Gatmaitan & myself will be here for you. Come & see us. 

Namaste,

 
Dan Cicconi
(469) 218 0691
dan@maitownyoga.com
www.maitownyoga.com