Validez

Habits are typically mindless behaviors, actions we take without thinking, such as chewing our fingernails in response to stress. As a practice of awareness, yoga helps shine light on these often-unconscious links between emotional and physical stress. In yoga, we use our breath to bring us into the present moment and also to connect the body with the mind. Yoga helps us counter the tendency to live

“from the neck up” and encourages us to pay attention to what’s happening throughout our entire being—physically, emotionally, energetically, and spiritually.

California yoga teacher and physical therapist Judith Hanson Lasater offered this wonderful analogy for how yoga works when I interviewed

her for a Prevention magazine article: “Yoga is like a speed bump that slows you down so you pay attention to your body” (Lasater 2004).

Most of us can relate to this connection between mindless driving and mindless living. If you’ve ever pulled into the parking lot at a familiar destination and then realized you barely remember how you got there, you know how easy it is to do important, and even dangerous, things in a mindless manner. But the “speed bump” of yoga practice gets our attention and encourages us to be present and notice what’s happening in our lives—right now in this moment.

The following five-step yogic awareness practice is designed to help you tease out the ways your body responds to stress and where you tend to experience and store tension, plus potentially uncover the emotional connections to your physical discomforts. Please approach this practice mindfully, in a nonjudgmental spirit of self-exploration and self-discovery, with compassion and kindness for yourself. You might want to imagine that you’re a curious and persistent detective, looking for clues and connections to unlock the mysteries of your neck and shoulder pain.

Tuning In: Lie down on your back or recline in a chair in a way that makes you feel comfortable and supported. Arrange your body to be as symmetrical as possible so that, if there were a line bisecting you from nose to navel, your right and left sides would be equidistant from that line. Close your eyes if you like, or keep them open with a soft gaze.

(Be sure that you’ve eliminated distractions: turn off your phone and ask family members not to disturb you.) Bring your attention to your breath and observe the sensations that occur as you breathe in and out.

1. Body Scan A: Now the detective work begins. With your mind’s eye, take a journey throughout your interior landscape, looking for any places of tension or tightness, pain, discomfort, or “dis-ease.” Pay particular attention to your upper body—neck, shoulders, arms, chest, and back—and see if any body parts are “talking” to you. If you find a tense area, try your best to describe the sensation: is it sharp or dull, achy or sore—knotty, warm, or grabby? If you feel pain, how intense is it on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being mild and 10 being severe? Are you experiencing more than one place of discomfort? If so, do all the places feel similar, or are some areas more painful than others? Do these painful areas appear connected or disconnected? Make a mental note of any discoveries. Then see if you can relax and release any tense places,

imagining your breath moving through the tight areas and helping them soften one. Recall the situation in as vivid detail as possible: What time of day did it occur? Who was there? What words were said? What gestures were made?

Engage your senses so that you hear the voices, feel the textures, and even smell the aromas surrounding this difficult memory.

3. Body Scan B: As you mentally relive this stressful event, do another body scan, paying exquisite attention to the physical and emotional sensations that arise. What happens in your face, neck, mouth, shoulders, back, and belly?

What happens to your breath? Does it quicken, or does it stop? What happens in your mind and in your heart? If you find one or more tense areas, try your best to describe the sensations. If you feel pain, how intense is it? Is there more than one place of discomfort? If so, do they all feel similar, or are some areas more painful than others? Do they appear connected or disconnected?

Make a mental note of any discoveries. Then see if you can relax and release any tense places, imagining your breath moving through the tight areas, helping them soften and let go.

4. Journal: When you’re ready, open your eyes, take out a notebook, and write down what you’ve discovered. Remember, you’re a sleuth looking for clues and connections, so write down all your observations of how you respond to stress, where you tend to experience and store tension, and any emotional connections to your physical discomforts. You may wish to keep making notes in this journal about how you respond to stress and any other mind-body links you discover over time as a result of your yoga practice.

Please recognize that the stress you may have experienced during this practicearose from stories happening in your mind. Despite your body’s stress reactions, you were not in any real danger. As my Duke Integrative Medicine colleague Dr. Jeffrey Brantley notes in his excellent guide, Calming Your Anxious Mind, “Physical experience is deeply interconnected with psychological and emotional experience moment by moment. Physical sensations can trigger thoughts (such as when you perceive pain in your knee as arthritis and begin to think of the story of your arthritis and your fear of arthritis), and thoughts can stimulate physical responses (such as when you recall an angry outburst in a meeting, and your neck and shoulders immediately tense up)” (Brantley 2007, 13–14).

You may wish to try this practice again with different memories, exploring your reactions to a range of stressful events and using this exercise as a tool to understand your individualized stress response. In addition, consider using this “speed bump”

practice whenever you find yourself in a stressful situation so that you slow down and notice what’s happening. For example, you might use as “cues” any particular habits you recognize as your own signals of stress, such as chewing your lip, gritting your teeth, or holding your breath. When you feel these stress reactions occurring, pay attention to what’s going on for you physically, emotionally, energetically, and spiritually. Unlocking the mysteries of your own habitual patterns of responding to stress is the first step in learning to let go of tension and make positive changes toward healing.