Tune into Healthy Place Mental Health Radio Show for an interview on OCD

I was honored to be asked to be a guest on Healthy Place's Mental Health Radio Show, this coming Wednesday, October 27th, 2010 at 8:30 pm Eastern Standard Time, to talk about my experience with having OCD and doing Exposure Therapy. Click Here to Listen.

It's also an Exposure for me to do the show, since it involves being on the telephone for 15 minutes! But I'm excited to share what has helped me in hopes that it will help others with OCD, particularly health anxiety, perfectionism and indecision.

I didn't know about Healthy Place Radio, and was interested to read their blurb:

. . .HealthyPlace is a privately held company started by people who are committed to the idea of reducing the stigma surrounding mental health and who feel that making authoritative mental health information available to the general public is a key part of achieving that goal. We are based in San Antonio, Texas. Our revenues are generated through the sale of advertising on the HealthyPlace website. HealthyPlace is not owned or directed by companies that sell any products or medications. None of the articles are written or influenced by companies advertising on our website. All advertisements and sponsorships are clearly identified and labeled. (you can read our editorial and advertising policies)

So be sure to tune in! The show should also be archived so you can listen to it after as well.

Related Post:
My Experience with Exposure Therapy on Healthy Place Radio

Interview with Vickie Russell Bell Yoga for Parkinsons Disease

by Baxter

In October, we were fortunate to have long-time yoga teacher and yoga writer Richard Rosen contribute a post about his personal journey with Parkinson’s Disease and the recommendations he has for working with the condition. This month, I am pleased to share with you an interview with another yoga teacher, Vickie Russell Bell, who has been involved in serving the Parkinson’s community for several years now. You can learn more about her teaching here. 

Baxter: Vickie, I know that you have been offering a Parkinson’s Yoga Class at Piedmont Yoga Studio in Oakland for some time now. How did that come about, and what’s the class like?

Vickie: I’ve been teaching a yoga class for people with Parkinson’s Disease (PWPD) for a little more than three years now. I started off assisting Richard Rosen, teaching about 8-10 students, and then took over leading the classes. I now offer two classes weekly at Piedmont Yoga Studio through a local organization called PD Active! In a given week there are usually 12-18 participants per class. These students have varying physical abilities. I have two assistants helping in each class.

As Richard Rosen stated in a previous post about PD (see here): it is a progressive degenerative disorder of the central nervous system. Common physical symptoms are loss of muscular flexibility (PWPD become very stiff), loss of balance, loss of strength and often a noticeable resting tremor. Sometimes people who have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s are in denial, resentment or rejection of their condition. PD affects the body, mind and spirit and needs to be looked at holistically. Asana practice done regularly can help students to cultivate and refine their body awareness so as to work productively with some of these symptoms.

My students with Parkinson’s definitely need extra attention during classes. I attempt to adapt what I’m teaching in my public classes that week for the classes (for example, Downward Dog with hands on a chair seat, Warrior I with the front knee supported by a block and the wall, Bakasana (Crane pose) lying on the back). Often in class there is an extra emphasis on keeping the feet stretched, open and supple to increase awareness of the base, on balance, on opening the upper back/chest/lungs, and on restorative poses (PWPD are often taking various medications that can make them fatigued or affect sleep adversely).

Baxter: Can you share with our readers any observations of the benefits your students have discovered by regular attendance in your class?

Vickie: I can do even better! Here is some testimonial directly from one of mty PD Active yoga students:

“The yoga exercise class has helped me immensely and I feel it is due mostly to stretching of the muscles. Parkinson’s causes atrophy in our muscles and the yoga exercises are a direct hit against that atrophy. I walk straighter and breathe properly when I walk now. Learning to breathe properly in the yoga class has helped my freezing of feet problem as well. When my feet freeze now I stop, breathe, relax and off I go again. Before, I would go into panic mode, struggle and usually fall. I have had fewer falls since I started the yoga class. I used to fall about three times a week and now it is about twice a month and that’s usually due to my own inability to breathe properly and stay relaxed. Yoga has added to the quality of my life.”

Baxter: In Richard’s post, he mentioned the benefits of supported backbend over a bolster. Where do you see that pose fitting in, and what are two or three other essential poses you find helpful for your classes?

Vickie: I often incorporate the backbend over a bolster that Richard described in my classes. My students also love supported twists over a bolster as well as a Viparita Karani variation. Legs up the Wall is difficult for many Parkinson’s students due to tight hips and hamstrings, and rounded upper backs. So this is how I teach the Viparita Karani variation:

Fold two long, single fold blankets (Shoulderstand size in half long ways) and place them on the floor in front of a chair seat. Have the student sit with their tailbone right on the front edge of the blankets and lie back so that the blankets are perpendicular to the spine and support the lumbar curve and back of the pelvis. Some PD students may need help lying back safely, or may need help adjusting the blankets. The student then hooks the back of their knees on the front edge of the chair seat, resting the calves on the seat. If your student has a rounded upper back they might benefit from a lift under their head so that the chin and forehead are on the same level. Here's a photograph from one of my classes of a student in the pose:

Viparita Karani variation (also called Easy Inverted pose)

This pose allows the low back (lumbar spine) to have a neutral curve or for some a slight backbend and allows the shoulders and chest to gently open. This can be a delicious pose for someone who spends most of their day with the head and shoulders hunched forward! I also teach PWPD adaptations of many standing poses and other beneficial active poses.

Tune in tomorrow for the second half of Baxter's interview with Vickie Russell Bell, in which she will talk about how to teach students with Parkinson's Disease. 

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The Practice of Savasana An Interview with Tias Little by Leslie Howard

Down to Earth by Melina Meza

This week I'll be posting excerpts from another interview from the never-written book on Savasana that I was—at one time—working on with my friend yoga teacher Leslie Howard. Leslie did a good long interview with one of her favorite teachers, Tias Little, back in 2008. Let’s start today with their conversation about  how to practice the pose. —Nina  

Leslie: What is Savasana and how does it differ from just lying down?  

Tias: Well I think the real benefit of Savasana is the body is out of gravity. Gravitational pull—gravitational torqueing on the soft tissues—is no longer an issue so by taking the body out of gravity there is an opportunity to restore and to recover. So in that sense it is allowing the body to completely drop with the force of gravity. 

Leslie: But wouldn’t someone lying in bed or on the couch be doing the same thing? How do you think Savasana distinguishes itself?

Tias: Then, of course, comes the training in observing how the soft tissues do melt or release their hold while in the pose. So that observation piece is what separates it out from “couchasana”. So that, of course, is an art and a training to be able to observe the release and the unwinding as it’s happening. It takes careful observation and, of course, it is difficult to do because it’s easy to space out, it’s easy to disconnect. I think it is good to prop the head up initially simply with a blanket or prop up the spine—you could just prop the upper back—so you get the upper chakras up off the floor. That will provide, hopefully, more alertness. 

Leslie: So, in your opinion, is an elevated Savasana like you describe better?

Tias: I think so for a beginner because there is a cellular response if the person lies flat. Like “oh no I can simply be lethargic and passive”. So I think supporting the head serves to putting in wakefulness. Of course, you could support the pelvis, too. There are ways to do that. I kind of think of Viparita Karani as a Savasana, of course, as you know you can substitute that one, and so it would include that. 

Leslie: In what case might you do that in lieu of lying flat?  

Tias: I just taught this course on lymph system yesterday, and so to restore the legs and to bring more venous return to the heart—to nourish the heart—it is valuable to elevate the pelvis and the legs. That also would increase wakefulness. It is not easy to start zzzzzzzzzzing when your legs are elevated.

Leslie: Do you think there is an ideal duration for Savasana?

Tias: At least 3 minutes. I usually clock it 5 minutes for every hour of class time. So for a 3-hour class, a 15-minute Savasana. I think that is a good sort of landmark to go by. I suppose there is a risk if the student is in the pose too long; there’s a numbing or a dullness that can come in for instance. So there is a time to come out if there is a disconnect.  

Leslie: In your teaching, do you guide your students or are you silent?  

Tias: I like to guide. Of course, in the Iyengar system, often times the instructor talks the entire time, so the student doesn’t fall asleep or check out. So I certainly have taken that tack, and in my guided meditations I try go towards the place that Zen calls “no mind”. Which is also paradoxical because, of course, it is also about presence of mind. Guiding people to the “formless”.

Leslie: So do you—when you are guiding people in Savasana—have a certain way you do it, such as going from the physical to the energetic?  

Tias: I would work from the limbs toward the core. So if I really want to focus Savasana on the neck and the chest, then I would really dialogue the hands and the fingertips, the carpal tunnel flexors, and that. And to address the pelvis I would really speak to the release in the lower limbs, the knee, these kind of the things. So addressing the limbs before dialoguing the core. I mean obviously the limbs are the place of action.  

Leslie: What do you do when a student falls asleep?

Tias: I usually allow it, unless it’s like a table saw because there is a healing that happens. As you know people can’t sleep and have malaise of all kinds. Sleep in and of itself is really healing. I think the two most important poses are Savasana and Shivasana. I think—this is my own read—is that sitting meditation is called Shivasana and of course “shiva” and “shava” go together. If the Shivasana has the same quality of awareness and ease as the Savasana, and Savasana has the same quality of alertness that the Shivasana has, then it is really effective. So the image of the Buddha, for instance, the sitting Buddha, is always depicted and then there is the Parinirvana Buddha where he is lying down. He is in a kind of Savasana. In the Buddhist traditions there is walking, sitting, and lying down as the techniques taught by the Buddha. That would be an interesting thing to research. 

Leslie Howard is an Oakland-based yoga teacher, specializing in all things pelvic. She leads workshops and trainings nationally and internationally, and is the director of the 200 hour Deep Yoga program at Piedmont Yoga. With a state certification in massage, she also practices cranial sacral therapy. To learn more about Leslie, visit: www.lesliehowardyoga.com.  

Tias Little lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he directs his school, Prajna Yoga, with his wife Surya and is the author of three books, The Thread of Breath, Meditations on a Dewdrop and The Yoga of the Subtle Body, to be published by Shambhala Press in 2015. In addition to leading yoga workshops and teacher trainings throughout the US and around the world, Tias currently offers on-line classes through Yoga Glo. See www.prajnayoga.net for more information about Tias.

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