acupuncture for ecstatic flow?

[Katrine]

Hello David

 

quote:My symptoms: occasional general malaise and not feeling happy enough. Have you heard of this?

Is malaise a physical symptom to you? (My English is a little shaky here) In French it would simply mean: "not feeling good" - is that what it means in English too?

If it is; what exactly are you feeling? Any modalities?

Did this sneak up on you? (Gradually)
If not; what happened prior to this?

Not happy enough........are you sad? Bored?
Is it worse in the morning when you wake up?

Are you also experiencing energy deficiency?

Does it make you isolate yourself?

BTW - I think accupuncture is good. Have you thought about panchakarma?

May all your Nows be Here

[Alvin Chan]

quote:Yes, Jim, I do good aerobic exercise and it is great. I do a fast sun salutation regularly. I think fast sun-salutation is one of the best cardio-pulmonary exercises you can do, because you get stretching at the same time, and none of the negatives of running.

Completely agree. And there's a scientific explanation (though not very rigorous) for the benefits of sun salutation too. It exercises all the major joints of the body, as well as warming them up. There are very few exercises (I can't think of others, unless you create one) which can work and stretch and warm up all the muscles so quickily. It is more effective to warm the muscles first before stretching with more static asanas, that's why sun salutation should be done first.

David, just my opinion: if you are doing sun salutation that fast (12secs/round?), then you're probably finding it too easy(aerobically). Why don't you find some more challenging variations? In fact that's what constitute an ashtanga class: many levels/series of sun salutations. By increasing the difficulty in stead of the speed, you can ground the energy more effectively, and without the side effects of having shallow breath by breathing too fast; without that choking effect of fast breathing.

The difficult series can be really difficult (though it's not for most of us here to attempt the higher series). This is what my teachers demonstrated: when moving from forward bend to plank pose, he lifts his two legs (by the way, many of the vinyasa verions move both legs together, in contrast to, say, the Satyananda version) up, supporting his body only with two arms, and move the leg SLOWLY down to the finally position (which is further back). This requires much more strength, balance, calmness than just jumping to the pose. So you see, slow is very often more difficult than fast!

[david_obsidian]

Hello Alvin,

I am going fast to get a good decent heartrate and therefore a good 'cardio-pulmonary load' and therefore get true 'aerobic' exercise.  Enough to exercise the heart and lungs well.

Stretching,   and even intense use of the muscles through strenuous asanas and other things,  no matter how difficult,  will not create a high cardio-pulmonary load unless the rate of work (speed) is high enough.

Only when the cardio-pulmonary load is high enough,  then the heart and lungs are being exercises heavily, and then the exercise is called 'cardio-pulmonary exercise',  and this is popularly (and technically confusingly) called 'aerobic exercise'.

If you don't go fast enough,  you won't get cardio-pulmonary ("aerobic") exercise,  period,  no matter how strenuous your asanas are.  Now,  there can be a lot of debate about what the result of not getting aerobic exercise is.  I personally believe that for some people at least, deep stretching and other aspects of yoga practice can considerably make up for the lack of true aerobic exercise,  and that they may be able to be quite fit and healthy if they just stretch a lot and do asanas and stay largely out of the cardio-pulmonary regime.

At the same time there is no doubt that cardio-pulmonary/aerobic exercise is very good for you in itself.  So for me,  I like to get teh aerobic exercise too.  My chosen way of getting it is through fast sun-salutation,  where I get 'two birds with the one stone',  the stretching and the cardio-pulmonary/aerobic exercise all at once without extra time spent exercising.

Yes,  you are right that I could do variations on sun-salutation which would challenge my body in other good ways.  But unless they are done fast enough,  there is no cardio-pulmonary/aerobic exercise contained in that.  Of course this is fine for someone who gets their cardio-pulmonary exercise by other means like jogging,  roller-blading,  or swimming etc.  But for me who wants to get his cardio-pulmonary exercise in his Sun Salutation,  I have to go fast.

[Alvin Chan]

I understand that. I've been thinking about that for some time, in order to have a good and all-rounded exercise program. For example, headstand or scorpion could be very difficult, but they certainly don't give some of the benefits cardio exercises give. So I'm not saying that "difficult" asanas can replace cardio-workout.

But does it means that going fast is necessary for the 'cardio-pulmonary load'? I am still conservative. Based on my experience, the variations of sun salutation could be challenging not only in the way that the poses are difficult to maintain, but also makes my heart beat crazily, not slower than jogging. So it's very "cardio" in its literal sense. Certainly the breath, though it wants to go fast (sometimes the urge is so large that I have to add one extra breath), are controlled to sychronized the movements, and depth are emphazied together with ujjayi. So I'm not sure whether such "breath-controlled" cardio can cover the benefits of cardio. I didn't notice any scientific investigation on that, by the way. What do you think?

Also, I don't mean to make it really slow. It's about 3-6 seconds per flow.

It's interesting to investigate further on that. For example, it's easy to understand what it means by exercising the heart, and the Ashtanga sun salutation certainly does that. But what precisely is "exercising the lung"? The lung is itself a passive organ, controlled by other muscles. Do we mean:

1. exercising those muscles for inhale/exhale;
AND/OR
2. Promoting higher rate of gaseous exchange in the lung?

Probably both. I don't mean to simplify matter, since there may be other means, beyond our current state of knowledge, that cardio-exercises are UNIQUELY beneficial to our body. But at least I think hard version of sun salutation can give 2 above, and enhanced by adding ujjayi.(and possibily 1 too, though it's in a more controlled and slow way, instead of pumping quickily) For 1, I use kapalabahti/Bastrika 110times/round, and 3 rounds both in the morning and afternoon. Such pressure also enhance gaseous exchange.

[Etherfish]

1&2. Increased oxygen has such beneficial qualities that some people construct chambers with positive oxygen pressure for healing purposes.
The muscles that inhale/exhale, particularly the abdominal muscles are the primary pump for the lymph system which helps remove toxins from the blood and is of primary importance to the immune system.
Those two benefits in conjuction with increased circulation because of increased heartrate cause enhanced physical purification.

[david_obsidian]

Alvin said:
But does it means that going fast is necessary for the 'cardio-pulmonary load'? I am still conservative. Based on my experience, the variations of sun salutation could be challenging not only in the way that the poses are difficult to maintain, but also makes my heart beat crazily, not slower than jogging. So it's very "cardio" in its literal sense.

The key words Alvin,  are 'fast enough'.  If you go fast enough to get your heartrate high enough,  then you have cardio-pulmonary exercise.  If you are doing strenuous Sun Salutation,  it may be a lot slower than those speeds that I was saying I do.

Can you get cardio-pulmonary exercise while staying stationary?  The strict truth is that you can,  under extreme loads in your muscles.  The rate of energy consumption by a muscle is roughly
    muscle tension x ( rate of contraction + small constant)
The small constant behaves therefore as if there is always a very small minimum amount of movement/contraction in the muscle,  even if the muscle is actually not really moving/contracting.  So if your muscle tension is really high,  like in heavy weight lifting,  you can get some cardio action with very little movement.  When the rate of energy consumption is high enough, you get cardio exercise.

The 'pulmonary' part of it comes along automatically.  What cardio-pulmonary exercise really means is that there is a rapid consumption of oxygen.  This creates the exercising of the heart and lungs.  The fitness of the lungs is not muscular.

For very fit athletes,  this starts to happen at a lower and lower heartrate.

[Alvin Chan]

quote:>> That's too general in nature, but acupuncture will certainly help. I think, though, doing a lot of asanas regularly will be a much cheaper way.

One thing I have done so far is follow Jim's advice and have ordered that book he recommended in 'A painful path and spiritual friends'. I have started doing the chest-openers and am getting good results already...... I'll keep you posted about how it goes....

So, after a few months, how it goes?