My 20-Year Yoga Journey: A Skeptic's Guide to Pain Relief (and inner peace)
For over 20 years, I've been practicing yoga, initially as a skeptic battling sciatica, yet, its magic on the mind has increasingly fascinated me. In 2003, days before a lower back surgery, I happened on an Iyengar restorative class. The precise focus on alignment and stretching instantly resonated, and the pain? Fairly quickly gone. The beauty of Restorative Yoga is its inclusivity and accessibility. No need for Olympic flexibility; you are assisted into position, propped by bolsters, straps, and even dedicated implements, thus allowing you to benefit from poses, normally excercised in advanced practice, such as the Backbend (Viparita Dandhasana, the Inverted Staff Pose) The benefits of the "Backbend" among others are: Improved circulation Lymphatic system drainage Deeper breathing Pain relief Stress reduction Quieter mind Deeper relaxation Boosted mental concentration My all time favorite implement became the obscure "Viparita Dandhasana Bench", an unwieldy,...