Yoga in the Ojai Valley - Happy Valentine's Day!
Your Daily Yoga Vitamin: Backbends for a Healthy Heart
Your heart is the place where body, mind and spirit converge.
Lying on a yoga backbender as illustrated, opens the chest and increases blood flow to the heart.
The backbender is a whale-shaped yoga prop that stretches the shoulders and the spine, opens the heart/chest area and counteracts the rounding of the upper back.. Lying back over a backbender or other prop such as a chair, yoga block or bolster for several minutes, has a powerful physiological effect on the nervous system, glands and organs. (You can also learn to safely hang off the edge of your bed or other support outdoors, in nature, like a large boulder.)
View image
February is Heart Health Month -- Here's the Yoga Prescription for a Healthy Heart
In a yoga class, you are likely to hear the teacher talk about "opening the heart center." While all yoga poses benefit the health of the heart, yoga backbends dramatically stretch and open the chest, improve posture and breathing space, and increase blood flow to the heart.
Heart disease is highly individual. Someone with relatively little obstruction in the coronary arteries can be incapacitated by chest pains, while another person with more severely obstructed arteries may not even be aware of a problem. Some people have run marathons with 85 percent of their coronary arteries blocked; others, with no outward sign of arteriosclerosis, have dropped dead of heart attacks. Physical causes alone explain only a portion of heart disease.
William Harvey, the father of modern heart physiology, understood over 300 years ago that the mind and emotions affect the health of the heart. As he put it, "Every affection of the mind that is attendant with either pain or pleasure, hope or fear, is the cause of an agitation whose influence extends to the heart."
Our Heart Beat Responds to Our Breathing Pattern
Taking time to deeply relax and reduce stress is not a luxury but a health-promoting and potentially life-extending technique. The breath is the bridge between the body and mind. Our heart beat responds to our breathing pattern. It gently accelerates when we inhale and slows when we exhale.
The emphasis in yoga on inhaling slowly, gently, without strain and exhaling completely is relaxing for the heart muscle. Begin now to become aware of your breath and take time to practice slow, gentle, calm, even breathing. It's the first step to feeling more relaxed.
Posture Also Affects the Health of Your Heart
Our everyday posture-the way we sit, stand and walk-affects our respiration, circulation and the health of the heart. Chronic slouching decreases circulation to all the vital organs.
One of yoga's most immediate effects is improvement in our posture. The body sighs with relief as the chest opens and the breath flows freely. Standing poses, backbends and inverted poses open the chest and expand the breathing process. Upward and Downward Dog, both from the floor and with the aid of wall ropes, stretch the muscles of the front of the body, expand the chest, increase breathing capacity, and strengthen the back, chest and shoulder muscles.
An eighty-year-old beginner on the backbender, with his neck and head supported.
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According to yoga experts, passive, supported backbends gently stretch the heart muscle and the cardiac vessels that supply the heart. This increases blood flow to the heart and helps prevent arterial blockages. Backbends also help maintain the elasticity of blood vessels, and force the heart to contract-lengthening cardiac muscle and enhancing blood flow. The most important task of the cardiovascular system is to supply blood to the brain. Inverted poses also help strengthen the heart, increase blood flow to the brain and may prevent the death of brain cells.
Passive backbends are useful for everyone, but are especially recommended after healing from heart surgery. They should be practiced with the guidance of a qualified instructor.
A relaxing, restorative yoga practice, including passive, supported backbends, is recommended for relieving heart palpitations, breathlessness, regulating blood pressure and calming the nervous system.
Give Your Heart a Break
The human body is sensitive to the fluctuations of gravity because it consists of about two-thirds water. Sometimes it is helpful to think of your body as a balloon filled with water. To get the water to move around you could shake up the balloon by running, jogging, or dancing. But with yoga's Inverted Postures you could turn the balloon upside down. Inverted Poses directly benefit the heart by increasing the volume of blood coursing through it.
Inverting gives the heart a break. The heart works incessantly to ensure that freshly oxygenated blood makes its way up to the brain and the sensory organs. When inverting, the pressure is reversed. It is believed that there are internal mechanisms that sense the increase in blood and slow the flow, thus reducing both blood pressure and heart rate.
Caution: Learn backbends and inverted poses under the guidance of an experienced teacher. If you have back or neck problems your teacher can show you how to place props to safely support your head, neck and back.
Photo Credit: Jim Jacobs
For more Yoga in the Ojai Valley -- Your Daily Yoga Vitamin, see
The Yoga Splits, Hanumanasana
http://www.ojaipost.com/2008/02/yoga_in_the_ojai_valley_3.shtml
Downward Facing Dog Pose
http://www.ojaipost.com/2008/02/yoga_in_the_ojai_valley_2.shtml
Supported Legs Up the Wall Pose
http://www.ojaipost.com/2008/02/yoga_in_the_ojai_valley_1.shtml
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Comments (17)
Oh my gosh! That makes my back feel good just looking at that photo!!
Comment #1 Posted by: LTOR | February 14, 2008 08:02 AM
I love doing this on a giant FitBall. It really opens my shoulders, which take on most of my stress.
Comment #2 Posted by: Lisa Snider | February 14, 2008 09:31 AM
Happy Valentine's day to you too! and to all the great contributors to the Ojai Post!
Comment #3 Posted by: yoga cowboy | February 14, 2008 09:59 AM
Hi LTOR,
I'm glad you caught the spirit of the photo. This feels as good as it looks! I added a gentle variation with folded blankets under the neck, toward the end, under the heading about the "eighty-year old beginner on the backbender,"(see second "view Image")
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for mentioning the ball. I forgot! Draping over the giant FitBall or similar exercise ball, feels fabulous!
Howdy Cowboy!
Thanks for the Happy Valentin's Day wishes to all of us here at the Ojai Post! I expect Tyler will be sending us all a piece of virtual organic free-trade chocolate!
Comment #4 Posted by: Suza | February 14, 2008 10:30 AM
Good idea, Lisa. I bet my inverted Bean chair would be perfect. Can't wait to try it.
Comment #5 Posted by: LTOR | February 14, 2008 10:38 AM
Suza - I do need some yoga - my back is screwed up from life - 58 years of life - and I need some
ideas. I just found out I've got arthritis in my back and neck. I'm flexible and do the sun
salute regularly but my back keeps going out and I'm spending a fortune on the Chiropracter - any suggestion? in pain....
Comment #6 Posted by: In pain | February 14, 2008 10:52 AM
Let us know if you survive!
Seriously, be very careful of your neck. You don't want to compress the carotid artery that runs through the neck and supplies blood to the brain. The object you drape yourself over should give firm support. As an added caution when trying something new, have a friend or family member who can help you, if needed, near by!
Comment #7 Posted by: Suza | February 14, 2008 10:56 AM
PS Comment #7 was for LTOR.
"In pain," I'll be back this afternoon...
Comment #8 Posted by: Suza | February 14, 2008 11:01 AM
Dear "In Pain,"
I recommend not practicing any "flow" sequences such as the Sun Salutation until your back and neck are stable and pain-free. Especially avoid bending forward from a standing position with the arms stretched overhead.
Instead, practice the poses that are part of the Sun Salutation individually, with the support of yoga props.
If you are a flexible body type (someone who bends forward easily)you need to focus on building strength to back up the flexibility.
It may even be helpful to take time off from forward bends. Practice Standing Forward Bends with your hands high up on a wall,shoulder-distance apart, to help assure you are moving safely from your hip-hinge and creating space between the discs.
Downward Facing Dog should be practiced with the feet far enough back from the hands so that the spine lengthens and does not compress.
Practice both Upward and Downward Facing Dog with your hands on a chair, as shown in a previous Yoga column. (Click on the link at end of the article above)
It is so common to compress the back and neck in yoga poses. Practicing with a chair will help teach you how to create healthy space in the spine.
Before practicing active poses, the first priority is to relief your pain. Let me know if gentle on the floor poses like simply resting with your lower legs on a chair seat and a ten pound sand bag across the pelvis help are helpful.
Usually the knees to chest pose, Child's Pose, gives some temporary relief.
The key to preventing and relieving back and neck pain are the Standing Poses, first practiced wih your back against a wall or other support, taking great caution to move only from your hip hinge (not from the waist) with the spine elongated.
Avoid like the plague any movement that compresses the spine and does not contribute to healthy body alignment.
The key to a healthy back is alignment and strength!
Let me know if this makes sense and is helpful so far... I will give a more detailed response in the next "Yoga In the Ojai Valley" column, so that I can include photographs.
Comment #9 Posted by: Suza | February 15, 2008 09:44 AM
I'm so grateful for your Yoga info - thank you!
Comment #10 Posted by: dvorah | February 15, 2008 08:20 PM
dear "in=pain"
as an ex-practicing chiropractor allow me to say:
1. almost everyone has "arthritis" in their back and/or neck.
It's the price of living a life.
2.there is no such thing as a "back going out".
It's a convenient way to describe what actually doesn't happen.
3. if you are spending a fortune on a chiropractor request a refund and find a chiropractor or other "true healer" who can "tune into" your situation and get you on the road to recovery.
4. while back and neck issues are often multi-factorial, i suggest you look into "core strength". the current champions of this approach are the pilates crowd, some yoga approaches and what is usually termed spinal or pelvic stabilization in the chiropractic community.
there is no set approach to anything or anybody.
you need to discover the unique integration of your bodymindspirit and hopefully you discover people, tools, concepts that facilitate that.
Comment #11 Posted by: El Anonimo | February 16, 2008 07:03 AM
So Please Big El - suggest a chiro in town or ventura
Comment #12 Posted by: in pain | February 16, 2008 10:41 AM
Here are a number of them - there are more that others may mention...
http://www.ojaihealers.com/body/chiropractic/
Comment #13 Posted by: Tyler | February 16, 2008 11:06 AM
I need ONLY one! I don't feel like spending another million looking for "that special someone". I beceach you - El-A ex-famous chiroman - WHO????
Comment #14 Posted by: In pain | February 16, 2008 11:21 AM
in pain-
please email me privately:
ojaiguy@roadrunner.com
Comment #15 Posted by: El Anonimo | February 16, 2008 01:19 PM
It's amazing what a thorough job this does!
Click here: http://www.linein.org/media/screen_clean.swf
Put screen on full view, click above link, and get your screen cleaned. Guaranteed.
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Comment #16 Posted by: Ron Rowe | February 16, 2008 01:49 PM
We are all in pain--how will you know who is the real "In Pain?"
Comment #17 Posted by: Anonymous | February 16, 2008 02:35 PM