31–40 of 93 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trumpet player here, and I’ve had similar experiences. A longtime friend of mine is an operatic soprano, and she can practically break a spirometer!
Tuba player here: suffice to say, I'm a calm guy.
Yoga (proper yoga, not the gymnastics they do in most gyms) is all about stimulating the vagus nerve and several others. The "locks" (bandhas) and various breathing exercises (pranayama) all work on it in different ways and stimulate different parts of the nerve. If you really want to juice it up add in some breath retention. Eventually you reach a sort of homeostatic state where your breath just naturally suspends,…
As someone who has been programming for 20 years, and experienced a lot of stress from it, it seems to be like I have been unwittingly practising 'anti yoga.' When I code difficult problems, my breathing becomes light and shallow and from the chest: almost the way you would breathe if nervously anticipating some outcome. The physical posture is more often than not slumped in a chair, and locked into a narrow range of…
I'd recommend seeing a physio - one did me the world of good and was able to suggest exercises and make me aware of what good posture looked like. I've had to do a lot of core strength work to fix bad habits and now I feel much better.
One thing I realized over time is that my lungs don't open linearly, there's a resistance period after the first second on intake, if I keep sucking air in after 3 seconds my whole chest opens. After that I can feel my lungs full. I also try to keep air in for ~2 seconds, thinking that it might help keeping pressure in deep into all alveolis and cleaning / exchange more oxygen.
All this is Sample of One guess fest. If anybody knows it's useless or could be improved, feel free to reply.
Yoga (proper yoga, not the gymnastics they do in most gyms) is all about stimulating the vagus nerve and several others. The "locks" (bandhas) and various breathing exercises (pranayama) all work on it in different ways and stimulate different parts of the nerve. If you really want to juice it up add in some breath retention. Eventually you reach a sort of homeostatic state where your breath just naturally suspends,…
What kind of negative side-effects are you referring to? I've heard a fair number of people talk about high-level Yoga stuff being dangerous, but I've never really understood what they meant. Is it related to the suspension of breath, like risk of unconsciousness? Long term joint damage? (BTW, thanks for the book rec -- Kundalini Exposed looks pretty interesting).
But in general, symptoms can include some/all of the following, and vary in severity depending on how slowly you progress, how clean your lifestyle, etc:
* Energy surges - intense feelings of heat/electrical sensations in the body, typically in the spine (I've been woken in the past with electrical sensations surging through my body) * Dietary issues - one of the nerve passes near the stomach and apparently can alter appetite as well as making you intolerant to some foods (I read of one guy not being able to keep water down for several days), etc. * Sexual side effects - feeling intensely horny or totally disinterested * Insomnia * Headaches, feelings of congestion * Hallucinations - auditory, visual, kinesthetic * Spontaneous out of body experiences
Apparently these all settle down over time but can be a bit unsettling (e.g being woken in the night to ghoulish laughter, but there's nobody there).
On the plus side:
* Feelings of intense bliss/ecstasy, contentment * Mental clarity
I've only experienced a few of the above negative side effects, and generally only mildly. But the Supreme Fire exercise has kicked things up a gear. Plus, I'm almost able to perform "full khechari" (look it up). My body just wants to do it. Spontaneous yoga can happen sometimes. Your body knows what it wants given half a chance :-)
As for joint damage - yes that is a definite risk. Never force the lotus position since it can put pressure laterally on your knees which can damage them over time. Also, there's debate around inversions (who'd have thought putting your entire body weight through your cervical vertebrae could be damaging :-D?), so while some people say they're amazing, I avoid them.
As it turns out, one of the most useful sitting postures places direct pressure on the perineum. This is traditionally done with the heel (siddhasana) but can be done with a prosthetic. Roll a sock up and sit on that. I use that on a Zen-style meditation bench to spare my knees sometimes. So you don't need great flexibility, certainly not to the level of the hyper-flexible people in yoga magazines.
A lot of it is common sense - don't force yourself with either the physical postures, or breath retention, and listen to your body. You need to activate the parasympathetic nervous system and operate in that mode. The other thing to bear in mind is you can have a delayed reaction. So you might do some breath retention, and feel great. So you do more. And more. Then that night you get the congestion/headaches/insomnia. So just build up gradually over several weeks, and back off if you need to. It's no different to pacing yourself with weights at the gym.
The AYP site has a very helpful forum with people far further down the road than I am. If you're interested you'll find lots of information on that forum to peruse at your leisure, and a friendly community to answer questions.
Yoga (proper yoga, not the gymnastics they do in most gyms) is all about stimulating the vagus nerve and several others. The "locks" (bandhas) and various breathing exercises (pranayama) all work on it in different ways and stimulate different parts of the nerve. If you really want to juice it up add in some breath retention. Eventually you reach a sort of homeostatic state where your breath just naturally suspends,…
Yea, but like, acid and mushrooms don't require any effort.
One warning - don't mix drugs with yoga. I've heard of a few people who did. They ended up "walking with the gods" for a while and then it just stopped and they crashed down majorly. If you need drugs to force your body to produce these chemicals, at some point the party will finish.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who has been programming for 20 years, and experienced a lot of stress from it, it seems to be like I have been unwittingly practising 'anti yoga.' When I code difficult problems, my breathing becomes light and shallow and from the chest: almost the way you would breathe if nervously anticipating some outcome. The physical posture is more often than not slumped in a chair, and locked into a narrow range of…
Apart from practicing deep breathing periodically, you might want try getting a lacrosse ball and using it for deep point massage. I was able to release a lot of tension from my neck and shoulders with one. Also, a theraband was recommended to me by a physio so I could do flys to help pull my shoulders back into proper alignment. I'd recommend seeing a physio - one did me the world of good and was able to suggest exe…
Heart rate itself is a good indicator of stress. Aerobic training using HR limits helps to avoid overtraining (and undertraining). If you are stressed out in one day your HR is up and you exercise slower. HRV gives even more detailed information. HRV is high during a rest and starts to decrease when the heart works closer to maximum. Measuring HRV change during a rest and gradually increasing the level of exercise gives more info than HR alone.
Validity of the Polar V800 heart rate monitor to measure RR intervals at rest https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4751190/
A technique I used to learn to breathe with my diaphragm: - stand tall like you're the batman (open up chest, don't slouch shoulders) - place your hand on your belly, pinky on navel and thumb touching the tip of your sternum - inhale from nose - let jaw loose and make the deepest "oooohm" note you can produce, look at the hand on your belly getting closer to your spine as you exhale - inhale and look at the hand on y…
One note: fresh and clean airflow is important, don't do this indoor with high co2 ppm (high co2 is basically poison)
Any normal living space is going to be fine. Even a relatively "tight" super-efficient modern home changes air over several times per hour (and have fresh-air injectors on the heating/cooling systems to introduce fresh air and prevent staleness). Even there, a house full of people wall-to-wall could not significantly alter the CO2 levels to a degree there is a health risk.
If you need something to worry about in the air, be concerned about diesel particulates in filthy city air.
source: former HVAC tech.
I'm curious if the converse is also useful. In holotropic Breathwork breath is made faster and deeper in order to access and release old trauma (including PTSD). I imagine this uses a mechanism of conciously activating fight or flight to confront whatever psychological material is available and recontextualize the self as safe.
I am a lifetime choral singer and during a recent medical exam I was asked to take a series of deep breaths. So I took my usual singer's diaphragmatic breath and was complemented on my "yoga breathing"!