Tanya Almeida
YOGA: A calming tool for the anxious
mind.
Modern science has confirmed what
yogis in ancient India have known all along. Yoga is healing. In fact, Dr. P
Murali Doraiswamy, professor of psychiatry and medicine and Duke University,
said that studying yoga should be a national priority. Doraiswamy told CBS news
that recent medical studies show how yoga can “mimic the response of the best
anti-anxiety drugs on the market.”
That’s because yoga is more than
an exercise. It’s more than random poses that turn the body into what seem like
unattainable pretzel twists. It’s a breathing practice; an active meditation.
It’s not just about the body or the mind. In Sanskrit yoga literally means union. It’s both.
Tanya
Dumaine, the director and owner of Divine Power Yoga in Fall River agrees that
it should be studied as a tool for healing. “Just by deep breathing five times,
you’re already beginning to change the senses and you’re already beginning to
calm and relax,” she said.
Her
experience with yoga started back when she was a kid and her dad used to teach
her karate. Part of this training was to teach all of his students yoga. Later,
as a gymnast, Dumaine sustained a back injury and was drawn back to yoga to
work the tension out of her back.
Her friend
asked her to come along to a hot yoga class.
“I think I might die in that class,” she said. Yet, she went along and
says she immediately fell in love with it. She decided then that she wanted a
formal training in the practice. Already a gymnast, and black belt teacher of
karate, she transitioned to studying yoga.
Dumaine
teaches hot yoga, a form of yoga inspired by Bikram Choudhury, where
temperatures are usually above 90 degrees.
She says the big difference with liking it hot is the detoxing. “It can
definitely help you relax because your body is softening from the heat. Just
like metal, you warm it up to bend it. It’s the same thing with your body, you
heat it up and then you’re able to move deeper into these poses.”
The detoxing
effects of hot yoga can lead to many healing benefits. Dumaine says, “Once that
lymphatic system gets opened and the filters are cleansed, you’re able to
process environmental stuff, things you eat. People sleep better. Once you
begin to sleep better your body can recharge better. Sleep was a big issue for
me and I sleep now.”
Danielle Flye, a student of hot yoga said, “I think hot yoga is a lot more relaxing because of the
temperature. It’s more beneficial and more calming because of the heat. It just
has a whole different feel to it. You sweat. I had to leave half way through my
first class and drink a whole bottle of water. It gets you to relax.”
Another instructor of yoga who agrees with Doraiswamy
is Kari Mofford, a librarian at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth where
she also teaches yoga. She said becoming
a yoga teacher was the best thing she ever did. “I just feel like a
million bucks when I leave.”
Many Americans live sedentary lifestyles. Some
have labeled this the sickest generation yet. Yoga can help with many of our
modern ailments. “It’s easy for us to get tight, from sitting and not moving,”
Mofford said. “So yoga gives you space,
physically, but also mentally. The breathing practice really calms the mind.
That’s the pull.”
As for Dr. Doraiswamy’s claim that studying
yoga should be a priority, Mofford agreed, “It should definitely supplement.
It’s very healthy. I think the practice leads you to healthier lifestyles
naturally, whether its vegetarianism or something else. You’re going to become
more aware of your body and what works best for you.”
The placebo effect has shown that the mind can
be a powerful tool in healing. “Think of yoga as a tool to help you focus the
mind. The pose is not the most important thing. That’s the impact I see and that’s
why people come back,” said Mofford. “In
today’s world being present in the moment; well, people have forgotten how to
do it.”
Dumaine also
discussed the mind-yoga connection. “It’s about being able to turn inward, to
be still. So much will arise on your mat, or even in a seated meditation, but a
lot of people don’t have the patience to sit mindfully, but they’ll come to a
yoga class. Then they’ll have a sort of breakthrough, not only physically but
also mentally and emotionally. I like to say this practice is meditation in
motion.”
Yoga’s calming
effect on practitioners is what they seem to love most. “If you have a lot on
your mind it’s very relaxing and when you leave you’re not thinking of all the
stuff you were thinking of when you walked in,” said Flye.
Dumaine said
that when her students walk out of her class, “they’re totally different. I
tell them to take that awareness off the mat with you, see how long you can be
in this moment and feel what you’re feeling even when you’re out there.”
Indeed yoga
is more than just an exercise. As Mofford put it, “it gives you tools that you
learn in class but you can apply to life. I think that’s the important thing.
It’s a whole life practice.”
Many see
yoga as a spiritual practice. It is not a religion, although some say it has
the ability to bring the darkness to light. In the documentary movie, YOGA IS (a transformational journey), the
filmmaker Suzanne Bryant used yoga to heal. She thought she had it all with a
great career in New York, a fiancé, etc.… until her mother died of cancer.
After her
mother’s death, she embarked on a journey of using yoga to deal with her grief
and found that many teachers around the world claim yoga is a way to bring
light to dark times. They claim yoga can
connect you to the universal power, or what some refer to as God.
Dumaine says
one of the biggest misconceptions about yoga is that it is some sort of
religion. “Keep your religion, it is what it is, we don’t even bring it up,”
she said. “I’m just trying to get you to
turn inward and get to feel and get to know yourself better as well as learning
how to be peaceful and sending it out into their everyday world.”
Maybe that’s
why many feel it should be a national priority to study it. Not only does it
heal the mind, body, and some say the soul, it creates more peaceful states of
mind that are carried out into the world at large.
“The more
people we get to be on that plane of self-love and acceptance and serving, the
better we are, the better as a community, as a society we become,” Dumaine
said.
Another
misconception according to Mofford is that you have to be able to do a
headstand or adopt a vegetarian lifestyle. She especially likes working with
beginners, “I love getting them hooked, and taking the fear away.”
Yoga, more
than any other exercise, is often referred to as a journey. That’s because yoga is also a journey of
self-discovery. Each pose that you struggle with can relate to something you’re
struggling with in life. As you work the tension out of those areas, your life
improves as well.
Dr.
Doraiswamy may be onto something according to Mofford who says yoga is now
available in some high school gym classes. “I think it’s great and I love
seeing it go into the schools. I’m like oh I wish I had that in my high school
gym! I would’ve loved gym!”
Creating a
sense of community is another aspect of yoga. “I think it connects people,” said Flye. “People
come in with all different problems and then everybody’s on the same page when
you walk out.”
At Umass
Dartmouth, there is a mix of faculty, staff and students that attend the yoga
classes. “It’s like you get on your mat and everything else is left behind,
everyone is there for the yoga,” said Mofford. “I hope students feel like they
get a new community.”
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