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Stressed?! 10 Minutes to a New Attitude |
| Date: |
2009-08-25
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Stressed?! 10 Minutes to a New Attitude
Dr. Laura and her yoga instructor Emily Kligerman (www.emilykyoga.com) demonstrate several ways to go from STRESSED to calm using yoga. Their wardrobe for the video was provided by Hard Tail Yoga Wear.
Dr. L: Hi, I'm Dr. Laura.
Emily: And I am Emily Kligerman, Dr. Laura's yoga teacher.
Dr. L: This is true; two times a week. And there are times you just have too much stress! God knows I have stress!
Emily: So, when I work with someone who has stress like that... [both laugh]
Dr. L: (She stays calm)
Emily: The last thing that I want to do is tell them to sit down and meditate and relax, because they'll probably kill me.
Dr. L: Yes.
Emily: So what I like to do is greet the stress where it is. I greet the person where they are, with physical movement in the body.
Dr. L: [takes a deep breath and relaxes her body]
Emily: So what I'm going to have Dr. Laura demonstrate for you first is a pose. I call it "dynamic sunbird". So she's going to start out on her hands and knees.
Dr. L: [gets down on all fours]
Emily: She's in the table top position. Starting out with her wrists underneath her shoulders; her knees underneath her hips. She's going to just pause here for a moment.
Dr. L: [grunts]
Emily: [laughs]...connected with the ground beneath her, scan through the body and notice where she's feeling the stress in her body so that she can stay connected to that area as she moves.
Dr. L: [points to her shoulders]
Emily: In the shoulders...so if she's feeling stress and tension in the shoulders, she's going to soften her elbows a little bit, think about drawing the shoulder blades together and down the back, and then firming her core. On her next inhale, she's going to stretch her right leg back behind her. Hip level, with the toes pointed towards the floor.
Dr. L: [stretches and straightens out leg, adjusts toes to point towards floor]
Emily: Arching the spine gently, she can look forward. And then as she exhales, she's going to pull her belly back, round the back, and pull the knee in towards her nose.
Dr. L: [arches her back and pulls her knee to her nose]
Emily: She's going to do this four more times on this side. Inhaling nice long breath, exhaling pulling the knee in. As she moves here, she's going to keep her right hip rotating down...
Dr. L: Which means I wasn't doing it right.
Emily: ...relaxing the foot and reaching out through the ball of the big toe. Good.
Dr. L: [continues to do repetitions]
Emily: Keeping the core muscles firm, staying connected.
Dr. L: [switches to other leg to do repetitions]
Emily: And you changed sides before I told you to.
Dr. L: Gosh, you are controlling today. [laughs]
Emily: [laughs] We're not done with that side though. Come back.
Dr. L: [switches back over to doing repetitions on the right leg] [laughs]
Emily: She's not listening. Okay, rolling down here [motions to the hips] do one more like that. Pull your knee in and then stretch back. She's going to pause here. [motions to Dr. Laura's hip and mid-section] Again, firming the belly muscles. You can stay here, or because she has a little bit more core and upper body strength, she's going to stretch her opposite arm alongside the ear and take three long breaths. Core stays firm and lungs expand.
Dr. L: [remains in pose, with right leg in the air and left arm up alongside left ear. Breathes three quick breaths.]
Emily: That's her workout breath that she's not allowed in yoga, that she's demonstrating right now. [laughs]
Good. Last one. Exhale, place your knee down, place your hand down and then change sides. Three times on the other side, just to even out. Good. And...
Dr. L: Now we should point out that you always have to do everything symmetrically.
Emily: Yes, you always want to do the same amount on each side, unless you're working with a specific physical condition.
Good. One more on this side, draw the knee in, keep that hip rolling down and then inhale. Stretch the left leg back. You can either stay here or opposite.
Dr. L: [shifts her weight on her hands, lifting the left arm and then the right arm, with her left leg stretched out]
Emily: She's making it harder on herself, doing it on the same side. So, of course she has to do that. [laughs] Good. Relaxing all the way through the wrist and then energizing all the way out through the inner thigh, through the ball of the toe.
Dr. L: It's really hard to feel stressed when you're doing this. It's like it goes out of your head.
Emily: Yeah, you're focusing completely on something else. When you're ready, place your knee down and your hand down.
Dr. L: [places knee and hand down, back on to the mat. Is back to being on all fours.]
Emily: Good. Pause here for a moment and then come on to your back. I'm setting up for "bridge" pose. She's going to lay down on her back.
So that pose (dynamic sunbird) is a great preparation for "bridge". It gets you nice and warm. You're already doing some extensions in the spine.
Dr. L: [turns body around and lays with her back flat on the mat. Deep breathes and sighs] Ahh, I'm so relaxed now.
Emily: [laughs] So "bridge" pose is another active pose where it really gets you out of your head and into your body.
Dr. L: That's the thing about stress. You've got to get it out of your head. [laying flat on her back, with knees bent]
Emily: Right. So, from here, she's going to make sure that her feet are parallel...that they're hip width apart? And if you have the flexibility, go ahead and do it...you're going to reach down and see if you can touch your fingertips towards your heels.
Dr. L: [reaches and touches fingertips to heels, while laying on the mat]
Emily: If you can't do that, you'll just get as close as you can. Arms are going to stay alongside the body. She's going to take an inhale and as she exhales, she's going to firm her belly muscles, curl her pubic bone towards her naval and lift the hips.
Dr. L: That's getting way too personal. [keeps feet on the ground and lifts hips up]
Emily: Good...so that she keeps the strength in the front of the body, to support the back. She's going to roll her hands up towards the sky and just open up across the chest.
Dr. L: [rolls arms so that palms are facing upward]
Emily: Taking the pose out of the neck and shoulders by pressing down through the feet and then pressing her knees forward. So see if you can press your knees...
Dr. L: [pushes knees forward, while balancing on upper body]
Emily: Yes. Press your knees into my hands and then straight down into the ground, so you really get into the legs. Good. She's going to stay here for about five breaths so that whatever's going on in the head that's making you spin out and get crazy, you can't really think about anymore.
Dr. L: [laughs] No.
Emily: You're in your body or you're burning out any anger or frustration that you're storing inside your body.
Dr. L: Is this using up any calories?
Emily: Yup, you're burning calories as well. Good. When you're ready you'll exhale and roll all the way down
Dr. L: [lowers hips back down to the mat, with knees still bent and feet flat on the mat]
Emily: Good. The next pose that she's going to do is "knees to chest" pose. She's going to bring her knees in towards her chest, place her hands on her knee caps with her finger tips pointing down towards her toes.
Dr. L: [laying on her back, brings knees up to her chest and places hands on her knee caps]
Emily: As she inhales she's going to move her knees away from her chest, keeping the knees together, straightening the arms. As she exhales she's going to use her belly muscles, drawing her belly in to pull the knees back, towards the chest, elbows bending. Good. She's going to do this four more times. This pose is a great pose to calm and cool. It's also a very good pose for your digestion, which tends to get affected when you're feeling stress and anxiety. Good.
Dr. L: [continues doing pose] Do you want to explain why my toes look weird? [toes are flexed spacingly]
Emily: She's keeping her toes spread so that her awareness is moving all the way out, through her legs, into her feet. And she has great yoga toes, as you can see. Not only a pretty polish, but they spread really wide.
Dr. L: [laughs]
Emily: And that's from a lot of practice of awareness in the feet. Good. After your last one, just hug your knees in to your chest.
Dr. L: [brings knees to chest and wraps arms around legs] Ooh, I like the hugging part. The hugging is so good.
Emily: Good. And then place your feet down. Open your feet a little bit wider than hip-width apart and then just let your knees knock in, until they touch.
Dr. L: [works feet out to the edge of mat and brings knee caps together, with feet still spread]
Emily: Good. Here, she's going to place her hands on to her belly, right on her low abdomen. She's going to take a nice, long breath in, all the way down. And you can see her belly expanding.
Dr. L: [with hands on lower abdomen, takes deep breaths which slightly raises hands]
Emily: You can't see a lot of belly expanding because she's got a pretty flat tummy, but you'll see that her belly expands and as she exhales, she's just going to blow the breaths. And on the next one, blow the breath out of your mouth, like you're blowing...
Dr. L: [breathes loudly through her mouth]
Emily: Good. Now do that five times, softer, like you're blowing bubbles.
Dr. L: I'll pass out.
Emily: Yeah, that's it. So this is a very calming and cooling breath. She's using diaphragmatic breathing to take her nervous system out of a "fight or flight" response and in to a relaxation response.
Dr. L: Yeah, because when you're upset you tend to [breathes quickly] breathe shallow up here. [motions to upper chest]
Emily: Exactly. When you are stressed, you move in to a "fight or flight" response which always uses...you always end up using thoracic breathing. Also, when you use thoracic breathing unconsciously, you can easily bring in to a fight or flight response. So here she's reversing...
Dr. L: Panic attacks.
Emily: Exactly.
Dr. L: Oh gosh, I feel so relaxed.
Emily: And when she's done about 10 rounds or longer of this, she can just come in to "final relaxation" pose. Feet hip-width apart...
Dr. L: This is the hardest pose. I'm serious. When I first started yoga, this was the toughest pose. Just to lay quietly and have my whole body relax. It took me months to be able to do this right. Now I'm very good at it.
Emily: If she were still feeling a lot of stress and anxiety or stressful energy in her body, one thing that I would have her do is take a big breath, hold and squeeze everything, as much as she can. Holding the breath as long as you can, making all of her muscles tight. Even her facial muscles. And then when she's ready to exhale, she'll just let it all drop.
Dr. L: [tightens every muscle and clenches her fists, while holding her breath. Then lets out breath and relaxes all muscles]
Emily: Yeah, beautiful. And then she'll just let everything go, let her body melt down in to the ground beneath her so it grows heavy. No control over the breath, she's just letting the breath come...the belly naturally rise and fall.
Dr. L: I could fall asleep. So for those of you who have a lot of issues with stress...you see how few minutes of all this took. You should play this again and again and do it. Because if, somebody like me, who's like a hyper-active gerbil can be helped by this, I'm sure you can.
I'm Dr. Laura Schlessinger. [sleepily sighs] See you next time. [waves goodbye]
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