Although the human body is an intricate marvel that can exceed our expectations, it breaks down and gets sick. Even when you are being careful, illness may knock you down. It's quite easy (and is the problem in my case) that you push yourself too much without realizing it. It is a funny thing to hear teachers tell you that you have to discipline yourself to make sure you practice regularly and don't miss a day of yoga etc... But, the truth for me (and perhaps you too) is that it is quite easy to take too much on. You might find that a certain yoga practice makes you feel good, and that you can add this much more to your practice. Suddenly, you may find yourself with a practice that is too long (when you are doing a personal home practice). In my case, I was staying up too late and lost the balance between work and exercise.
I think this probably happened too me twice this year, and now I am going through a second recovery. While the first time I got sick was an ear infection and I was pretty much able to keep to my yoga routine, this time with shingles it was not comfortable or good for my recovery to continue my practice full tilt. My shingles in fact was accompanied with a cold and fever, and I had to take a whole week off of yoga. The next week when the fever was gone and the shingles on my left side was a little better, I did yoga 6 days of the week but only for 30 to 40 minutes a day. On the third week, I am still recovering from my shingles, but have brought my daily practice up to about 40 to 65 minutes. So far so good. The question then is whether I will go back to alternating days with 3 days at about 100 minutes and the other 3 days at about 40-60 minutes of yoga practice? Probably 100 minutes is too much for an office worker... I have also been out of my yoga class for 3 weeks as well. I would like to go back next week on Wednesday.
I have learned through the course of this sickness recovery process that you can do yoga while you recover from an illness, but you may need to modify the types of exercises you do and the length of time (shorten) your practice. I haven't practiced headstands for a while because of clogged sinuses. It is very uncomfortable to feel like you got water up your nose from swimming when you are just doing yoga! However, downward dogs have been fine, as have forward folds. So, other times of inversions - less extreme kinds have been possible for me.
As you recover, rather than suddenly jumping back to your previous intense schedule of practice, it is better to gradually build it up. No doubt I haven't felt as strong as I did before I got sick. I need to build up my strength again, and get my lungs breathing again now that my sinuses have healed and are no longer congested.
Something that I have learned that is very important - is TO TRY AND DO A LITTLE LESS THAN YOU THINK YOU CAN DO! This is a very hard lesson for me and I may fail to listen to my own good advice. This means that I will have to make a shorter workout schedule and commit myself to it by putting it on paper.
Sometime soon I will post a more parred down schedule from the one I posted in an earlier blog. I think I will post both the new and the old side by side. I would also like to make them a little more informative for the reader. It is all very fine for me to post that I will do 40 minutes from this DVD Tuesday and 60 minutes from this other DVD on Friday, but that does not tell you the content of the lesson. Sometime I will will post the sequence of my workouts as my goal is to eventually work out on my own listening to my own body. This means at some point memorizing the lessons on these DVDs and deciding based on how my body feels on a given day what material or materials to cover. I think this is a good goal for all students to eventually strive for.
It is of course true that no two people are alike, but in sharing these sequences and exercises I hope I can help others gain new insights and ideas to incorporate in your own home practice.
Stay healthy - and while you should always keep to your workout routine - when you have the temptation to add more to your workout - avoid being addicted to your practice or adding more than you can handle. Again, try to do a little less than you think you can do!
Namaste!
Namaste!
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