Doing Nothing but Not for No Reason

In July I took a restorative yoga teacher training with Judith Hanson Lasater. Restorative yoga is officially the "practice of using props to position the body to promote health and wellness," but I think of it as yoga to regulate the nervous system, and what it looks like is people lying still on pillows, blankets, and other "props" for 20 minutes or so at a time. 

Currently in the US, many people think "yoga" means an exercise class, but restorative yoga is not exercise at all.

It is wakeful rest. It is the art of doing nothing.

Turns out that doing nothing, while in a specific position, is doing something. Depending on how you position the body, you can help support its healing process. One pose can ease your back pain, another your swollen and tired legs, another your digestion. Poses can also be indicated for emotional support such as in times of grief. By resting in stillness, awake and with eyes closed, we can activate our "rest and digest" function (the parasympathetic nervous system, or PNS) the part of our nervous system that is in charge of all forms of maintenance, repair, and healing in our body.

The sympathetic nervous system (SNS), on the other hand - also referred to as our "get up and go" or "fight, flight, or freeze" response - is in charge of our survival and activity. It gets us up and out of bed, keeps us active during the day, and is in charge of the reflexes that keep us alive when we are almost hit by a car or mugged.

The thing is, we can't use both parts of the nervous system at once - it is one or the other. Either we are resting and digesting, or getting up and going. And the thing is, even when we think we are "relaxing," or taking a break, we are often still using our SNS: watching a scary movie, riding a rollercoaster, or exercising might be a fun break from your day job, but from the perspective of your SNS it is not a break at all! So if when we are "taking a break" our SNS doesn't get a break too, how are our bodies ever supposed to go into PNS and do the repair and maintenance work we need to thrive?

Given this knowledge of how our nervous system works, is it any surprise that in our "work hard, play hard" and "go, go, go" culture, more and more people are suffering from chronic illnesses?

I was already aware of the physical benefits of restorative yoga, and it is those physical benefits that drew me to the training. I wanted to learn more to help both myself and others. But what really struck me during the week-long training was not the physical benefits of the practice, but the importance of its spiritual lesson:

Doing nothing teaches us that we are enough.

So often we get tangled up in the belief that our worth is a direct result of our productivity. We feel good when we are productive, frustrated and disappointed with ourselves if we are not. If we are busy, we assume that means our life has meaning. Not busy? Then something is wrong - you must be lazy, unintelligent, not care about yourself or the group, or somehow be "broken or "less than."

It seems like lying around doing nothing would be an easy practice to teach people, and yet as I have started to practice restorative more and teach it to others, I am finding that's not the case.

In my effort to practice one pose a day, I come up against all kinds of emotional resistance: "But I have plenty of energy today!" or "I'm fine!" or (lately, in the past few weeks) "No, I'm too angry to be still!" I seem to think I need a reason to rest, or to meet specific criteria to do so. And yet I don't need a reason or to meet specific criteria to floss, shower, or exercise - I just do it as part of my daily maintenance, no questions asked. 

It fascinates me that the idea of rest as a daily health habit is completely foreign to me and others in my culture. Really? Why does a habit of rest seem so weird?

In teaching this practice to others, I got a rainbow of reactions.

I thought restorative would be a good introduction for people who have never practiced yoga before, and yet so far I am finding that newbies are among the worst responders. They like it when I set them up in a pose, but aren't willing to do the work themselves on their own. They aren't in touch with their bodies and so it's harder for them to feel the results and therefore, understandably, stay motivated.

The students I have taught who are accustomed to being with their bodies - so far these folks have been experienced yoga practitioners and/or meditators - they can see the value in restorative yoga, and will overcome the frustrations of learning something new in order to get themselves in the habit of practicing on their own.

It's also the second group that is more receptive to the spiritual lesson of being enough. As a group, they seem to be more aware of the pain the belief "I'm not enough" causes.

I initially took the teacher training for my own benefit and to pass on to others in my Yoga for V Pain classes, but I have become more interested in it than I expected. Seemingly simple, restorative yoga is a complex creature that reaches much more deeply than I realized, asking larger questions than I thought it would. I am looking forward to continuing to grapple with this, both in my own practice and in my teaching...we'll see what unfolds...

Interested in taking a restorative yoga class? Find a certified teacher at www.RelaxandRenew.com, and note: "restorative yoga" is not a trademarked name, so although it most frequently refers to Judith Hanson Lasater's work, sometimes people use that term to mean something else. Relax and Renew© is, however, a copyrighted term, so if a person is Relax and Renew© certified you know what you are getting into. :) Just a tip, I found out the hard way...

Next week I'll be sharing more photographs and talking about the effect photographing people at rest had on me. See you next week!

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PS Did this post get your brain gears crankin'?

Feel free to start a conversation below (it's okay, you can be anonymous)!

Round-up: The Autonomic Nervous System

Got two minutes? This video is about the Rest and Digest function of our nervous system and how you can use it to help heal chronic pelvic pain.

The Autonomic Nervous System Part 1: Fight, Flight or Freeze

This week we'll be looking at parts of our nervous system, the balance between them, and how that plays into pelvic pain.

The Autonomic Nervous System

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) controls our involuntary nervous responses, like our heartbeat and digestion. We don't have to think about these functions for them to happen.

Three main parts comprise the ANS: the sympathetic, parasympathetic, and enteric. They work together to maintain homeostasis, or balance, in the body.

The Sympathetic Nervous System: Fight, Flight or Freeze

Often called the "fight or flight" response, the sympathetic nervous system is more accurately a "fight, flight, or freeze" response. Simply put, this is our defense mechanism.

If you were attacked by a hungry animal or a hostile person, you would try to fight it off. This is the "fight" response.

On the other hand, if it was possible, you may instead run, rather than staying to fight. This is the "flight" response.

You know the phrase "like a deer caught in the headlights?" That is the "freeze" response. To freeze - originating from the instinct to remain immobile in the hopes of not being noticed by a predator - is a technique used by various prey animals as well as humans. The freeze response includes playing dead. (Many predators prefer to eat live animals rather than ones that have already kicked the bucket, so instead of attacking, they may sniff around, decide said the prey was dead, and move on. Once the threat has passed,  the prey can relax and go back to living.) 

In human terms, the "freeze response" would include hiding in fear, or submitting to an attack in the hopes the attacker would leave you alone or at least reduce the severity of the attack. 

Of course, these days modern Americans are not usually being attacked by predators. So instead our sympathetic nervous is activated by other threats: a car swerving in front of you, almost being hit while crossing the street, or...stress. A looming deadline for an impossibly huge project, financial worries, family drama, dreading an exam. Daily stresses are interpreted by our nervous system as threats, and without our conscious control, create a specific response in your body.

The Sympathetic Response

What happens when your body perceives a threat? It prepares for "fight, flight or freeze." Functions that are not essential to your survival in that moment are shut down: blood is shifted from your digestive system to your muscles, your heart races, you start pumping out adrenaline, your hairs stand on end, your pupils dilate. 

In the olden times, this response would help us elude a threat. Once the threat passed, we could relax and go back to other essential functions, like digestion, or a slower, more sustainable heart rate. 

But today we have perceived threats around us all the time - rushing to get to work, your two year old having a tantrum, trying to avoid the bully at school. So our sympathetic nervous system is "on" more frequently.

But the sympathetic nervous system is supposed to help with homeostasis, remember? That's balance in the body. If our sympathetic nervous system is being called upon more frequently, we are out of balance, what we commonly refer to today as being "stressed."

Next Up

In the next segment we will learn about the sympathetic nervous system's buddy, the parasympathetic nervous system. While the sympathetic nervous system is often maligned in our society - who likes being stressed? - both are needed to maintain balance.