Yoga Hacks for Allergy Season
The Sanskrit word for “Bless you!” is Bhagavadanugrahapraptirastu!, and if you’re a New York City yogi, it’s probably a good idea to learn it. New York makes the cut when it comes to the top five worst states to live in if you have seasonal pollen allergies, and there’s plenty of suffering to go around: because of our great American variety of allergen-producing flora, every region in the U. S. offers it own unique aggravations for your histamine supply. Moreover, rising temperatures across the globe have lengthened spring and summer at both ends, creating an allergy season that begins as early as February and lasts as late as November, depending on where you live. If you travel cross-country frequently and suffer from seasonal allergies, God help you: your allergy season is basically ten months long. Bhagavadanugra-hapraptirastu! indeed.
The Sanskrit word for “Bless you!” is Bhagavadanugrahapraptirastu!, and if you’re a New York City yogi, it’s probably a good idea to learn it. New York makes the cut when it comes to the top five worst states to live in if you have seasonal pollen allergies, and there’s plenty of suffering to go around: because of our great American variety of allergen-producing flora, every region in the U. S. offers it own unique aggravations for your histamine supply. Moreover, rising temperatures across the globe have lengthened spring and summer at both ends, creating an allergy season that begins as early as February and lasts as late as November, depending on where you live. If you travel cross-country frequently and suffer from seasonal allergies, God help you: your allergy season is basically ten months long. Bhagavadanugra-hapraptirastu! indeed.
The Three As
According to Ayurvedic medicine, allergies are the result of an inefficient immune response: a poorly calibrated or depleted immune system perceives a basically harmless allergen as a threat to the body and releases histamines to attack it. It’s this over-production of histamine that causes the classic allergy symptoms: a runny nose, watery eyes, sneezing, itching, and so on. Antihistamines, the go-to allopathic treatment for allergies, can result in particularly adverse side effects for yogis, such as dehydration and fatigue. (Diphenhydramine, the active ingredient in Benadryl, causes both.) Happily, yoga and Ayurveda offer a protocol for combatting the root cause of allergies, with the primary goal of strengthening the immune system so it can respond efficiently to allergens. In short, to conquer allergy season, remember the Three As:
• Strengthen the Abdominals
to
• Increase Agni
and
• Reduce Ama
Agni, the Hindu God of Fire
In the Ayurvedic conception of wellness, proper immune function is linked to sufficient agni, or digestive fire. Weak digestive fire results in poor digestion, which in turn results in the production of ama, a toxic by-product of undigested food. (If you want to know how ama shows up in the body, invest in a tongue scraper.) Excess ama compromises immune function and makes allergic reactions more likely. From an Ayurvedic perspective, if you want to minimize allergic reactivity, you must ensure that you are fully digesting your food by eating appropriately for your dosha. If you have yet to determine your dosha, you can take an Ayurvedic Constitution quiz here.
Provided that you are eating to balance your dosha, the first step in boosting agni is strengthening the abdominals, including the solar plexus. Asana that target the abdominal muscles include phalakasana (plank pose—make it more intense by lowering to the forearms) purvottanasana (upward plank) utthtita trikonasana (extended triangle) and virabhadrasana (warrior) III. Strengthening the lower back muscles will also contribute to your core strength, so make sure that your on-the-mat practice includes plenty of vinyasas (adho and urdhva mukha svavasana are both excellent for increasing back strength) as well as urdhva danurasana (bow), salabhasana (locust) and/or setu bandha sarvangasana (bridge).
In addition, try practicing the simple but highly effective pranayama/asana hybrid agni sara. Considered an indispensable practice in Hatha yoga, agni sara (literally “essence of fire”) targets the solar plexus, lower abdominals and pelvic floor muscles. The practice stimulates the digestive system and aids in proper elimination of waste. Efficient elimination derives from proper digestion; because ama is literally a waste product, it’s impossible to overstate the role of thorough elimination in peak immune function. You can view a step-by-step guide to agni sara here. For beginners: start in sukhasana or malasana and contract the lower abdominals. Breathe deeply into the belly and pelvic floor, pulling the navel firmly towards the spine on the exhale and relaxing the belly fully on the inhale. Three rounds of ten breaths—ideally on an empty stomach—are sufficient.
Heating spices such as turmeric and ginger help balance kapha dosha.
Finally, in the Ayurvedic model, allergic reactions such as sneezing, a runny nose and watery eyes are considered a consequence of the heavy, wet qualities of excessive kapha dosha. Heating and drying yogic practices combat vata and pitta vitiation (impairment) and balance kapha. If you’re anticipating the onset of allergy season, stimulate your inner fire with kaphalabhati (breath of fire) and aerobic exercise or hot yoga to “dissolve” the ama. If your allergy symptoms are acute, try cutting out heavy and oily kapha-aggravating foods (such as hard cheeses, gluten, sweets and dairy). Adding spices to your food and indulging in drying foods such as popcorn, white potatoes and dried fruit can also help in balancing excess kapha.
According to the Food and Drug Administration, approximately 36 million Americans suffer from seasonal allergies every year. If you are among them, take heart: your yoga practice needn’t be curbed by lethargy, dehydration, and other side effects of allopathic allergy medication. By keeping the Three As in mind and thoughtfully balancing kapha, you can address seasonal allergies yogically to ensure that you stay on the giving end of “Bhagavadanugrahapraptirastu!”
Would you like to learn more about the Ayurvedic perspective on health and wellness? All PYI therapeutics courses reference Ayurveda, and our Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy Course is offered yearly. For more information, visit our Trainings page.
Online Sources
Image Sources
Sneeze: https://www.consumerreports.org/medical-symptoms/why-youre-sneezing-sniffling-wheezing/
Spices: https://chopra.com/articles/light-and-aromatic-herbs-to-balance-your-kapha-dosha
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Molly Goforth is a yoga and meditation teacher and a student at Prema Yoga Institute. She specializes in accessibility and trauma-informed yoga teaching and practice.
Yoga for Pitta Season
Do you change your diet in hot, humid weather? What about your sleep? Or how and when you exercise? Summertime, which here in the eastern U.S. means hot, humid weather with lots of sun and light, is also known as “pitta season.” Pitta is one of the three Ayurveda doshas.
Ayurveda is a technology - a skill - that teaches us how to live optimally through creating balance physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually in relation to ourselves and the environment we live in. Ayurveda understands that all things are made of the elements - earth, water, fire, air and space - and that combinations of elements create the doshas. The doshas - vata, pitta, and kapha - are discernable states produced by relationship to the elements, and an expression of the qualities of the elements. Pitta, for example, is made of the elements fire and water, and expresses the qualities of hot, liquid, sharp, light, spreading, and oily.
Do you change your diet in hot, humid weather? What about your sleep? Or how and when you exercise? Summertime, which here in the eastern U.S. means hot, humid weather with lots of sun and light, is also known as “pitta season.” Pitta is one of the three Ayurveda doshas.
Ayurveda is a technology - a skill - that teaches us how to live optimally through creating balance physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually in relation to ourselves and the environment we live in. Ayurveda understands that all things are made of the elements - earth, water, fire, air and space - and that combinations of elements create the doshas. The doshas - vata, pitta, and kapha - are discernable states produced by relationship to the elements, and an expression of the qualities of the elements. Pitta, for example, is made of the elements fire and water, and expresses the qualities of hot, liquid, sharp, light, spreading, and oily.
Cool for the Summer?
Summertime here is hot and humid - the most pitta of all our seasons. The excessive heat and humidity can push us out of balance in a fiery way, and so we need to understand how to pacify pitta to bring us back into balance. Furthermore, people who already have a pitta dominance are more susceptible to pitta imbalance in the summer.
Each of us has aspects of all three doshas in us in differing amounts, and expressed in different ways. For example, I have pitta expression in my body size and facial features, kapha qualities in my sleep, dreams, and emotions, and vata qualities in my taste preferences.
Take this short quiz to determine your constitution of vata, pitta, and kapha. Perhaps more important than your constitution generally, is how you are today, as a result of how you are living and taking care of yourself (called vikruti in Ayurveda). I drink a fair amount of coffee, multi-task, and sometimes don’t sleep enough. These contribute to too much vata in me some days.
This short quiz can also assess your current state. This can help you see ways to live in greater balance.
The Pitta Personality
Pitta shows up as type-A personalities - people who are competitive, intense, driving. Pitta is fiery, hot, driven. For example, Pitta folks love hot yoga and ashtanga. They love challenges and competition. They love to stoke the fire. Stoking the fire too much can lead to burn out, exhaustion, dehydration. This is why balance is important. Ayurveda follows the principle of “like increases like,” so balance is achieved by looking to opposing qualities. To pacify excessive pitta we look to increase the qualities of cool, dark, dry, and soft.
Yoga to Chill Out
July and August weather stokes the fire of pitta, so everyone needs to pacify pitta at least a little bit during the summer months. Those who already are more pitta or live a pitta lifestyle will find more balance and ease by learning how to pacify those fires.
The most important pitta-pacifying yoga you can practice starts with your approach to your practice and each pose. As pitta is driven, competitive, hot and goal-oriented, adopt a curious, explorative mindset to your practice. Do not seek to achieve any pose. Instead, find your edge, then back off 20-25% and to feel a more nurturing, nourishing sensation in the pose. Soften your ujjayi breathing, making it audible only to yourself during your practice. Let go of trying to go deeper or achieve a new pose or new variation of any pose. Instead explore what it takes and what it is like to back off a little, to feel a supportive calming in your body, and to focus your mind on nourishing rather than pushing your body. This might sound a little bit like a yin or restorative yoga class - and both are excellent to practice a few times a week during pitta season.
Asana “Medicine”
The main sites in the body for the pitta dosha are in the belly - the small intestine and the liver -- so poses that open these areas are pitta-pacifying, while poses that close or contract these areas can aggravate pitta. Pitta-pacifying poses include backbends, while pitta aggravating poses include many forward bends because they can increase heat in the middle of the body. Forward bends are also calming, so do not avoid them all together, just limit them.
Side bending poses and open twists are also helpful in releasing excessive pitta energy in the solar plexus area. While standing poses are generally heating, trikonasa as a side bend is also pitta-pacifying.
Breath “Medicine”
Cooling breath, as in the pranayama practice of shitali, is also helpful in decreasing heat and pitta. Guided meditation and yoga nidra are also good practices to help cool the fires of pitta during pitta season.
Avoid the sun between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., when it is at its strongest, and avoid working out during the hottest times of the day. If you can, exercise in a cool room without direct sunlight - early morning or late afternoon swimming is great for pacifying pitta. Drink plenty of cool (but not ice cold) water. Pitta-pacifying tastes are sweet, bitter and astringent. Sweet fruits - melons, peaches, cherries, and the like - and cooling vegetables - leafy greens, cucumbers, fresh salads are good choices to bring balance during pitta season. Avoid hot, spicy foods. Moonlight is particularly calming for pitta imbalances, so a leisurely night-time stroll when the moon is out can be nourishing during pitta season.
Care to learn more about Ayurveda? Our therapeutics courses all refer to the ancient science of Ayurveda, and our Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy Course is offered every year. For more information, check out our Trainings page.
Image Sources:
Summer city https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/nyc-weather-forecast-sunny-weekend-ahead
Melons https://www.foodnetwork.com/healthyeats/in-season/2017/08/market-watch-melons
Moonlight https://www.pinterest.com/pin/166422148701144089/?autologin=true
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Deb McDermott is a first-year student in Yoga Therapy at Prema Yoga Institute. She has been a Yoga teacher for 20 years and recently completed a 40-hour training on Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY) with David Emerson and Jenn Turner.
Avoiding the Dreaded Summer Cold: Using Yoga To Boost Immunity
On the official list of Things You’ll Never Hear a Yogi Say, “When is this hot weather going to end?” ranks just below “I don’t think turmeric will help with that.” It’s no secret that yoga practitioners tend to love our warm weather. And according to the official meteorological calendar, in the Northern Hemisphere the seasons are allocated fairly, with winter and summer each lasting three months. But after slogging through a typical New York City winter, no one would blame us for claiming that winter feels a lot longer than summer. After putting up with months of snow, sleet, and a sun that seems to set not long after lunch, who doesn’t greet the first signs of summer with relief? But the delights of summer—hot days, breezy nights, sailing out of the house without a thought of a coat or boots—seem to fade to memory just as we’re getting used to them. The sad truth is that summer just doesn’t last long enough, which is why it’s so unfair to have to sacrifice one moment of it to the dreaded summer cold.
On the official list of Things You’ll Never Hear a Yogi Say, “When is this hot weather going to end?” ranks just below “I don’t think turmeric will help with that.” It’s no secret that yoga practitioners tend to love our warm weather. And according to the official meteorological calendar, in the Northern Hemisphere the seasons are allocated fairly, with winter and summer each lasting three months. But after slogging through a typical New York City winter, no one would blame us for claiming that winter feels a lot longer than summer. After putting up with months of snow, sleet, and a sun that seems to set not long after lunch, who doesn’t greet the first signs of summer with relief? But the delights of summer—hot days, breezy nights, sailing out of the house without a thought of a coat or boots—seem to fade to memory just as we’re getting used to them. The sad truth is that summer just doesn’t last long enough, which is why it’s so unfair to have to sacrifice one moment of it to the dreaded summer cold.
If you think that summer colds are worse than their winter counterparts, you’re not alone: according to recent research, while summer colds are not actually more severe, the perceived unfairness of catching a cold in the summer can actually make them feel worse. In cold and flu season, when half the people you know are congested, coughing, and contagious, at least you can enjoy solidarity among the suffering. But a summer cold is more isolating. Chicken soup and a good book might be comforting in snowy weather, but none of us wants to waste a beautiful balmy day in bed, fighting chills. And nothing is worse than a stuffy nose when it’s humid outside. That’s just plain wrong.
Yet summer colds persist, and air conditioning may be a culprit. Part of the reason that colds are more common during the winter is that rhinovirus—the virus that causes most colds—multiplies in the cells of the nose, and the body fights the virus more efficiently if those nasal cells are warm. That artificially cooled indoor air that helps us survive a hot summer in comfort also creates a frosty haven for rhinovirus in our nostrils.
Most of us can’t avoid air conditioning completely in the summer (we may not want to) but we can improve our body’s natural immune response to help it fight rhinovirus more efficiently, and yoga can help. Below are five yogic tips to beat that summer cold back to the winter where it belongs.
Before You Get Sick
1. Boost immunity with your asana practice.
Good news: if you keep to a regular practice on the mat, you’re already doing your part to support your body’s immune system. Even fifteen minutes of yoga each day can lower cortisol levels (which compromise immune response), oxygenate the blood, improve circulation, and stimulate the lymphatic system. So once that air-conditioning kicks on, let the heat outside act as reminder to boost your tapas—sometimes translated as burning discipline—and keep up that daily physical practice to keep your immune system humming.
2. Incorporate pranayama and meditation into every practice.
The well-documented positive effect of yoga on heart-rate-variability (HRV) is a topic for a full blog post. What you need to know now is that yogis who incorporate pranayama and meditation as well as asana into their daily on-the-mat practice are generally better at down-regulating the parasympathetic nervous system via HRV. Lowering HRV allows the body to adapt to stress with greater ease, which aids in the effective functioning of immune processes. So begin your practice with kapalabhati, or use ujayi breath throughout, and take advantage of savasana to notice your breath and observe your thoughts—a simple but powerful mindfulness meditation.
3. Improve your sleep with yoga nidra
Proper sleep hygiene is absolutely essential to proper immune function. This cannot be overstated, especially in our fast-paced, hyper-driven society, where sleep is so undervalued that the healthcare community has actually had to create the term “sleep hygiene”. I’m going to assume that you’ve already established a nighttime routine that includes putting screens away at least an hour before bedtime and engaging in a down-regulating sleep-preparation ritual, right? (If you need help establishing a yogic sleep-hygiene routine, it’s available here.)
If you’re still having trouble falling asleep, try a recording of yoga nidra (literally “yogic sleep”) specifically designed to promote sleep. Not all yoga nidra meditation has the goal of inducing sleep, so it’s important to seek out options that reference sleep in the title. YouTube has scores of options, and you can tailor your search endlessly: there’s sleep-inducing yoga nidra for lucid dreaming, ASMR, goal-setting, you name it. Here is a simple option that I’ve found effective.
If You’re Already Sick
(NOTE: these suggestions are for a cold. If you have the actual flu, physical activity is not advised until you have recovered. As always, it’s best to check with your doctor before exercising when you’re sick, and to remember the Ayurvedic principle that “All healing begins in rest”.)
That pesky rhinovirus only needs the temperature in your nasal cells to drop four measly degrees before it starts multiplying, and rhinovirus is everywhere, even in summer. So if, despite your best efforts, you got sneezed on in an elevator and then spent the day in your air-conditioned workplace and woke up with a head or chest full of phlegm, here’s how yoga can help:
4. Tailor your practice using symptom-specific asana
While it’s only common sense to reduce the intensity, and probably the duration, of your physical practice when you’re sick (especially if your symptoms are below the neck) a gentle practice on the mat may help ease your symptoms if you include certain poses. Just make sure that you hydrate continually—even more than usual—and it’s probably best to avoid hot classes or anything that causes elevated perspiration while you’re sick.
With that in mind, consider incorporating the following poses into your practice:
• Gentle, slow Surya Namaskar (A or B) is excellent for stimulating the lymphatic system, which will help in the drainage of toxins. One round of Sur. A on each side contracts and extends almost every point in the body where lymph nodes reside, essentially acting as a kind of “lymph pump”. Just take it easy—three reps on each side is probably plenty.
• Most inverted poses and forward bends, such as Adho Mukha Svanasana or Paschimottanasana, will divert blood flow to the sinuses and ultimately assist in clearing congestion. If you have severe nasal congestion, inverted postures might be uncomfortable, and you will probably need to breathe orally, which will likely be the opposite of what you’re used to, so keep water nearby to lubricate the mouth and throat.
• For bronchial congestion, consider a supported Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (place a block under the sacrum and keep arms alongside the body) to open the chest and increase blood flow to the upper torso, specifically the lungs. If you’re not feeling up to it, Viparita Karani (legs up the wall) can accomplish the same goal more gently.
• Other helpful poses for a chest cold include Ustrasana, Gomukhasana, or a gentle vinyasa from Balasana into Salamba Bhujangasana.
5. Help clear your sinuses using jala neti
Also useful in cold prevention as well as in allergy prevention and treatment, jala neti is simply the use of a neti pot to irrigate the sinuses with a saline solution. Once a specialty item in the West, neti pots and accompanying saline mixes can now be found at major drugstore chains. You can find video instructions for performing jala neti here. Just be sure to use purified water (distilled water is fine) at room temperature. Jala neti is helpful in thinning mucus and reducing nasal and sinus congestion and inflammation. If you’re in the throes of a summer cold but you’ve resisted nasal irrigation because of a fear of inhaling water, I feel you. I urge you to take a deep breath and try it, slowly, following the video instructions provided by the link. It’s quite a bit easier than you think.
No one likes a summer cold! But our practice as yogis offers us unique and abundant tools to protect ourselves and speed recovery. Follow the tips above, and with a bit of luck you’ll find yourself back on the beach where you belong in no time.
Yogic prevention and treatment of all illness traditionally resides in the art and science of Ayurveda. If you haven’t explored Ayurveda yet as part of your journey as yogi, you can take the first step by determining your dosha here.
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Molly Goforth is a yoga and meditation teacher and a student at Prema Yoga Institute. She specializes in accessibility and trauma-informed yoga teaching and practice.