Remember the Eyes

Yoga comes in all shapes and sizes. To some, it is purely asana focused. To others, it is nothing but a prescription for meditation. And there are all sorts of combinations of yoga with something else (you know, yoga and wine or yoga and chocolate). Most days I wonder if the word yoga really even means anything to anyone anymore.

Why do I bring this up? Because today I want to talk about yoga of the eyes.

First let me explain why. The modern world requires many of us to spend hours per day at a computer, and there is little question that today's world is full of people living in chronic stress. There is one more common characteristic between stress and computers; they both have the ability to give us a really bad headache. Computers force us to squint, and the glare tires out our eyes causing the muscles around the eyes to tighten, which over time leads to a headache. I do not think I need to talk about how stress leads to headaches. Something tells me you understand.

One of my favorite things about yoga is that it has taught me to understand muscles in ways I never deemed possible. In some ways, the most exciting of those lessons have been about the muscles around the eyes. These are not muscles we go to the gym to work out. They are not going to make or break our health goals. But they may just hold the key to those afternoon (and sometimes morning) headaches.

The best part about this is that you can do it anywhere . . . and I mean anywhere. Now that I am spending a lot less time at a desk, but a lot more time waiting at court or in a car, I am looking for things to do anywhere. All it takes is 60-90 seconds (or longer, if you want) and a willingness to close your lids and move your eyes. Really. For the record, I am not advocating closing your eyes while driving, but just as you get into the car, or just before getting out, are perfect opportunities to take a few moments to relax, and releasing the eye muscles after using them for such concentration, is a perfect relaxation tool.

So what is eye yoga? Close your eyes (after reading the rest of the paragraph). Look straight ahead, and consciously allow the eyes to fall to the back of the eye socket. Even if they do not physically move, imagine they are, and notice the muscles around the eyes beginning to relax. Then move the eyes as far to the right as they will go, and hold for 5-10 seconds. Then repeat to the left, to the bottom, and to the top. Then look in all four diagonals for 5-10 seconds. Then roll the eyes in a circle first one direction and then the other 5-10 times. Then refocus the eyes to the center and relax the muscles around them once again. Then smile. Just because.

We hold tension in so many places in our bodies, but the eyes take one of the most thorough beatings of any part of our body during the day. Why is it, then, that we almost universally ignore the eyes as a source of potential relaxation? What have you done for your eyes today?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

Remember the Eyes is part of the series At the Desk, which focuses on practical tips from the yoga world (and other interesting finds) to help those of us stuck at the desk all day long. If you are interested in other tips, click the label “At the Desk,” and if you have any specific questions you would like to see discussed, send them my way.

Is your head on straight?

Do you sit at a desk a lot? Do you carry a bag on one shoulder? Do you use a cell phone without a blue tooth? Is your head on straight? I mean this literally, of course.

Generally speaking, the head should be directly above and between the shoulders when the neck is neutral or comfortable. Ideally for the spine, the ears are directly over the shoulders, and the chin is about parallel to the floor. But have you ever looked at a person sitting at a computer? General computer head placement has the jaw reaching forward toward the computer screen and the ears inches closer to the screen than the shoulders. And I’m not sure why, but many people tilt their heads to one side or the other.

Are you wondering where your neck strain originates?

In a recent yoga class (ok, two recent yoga classes), my teacher looked at me lying in savasana and informed me my head was tilted to the right. When she finally told me it was straight, it felt wrong. I felt like I was leaning to my left, and there was a ton of pressure on the left side of my head. But then a funny thing happened. My neck, jaw, eyes, and back all started to relax.

When we place the neck in a compromising position, we pull everything out of alignment. The rest of the body has to compensate, so our shoulders move up to our ears, one side of the rib cage takes more strain, or we pull up on our lower back causing it to hurt. Oh, and of course the jaw tightens to compensate for the overworked neck muscles.

So what can we do about it? This post is part of the series At the Desk, but this tip needs to be first done away from the desk – at a mirror, unless of course you have a mirror at your desk. But stand in front of a mirror for a few minutes and instead of noticing the bags under your eyes or your pasty skin from being inside all winter (sure signs you have been writing a thesis for too long), notice whether your head is on straight. Trust the mirror and your eyes, even though the neck might feel funny.

Then hold the neck in a truly neutral position for 1-2 minutes. How does your neck feel? How does the rest of your body feel?

Then head back to the desk, and remind yourself over and over again to keep your head on straight. It is one of the hardest things for me to do at the desk, but I constantly remind myself to put my ears over my shoulders and ensure the spine is straight.

Is your head on straight?

Namaste!

Is your head on straight? is part of the series At the Desk, which focuses on practical tips from the yoga world (and other interesting finds) to help those of us stuck at the desk all day long. If you are interested in other tips, click the label “At the Desk,” and if you have any specific questions you would like to see discussed, send them my way.

© Rebecca Stahl 2011, all rights reserved.  

Even Breaths

I have a yoga teacher who starts nearly every class in a similar fashion; she asks us, “is it easier to breathe in or to breathe out?” Inhales and exhales have different energies. On the inhale, we are filling our bodies with what the world has to offer. On an exhale, we are letting go of stale energy and anything in our bodies that no longer serves us. Over the course of our lives, we will have exactly as many inhales as exhales. Our first experience of the breath is an inhale, and our last experience is an exhale.

How often do you notice how they interact? How often do you notice which is stronger?

Lawyers and other professionals have a tendency to live on the edge and to struggle to find balance. It is no coincidence that one of the hottest topics in the professional community is work-life balance. The ubiquity of the topic indicates just how out of balance so many of us really are (and yes, I include myself in this category somewhat more than I would like). 

There are countless ways yoga can help us find balance, from asana (including tree pose) to noticing the equinox’s effect on our balance systems. But the simplest technique is to turn back to the breath. The breath and breathing is no foreigner to this blog, but somehow this simple technique has not yet graced its pages. And instead of focusing exclusively on the reality of balance, it focuses on the quality of balance, more easily expressed as evenness. 

The simplest technique is to bring evenness to the breath, evenness to the inhales and the exhales. Try this. Close your eyes (after you read this paragraph) and just notice your inhale and your exhale. Notice which one is longer and which one is stronger. They may not be the same one. Then consciously start to bring even them. Count the length of each, and try to inhale and exhale to the same count. Then slowly start to increase the length of each. See if you can double it from where you started.

Simple, right? All you have to do is breathe and count. Bringing evenness to the breath is a quick way to take control of our out of control lives and bring some semblance of balance back to them. A simple breathing technique cannot pick up the kids from school on time, but it just may help you slow down enough to focus and remember what time they have to be picked up. It can remind us that we carry this sense of evenness within us at all times. We just have to remember to tune in and notice.

The best part about this technique is that it can be done anywhere. Whether you are sitting at your desk or stuck in traffic, evenness in the breath can help you bring the quality of balance to your day. Just do it with your eyes open if you happen to be in your car.

What is your favorite way to bring evenness to your day? Do you notice a difference between chasing balance and finding evenness?

Namaste!

Even Breaths is part of the series At the Desk, which focuses on practical tips from the yoga world (and other interesting finds) to help those of us stuck at the desk all day long. If you are interested in other tips, click the label “At the Desk,” and if you have any specific questions you would like to see discussed, send them my way.

© Rebecca Stahl 2011, all rights reserved.

Calm and Clear

As I mentioned in the last post, as part of a swim study, I got some “Mental Skills Training.” Essentially I learned yoga from a sports psychologist. The first skill we learned was to center ourselves and relax. Sound familiar? As regular readers know, the point of this blog is to bring these yoga lessons into daily life, and this mental skills training gave me a new path for doing that.

One tool rises above all the others in my mind for reducing stress, increasing productivity, and providing overall better health and wellbeing. It is also our greatest teacher. It is, of course, our breath.

A focus on the breath has graced the posts on this blog numerous times. But I never could find the words to express how to use the breath for all its benefits. Thus, the last post in this series, At the Desk, focused simply on stopping and noticing the breath and focusing on breathing into the lower abdomen. That is definitely the first step, but inevitably the mind starts to wander, and we forget the breath as quickly as we can.

There are numerous ways to try to calm the mind, and yoga provides many paths. One of those paths is focusing on a mantra, which is nothing more than repeating the same word or phrase over and over again. I have my favorite mantras, but until this Mental Skills Training, I had not found one that spoke to my “professional” side as opposed to my “yogic” side (as if they can really be distinguished).

But then I did this Mental Skills Training, and my decade-long yoga practice met my desk-bound, stressed out, fear-of-water self. They met in two simple words.

Calm and Clear.

Calm on the inhale. Clear on the exhale. With each inhale, repeat the word “calm” to yourself, and with each exhale, repeat the word “clear.” They signify a calm body and a clear mind. Calm and Clear. Inhale and exhale.

What a perfect mantra for our modern society, when we run through life, rarely taking time for our bodies, and bombarding our minds with RSS feeds, facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and gchat, not to mention work (or is that just me?). Remembering, in the midst of all of this, to remind ourselves to have a calm body and a clear mind by focusing on our breath is vital. Moreover, there is nothing easier at your desk than breathing, and adding a silent mantra focuses the attention and begins to slow the thoughts and heal the body.

Can you take 1 minute per day for a “Calm and Clear” mantra? Can you take 5 minutes per day? 

Namaste! 

Calm and Clear is part of the series At the Desk, which focuses on practical tips from the yoga world (and other interesting finds) to help those of us stuck at the desk all day long. If you are interested in other tips, click the label “At the Desk,” and if you have any specific questions you would like to see discussed, send them my way.

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved

Stop and Breathe

Stop. For just a moment, stop. Before you read any further, stop and take a breath.

Now take another one.

Now take a slightly deeper breath.

Ok, keep reading.

Regular readers of this blog will know the breath makes an appearance fairly frequently.  The first act we take as independent human beings is to breathe in (and usually start screaming), and the last act we take is to exhale. In between, we inhale and exhale billions of times.

So, if the breath is such a natural occurrence, and one that happens whether we think about it or not, why should we stop and notice? Why should we care?

The breath can serve two main functions besides simply bringing oxygen physically into our lungs. First, it can indicate how we are feeling and coping. Second, it can change our physiology and help us create more calm. And the best part about bringing awareness to the breath is that you can do it anywhere and anytime. Sitting at your desk slumped over a computer? Notice your breath. In a tense meeting? Notice your breath. Out walking on a beautiful spring afternoon? Notice your breath.

But this post is part of the series At The Desk because it is at a desk where so many of us spend so much of our time today. But no matter what we are wearing, who is around, or how much time we have, we can use the breath to tell us how we are doing and use it to calm us, release pain, and give us strength to move forward.

Practically speaking, here are some questions you can ask yourself about your breath at any time:

• Is my breath deep or shallow?
• Is the breath slow or quick?
• Am I breathing into my shoulders? My lungs? My abdomen?
• Is it easier to breathe in or out?
• It is easier to breathe through my left or right nostril?

There is no right or wrong answers to these questions. It is just an opportunity to notice the breath, to notice the state of your greatest teacher. From there, you may notice that you are holding tension in one part of your body, or that your breath is shallow because you are stressed or worried. You may notice that you are breathing deeply and fully and loving life at that moment. The important thing is just to notice.

If you notice that the breath is shallow and quick, and you also have a worried and fast-paced mind, you can modify the breath to help bring you calm. The greatest part is that this practice is incredibly simple. In our hurried lives, it may be easy to relearn how to bring conscious awareness and modification to the breath, but it absolutely can be done . . . by anyone.

The steps are simple. Slow down. Breathe into the abdomen. Exhale fully. Repeat.

Even taking five conscious breaths will help calm the mind and body and bring focus back to your work or wherever you are. I encourage you to start with 5 deep, conscious breaths every other hour. Discover what works for you, and before you know it, you may be bringing conscious awareness to your breath throughout the day.

Do you take time for the breath during the day?

Namaste!

Stop and Breathe is part of the series At the Desk, which focuses on practical tips from the yoga world (and other interesting finds) to help those of us stuck at the desk all day long. If you are interested in other tips, click the label “At the Desk,” and if you have any specific questions you would like to see discussed, send them my way.

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved

Take a Walk

As I mentioned in the 100^th post, I want to see Is Yoga Legal taking on some new tasks, and one of those is practical advice for the modern world. I love to write about the interaction of yoga and the law, but I also think that people want some practical tips. Many professionals, especially lawyers, spend inordinate amounts of time sitting at a desk. This fact results in all sorts of physical and emotional problems. Therefore, I am starting a new series called At the Desk, and this is the first post in that series. All posts in the series will be labeled At the Desk. I would love to hear your feedback on this series or any others you would like to see.

A book could be written on all the problems associated with sitting at a desk all day, but those can be the focus of later posts. With this first post in the series, lets discuss the best way to counteract any problem associated with desk-life.

TAKE A WALK!!

Sitting is static, and sitting at a desk is static in an uncomfortable and unnatural position. Thus, in order to counteract it, we need to do some natural movement. And what is more natural than walking (well, at least since about the age of 1-2)? While taking longer walks is well known to help with many medical issues, short walks are also great. They may not trim the waistline, but they can counteract the physical effects of sitting.

Taking a walk does not need to be a long exercise routine. Instead, take a 2-minute walk every hour and a slightly longer walk 1-2 times per day. How often do you feel yourself falling asleep around 3pm? Taking a ten-minute walk can help get the blood flowing again, wake you up, and prepare you for the rest of the day. Instead of considering it a waste of time, ask yourself how much time you waste by sitting at your desk feeling as though you are going to fall asleep. My productivity increased 10-fold when I just started taking short walks throughout the day.

Here are some simple tips for adding walking to your day:

• Set a timer: Have a timer go off every hour to remind you to get up and move.
• Go to the bathroom that is farther away: Is the bathroom less than 20 steps from your office door? Go to the one down the hall. Then you have a destination, and a bit more movement.
• Ask a colleague a question: How often do you send an email to the person just down the hall? Do you pick up the phone and call? How about picking yourself up and walking down the hall to ask the question? If it will take a few minutes to answer, you can walk together and discuss it.
• Get a buddy: Ask someone else in your office to share the burden of remembering to take a short walk. Then, when you need your two minutes, you can count on each other to ensure it happens.

Do you have other ideas? Please share them in the comments.

Short, frequent walks are key to counteracting the static stress of sitting at a desk all day. What may seem like a waste of time at first has the potential to increase productivity and reduce pain. And with a reduction in pain, we can reduce medication, time away from work, and time complaining. Sometimes the first answer is simple – just take a walk.

Taking a Walk is part of the series At the Desk, which focuses on practical tips from the yoga world (and other interesting finds) to help those of us stuck at the desk all day long. If you are interested in other tips, click the label “At the Desk,” and if you have any specific questions you would like to see discussed, send them my way. 


© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved