Yoga and Me
We all know exercise is good in order to have a healthy body. But not so, if the person is recovering from Fibromyalgia or CFIDS or other serious diseases. I once had a doctor, (MD) who was the first one to say don’t even think about exercising until you have been on my treatment program for at least eight weeks. This was in the day and age where exercise was routinely prescribed as part of a treatment program from conventional doctors. I was excited to see this new recommendation, because I knew exercise only made me worse! Finally, I hoped someone was getting a handle on this problem!
Unfortunately, his treatment program didn’t work, but I applaud him for going against all of his other doctor friends and doing what he knew to be true!
I also had a Physical Therapist tell me no way, your muscles shouldn’t exercise. She said they flinched when she examined them. She treated me with massage and hot packs. The massage and hot packs worked, I felt better, but of course that quickly wore off and the pain came back full force in no time.
So what to do, when you know you shouldn’t exercise, but you should move or you get stiffer too?
I ended up doing breathing exercises based upon Yoga. They can be done lying down in bed, or propped up on a wall while leaning out of a window if you feel better that day. I personally like the leaning out of a window, it’s more enjoyable, but either one will move the blood and chi and make you feel better. Ideally, the window should be open even if you’re in bed, so you can get fresh air. Clean, fresh air loaded with oxygen is important to your body and will make you feel better too. But do what you can do, until you can feel better and upgrade to the next level. Here’s the exercise:
Take a deep breath in through the nose to a count of five. Hold for twenty counts. Exhale through mouth to a count of ten, so this really empties the air from the bottom of your lungs. Aim for five times. But it doesn’t have to be five. Listen to you body. Sometimes on not-so-good days I could only do three. Other days I went for ten because it felt so good. I tried to always go for the point where I could tell the blood and chi were moving and my muscles and trigger points were opening up. Some days I was really in a mess and really screwed up the count, but just kept going!
This exercise has never failed me. I have always felt better. I have even recovered quicker if I was in a pain flare up with a whole body migraine headache. And they will open up the whole body, even down to your toes and up to the top of your head. Just keep doing them daily and you will feel the trigger points relax more, and the relaxation will expand to more and more trigger points until it’s working everywhere. Even if you wake up in more pain than you have been having, you will find the trigger points will relax faster than they used to.
A word of caution though, don’t throw yourself into these exercises with vigor. Don’t put a lot of effort into them, we don’t want your rib muscles to become sore. No deep, deep breaths. This is meant to be a gentle, easy style that your muscles can handle. On bad days don’t stretch your muscles and make them take a deeper breath than they want to. Gently coax them and let them do what they are able to do.
The next step is gravity exercises. Lucas on his website has a YOGABODY HANDBOOK that has what is called gravity exercises. These are the next step if you feel you have recovered enough. These are stretching exercises without the force of a real stretch. These are gentle, and can be adapted for your own comfort level, if that is needed. These are great for our recovering, pain filled, contracted and shortened muscles. When your body has recovered enough, and you can easily do these stretches without pain or consequences, then you can step it up and move on to his other work outs! I would give it a month of easily doing these stretches before increasing the intensity of your workout. Let the body settle into a routine, and build a good foundation and increase it’s energy reserves before you ask more from it. CLICK HERE for the stretching exercises. Once you get to his website, click on the link that says Store, at the top of the page. On that page you will easily see the YOGABODY HANDBOOK.
And congratulations! You will be recovered from the Dread Fibromyalgia!
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