Category Archives: Yoga & Exercise

How I Improved Insomnia with Meditation and Yoga Lifestyle

February 17, 2020Meditation & Mindful Choices, Yoga & ExerciseJoan Craig

This article was originally published in the online magazine Sixty and Me.

When it comes to health and wellness, most people probably think that I’ve got it all together. I am a yoga teacher, yoga therapist, personal trainer, and wellness coach. I do my best to “walk the talk” and practice what I preach. I exercise, meditate, practice yoga, and eat a whole foods diet.

For many years, though, I suffered with an invisible problem. I wasn’t sleeping well. Specifically, I wasn’t staying asleep well. And I’m not alone in this. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one third of US adults get less than the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep per night.

Chronic sleep debt is linked with type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and depression. It increases our risk for accidents and injuries. It’s a big deal for individuals, and it’s a big deal for communities.

Why Sleep Eludes Women Over 60

Many women over 60 suffer from sleep challenges, including aches and pains, nocturia (the need to urinate during the night), and hormonal changes. Additionally, they may take new medications due to age-related changes.

Research shows that the stereotypical “senior problem” of nodding off at 7 pm and waking up at 3 am isn’t just because you are bored in the evening. As we age, our internal clock really does change. It’s called “advanced sleep phase syndrome.”

Sleep aids are often prescribed when women voice concerns to their doctors. According to CDC, over nine million Americans take some form of prescription sleep aid. Sometimes sleep aids are necessary to get through a crisis time, but sleep aids are not designed to be used long-term.

Each has its own side effects. A big concern for older women is that sleep aids are associated with an increased risk of falls and fractures.

It’s essential to rule out sleep disorders and health conditions with your medical team. Concurrently, you may benefit from improving your sleep hygiene and sleep mindset. I’ll share what I did, and how meditation and a yoga lifestyle helped me improve my sleep.

Two Main Obstacles to Good Sleep and What to Do About Them

Sleeping well requires adjustments to our physiology and psychology. Sleep happens in our body, and our brain-mind must cooperate with the process.

I used the lens of yoga philosophy and practices to view my sleep challenges. Applying yoga philosophy to sleep helped me condense all the “reasons” that I didn’t sleep into two categories.

Not living in harmony with nature;
Not surrendering my ego to the Infinite.

Identifying the problems made the solutions clear.

Get in Harmony with Nature

For me, to live in harmony with nature means get up with the sunrise (or close to it), wind down with the sunset, and observe good sleep hygiene. I’ll go into more detail on that in a moment.

Surrender My Ego

On the yoga path to enlightenment, we ultimately do surrender our egos to a higher power, God, Ultimate Reality, Cosmic Consciousness, or whatever you want to call it. In Sanskrit, this act of surrendering is called Isvarapranidhana, and it’s one of the 10 core lifestyle principles of yoga.

On a more mundane level, it can mean letting go of the need to be in control, to be perfect, or to get one more thing done tonight. For me, it means recognizing that worrying about things instead of sleeping doesn’t help one bit, so I can just let it go and literally “sleep on it.”

Clean Up Your Sleep Hygiene to Get in Sync with Nature’s Rhythms

You likely know about sleep hygiene, but are you doing it? Connecting yoga principles and practices to sleep hygiene helped me do what I knew was good for me. Here are the steps I took that made the biggest impact and how I connected them to my bigger purpose.

Pratyahara

Pratyahara means we calm our senses inward instead of outward to stimulation. This step involves:

Making my bedroom dark, quiet, and cool (60-67 F);
No clocks with lights;
Nothing plugged in;
Cell phones and Wi-fi off.

Brahmacharya

Brahmacharya means continence. It is the conservation of vital forces. Yogis do not dissipate their energy with non-useful activities that distract us from what is good for us. Here I:

End screen time early (cut-off is 7:30 pm).
Use my computer and screen time in the daytime and “unplug” in the evening with non-tech activities.

Saucha

Saucha means cleanliness, which applies to our dietary habits. Eating processed foods and using caffeine and alcohol interrupts sleep.

Gut health and good digestion are key. 80 percent of our serotonin is made in the gut, and serotonin is necessary for the production of melatonin, which helps us fall and stay asleep.

This final step includes:

Minimizing/eliminating alcohol, caffeine, processed foods, and sugar.
Aiming to eat just the right amount at dinner so that I don’t need a snack or wake up hungry. I try to have dinner by 7:30 pm.

How Yoga and Meditation Help Us Sleep

When we breathe smoothly, and practice yoga meditatively, we send physiological signals to our brain and body that everything is OK. This helps us lower cortisol, feel calmer, fall asleep, and stay asleep.

Besides the lifestyle guidelines discussed above, yoga practice also includes postures, breathing, and meditation.

Ideal yoga postures for relaxation include:

Legs up the wall – Viparita Karani
Reclined cobbler’s pose – Supta Baddha Konasana
Bridge pose – Setu Banda Sarvangasana
Child’s pose – Adho Mukha Virasana
Corpse Pose – Savasana

You can learn these from a certified yoga instructor and practice them before bed, or any time, to relax.

There are many yogic breathing and meditation techniques. Meditation has been shown to aid in sleep and reduce the need for sleeping pills. Scientists believe this is due to the decreased stimulation and decreased cortisol.

Over time, meditation practices strengthen the pre-frontal cortex of the brain. This “command center” helps us do what we know is good for us and follow through on good sleep hygiene.

It also helps us adjust our sleep mindset and let go (surrender) what is not in our control. We can put worries to bed, and then put ourselves to bed!

Measure It to Improve It

I’m not done learning about sleep. Most of the time, my sleep patterns are far better than they used to be. I work at it every day and strive to make sleep a top priority. When I’m rested, I do better in all areas of life.

To help me and my clients stay on track with good sleep hygiene, I created a webinar and Daily Sleep Habits Tracker. The webinar goes into way more detail, including how to use Ayurveda to balance your mind-body constitution for better sleep. Click here to download both.

Now it’s your turn. What do you do to make sure you sleep well? Please leave a comment.

3 Rules for Computer Posture After 60

October 31, 2019Posture, Yoga & ExerciseJoan Craig

This article was first published in the online magazine Sixty and Me.

Do you feel stiff after working on your computer? Do you find yourself slumping, hunching, and with forward head posture trying to look at the screen?

Are you looking for ways to do what you need to do on the computer, without sacrificing your posture or your health? Are you curious about “stand up desks,” but not sure if they are worth the investment?

My clients and students often ask me, “What’s the best posture for sitting at the computer?” Keep reading to learn the 3 rules for computer posture, and how to make a few small changes with items you probably have around the house.

The Risks of Poor Computer Posture

Whether you’re still working, partially retired, or completely retired, you likely still use a computer to stay connected to colleagues, family, friends, and the world.

Several of my students are using the computer for passion projects in retirement, like teaching classes, writing, or learning new skills online. And even if you think, “This will only take a minute,” you may end up sitting there longer than you thought you would.

It’s common knowledge these days that sitting with poor posture at the computer is bad for us. In our younger years, we may have gotten away with poor posture or uninterrupted hours working at a desk with few immediate side effects.

But as we age, too much sitting can lead to health problems like weight gain, hip and back pain, and tight muscles.

If we do all that sitting in poor form, we can experience all that plus a stiff, rounded upper back, pain, impaired breathing, pinched nerves, and worse.

The most important thing about sitting at the computer is that it should not be your primary activity. If you are still working at an office job, sitting at a desk for eight hours may be your current reality.

The American Heart Association has come up with a list of activities that you can try to incorporate to move more at work. Additionally, make sure you are walking, stretching, and moving in your non-work hours.

If your work does not require you to be on the computer, keep it to a minimum and take frequent breaks. Remember that when you retire, your #1 job is your health!

The bottom line is, poor posture at the computer makes us look old, feel old, and maybe even die sooner. Yikes! Let’s get right into what you can do about it!

Rule #1– Sit Properly

When you do sit at the computer, angle your body so that your knees are lower than your hips. This helps your pelvis stay in anterior tilt and your lumbar spine maintain its neutral curve. Evaluate your chairs and cushions to find an ideal fit.

Many retired people have traded in their desktop computer for a more portable laptop or tablet. Laptop keyboards and mice are small. To use the keyboard and especially a laptop trackpad, your arms turn inward. This makes your shoulders roll forward and can lead to problems in the rotator cuff.

Invest in a separate, full-size keyboard and mouse. Your keyboard and mouse should be an elbow level when your arms are at your sides. Make sure you aren’t in a sideways tilt to reach the mouse.

Whether you have a laptop or desktop, don’t miss an important step. Set up your monitor so that it is at eye level. Use books, boxes, or whatever you have to ensure that you do not strain your neck while looking down.

Rule #2 – Change It Up

“Stand up desks” are gaining popularity, because people know that sitting in one position for a long time isn’t good for them. Standing in one spot isn’t so great either.

Sitting on the floor is a great option for our bodies after 60 because it leads to more flexible hips, stronger legs, and better balance when we get up and down off the floor.

For several months, I researched many stand-up desk options. I was looking for a way to alternate between a chair, the floor, and standing. A colleague finally gave me the idea that solved my dilemma.

Check out this video to see a “behind the scenes” tour of my computer set-up, and how I use my ironing board to vary my computer work posture.

Rule #3 – Stretch and Strengthen to Make Up for Your Computer Time

No matter how mindful we are with our computer posture, it takes a toll on our posture and joints. In general, the front of the body gets tighter and shorter. The back of the body gets weaker.

These are the same challenges that we face during the aging process. Please trust me that it’s absolutely essential and feasible to counter these posture tendencies – or they will get worse!

You can do this with a regular yoga and exercise practice. Check out the Sixty and me yoga videos!

You can also do it at home, in regular clothes, throughout the day. Here are a few exercises to target your computer posture muscles.

The important hip flexor muscles connect our legs to our spine. They attach not only to the legs and pelvis, but all the way up to our lumbar vertebrae and into our diaphragm (breathing muscle). They get short when we sit too much. Try this quick hip flexor stretch to help you straighten up when you stand up.

While working on the computer, our upper backs can tend to get stiff and rounded. You know what this looks like! You can reverse it with the steps explained here.

Due to working on the keyboard (even if it’s full-size), our shoulders will tend to roll inward and forward. That can be fixed as well.

Bonus Tip

There are TONS of posture gadgets out there. (At this moment, there are 96,100,000 Google results for “posture device.”) They may work for your individual needs, or they may not.

I use a simple yoga belt posture brace to maintain better computer posture, and the good news is, you can make one yourself.

How do you keep from slumping at the computer? Do you have any favorite strategies to remind you to take breaks and keep moving? What is your best variation to work on the computer without sitting in a chair? Please share in the comments.

#1 exercise for seniors to increase fitness as you age

October 15, 2019Yoga & ExerciseJoan Craig

This article was first published in the online magazine Sixty + Me.

Remember The Wizard of Oz and the scene in which Glenda the Good Witch floated down from the sky in her iridescent bubble?

You might be thinking, “What does Glenda the Good Witch have to do with staying fit as I age?”

It’s all about the bubble.

Imagine putting a child inside a gigantic bubble. If you told the child to push the edges, they would crouch, jump, wiggle, dance, reach, and press in all directions.

Now imagine yourself inside the bubble. How far can you reach over your head? How far can you reach down to the ground? What about to the left and to the right? How much surface area inside the bubble can you reach?

The bubble represents your comfort zone. It’s where you can manage quite well physically, mentally, and emotionally.

At earlier stages of life, our circumstances presented ample opportunities to get out of our comfort zones. We may have pushed our bodies to pick up children, run, play, or even compete in athletics. As we enter our 50s, 60s, and beyond, though, it’s tempting to stick to familiar routines for exercise.

It’s a challenge to keep moving despite the aches, pains, injuries, or health challenges during the aging process. It’s even more of a challenge to increase our range of motion and fitness as we age. But it’s possible, and getting familiar with “The Bubble Concept” will help you do it!

What’s the Bubble, Really?

“The Bubble Concept” applies to aging in a much broader way, but we’ll start with your physical range of motion. You’ve already got the image in your mind of the giant bubble.

On a practical level, the bubble is your sphere of motion, or your sphere of function. This is the actual distance around your body in which you can move while maintaining your balance and staying free of injury.

If you push too far, you might get hurt. But if you never push the edge of your bubble, the muscles, bones, ligaments, and tendons that can get you to that edge will sense they’re not needed, and they will atrophy.

“Use it or lose it” is true.

As we age, it’s natural that we cannot move as quickly or as dynamically as a child. The reality is that our tissues do change, and there are some things we just cannot do anymore. I’m not suggesting that you do anything that hurts, or push past where you feel safe.

Here’s a video about how to push the edge safely.

All that said, we absolutely must maintain our abilities to step, balance, and reach in many directions. Let’s get specific with one exercise you can do anywhere, anytime, without any special equipment.

Push the Bubble – A Practical Example

My favorite exercise to teach older adults is called “The Clock & the Bubble.”

You’re still inside that big bubble. Now imagine a clock on the ground. You’re standing in the center, and 12 o’clock is just ahead of you. With your right foot, step to the 12, then to the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and straight back to the 6. Now take your left foot back to the 6, and around to the 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12.

In a methodical way, you’ve just covered the bottom of the bubble. If it was easy, go around again, and step a bit further. Over time you can extend the distance you step to “push the edge of your bubble.”

If you feel unsteady with this, hold a walking stick or broomstick as you do it.

Here’s how to take it a step further. Step with your right foot to 12. Keep steady in your legs while you try to “paint” the inside of the bubble. Reach as far up, down, sideways, and diagonally as you can with your right hand. Then repeat with your left.

Image you are painting the inside of the bubble, and your goal is to cover as much surface area as you can. If you find a good stretch, stay there, and explore it.

Then you can repeat the painting exercise at each number on the clock. For example, take your right foot to the 3, and repeat the reaches with both hands.

This requires a good imagination! Here’s a video to help you do it and follow along.

The Clock & The Bubble is a systematic way to literally cover your bases. By the time you finish, you will have reached in front of your body, to the sides, behind, down, and up, so you will keep your joints moving in every direction.

Doing this one exercise not only helps you increase your range of motion. It also helps you improve core strength and balance.

Push the Bubble – The Bigger Picture

We’ve just explored how to use the bubble concept to increase and maintain range of motion, strength, and balance. We also need to push the edge of our bubble with regard to the variety and intensity of our physical activity.

Do you always walk the same route, distance, and speed? Do you always follow the same yoga or Pilates routine? To keep growing and learning, our bodies and brains need to be challenged by novelty and intensity.

My specialty is helping people age well through healthy movement and lifestyle choices. I’m not a psychologist, brain scientist, or counselor. But it’s fairly easy to see the connections between mind, body, and spirit.

The bubble concept also applies to our cognition, emotions, relationships, thoughts, and beliefs. If we read the same kinds of books, magazines, and websites that we’ve always read, we won’t be exposed to new ideas.

If we talk to people who think exactly like we do, we aren’t challenged to consider new perspectives. If we stay inside our comfort zone of activities, hobbies, and friends, we aren’t forced to grow and learn. “Use it or lose it” applies here too.

I encourage you to think about ways that you can push the bubble by trying new experiences daily.

5 Practical Ways to Push the Bubble

Let’s put the bubble concept into practice! Here are 5 more ways to push your personal bubble.

Change up your walking routine. Walk in a different place. If you feel safe, get off the sidewalk or road, and walk on uneven ground to strengthen your feet, ankles, legs, and balance.
In your next exercise session of any kind, ask yourself, “How could I do this differently?” Reach in a different direction with your feet or arms and stretch your body in a new way.
Are you really pushing the bubble when you lift weights or use resistance bands? Find a resistance that challenges you. Here’s a blog post about how to find the right weight and number of repetitions.
Challenge yourself to try a completely new fitness class or video. Do something you have never done before, and approach it with curiosity.
Look for non-physical ways to get outside your comfort zone by talking to someone with a different background, listening to different music, or simply taking a new route in your car or other transportation.

Now it’s your turn!

How do you “push your bubble”? How do you get outside of your comfort zone physically and emotionally? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Hip stretch for walking

September 8, 2019Posture, Yoga & Exercisebalance, hip stretch, yogaJoan Craig

Do you find yourself walking like an old lady (or old man)?

You know, tilted forward from the hips up?

I call it “The Tilt.”

People often walk like this when their backs hurt.

They also do it when they get up and feel stiff in the hips. Sometimes people tilt forward when they are afraid of falling.

My mom Beatrice does it when she’s in a hurry, or when she’s tired.

Click on the video to learn what to do about it, or keep reading below for two strategies, including a simple hip stretch for walking.

Strategy #1 – Slow Down

The first strategy is to slow down. When we are in a hurry, we often lean forward. This might help us walk faster, but it doesn’t help our posture, bones, or joints. It’s best to start walking more slowly and let your hips loosen up. Then you can pick up speed later.

Strategy #2 – Simple Hip Stretch for Walking

Take a step as if you were going to walk. Now press down firmly with your back heel and straighten your back knee. You can squeeze the glute muscle on the back leg too. Lift your belly muscles in and up so that your torso is upright over your pelvis. Hold for 3 breaths on each side.

Why it Matters

It matters because no matter how old and stiff we feel, we don’t want to look that way!

Second, it matters because when our joints are aligned, we experience less wear and tear. They are able to bend as designed without contributing to uneven pressure on one side.

Third, posture and alignment contribute to ideal vertical impact for our bones. Standing and walking tall helps us build bone density and decreases the risk of posture-related fractures.