An oldie but a goodie. We’ve all been here.

Cover illustration from The New Yorker: December 8, 2003. Illustrator unknown.

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We all know that stress is killing us. Or at the very least, aging and annoying us. It’s wearing out our adrenal glands, graying our hair, lowering our immunity, disrupting our sleep, and building our bulges. But how can we battle a cultural cornerstone? What are we, if not busy?

If you reduce stress and restore your energy, you’ll be more productive while doing less.

Read more on the Huffington Post

Thank you Brokelyn! The awesome blog about “living big on small change” researched a list of massages under $50. There’s one five blocks from my house! Check it out here:

http://www.brokelyn.com/massages-for-50-and-under-in-brooklyn/

New article in the Journal links prolonged TV watching to an increased rate of death — even for people who exercise! The problem is the extended periods of sitting still. And it seems that sitting on a plane, at a computer, or — gasp — reading a book is just as bad.

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Yoga, Inc.

Yoga, Inc., “the documentary that asks whether yoga can survive big business with its good karma intact,” is available for free viewing online. It reviews the entrance of yoga to the West, its secularization and marketing, yoga ethics, guru reverence, and the business of running a studio. It spends a long time on Bikram’s copyright action, and the yoga competitions.

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Yoga for NY

If you have even one ounce of energy tomorrow at 1pm, come out to the Yoga for NY meeting! They are doing insanely tireless, valuable work to get yoga exempted from the state’s extortion initiatives.

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
Yoga High
19 Clinton St

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I wish I were this cute when I have the slugs

Holiday deadlines, moving apartments… I lost my yoga practice somewhere in the transition between neighborhoods and seasons. It was hard to commit to class cards just before the move, and easy to let the price of a drop-in class become an excuse. (But selling furniture did increase the frequency of home practice! Ah, space.)

Even though many teachers remind us that most yoga happens off the mat, I could recognize the obvious symptoms of asana withdrawal. Crankiness, inefficiency, insomnia, heaviness, depression… (it is December, after all). But somehow the days kept going by without class… important things kept coming up. You know, email.

Finally, I made a decision. I’d signed up for the free week at YogaWorks Soho back during Yoga Week, but never made it there. I said OK YOU’RE GOING THERE, it’s a beautiful studio, stop trying to pick the perfect post-move place. I looked at the schedule, and spotted a friendly face: Aarona Pichinson. She’s a great teacher, and it was a level 2/3 class so I knew I could modify down for my sluggish sleepy body. Done. Decided. No backing down.

It was just what I needed, and I couldn’t believe how happy I was later. Work worries? Seasonal depression? Eh, it’ll pass! No big deal! Hey neighbor!

Anyways, I thought people could probably relate and so I just wanted to give a little push: GO TO CLASS!!! If you’re stuck in the muck, just think about a class you’ve enjoyed in the past and go see that teacher again! Anything’s better than the slugs.

Do you remember your first yoga class? The questions, the perceptions, the expectations (or lack thereof)? Yesterday’s Times had a nice first-time-to-yoga narrative:

Ignoring the warning bells deep inside my brain, I grabbed a book, thinking that if the class got too long for my limited physical capacity, I would just slip outside and read.

Not so much. Turns out that the whole yoga thing is about staying in the moment, searching within yourself, absorbing the energy of the people in the room.

Just one class, and a few days later she was already “jones-ing for yoga.” :)

From At Risk: Of Resembling a Pretzel

Good reminder as the holiday music starts playing: exercise creates physical, as well as mental, buffers for stress in the brain. Rats who had run for several weeks before stress tests (like swimming in cold water):

• showed less activation in neurons associated with stress
• displayed less anxiety and helplessness
• maintained calmness and curiosity, even when injected with oxidizing chemicals

But of course it’s not instant:

Rats that ran for only three weeks did not show much reduction in stress-induced anxiety, but those that ran for at least six weeks did.

Six weeks ’til New Year’s. Go!

The New York Times: “Why Exercise Makes You Less Anxious”

Drink from the far side of a glass of water. Eat a spoonful of sugar. Get someone to scare you. Then pour the sugar water on your friend’s head, and come here to stop your hiccups.

Hiccups are caused by a spasm of the diaphragm, the breathing muscle that runs across the base of your ribcage like a trampoline. So, to stop the hiccups you have to get the muscle to relax. You can cure them in one deep breath.

Read the whole thing on the Huffington Post: How to Cure the Hiccups!