Travel. Yoga. Coffee.

Hello from Seattle!!! I'm here attending a great primary care research conference, meeting lots of people and lots of ideas. 

I love this quote and think about it whenever I travel:

"Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things - air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky - all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it." ~Cesare Pavese

For me, there are two additional essentials that I cling to while traveling: yoga and coffee. Two things that help me quickly meet people and make friends in a strange city.

I love being able to fly to a new place and immediately find an ashtanga mysore community: people that speak my language! Yesterday, I went to a led primary class at the Samarya Center (amazing place and mission), and this morning to Troy Lucero’s mysore class. 

I'm still processing everything I learned with Troy this morning (he knew I only had one day there and nicely gave me a TON of attention!). Some quick notes: 

• Standing poses: Ground my heels so much so that I lift my toes and ball of foot (I naturally do the opposite and actually lift my heels). In Utthita Parsvakonasana (extended side angle), work on barely touching fingers to the ground (engages legs, core, and bandhas much more). 
• Navasana: Traditionally, navasana was paired with handstand, but for some reason this has been taken out over the years. They both work on the same thing: the core of the body. Practice going into handstand between each navasana.
• Handstands: Wow we did a lot of handstand work this morning... handstands on a ramp, handstands on bars, handstands on a block, handstands on one block under one hand, handstands on sandbags. 
• Acroyoga: Right before Kapotasana, Troy "flew" me in the air (he lay on the ground, his feet on my sacrum)... loosening up my back and quads to prep for the deeper backbends. Amazing. 
• Tick-tocks: After backbends, he brought me over to the ramp and had me practice handstand to backbend and back to handstand. Really hard... need to find a ramp/hill at home and practice this on my own.

I love how he has toys all over the room like blocks, bars, ramps, straps, and how he encourages freedom to make the practice what you need it to be (the room was full of people doing things that I had never seen before). As he said while helping me with my handstands: "Yoga is really just about waking up." I definitely walked out of there feeling awake (and shaky, haha).

After practice and before heading back to the conference, it was time for some more Seattle coffee, which I just can't get enough of! It's the perfect way to both reminisce with old friends and connect with new ones (especially in the cozy rainy Seattle weather). 

My trip wouldn't be complete without a trip to the first Starbucks EVER!! 

For all the coffee lovers...

You are not alone… this survey shows that doctors and nurses “depend on coffee to get through the workday” much more than other professionals (I think I could’ve predicted that one!).

Sure we might be addicted, but the recent good news is that we also might be helping our inflammation and cholesterol levels.

This study followed healthy subjects for 3 months:

• The first month: subjects had 0 cups of coffee/day
• The second month: subjects had 4 cups of coffee/day
• The third month: subjects had 8 cups of coffee/day 

I like the design of this study because individual subjects serve as their own controls, helping control for confounders (like diet, exercise, or smoking which may be associated with coffee consumption), and making it easier to see the effects of coffee alone.

They compared markers of inflammation, oxidative stress, cholesterol, glucose, and insulin resistance. They found increased coffee consumption to be associated with:

• A decrease in markers of inflammation IL-18 and 8-isoprostane (no change in C-reactive protein or IL-6)
• An increase in adiponectin, a hormone involved in regulating metabolism and glucose levels (no change in fasting glucose or insulin)
• An increase in HDL cholesterol (the good kind of cholesterol) 

Their conclusion: “Coffee consumption appears to have beneficial effects on subclinical inflammation and HDL cholesterol.”

I’d love to see a similar study design looking at these markers after a month of a daily yoga practice!

And how much do you love these mugs?! I want one!!

3 reasons to kick my coffee habit

I’ve been doing a lot of my food shopping at Essene lately (my favorite new store). Last night they had a free public lecture about nutrition. Throughout the talk, the speaker kept saying don’t drink coffee, coffee is toxic, coffee is poison...

Finally someone put up their hand and asked “But why is coffee so bad???” My thoughts exactly!

He then gave 3 reasons:

1. Coffee is highly processed (But what exactly does that mean, and why is that bad?)
2. Coffee contains unregulated chemicals and pesticides (Unless you buy organic, which I don't right now)
3. Coffee stimulates the adrenal glands, putting the body under stress and causing the release of stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol (This is why I drink it!)

Part of me intuitively agreed with him on these, but this still did not stop me from making a cup first thing this morning (though it did stop me from making a second cup!)

"No coffee, no ashtanga yoga"

Food/diet has not been discussed much at all, so I asked Richard about it. Yes, diet is important... diet is extremely important because it affects how you feel. 

But the reason he doesn't bring it up much? People become fanatic about it and quickly go to extremes (as a teacher, you have to be careful not to encourage this). 

Being vegetarian and eating “sattvic” foods feels good, but you also can’t tell people this - it’s something they have to come to on their own.

I then asked him if he drinks coffee. He smiled and said, “Of course. It’s part of the lineage.” And he quoted Sharath saying, “No coffee, no ashtanga yoga.”

Music to my ears!!! :)

Coloring the day

Hard mysore practice today… a cold room and a body recovering from a fun weekend away with amazing girlfriends (celebrating our darling Greta’s upcoming marriage!!!!)

On days like today, I am reminded that everything is connected. The way I treat my body during the day/over the weekend impacts how I feel in morning practice. And the way I feel during practice colors the rest of the day… my concentration, energy, productivity, creativity, and courage.

I’m feeling the heaviness of a long week ahead, so I’m trying to concentrate on the things I can actually control. I’ve noticed that the following habits (mostly related to what I put into my body) correlate with a better morning practice... and thus more fulfilled days: 

• Sleeping at least 7 hours (of good, deep, dream-filled sleep)
• Not eating after ~7pm 
• Drinking herbal tea before bed (keeps me hydrated)
• Eating whole foods (grains, salads, avocados, beans, beets, tomatoes, fruit)
• Eating little to no sugar
• Minimizing salt 
• Minimizing dairy
• Having an early morning pre-practice coffee with cinnamon… to wake up and warm up (and no, I’m not giving this up anytime soon!)

What am I missing? Anyone have any other good habits that help their yoga practice? I need all the help I can get!

Substituting coffee, thinking macrobiotic

As I was moving towards the end of my practice today, my teacher came over to adjust me. Please don’t ask me about my coffee detox, please don’t ask me about my coffee detox.

“So how’s the coffee thing going?” he asked as he pushed on my back.

I can’t lie to him!

“Ummm….well…. Ok I cheated. But just a little! It was a really small cup! Green tea was making me sick!”

He smiled, “That’s ok!”

He’s so nice. Then he said, “I forgot, I didn’t tell you what to replace it with. You need to have good substitutes.”

He said to get Dandyblend or Roma (made from malted barley and chicory) at Essene Market where I happened to be heading right after practice to meet my wonderful new friend, Teresa. Teresa has battled breast cancer for over 10 years, both with conventional treatment and many additional holistic therapies.

Several people I greatly admire are on the macrobiotic diet, including both David (my yoga teacher) and Teresa. I keep going back to the idea. If anything, I think this will be a slow and progressive process. I’ll start by making some small additions to my diet: miso soup, vegetables with sesame oil, and steel cut oats.

Caitlin and my miso soup attempt – pretty good!

My main concern with the macrobiotic diet is having to limit my fruit and avocado intake... my favorite foods. I asked both David and Teresa about this today. David said, “No, don't eat much fruit. Maybe in the summer.” And avocados? “Well you can’t be too strict! If you want avocado, not a problem.”

Teresa eats fruit… and lots of it. “I’ll eat a whole carton of blueberries!” she said smiling.

The minimalism of no addictions

I thought these “simplicity living tips” from the Becoming Minimalist blog were excellent.

In light of my coffee detox, this one is particularly relevant to me right now:

"Reject anything that is producing an addiction in you. Refuse to be a slave to anything: coffee, cigarettes, soda, television, chocolate, alcohol… "

Even though the denial of coffee over the past few mornings has left me tight, tired, and bored during practice, I’m sticking with morning tea for the time being.

I’m also continuing my sugar-weaning (those dark chocolate-covered almonds waiting for me in the kitchen make this nearly impossible).

Coffee detox

I ran into my teacher as I was locking my bike for practice this morning. Riding up the elevator together, I decided to risk disapproval and ask him his view on pre-practice coffee (throwing in the Sharath coffee endorsement: “no coffee, no prana”). 

No…“not good,” he said.

Hmm, but I *love* my morning hour of coffee and reading!

He said, “just try it without.” Replace coffee with green tea. And not just for two days – it has to be for at least two weeks to really get it out of my system. 

“And anyway,” he said, “coffee tastes way better after practice.” I then cringed as I confessed to also having coffee after practice. He shook his head, “no, that’s too much!” Too much. 

So, tomorrow I will start a two-week pre-practice coffee detox.