The Benefits of Doing Yoga for All These Years?
July 15th, 2009 10:46 amRecently I started teaching a “Seniors’ Yoga Class”. The participants range from 50 and 80 years of age and are very enthusiastic about the new skills they are learning. Attendance is very steady at around 15 and there is one male participant amongst all the women. He asks me some interesting (and sometimes challenging) questions every week.
Last week his question was: “You have been doing Yoga for all these years – what did you get out of it?” Then he partially answered his own question by saying: “You are obviously very fit, strong and flexible – but what else did it do for you?”
I thought for a moment and told him that it really helps me to manage my stress and was getting me through some very difficult patches in my life. Then it was time to start the class and I couldn’t elaborate any further. My student’s question really made me think. I came up with a lot more things as I was driving home and decided that it would be a good idea to share my thoughts with you as well.
For me personally the benefits of doing yoga for over 20 years have included:
- Stress – using various breathing techniques in very stressful situations, like before surgery. The so called pre-op medication they give you to calm you down doesn’t work on me at all – but yoga breathing does
- Pregnancy – I did yoga and meditation daily throughout my pregnancy. It helped to control morning sickness.
- Childbirth – I had to be induced and an induced labour is known to be more strenuous than a “natural” labour because the breaks between contractions are much shorter. I got through with only breathing and mind control. The midwife commented after that she had never seen anybody go through induced labour with no pain relief.
- Parenting – I am doing my best to parent according to yogic principles, to stay calm and compassionate and impart those values to my child
- Business – I am doing business according to yogic principles. In a nutshell – not sweating the small stuff, creating quality product that is helpful and useful, teaching to the best of my ability, focusing fully on what I am doing, dealing with customers and students from the heart, no matter how challenging.
- Emotions – I am not pretending to be a saint, things “get” to me too, I have bad days and lose my temper occasionally, say things I regret later – but yoga has given me the tools and the ability to quickly and efficiently “pull” myself out of these negative emotions and get myself back on track.
- Intuition – yoga and the stillness it brings help me to access my intution. I can make decisions made on my inner knowing and go ahead with confidence. I very rarely do things that go against my intuition and when I do – guess what? They go terribly wrong, things end up in a mess.
As you can see, yoga has a profound impact on my life. It is a way of life for me. To apply it to all the situations mentioned above needs practice and perseverance. You cannot expect to do a 6 week yoga course and master everything. Under stress everything you learnt will “go out the window” very quickly. Old coping mechanisms will return.
I am also aware that yoga is not for everybody – it takes time and perseverance, it is well worth it but under certain circumstances it is simply impractical to devote a lot of time to your practice. So I have distilled some of my experience and knowledge into a basic stress management book. This book teaches you some very basic techniques to get you out of your stressful situation quickly. Have a look here:
http://www.stretchyourmindandbody.com/blog/tigerebook
Till next time,
Connie
Your Yoga Partner
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