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Friday, February 27, 2009
Y - You! O - OMG! G - Go For It! A - Ahhhhh!
As many of you know, I teach a lot of pre-natal yoga at a studio in Santa Monica called Yo Mama Yoga. Here is an article filled with tidbits that I recently wrote for a yoga magazine:
Yoga, when used in pre and post natal, can become an acronym that stands for:
Y - You!
O - OMG!
G - Go For It!
A - Ahhhhh!
You! - Take time to tune into your breath and your body. With the world spinning between your everyday life, your husband, your job, and the opinions of everyone and their mother, (not to mention his mother) take time to tune into your body, your intuition, and your true self. The little space that sits behind your heart will tell you exactly what you need to do and where you need to go. It'll help guide you to decide which baby carriage to buy and what name to choose. Those are important decisions, so take time to tune into this intuition. Yoga allows that time to focus completely on you. At Yo Mama Yoga, we do this by tuning into your breath, your body, your baby, and how you feel today.
OMG (Oh, my gosh)! - This is what so many new moms say when they hear the experiences of other moms during the introduction part of yoga class. Prenatal yoga is just as much about the community as it is about the stretching and tuning in. Where else do you run into other people who are going through exactly what you are going through? These ladies can truly empathize with your nausea, your lack of bladder control when you sneeze, or that funny waddle you seem to have adopted making you feel like Donald Duck everywhere you go. The stories you hear in prenatal yoga will make you not only say "OMG", but will make you giggle, make you grateful, and most importantly, feel not so alone.
Go For It! - Instead of complaining about the aches and pains, take the time to embrace every moment and piece of your pregnancy. Although the nausea and waddling isn't too much fun, the exercises of yoga will help you get through it. The flow of each pose will get your circulation going, allowing your body to rebalance, and make you feel better overall. In addition, classes at Yo Mama Yoga focus on strengthening certain muscles like the Kagels and the upper thighs that we often don't pay attention to, but can come in very handy during and after the birthing process. (Kagels are the tiny muscles we use to control the flow of urination). When we become aware of these muscles, and strengthen them, we can use them to either contract the birthing canal, or completely relax the canal to open it up. In addition, we strengthen the upper thighs which help to support those loose hips in the last stages of pregnancy, when the hormones create more fluid between the hip joints, causing that awkward waddle. Also, if faced with hours and hours of our legs in those stirrups (yuck!), strong upper thigh muscles can really come in handy. And who doesn't want strong leg muscles in any chapter of their lives? So, embrace your pregnancy, strengthen muscles you never knew you had, and completely go for each and every piece of this adventure.
Ahhhhh! - At the end of yoga, we take plenty of time to calm down our bodies, letting everything re-align, and making time to completely relax. When you are relaxed, the baby is relaxed. Take time to calm down your nervous system. At Yo Mama, we do a three part breathing exercise that does this and forces us to take deep breaths. We inhale in thirds, where the first third comes in through our tummy, the second third expands our ribcage, and the last third opens up our heart. Then we completely let it all go, exhale, and relax. We draw attention to these three parts by placing our right hand over our tummy (Hello, Baby!), and our left hand on our heart (Hello, Mom!). We can do this either in a seated position, or tilted down on our backs. If you are lying down, use pillows, bolsters, or blocks to keep your back at a steep angle, since pregnant moms never want to be completely on their back. We can also keep our legs in Butterfly Pose, with the soles of our feet together, allowing for a deep hip opener and inner thigh stretch at the same time. The only thing to remember is not to hold the breath at any point, since holding our breath also isn't recommended during pregnancy.
Taking time to focus on breathing deep is great for every part of you. During pregnancy, "every part of you" now includes somebody else. Traditionally, yoga is not an acronym as referenced above, but is actually an ancient word from India, meaning "union". Prenatal illustrates no better interpretation of yoga with the strong union growing everyday between mommy and baby. Take time to focus on these important people and this important union. Your baby will thank you. Maybe one of his first words will even be "yoga" and who can complain about that!
Posted by Ingrid on 02/27 at 04:17 PM
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