The science of happiness

Did you know Stanford has a Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education and that Berkeley hosts research for The Science of a Meaningful Life? I have been going through YouTube videos of Fred Luskin who teaches forgiveness - how to forgive, why practice forgiveness, and scientific findings of physiological health benefits of practicing forgiveness. Kelly McGonigal uses psychology and neuroscience research results to explain and support the importance of meditation and compassion. Sonja Lyubomirsky does research on happiness, and finds that genetics accounts for 50% of your level of happiness (ie. The personality you were born with); life circumstances accounts for about 10%, but 40% are within our power of control (ie. We can change the level of our happiness by changing our thinking patterns and our actions. Barbara Frederickson does research on positivity. She finds that in order to be genuinely positive (rather than faking it), we need a ratio of 3:1 for overall positive to negative thinking at all times. This is because the human tendency is to focus on the negative thoughts, so we need 3 times as much positivity to counter the negative thinking. This is not to say that we should try to eliminate negative thinking all together (is that even possible?) She finds most people's habitual ratios are at 2:1 or lower, which means we all need to work a little harder to generate a tiny bit more of positive emotions in order to stay positive overall.

Now, it may be weird to be conducting research on "the science of happiness", when the ancient spiritual texts and sutras have already laid it out for us, explaining humanity, the sources of human suffering, and how to deal with it. I agree that spiritual texts give a more comprehensive picture of the whole human condition, why we are the way we are etc. By definition of the way science is conducted (control all variables and change just one variable to see what happens), we will never get the full picture of any subject with science. However, what science does provide is a snapshot of what's going on in the modern times -- the fact that at a 2:1 positive to negative thinking rate, most people have a tendency to be a little negative even though they swear they have been attempting some positive thinking. Genetics studies tell me that my pessimistic personality has determined that I will never win the "happiest person on earth contest" no matter how hard I work on it, BUT if I try really hard, I can improve my current level of happiness by 40% regardless of my life circumstances. This is encouraging to know.

The purpose of most organized religions is to teach the simple ideas of compassion, gratitude, acceptance, positive thinking, non-harming, forgiveness, etc. The 2 main tools used by Christianity to get people to practice these ideas -- the Bible (words of God), and the act of praying -- seem to be sufficient for a small handful of Christians only. A large number of religious people accept that God would like them to practice these concepts in their daily lives, but without providing more tools, they fail at achieving true forgiveness and true compassion sometimes, which make them feel bad, so they pray for God to forgive their "sins" and give them more strength, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, so some people chronically experience shamefulness. Amazingly they keep clinging on the faith, insisting that the system is complete as-is. It's okay to keep their faith, but with a couple more tools at hand, such as practicing loving kindness meditation and some yoga, it'll be easier to open the heart.

I find the series of "forgiveness" talks by Fred Luskin particularly helpful, because I am so good at holding grudges. The explanation that all the suffering that we experience are not unique to an individual, but are all common to mankind, is very clarifying. It is also useful to realize that practicing forgiveness helps improve our own physiological health. Holding grudges punishes no one but our own body and mind. To forgive does not mean to never get worked up about others who have done us wrong, but to realize that my sufferings are not uniquely my experience but is part of humanity. No one is obliged to treat me exactly the way I would like them to treat me, not even my family, my best friend, my partner, my boss, or my server. Forgiveness means being at peace with the fact that life circumstances do not always work out the way we'd like them to. With gratitude, forgiveness and compassion in hand, life will be a happier one.

By the way, I think the way Luskin speaks would make him a very popular reverend/minister. However, he identifies himself as a secular educator, which goes to show that it is not necessary to say "these are the words from God" to effectively teach morality.

Which poses do you find hardest to engage the bandhas?

Source: Yoga Journal

I had no idea my uddiyana bandha was totally not engaged until the teacher came and put his hand on my belly in revolved triangle pose and revolved side angle pose. I normally pay pretty good attention during my sun salutations and non-twists to suck in the belly, but in these poses the twists make it feel like the belly must be sucked in already, since it's squished against the leg (sort of) right? Wrong. I felt like my gut was pushing directly into the teacher's hand and absolutely nothing happened when I tried to order my abdominal muscles to draw the belly back in. Can you imagine how pathetic I felt at that moment? I don't think the belly actually looks that big in twists, but it sure felt like I was 5 months pregnant at that instant. For the rest of the class I was totally self-conscious about my belly in all the twists, and I discovered that I could engage the bandha a little bit in Mari C and D. I don't know if it was because the twists in these poses are kind of lop-sided, providing slightly more space for the ab muscles to maneuver, or did some neural pathway from the brain become established to the abs sometime between the standing series and the seated poses.

So, cybershala, which poses do you feel the easiest to engage the bandhas and which poses are the hardest? For me the easiest pose to feel my bandhas is the 2nd last pose (not counting savasana) -- padmasana. I have heard that bandha engagement should be easy in urdhva padmasana because the organs get out of the way when upside down, but I find it the other way around.. they get in the way of my bandhas (interfering with the diaphram??)  Or maybe I'm just not used to being up side down still.

Don't even ask me about mula bandha. When I worry about it I squeeze everything down there, including unnecessary butt muscles, leg muscles, hip flexor stuff, and a whole bunch of other stuff that I don't know controls what but pretty sure have nothing to do with the perineum.

Drop backs practice report

So I've started doing drop-backs. It's amazing how quickly I've progressed in them. Not saying they're now really nice or anything, but my urdhva dhanurasanas never felt great, so I wasn't expecting to to drop backs so soon. My low back always feels funky in the pose, and I hate it when the teacher says to straighten my legs and shift my chest towards my arms. If I don't do it he'll come and help me and I always feel like I'm about to faint or drown. My neck can never relax in the wheel pose; the neck muscles feel strained whether I try to look up or look down. They refuse to relax no matter how I move my head. Stuff along the spine feels loose, as if the spine will fall apart if I try too hard (but I try hard anyways). Nobel reassured me a little when he told me deep backbends have a spinal alignment effect to them. Not sure if it was Tim Miller or Matthew Sweeney who started the saying, "Backbends are like pancakes. The first two are rubbish." That re-assured me further.

That being said, assisted drop-backs feel a million times safer and easier (psychologically) than attempting drop backs on my own, so kudos to Grimmly and all the people who work on this on their own. I think I sort of tried once at home, and I ended up bending my knees so much I ended up just going into a table top pose instead of a real drop back. Coming back up was like a swim up where I flailed my arms wildly and sort of front crawled my way back to standing, again with super bent knees... I always imagined myself looking like the reverse of Neil doing backbend dodging bullets in the Matrix, except I'm sure it looks a lot dorkier and messier.

Apparently my back is pretty open, so I "don't need to" do hang backs. Actually I just plain can't do them. With the teacher's hands around my waist, for awhile it felt like he was the soul reason I wasn't crashing straight to the floor headfirst since I felt I had zero control over my upper body weight. Coming back up is so much fun with the help of a teacher. A little pull (or pressure into the spine at the low back junction) and I pop right up. But without the teacher I guess I didn't want to look like an idiot doing my front crawl thing in class. I also was really scared of falling back down and landing on my head because my arms wouldn't be ready to catch me or something silly like that.

There are two keys to coming up smoothly: 1. walk the hands as close towards the feet as possible, "past the point where you feel comfortable with placing your hands". 2. Rock back and forth and come up on an inhale while rocking forward towards the feet. So they actually both work, and I've been surprised that some days I can come up on my own. The trick is I have to catch the momentum. If I try to come up at the wrong time during the rock, then I fall back down. My hands did catch me and save me the fate of a head concussion, so my fear was unfounded. If my back feels funny, then I'm not able to walk my hands that close to my feet, and a wide wheel makes coming up impossible.

So now I'm at this inconsistent stage where sometimes I can come up magically on my own no problem, and other times I get stuck in my wheel and can't come up without assistance. Neither the forward bend squish nor the fold itself after the drop backs ever feels long enough, and I can feel my spine screaming "I'm here! Feel my presence!!" at me for the rest of the day. It's not pain.. it's just.. very energized, but not necessarily in a happy or unhappy way. Seriously, who needs a chiropractor if you can just do wheel pose and drop backs? I wonder what chiros think about setu bandhasana and headstands. Setu b. feels super intense right now, probably not from physical strain but from shock. I'm trusting the practice and hoping it'll strengthen my neck and make my neck strain go away. Also hoping matsyasana and uttana padasana will strengthen my mid and low back, because I do not feel peace and calm in these two poses.

Anyways, just a boring recording my practice report. I hope the poses I mention will get easier and my spine will thank me later on. Right now it's questioning what the heck I'm doing to it and the rational brain isn't really sure if what I'm practicing is exactly healthy for my body. I kind of have to have faith, keep at it for a few months and then see what happens.

More about the yoga industry and good yoga teaching from a more qualified speaker :)

I do have more to say about this topic, but first, let's hear from a senior yoga teacher's view of yoga :)

Part 2: What is a popular yoga teacher vs. a good yoga teacher?

 

A biased view of the yoga industry from someone who's glad her writings don't count for marks any more :)

I have been wanting to write about this topic for a long time but everyone else seems to be able to address exactly what I wanted to talk about, with much better understanding and much more eloquence. Nobel talked about yoga teacher training and the yoga version of the American dream. Grimmly also wrote a post about yoga teacher training. "It's all Yoga, baby" wrote about New York Time's interpretation of Ana Forrest vs. John Friend vs. Tara Stiles. As far as I know, these three styles are pretty accurately and succinct described in this post. Her previous post of NYT's overall portrayal of yoga points out how mainstream media's skepticism about yoga can negatively influence people who are thinking about trying out yoga, or are currently confused by yoga.

I've been pondering about yoga and capitalism. In the early days, students who really wanted to learn yoga had to go beg the teacher to teach them. The guru would make these bright-eyed hopeful students go through crazy difficult tests to confirm their determination for this practice. I guess when the (western) students have experienced the benefits of the practice, they want to share it with people back home. They knew such a disciplined practice wouldn't appeal to the masses, so they've modified and marketed yoga in a way that people would want to try it out. There is nothing wrong with that. I think anyone who has tried yoga has received benefits of relaxation, improved breathing, more limber body, and more. The thing is, when yoga turns into a business, rent and electricity costs money, and studio owners end up having to recruit more and more customers by whatever means they can to pay the bills as opposed to teaching it in the strict traditional form. People would only pay so much money for practice, so all these other things are born - clothing lines, jewelries, expensive mats and mat cleaners, and - teacher training! Initially meant to uphold the quality of yoga teachers, in a capitalist society this screams "career opportunity", and everyone jumps at it, because seriously, being a yoga teacher and make other people feel good feels 1000 times more meaningful than, say, a bank job where you count other people's cash all day, or a secretarial job where you do the most boring administrative paperwork stuff for the rest of your life. Most friends I know with traditional jobs often talk like they work in a prison, or just avoid talking about their work at all.

So then we get into this situation where the market is filled with well-intentioned yoga teachers who have practiced yoga themselves for barely a few months. The market demand for yoga classes are so high that sometimes these teachers end up teaching full time and have no time for personal practice. We get students who take classes with these teachers for awhile, who want to dig deeper into yoga, but the only option to go deeper seems to be to sign up for $3000+ teacher training, because a lot of these teachers are too inexperienced to offer adjustments or teach headstands (for safety/liability reasons I'm glad they don't). What a brilliantly crafted money-making business plan (that I think happened somewhat accidentally)!

Yoga nowadays is kind of like Christianity. It is spread broadly by people who have felt the benefits of the practice but don't fully understand the history and the deepness of the tradition. You get a lot of teachers who take bits of what they like about yoga (or what students might prefer) and sell them to students, while ignoring bits that they don't quite understand/believe in themselves, as well as parts that might clash with conventional beliefs and personal comfort zones. Don't like talking about spirituality? OK, we'll take that out of this yoga class. Jump backs and jump throughs frustrate students? No problem. Just don't introduce them in class and students will never know they existed. Feet together in Samasthiti feels unbalanced? Let's teach people to stand feet hip distance apart instead. The teachers who first started teaching this way understood the intentions behind the modifications, but new yoga practitioners subsequently taking teacher training programs don't seem to realize these are modifications (partly because they can't do the full form themselves, which takes years to achieve) and teach them as strict rules instead.

What ends up happening is a lot of confused yoga practitioners. I attended a yoga conference last year when barely started practicing yoga, so some of the classes and variations were kind of confusing to me. What was really daunting for me, was that about half the attendees claimed to have gone through some sort of yoga teacher training program, yet they seemed more confused than I was. It made me really appreciate having encountered a great teacher at the beginning of my yoga journey. My yoga teacher is a total stickler for teaching the original Ashtanga form (e.g. hands together in warrior I even if one has tight shoulders, grab the toe in trikonasana even if one has super tight hips, etc). I wondered for the longest time why he doesn't teach the modified forms like all other teachers seem to do.  Some students (and even yoga teachers) stay away from his classes because of this reason. It took me awhile to realize but now when I encounter variations, it's obvious to me (without anyone informing me the reasons) that they are modified forms to make beginners' lives easier. I've heard some teachers complain that Ashtanga doesn't seem to teach a lot of alignments. I've been to classes with a ton of verbal alignment cues, but half the cues didn't jive with my body. Even when the cues felt helpful, I saw a lot of people in class still had crap alignments, and the teacher didn't do anything to physically assist anyone (which Ashtanga teachers tend to do). Since the results are about the same, the preference is up to the students then. It's good to have a choice between the preferred method of being taught.

In the beginning I totally disagreed with reformulating yoga into marketable products (anti-gravity yoga, yoga for runners, yoga for weight loss, yoga with live music, etc). Now I no longer think it's wrong, because just like it always has been, the mass public doesn't want to be put through a disciplined spiritual practice. They want to entertained and to feel good -- instant gratifications. Maybe I'm a bit of a weirdo but it's happened so many times that when I went out friends for a drinking gathering, I would join them for a few drinks, but as I noticed people started behaving funny as a result of intoxication, instead of "catching up" I wold stop myself because I didn't really feel like becoming the same way (plus I get a headache right away from too much alcohol anyway). When I attend a yoga class with good music and lots of feel good messages but no challenge, I feel entertained but at the same time I would sense that something is missing. When the sequencing of a yoga class doesn't feel quite right or if a class is all about getting a work out I also become very disappointed. However other students seem to enjoy the class no less. Perhaps I'm just too hard to please?

I guess I like things I do to have meaning, and Ashtanga seem to be so well crafted that every pose as well as the details of the sequencing have reasons to back up this practice. Not everyone needs every activity they do to have meaning. Not everyone wants to read into the history of yoga. Not everyone wants to have the basic alignment for each pose memorized. Hence the yoga industry shapes itself to fit mainstream crowd's desires. I am just glad that I came across a yoga style that suits my personality and that the system is rich enough for me to explore for many years to come. I've heard people complain that yoga should be cheaper and be available to more people, yada yada. I wonder if they really mean that everyone should be taught basic breathing techniques and basic stretches, because not all yoga styles are the same. I think at the rate that current teacher training program churns out yoga teachers, we would soon have enough yoga teachers qualified to teach exactly such at every school, hospital and community center. This would indeed benefit the public at large. However, for a deeper yoga practice, it is up to me to put in the effort to go find the right teacher for proper guidance. To be able to study with a good yoga teacher is a privilege rather than one of the basic human rights. I must remember that.

Also, there's nothing wrong with doing yoga for social and entertainment purposes. Ashtanga will always be my grounding practice, but I am still allowed to attend other styles of yoga for fun!

The nature of Ashtanga yoga

Nobel recently blogged about how his friend doesn't get why Nobel's goal in practicing yoga doesn't seem to be to master all 6 levels of Ashtanga. Megan recently blogged about waiting to hear about results from biopsies and medical test with the possibility of having cancer (sending her well-wishing thoughts). In my previous post, I wrote about how I am coming to the realization of peculiarities in my old habitual behaviors, and one of the commenters, Alison, suggested that perhaps I should look into restorative and yin yoga, since Ashtanga seems to be stirring up quite strong emotions and reactions in me.

If she had suggested this to me a year ago, I might have seriously considered her advice and switch to a calmer, more reflective yin practice. For those who have not tried practicing Ashtanga regularly, on the surface, this style of yoga appears to be a fast-paced, dynamic, heat-generating work out. Indeed, in the beginning I totally exhibited type A personality, coming to the led primary series because it challenged me more than any other yoga classes. I enjoyed the masochistic aspect that my back would ache and my arms would feel jelly the next day. Once I tried to practice two days in a row and the second day's class felt miserable. I had to do all my vinyasas on my knees. The teacher kept mentioning this was meant to be a 6-day practice and I thought he was nuts, that only exceptionally fit people could pull it off. The teacher did keep repeating the fact that this series is meant to be therapeutic, which made no sense to me at the time (which part of having my ass kicked is therapeutic??) Somehow I chose to trust the teacher because he sounded very sincere. I decided to give this class a year and see if my lower back would heal and stop aching at some point, or else I was going to move on to something else.

Well, 1.5 years later, the primary series no longer feels like an ass-kicking work out. It's still not a walk in the park, but it feels more like a full body opening stretching sequence than a heart pumping, muscle building exercising sequence. My heart rate does go up a bit while doing the sequence, but in terms of breathing, I feel no other yoga classes can bring me to breath so deeply for such an extended period of time. My teacher didn't lie; in terms of breath work it really does feel very therapeutic. I now practice Ashtanga for its calming, therapeutic effects more than anything else. So, even though it does build strength in the body, it's not the main reason why I practice Ashtanga.  Even though it doesn't burn as much calories as my previous exercise regime (I am fatter than I used to be), I am sticking with this routine until my mental clutter improves and I free up more time to exercise for the sake of exercising.

I have been thinking about yoga and spirituality. Why are some people totally fine with pursuing spirituality by long hours of sitting meditation, never having the desire to try yoga or even other forms of exercises? How come yogis seem to squirm like worms all the time and the only way to calm down is to contort their bodies into pretzels? Perhaps David Garrigues explains best in his blog post: "Ashtanga is for the hungry, the ones who have something gnawing inside, the ones who honestly aren't happy accepting complacent norms. Ashtanga is for those who are alive with intense feelings that there are worlds to discover, worlds that are found by reaching passionately inwards for expression that will contribute to personal and collective healing. "

I don't feel yin yoga works the same as Ashtanga, nor does "Core Power yoga" or Bikram or Iyengar or Anusara yoga. Don't get me wrong, I am not against these yoga styles and I think they have helped many people. I do feel I would benefit from sitting meditation, but it's the Ashtanga practice that calms down the "gnawing inside" so I can sit still for longer. I've heard there are people who practiced up to intermediate/advanced series, and then realized they actually only need to do the beginning standing series and the closing series in order to calm down and benefit from the practice.

I feel Ashtanga is very vast and deep. Devoting 1+ years to familiarize myself with the primary series is the best thing I could have ever done. From here, I can also choose to do just the opening and closing sequence, and focus on the meditative aspect of yoga; I can just practice the primary series; I can move onto the intermediate series and keep going until I reach my body's limits; I can always fall back to the primary when my body becomes injured, when I grow older, or when I am mentally drained/stressed out. I used to analyze every issue to death, thinking I have to understand everything / rationalize everything in order to find peace/resolution. Now I feel like peace comes from calming the breath, emptying the mind, and letting go of things we can't change. This realization is more useful than any psychoanalysis or any amounts of knowledge/information with which I try to cram into my brain.

I may have problems in life, but practicing Ashtanga helps me experience moments of calmness during the day. It helps clear my mind and put things into perspective, realizing what's important and what's minor. Do other yoga styles achieve the same? It might for some people, but I plan to write a whole post about my thoughts on the current industry of yoga.

A blog post all about my spine

It doesn't matter what style of yoga you practice; a major body part you work on is your spine. From gentle cat-cow warm ups, to downward/upward facing dog, to sun and moon salutations, to headstands and shoulder stands,  to crazy leg behind the head poses, most yoga poses move the spine in all sorts of directions, in much greater depths than most sports and activities ever require. There are apparently 5 major ways to move your spine: flexion, extension, axial rotation (twists), lateral flexsion (side bends), and axial extension (lengthening). Before I started yoga I thought I had a limber body. Now I feel like I'm finally using my spine the way its intended - built to be curved in so many ways, as long as the muscles, fascia, tendons, ligaments etc coordinate with the vertebrae.

When I started yoga I came to heal my spine. My lower back was hurting me, and when I first started Ashtanga it felt worse. I couldn't tell if I was doing the poses wrong or if my lower back was just weak. I asked the teacher and he said my poses looked okay and he didn't see anything wrong with what I was doing. Primary series was supposed to be therapeutic right? So I tried to suck in my belly button more whenever I felt discomfort in the lumbar spine, hoping the sensation would go away soon. Either that or I would have to quit yoga and switch to some other activity. Thankfully, after 6 months the lower back weirdness went away. So it was indeed a weakness and the primary series helped strengthen my spine in a major way.

Then there was my neck. Ever since I started yoga, I noticed I had a neck ache. I went to see a massage therapist which helped make it better. However after a month the achy-ness came back. I learned it was probably due to the turtle haunch position that I have been assuming in front of my computer screen for the past 10 years. I went to see a chiropractor, which tried to fix my imbalance in terms of left twist vs. right twist, but I felt it was such a money scam because he only worked on me for about 20 minutes at a time and charged me $40 per session, and asked me to go back for 8 more sessions. My yoga teachers adjusted me more than the chiropractor during a 75 minute yoga class, and I pay way less for a class. I tried to lengthen my neck whenever I notice my turtle shrug, but the discomfort persisted. Then I noticed headstands made my neck uncomfortable so I had to stop practicing that at home. I still did it in class but usually only for like 5 breaths and often with the teacher supporting my legs. I notice my neck felt worse when I tried to assume thumb drishti in trikonasana and utthita parsvokonasana, so I stopped looking up in those poses and just focused on lengthening my cervical spine.

Recently, my teacher has been coming by, putting fingers on my back and telling me to engage my lats and pull my back muscles down the spine. Hmm, I can't seem to engage my lats at all. I consciously pull them down for a few breaths, then the next time I check my shoulders are up to my ears again. Sigh. That must be the reason why my neck hurts.

I am just noticing recently that I don't use enough of my back strength in matsyasana. When I engage my back more, uttana padasana suddenly feels a lot harder (I've been arching my back and not engaging back muscles in these 2 poses all this time). So suddenly I am feeling a new sense of strength building in my spine. My headstands are feeling better in the neck, and in setu bandhasana, I am finally taking my elbows off the floor and crossing my arms over my chest. It feels pretty creepy but I can feel strength building in my neck as well. I am really hoping this period of neck strengthening will get rid of the neck discomfort once and for all.

Backbends: now that I am starting to attempt drop backs, I am feeling weirdness in my lower back return. Actually, a few posts back I complained about lumbar spine weirdness in urdhva dhanurasana. So it went away for awhile and I thought I was done with low back strengthening, but I guess I'm not done. I look at my own wheel pose in the mirror and it has such a mild arch, despite how intense it feels. And then I look at pictures of yogis grabbing their ankles in their wheel poses, and I wonder exactly what needs to stretch to get to that point. Kino's article and video suggests that we hang over upside down without touching the mat for a few breaths; I'm sorry but I don't have enough strength to hold it half way. I am either upright with a little back bend or I'm all the way down. There's no in between. Does it mean my back is just too weak?

So many people I've seen come to yoga with a haunch in the shoulder/upper back area. When I look at the pictures of long term ashtanga practitioners, they all seem to have a straight back, and when they bend either forwards or backwards, they bend right at the waist, instead of rounding at the thoracic spine. I don't know if this is the case, but has all these forward bends where the teacher has been helping me flatten my spine on my legs resulted in shifting of imbalances to the upper (neck) and lower (lumbar) part of the spine instead?

One thing's for sure: I definitely need more back strengthening and continue to engage my trapezius and lats to keep my shoulder blades down the back. The fascia and the connective tissue stuff I have no control over; they'll just have to keep restructuring on their own. I wonder if non-Ashtanga yoga styles also re-work the spine in the same way, since most yoga styles I know don't emphasize forward bends.