Why Restore?
This Sunday (October 2, 2011), Lisa Clark is going to be offering a Restorative Yoga workshop at Yoga Matrika, a most cozy and intimate community-based yoga studio in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh. The workshop is just two-hours long, but the effects will last a lifetime.
You might wonder what the benefits of restorative yoga are, especially if you are healthy, injury free, athletic and tend to prefer active yoga practices with an emphasis on physical challenges. Or, you might know that you desperately need a restorative practice, but can’t seem to justify the investment of time or money. Maybe you aren’t even sure what restorative yoga is, but anything that might give you some peace and quiet for two hours just can’t be a bad thing………..
So, for the curious, here are some of the unique benefits of restorative yoga practices:
- Activate your parasympathetic nervous system to fight illness and support optimum fertility, hormone balance, immune system and clarity of mind.
- Lowers blood pressure. Yes, even the Food and Drug Administration suggests that restorative yoga is highly effective non-drug therapy for hypertension.
- Helps relieve chronic tension that can cause pain such as headaches and digestive disorders such as Irritable Bowl Syndrome.
- Active relaxation improves mood and supports creativity and action sourced from intuition and grace.
- Lower cholesterol and improve circulation
- Better resistance to injury
- Improve range of motion
- Remove toxins from the body and support optimum health for liver, kidneys and endocrine system
- Relieve sciatica and low back pain
- Supports high quality sleep and can help relieve insomnia
The reality is that, for an amount of financial investment equal to a doctor visit co-pay, you can receive these significant benefits. Of course, a regular yoga practice over time is your best investment for optimum health, but you will be amazed at how fabulous you feel after just one restorative yoga session. If you would like to support your health with regular restorative yoga practices, April Lechwar teaches a one hour and fifteen minute restorative yoga class every Sunday evening from 5:45 to 7:00pm.
Here are some excerpts from Judith Lasater’s seminal book, Relax and Renew: Relaxing Yoga for Stressful Times:
Stress Can Make you Sick
Stress begins with a physiological response to what your body-mind perceives as life-threatening.…For modern-day humans, this may be living with the fear of losing a job in a sagging economy, or the health crisis of a family member.
Whatever the stressor, the mind alerts the body that danger is present. In response, the adrenal glands, located above the kidneys, secrete catecholamine hormones. These adrenaline and noradrenalin hormones act upon the autonomic nervous system, as the body prepares for fight or flight. Heart rate, blood pressure, mental alertness, and muscle tension are increased. The adrenal hormones cause metabolic changes that make energy stores available to each cell and the body begins to sweat. The body also shuts down systems that are not a priority in the immediacy of the moment, including digestion, elimination, growth, repair, and reproduction.
To his detriment, modern man is often unable to resolve his stress so directly, and lives chronically stressed as a result. Still responding to the fight or flight response, the adrenals continue to pump stress hormones. The body does not benefit from nutrition because the digestion and elimination systems are slowed down. Even sleep is disturbed by this agitated state.
In a chronically stressed state, quality of life, and perhaps life itself, is at risk. The body’s capacity to heal itself is compromised, either inhibiting recovery from an existing illness or injury, or creating a new one, including high blood pressure, ulcers, back pain, immune dysfunction, reproductive problems, and depression. These conditions add stress of their own and the cycle continues.
Restorative Yoga for Health & Well Being
By supporting the body with props, we alternately stimulate and relax the body to move toward balance. Some poses have an overall benefit. Others target an individual part, such as the lungs or heart. All create specific physiological responses which are beneficial to health and can reduce the effects of stress-related disease.
In general, restorative poses are for those times when you feel weak, fatigued, or stressed from your daily activities. They are especially beneficial for the times before, during, and after major life events: death of a loved one, change of job or residence, marriage, divorce, major holidays, and vacations. In addition, you can practice the poses when ill, or recovering from illness or injury.
This post was written by Sharon Fennimore Rudyk, the owner and director of programs for Yoga Matrika and Matrika Prenatal. She hopes to see you soon and often at The Mat in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Optimize Fertility with Yoga
Read about yoga, stress and fertility here.
Read about classes in meditation and yoga to support optimum fertility here.
Yoga Benefits that Optimize Fertility and Reproductive Health
- stress relief
- hormone balance
- endocrine system support
- increased circulation to reproductive organs
- enhanced quality of sleep
- decreased anxiety and fear
Yoga is a magnificent form of preparation for all creative activities and having a regular yoga practice is a beautiful way to support optimum fertility and reproductive health for men and women. Rather than think of yoga as one more thing you can do to help get pregnant or as an addition to any treatment you may be receiving for an “infertility” diagnosis, we believe that yoga should be something that you do for yourself. Enjoy!
Our classroom environment is kept to a comfortable temperature and we offer non-competitive classes that are ideal for women and men that are actively trying to conceive. All yoga and meditation classes on the schedule are excellent for supporting reproductive health.
Yoga for Optimum Fertility Series
Four-Week Series on Thursdays from 6:00 to 7:30pm ($80)
April 7 through May 5
Check here for description, location and detailed registration information.
What is Restorative Yoga?
Restorative yoga is a practice that brings the energy of the body into balance, releases deeply held tension and calms the nervous system. In this yoga practice, there are gentle movements, breathing exercises and physical poses that are held for five-minutes or longer with the support of blankets, pillows and other props. These longer held poses allow the body to release into the pose with support so there is no physical strain or effort. In this way, the practitioner receives the full benefit of the pose without creating any additional stress in the body or on the nervous system.
This type of practice is counter-intuitive to adults who have come to think that more effort, more work, more sweat and more pain means more and better results. One of the greatest challenges of restorative yoga is accepting the fact that doing less brings the most significant transformation in the body and mind. This is not a gentle, wimpy or easy practice! Restorative yoga is a gentle unfolding of the damage we do to our bodies each and every day through emotional stress, through our repetitive actions and by ignoring the signs of exhaustion, un-ease and chronic pain. Athletes will find that restorative yoga is the most excellent compliment to their activity as it eases the joints and can help heal chronic and minor injuries that would otherwise prevent a quick return to a favorite sport or activity. If you tend to enjoy a more athletic yoga practice, such as Ashtanga Vinyasa or power flow practices, then restorative yoga can help deepen your practice. Yogis of all styles will find that their endurance and strength actually improves through a regular practice of restorative yoga.
At Yoga Matrika, our restorative yoga classes are a combination of mindfulness meditation, healing movement and stretching. No experience with yoga or meditation in any tradition or style is required. Beginners are always welcome to this safe, supportive and non-competitive environment. This is a practice that is equally as wonderful for students with injuries or chronic illness as it is for the healthiest and most robust athlete. The “results” of a regular practice can’t be predicted, but they will be positive and significant. It may be that you have had shoulder pain for most of your adult life and, after two months of restorative yoga practices, you find that your pain is diminished and your range of motion increased. Or, you may genuinely believe that you are a very balanced person without pain, but slowly realize that, with a regular restorative yoga practice, that you lose your temper less often and feel more compassionate towards others—-you might just find that you are happier!
We provide all of the equipment that you need for your practice, but encourage all students in all classes to bring their own yoga mat. We have mats for you to use if you need one, but mats are really a personal use item. Try not to practice yoga on a full stomach, but it is fine to have a small snack (banana and yogurt, a bowl of cereal, etc.) an hour or so before practice if you are very hungry. Wear comfortable, stretchy clothing in layers so that you can wear less when you are moving and put on a layer or two when you are going to relax into a pose for a longer period of time. You may want to bring a water bottle with you.
Join us at 6:00pm on Mondays, starting January 10, 2011, at Yoga Matrika for this unique yoga practice for all levels. Your instructor is Sharon Fennimore Rudyk. If you have questions about this practice or would like more information, please call Sharon directly at (412) 855-5692 or see our New Student FAQ.
This post was written by Sharon Fennimore Rudyk, the owner and director of Yoga Matrika, an intimate, community-based yoga studio in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: http://www.yogamatrika.com/. For information on prenatal and postnatal programs, please see: http://www.matrikaprenatal.com.
Yoga for Seniors
Yoga Matrika will be offering a new 6-week series of yoga classes for seniors in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh. The series will cost $45 for credit card payments and $40 for payments by check. The classes are on Monday afternoons from 1:30 to 2:30pm. The next series starts on Monday, November 8 and will run through Monday, December 13th. There are many benefits for starting a yoga practice and we will:
- Decrease back, neck and shoulder pain
- Relieve stress
- Learn balance skills to prevent falls
- Ease joint discomfort from arthritis
- Improve quality of sleep
- Increase strength and flexibility in the body
- Improve heart health
No experience is required and everyone is welcome.
To pre-register by mail, please mail (or hand deliver if you are in the neighborhood!) a check for $40 made out to YOGA MATRIKA to: 6520 Wilkins Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15217. Registration is also available online through the Yoga Matrika website. You can call Sharon with questions (412) 855-5692.
You’re a Star…..Literally.
In my estimation, of the greatest joys of being a parent is that you get to reconnect with children’s literature. Sure, there are nights when I’m quite sure that if I ever even accidentally trip over a Dr. Seuss book again that I might immediately burst into flames–never mind READ it again. For the most part, I am delighted by the beautiful illustrations, the kind and meaningful tone and the idea that there is such great potential in this life.
Recently, we checked out The Greatest Intergalactic Guide to Space Ever by the Brainwaves from our local library. The illustrations by Lisa Swerling and Ralph Lazar are imaginative and, quite frankly, hilarious. The book is a brilliant collection of facts about space and it is everything that I had hoped my college course on astronomy would be, but without the physics.
Then, on page 25, I read something that awed me and put me in touch with a sense of wonder and wonderment that made me kiss my sleeping blondie on his little head before I continued my new favorite book:
“The Sun is mostly hydrogen and helium, but it also includes small amounts of other elements. Earth formed close to the Sun from the same cloud of matter. Humans are material made from Earth’s elements, so everything in our bodies was once a star.”
Just in case you didn’t catch it—–EVERYTHING YOU ARE MADE OF WAS ONCE A STAR! Now, I’d heard something similar in some yoga or energy text that suggested that our bodies are made up of the same elements that stars are made of, but this is something different entirely because it creates a chronology. The statement in this children’s book suggests a past for all of us, a past when our parts were shining clouds of matter in the night sky. This idea is at once humbling and liberating.
No matter what kind of yoga you practice, the foundation of the practice is a kind of mindfulness that becomes available when we focus the mind and acknowledge the constant stream of thoughts that so many of us make the mistake of identifying with. Maybe that stream slows down somewhat with time and practice, but for many of us, what we can obtain in this lifetime is just an awareness. In many classes, the smallest element that we break our awareness into is the cell. What I would like to suggest is that, based on this idea that our most elemental parts were at one time a star, we spend some time in meditation getting in touch with our inner star.
The first step, and perhaps the most challenging, is to release our physical body—the body of organs and bones and blood and guts. Especially if you are in pain, this may be a considerable challenge. But, to give it a try, just lie on your back and systematically relax from your toes to the crown of your head. Then, just wait for your breathing to naturally slow down and become shallow. Don’t rush it or try to control the breath. Just lie there until you feel everything slow down.
The second step would be to watch the transitions of the breath. Focus on the space where the in-breath becomes the out-breath and the out-breath becomes the in-breath. If you lose your focus, just return to it whenever you realize that you’ve drifted. If you constantly lose focus, then you can try to add counting—-count your inhale (1) and then just listen to the sound of your exhale, count your inhale(2) and then listen to the exhale and so on until you count to ten. Anyone who has tried this before knows that you will probably get lost before you reach ten, but just keep it up and return to one when you realize you are lost.
The third step is starting to feel the way that energy is moving through your body. There is no right or wrong answer. Bring your mind’s eye to your navel and just see how energy is moving from your center to the periphery. Maybe your center feels numb—that’s interesting! Maybe you can only feel your right side—that’s interesting! Please try not to make judgments. Instead, just be incredibly curious.
Finally, start to feel the pulse of energy through the body and give that pulse a golden light. When you feel the energy rise, feel yourself glow. When you feel the energy start to wane, then feel a complete release as your light dulls a bit. Just pulse energy and light like this for as long as you wish, until you fall asleep or until you wake up.
Confirmed by a children’s book—-you ARE a star!
REFERENCES
Stott, Carole
The Greatest Intergalactic Guide to Space Ever by the Brainwaves. London; New York:DK Publishers, 2009.
Posted by Sharon Fennimore Rudyk, Owner and Director of Yoga Matrika, a lovely little studio in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: 6520 Wilkins Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15217. Contact information for Sharon is available on the website: http://www.yogamatrika.com/. Please feel free to share and re-post, but be kind and give credit back to the Yoga Matrika blog and Sharon. Namaste!
Spring Clean Body & Mind
All this great sun and the first little peek at some bulbs starting to rise from the earth here in Pittsburgh makes me think that it is time to refresh the elemental qualities of earth and air in my own body ecology. While I am sure that I have a significant bias, I’d like to offer what I think is both an economical plan and one that will offer wellness benefits for anyone who participates—-
Treat yourself to great yoga and meditation in Pittsburgh!
You can purchase a 10-class card for $100 at Yoga Matrika and take advantage of a wide range of classes from Body & Mind (meditation and pranayama) to Honey Flow (combination of yin stretches for connective tissue and yang vinyasa flow) to more strength and flexibility focused classes like Yoga 2/3 and Matrika Flow. Take 10-classes over these first 3-months of spring and you will help your body adjust to the change in seasons and look your best in your spring and summer little things (uhmmm—you can’t hide your big butt under that coat forever!). Pittsburgh–this is guaranteed to be the best $100 you’ve ever spent.
When you invest in a yoga and meditation program, you will learn skills that you can use every single day to prevent and release stress. Basically, you are making an investment in happiness, joy and feeling your best. Since yoga and meditation can be practiced anywhere and everywhere, this is the ultimate in portable exercise and wellness programs. Take your yoga to the beach or lake this summer, to your hikes in the woods. Use yoga to strengthen the muscles you use for your favorite outdoor sports like tennis and golf. Whatever activities you enjoy, you’ll be able to do them with greater ease and focus if you add a yoga practice to your wellness repertoire.
Yoga Matrika offers such a wide range of classes in different styles and levels, that there truly is a practice available for everyone. You may think that you aren’t a “yoga type,” but I bet you are! Yoga Matrika is a very comfortable and non-competitive neighborhood studio. In a yoga class, you will stretch from head to toe, take your spine in twists and from side to side and build strength in your legs, core and arms. The physical exercises are called asana or “poses” and while they may be unfamiliar to beginners, they are all very natural movements for the body. As a matter of fact, if you watch a 6-month old move around on the floor, you will see them do lots of these poses! So, the yoga is a part of your body’s history and it is just a matter of remembering more than it is learning something completely new.
I invite you to spring clean your body and mind at Yoga Matrika! http://www.matrikawellnesscenter.com
While you are at it, call Cara for an appointment for your $40 introductory 1-hour massage or Greg for your $75 1-hour introductory Thai Yoga Massage or $40 introductory 1-hour Shiatsu massage. DELICIOUS!
See you soon at the Mat!
Posted by Sharon Fennimore Rudyk, Director and Owner of Yoga Matrika and the Matrika Wellness Center in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. For yoga studio information: http://www.yogamatrika.com/. For wellness center programs: http://www.matrikawellnesscenter.com. For workshops and series: http://www.advancedyogapittsburgh.com.
6520 Wilkins Avenue
(Closest intersection is Beechwood Blvd. and Wilkins Avenue)
Pittsburgh, PA 15217