There isn’t enough room in a single newspaper column to list the wealth of spiritual, mental, physical, and philosophical aspects of the practice of yoga, an ancient Indian discipline. As I suggest you do with all the therapies and practices in this column, I invite you to read up more fully on the subject.
What happens when you’re suffering a migraine attack? You tense up, curling into a rigid ball of suffering; either just the head and shoulders or your entire body gets sucked into that maelstrom of pain. And you carry that tension beyond the attack. Time to put that tension in reverse.
Enter stage right – yoga. In this case, I’m going to focus on the benefits of the physical exercise of yoga.
As with all the other therapies, recruit the instructor, teacher, therapist, to your team: be sure they know you suffer from migraines. More than likely, they have a list of options that their discipline can offer you.
Let’s start with the practical jokester uncle in the yoga family: laughter yoga. Family physician Madan Kataria and his wife Madhuri from Mumbai are its promoters. Although self-described as not being a comedy, if you picture yourself in your mind’s eye going through the exercises, you will find yourself laughing at yourself! And that’s the whole point – it is to loosen you up, stimulate all those nerve synapses, and get the nerve impulses moving with pleasure, not pain.
And laughing produces endorphins, those feel-good hormones produced by your very own brain chemistry set, located in the grey matter between your two ears. If you do not have a class near you, look up Kataria and Madhuri’s therapy online and get practicing. You are on the first step toward pain relief: taking in plenty of breaths and creating endorphins. After all: cry, and you cry alone, laugh, and the world laughs with you.
You are creating a better life for yourself and that includes people around you who will enjoy your company even more as you get healthier.
I made a big mistake during my first exploration into yoga: I did not tell the instructor beforehand about my migraines so she could steer me toward exercises that would take my condition into account, and so I failed to avoid poses that left my head lower than my heart. As a result, my migraines worsened for a time.
Another yoga instructor was able to redirect me; ever since I’ve derived great benefit from the practice.
Yoga consists of putting the body through specific movements until certain classical poses that have existed for centuries are reached and holding these poses while breathing for a certain time. Each pose has a name.
While moving and holding the end pose, the body is under constant tension, with muscles working constantly.
Softer tissues and bones are included in the mix: the body parts are twisted and turned, and while you may feel stiff to begin with, as you pursue the discipline, these tendons and sinews will become more flexible, loosen up, and you will be able to extend your range of motion to the point where you will be very surprised at just what you can accomplish.
Yoga is part of my daily life, if only when I see my dogs practicing the classic ‘dog pose’ – head and forepaws flat on the ground, rear end up in the air, breathe, relax, and hold the pose! It cracks me up to see them. My cats practice the same pose, by the way! Maybe they learned it from the dogs…
As you practice yoga, try to find out the meaning of the names of classic poses from “faraway places with strange sounding names,” as the song goes. It will enlighten you even further and enrich your experience.
