COVID 19, Yoga, Immune Boosting Tips

Nothing like a pandemic to get us all working on our website, blog post, and other internal, home oriented projects. I have not created a blog in a while, the original purpose of the blogs that you find on this website were to share information, insights and ah-ha moments related to yoga and wellness. Today’s post is about acknowledging our position on managing the virus, to share ideas about how yoga, breath work and good nutrition can help us to stay strong physically, mentally and spiritual in the coming days, weeks and help us to face the unknown with a little humour, a lot of science and some good old fashioned movement.

Now I wish to underline the importance of greater prudence in balancing – as Stephen Colbert put it –  "hysteria and an abundance of caution" in how in the yoga community we personally and collectively respond to the coronoavirus pandemic. Social distancing is a new concept for many of us. Most epidemiologists and immunologists believe that social distancing, along with hygiene, is the key to minimizing the spread of the virus.

We understand this is a concerning time with all the fear around the coronavirus, but don't forget: 

We are Yogis, this means we have tools that can control the constant chatter of fear in our mind. Our yoga and meditation can be grounding places where we can let go of stress and worry. Let’s make yoga and meditation a daily habit to keep our immune system strong and resillent to help protect us. In addition, incorporate these immune boosting practices into daily life routine:

• Daily yoga and meditation practice from home, practice yoga and meditation to lower stress levels and increase immune system stength

• Walks in the fresh air also increase Vitamin D levels that support the immune system 

• Drink lots of water. You can add fresh lemon juice into your water because it has been shown to wash virions off of the pharynx and into the stomach where they can be killed.

• Promising research does suggest that vitamin D is vitally important in helping the body fight off respiratory ailments; our bodies need adequate vitamin D to produice the anti-microbial proteins that kill viruses and bacteria. I have always turned to vitamin C and I take a full range of basic vitamins to support healthy living. Stick with your routine or begin to research what might be best for you. I will write more about this in the coming days/weeks.

• Avoid sugar, this lowers the immune system. Consider a few dark chocolate squares with a 70% or higher ratio of cacao in the bar for your sweet tooth - giddy yoyo is one of our favourites - we can ship you one (or a box) today :-)

• Make 8 hours of sleep a big priority 

• Stay connected with friends and family - stream the same movie and jump online and discuss it together afterwards, create book clubs to read the same book and make time to discuss online on FaceTime, google hangouts or zoom (some of my favourites). Have a family member join you for dinner with the same tools - even go so far as to make the same easy to prepare meal and have them at the table on your laptop, iPad or cell phone.

• Up your intake of dark leafy green veggies and freshly made green juices - if these become hard to find - use frozen or canned vegetable in the short term. Lightly cooked greens are easier to digest and at a time of stress the body needs a little help getting the most from our veggies.

• Use lavender and essential oils for stress relief, theives for killing germs and I will write more about using essential oils at this time in a later post.

• Let’s Turn off the news 24/7, stay informed but also don’t overload the nervous system with panic and fear, opt for listing to inspiring content like your favourite podcast, interviews or take time time to read those unread books on the shelf. I am reading one about Carl Jung and the Sioux People - fascinating. Remind yourself that stress lowers your immune system. 

I’ll be sharing some supplement suggestions this week in the meantime stay mindful of the practices that can keep your immune system healthy and don’t live fear. Plus I've created a few recorded yoga classes for you that I am figuring out how to start our online membership a little ahead of schedule. Those classes should be available this week. Everyone who is a current student at the studio will get free access to these recorded and live yoga class session while the studio is closed. New students will be able to contribute 10.00 for unlimited monthly access to all recorded and live classes. We are also working on a podcast that we will also be stepping up our production schedule to make this available as soon as possible.

Your online membership will include:

· Access to Live and recorded yoga classes

· Yoga, Meditation and Wellness Classes

· Podcasts on yoga, meditation, health and wellness

· Live Q + A throughout the year

· Watch Anytime + Anywhere 

I’m so excited for you to experience all these life-enhancing classes and interviews!

Are you ready to experience Master Classes from Master Teacher from the comfort of your own home? 

Join us today! 

Wishing you much metta,

 Denise Davis-Gains and the Atlas Studio team of Teacher, Volunteers and Supporters

5 Tips for Home Practice

1. Create a favourable (clean, light, warm) space.

2. Commit to a specific amount of time or a specific practice.

3. Minimize distractions (turn off the cell phone).

4. Plan your practice (what days/times will you practice).

5. Set clear intention (at this time we might want to set our intention that all those who are suffering due to this virus find peace and wellbeing).

Intro to Ayurveda: Matthew Remski

Matthew Remski

What we know about ayurveda we have learned from Matthew Remski and the sources that he has pointed us to.  Any awareness that I had before meeting Remski has been tainted by his broad and informed viewpoint.

Matthew suggests that the “best evidence shows that the holy trinity of preventative and supportive health consists of proper diet, adequate exercise, and stress reduction. ayurveda focuses on how these three can speak most efficiently through the medium of a person’s constitution. Constitution cannot be concretely defined, but gleaned from the holistic analysis of physique, drives, social context, development, and emotional and mental patterning. Assessing what a person needs begins with beginning to understand who a person is and is becoming.”

In contemplating the usefulness of the ayurvedic body of knowledge Matthew suggests that “stress reduction is the broadest category.” Ayurveda addresses all stressful relationships: to food, to time, to family, to culture, to technology, to the earth, to one’s self-narrative.

Matthew goes on to explain that “underneath the technique, ayurveda performs the important function of speaking to a recently-buried layer of consciousness. Its lore arises from the majority experience of our history: the hundreds of millennia prior to books and science, when we relied on intuition, mythology, and dreams to forge connection of balance and meaning.”

Ayurveda reminds the postmodern person of a time when her internal climate mirrored her external climate in a language she could intuit and add to. A time when she was, in a word, possessed by nature and its evident rhythms. This experience is still within us, but is now starved for attention. Ayurveda treats the ancient person within.

As for yoga — it occurs whenever the wounds of consciousness provoke conscious action. Today, yoga is primarily a mode of re-embodiment. Expressed through whatever tools work, yoga is the will to reveal our latent inter-subjectivity, and to sense our shared flesh — to use the term of Maurice Merleau-Ponty — with the world.

When Matthew Remski teaches Ayurveda, he begins with the following reduction:

AYURVEDA IN 7 STEPS

1. Each person is two: a conscious part prone to alienation from self, other, and world, but also gifted with integrative capacities; a perceptual part, autonomically attuned to time and the environment, already and naturally resourceful and supported.

2. The latter is a unique combination of elemental qualities and movement patterns we may call “constitution”. It is the basis of the former.

3. Constitution can harmonize or clash with its natural and social environment, whether by conscious choice or by circumstance.

4. Inattention to sensual feedback, internal rhythms and environmental changes prematurely weakens first vitality, and then immunity.

5. As immunity weakens, the natural strengths of structure, metabolism, and coordination express their shadows: congestion, inflammation, and disorganization.

6. Good digestion is the root of somatic and psychic health.

Pleasure and equanimity are its flowers.

http://matthewremski.com/wordpress/view-of-ayurveda/

* Matthew Remski teaches an Ayurveda workshop for Atlas Studio. Contact us for more details: [email protected]