Jade Lau - Bodywork, Yoga & Wellness

09/27/2021

We move for exercise, sport, and daily activities. When does that movement become yoga? Hint: it’s not because we practice it on a yoga mat! 😃

Movement that is yoga should:
1. Decrease suffering. It should not cause pain, apprehension, or mental distress. A reasonable physical challenge with a balanced mind is good. Forcing oneself to endure pain and suffering is not.

2. Incorporate skills to work on more than just the body. This means adding at least structured breathing and mindful connection.

3. Be appropriate for the purpose and the person—following a sensible vinyasa krama and accommodating the needs of the individual.

4. Improve overall wellbeing and increase inner calm and clarity over time.
When do movement as yoga, it grows so much more valuable! 🙂🙏

Dr. Ganesh Mohan

✨ Learn lifelong movement skills and yoga therapy in our new online program, Yoga for Your Low Back, with Dr. Mohan at: on.svastha.net/3zog2s5

04/11/2021

In my years as a doctor in the holistic wellbeing field, I have always preferred to find how yoga and modern medicine can support rather than oppose each other.

In many acute, specific, and life-threatening problems, our implementation of modern medical care can deliver outstanding results. Witness how survival rates for heart attacks, cancer, accidents, or severe infections have improved from fifty years ago. Oncological surgery can be lifesaving if you have a malignant tumor. Insulin offers a reprieve from complications and early mortality for the advanced diabetic. These are triumphs of modern medical science.

But our current medical system struggles to offer similar results in chronic problems that arise from many variables over a long time. We have insulin and medications for diabetes, but the disease is ever-more prevalent. Our current wellbeing system does not help people enough with the contributing factors—nutrition, exercise, visceral obesity, stress. Surgery is not a solution for most people with chronic back pain. Medications are not a reliable answer to the widespread problems of chronic depression and anxiety. This is not my isolated view; it is what the science says. Every current medical textbook notes the role of diet, exercise, lifestyle, and psychology in managing chronic disease. But modern healthcare struggles to work with these areas effectively. We are not focusing on the solutions most relevant to these problems.

Science is a process of evaluating the probability of hypotheses—propose, test, analyze, revise, repeat. It not the exclusive property of our modern times. Many yoga views of mind-body wellbeing are no less scientific by this metric than some ideas under the label of modern healthcare. But what we do with the outcome of the scientific process is a human choice.

As individuals and as a society, if we prioritize short term over long term, convenience over effort, greed over sustainability, ideology over connection, fear over empowerment, apathy over responsibility, and self-interest over kindness, we will inevitably reach a lifestyle and a healthcare system that emphasizes easily monetized, marketable, recurring, externalized inputs.

Such priorities are the systemic outcome of our values and choices, and we see them not only in medicine but in many other industries too. These are not just medical or scientific problems. These are problems of being human in which we are all taking part.

For better wellbeing, we need more than scientific discoveries alone. We need to change our priorities, shift our values and choices, from body to mind to society. We must learn holistic wellbeing skills for ourselves and disseminate them widely. No pill can ever do that for us. This is where yoga and related modalities shine. There is vast opportunity for beautiful integration and synergy between ancient and modern systems.

Dr. Ganesh Mohan

Learn Pranayama & Ayurveda with the Mohans at on.svastha.net/pranayama-and-ayurveda

12/08/2020

Learn pranayama with the Mohans online at on.svastha.net/36lIU7Y.

In my notes from a long-ago class with Krishnamacharya on 27 November 1976, he says that “asana should not be bhāga-sādhana.” He was fond of repeating variants of this quote. “Bhāga-sādhana” means a practice for only some parts of the body. Asana should be sarva-anga-sādhana—it should work on all parts of the body. He would also note that asana should not be “anga-bhanga-sādhana” or a practice that disrupts the health of body parts.

It is possible to make the appearance of asana without it being yoga. The point of asana as yoga is not just to assume the shape of a pose. Asana is about good health and a peaceful mind. That means we must use all the parts of the body by doing a variety of movements, not just a limited set of asanas, every day. We must also include slow and deeper breath, with the quality of sāttvic mindfulness (calm, clear, pleasant, steady).

A. G. Mohan

11/21/2020

Why should you learn to breathe better? Let’s make it even easier by turning the question around: “Do you think you can be healthy if you’re breathing poorly?” No! You don’t require a doctor to tell you this. The answer is intuitive, it’s in your own life experience.

There is no vital function more vital than breathing. And there is no other vital function that you have direct control over. Your heartbeat is critical to life too. But you can’t order your heart to beat faster or slower. You can direct your breath to be deeper or slower or faster or expand and contract your abdomen and chest in different patterns.

Haven’t you taken a few slow breaths to calm yourself? Or breathed deeply a few times to prepare for a challenge? You intuitively know that breath affects your body and mind strongly. Modern health messaging tells us to move, to exercise, make our bodies strong and flexible. Resilient breathing, however, is appreciated rarely and taught poorly.

No other wellness skill can give you what good breathing can. Exercise is not a substitute for effective breathing. Breath is the key to parasympathetic activation. Good breathing generates physiological resilience. Interoceptive breathing connects your brain with your body. Breath can be magical in assuaging stress and assisting recovery from chronic disease.

Set aside a little time every day to learn and cultivate good breathing. It will pay you back in useful coin: a longer life and healthier physiology.

Dr. Ganesh Mohan

Learn pranayama in-depth online at on.svastha.net/36lIU7Y

12/18/2019