Feeling Pooped

Hello MoJo

You owe yourself some gratitude for what you are doing for yourself! :cheese: Doing the yoga for 30 days is exactly what they call it …. a challenge. I certainly can’t tell you that you are doing too much. Obviously you want to make sure that your nutritional requirements are well handled as well as getting enough rest. You are the only one who can monitor all that. But I do have a suggestion for you.

If you are planning to continue the 30 classes in 30 days commitment then here is something that has worked for me and for many that I have suggested it to…

On one day, practice in the morning. Then don’t do your next class til the following evening. Energetically, it can feel as though you have had 2 whole days off. It really works. Obviously it can’t work more than once or twice a week because at some stage you have to do a morning class after practicing the night before. It is good for weekends so that you feel you have actually had one :cheese:

Would love to know what others have done…

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hehe – nice advice from all – love the comment about Bikram eating less/sleeping less!

I remember my first 3 months with this yoga (back in 2000) … I also remember struggling to walk down a few steps into my front garden and telling Gabrielle that, as much as I love this yoga, I can’t live this “pooped” for the rest of my life! (We were practicing every day – Gabrielle sometimes 8 times a week with double classes).

It took me the best part of 5-6 months for my system to fully reset AND to get the balance of water/hydration; electrolytes; unconscious dietary adjustments; better lifestyle habits (2 bottles of wine a week prior dropped to a glass once a week – if I had more I was on the floor. Weird.).

There IS a big difference in my opinion between every other day and every day practice – the every day practice is amazingly far more beneficial AND easier – but only once you have trained for it.

I agree – cut yourself a break a little – I personally believe persistence WILL bring your energy levels up in the way others talk about – but if your experience is anything like mine, it can take a little while to build up resilience; strengthen your body; change a few habits here and there.

Then again, I hadn’t done any exercise for 15 years before hot yoga – I truly had a junk body!

Namaste

Robert

I was suffering with being tired for the last 2 weeks. I’d go back to bed after my mid-morning Bikram classes.
Turns out I finally went to the doctor and I have an upper-respiratory problem which is now being treated.
When I finally went back to Bikram yesterday, the best thing I did was just focus on my breathing. I was able to get enough oxygen into my system and didn’t need a nap the the rest of the day. And I got through the entire class.

Glad to be back to myself.

I’ve been doing Bikram yoga for over 5 years, and have always enjoyed the relaxing effects from it. However, in the past few months I notice a fairly extreme fatigue for several hours following a class. It’s to the point where my long-distance boyfriend refuses to talk to me on the phone after a yoga class because he says I am lethargic and irritable.

I am usually careful about my hydration and electrolytes, food intake, and sleep. It doesn’t seem to matter what time of day the class is, in fact the classes earlier in the day almost seem to wipe me out more. In the past couple of weeks this effect has intensified.

Today, after looking over some of the posts on this thread and others on this site, I took an 11:30 class, being particularly mindful of not “overdoing it”. When I came home I had a homemade electrolyte drink. Still, I felt exhausted to the point of nausea, and had to lie down for nearly an hour. Even now, five hours later, I still feel kind of “blah”. As a holistic physician, I am truly perplexed. What the heck am I overlooking? 😛 Thanks in advance for your input.

Hi Gabrielle,
Thanks for your reply. Feeling disconcerted, yes! I am 34 years old, and, I thought, in good physical condition. So, I feel fairly certain its not a pre-menopausal issue.

I have upped my multi-vitamin intake recently, and greatly increased my B-complex intake, wondering similarly to you if I was experiencing a deficiency.
Stress, while of course ever present in our lives, also doesn’t seem a likely culprit here– I’m only working three days a week right now, so plenty of time to rest and relax.
I’m the first to admit to being a “bad patient”, in the sense that I usually delay seeking professional help until I am completely out of ideas of my own. I haven’t ordered any lab tests or other work-ups yet–mainly because I feel reasonably ok as long as I’m not doing hot yoga!

As an experiment, I’m going to try doing some other vigorous sports and assess my endurance and post-workout energy levels to compare. If I tolerate the non-hot workout fine, that narrows the issue down to heat-intolerance. Adrenal fatigue is a possibility, though I would have thought I would be tired all of the time if that were the case. Perhaps early-onset.

If you have any other ideas, I’d love to hear them. I have a six-month unlimited membership at my studio that is going to waste as we speak!!

Thanks,
Emily

Hi Gabrielle
Thanks for your great suggestion. Just reading it made me feel some ease around the situation. I will definitely try that and report back.

The room seems about the same as most hot yoga rooms (really freakin’ hot! 🙂 I have noticed that the side farthest from the door definitely stays hotter. No idea as to the actual temp. Also, there is a lot of variability depending on the teacher, and how attentive they are to people’s responses to the heat. However, even on days when the fans are on high for half the class, and the door is frequently opened, I tend to have the same response, but just in the past couple of weeks. Prior to then, I did better after cooler classes.

I tend to push myself hard to do the poses as instructed, and rarely feel compelled to sit poses out. It’s the aftermath that gets me. I imagine that only doing 1/3 of the class will help, dings to my ego aside!

Thanks again,
Emily

I know the feeling of suddenly being pooped. I usually go to class 3-4 times per week and usually have the yoga “high”, but I have had an upper respiratory infection for the last week and spent a week off. I went for the first time last night and it was like I had never been before!! I was nauseated, I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest and get this–I was cold! It was a perfect Bikram temp–105 and i had chills and had to lay down for more of the class than I care to admit. I had plenty of water, rest, but does anyone have any solutions?