Gabrielle (The Hot Yoga Doctor)

Hi Elle

I have a wonderful health food store right near me and I buy my salt in bulk for about $6 a kilo ($3 a pound). My experience is that supermarkets may have unrefined sea salt but rarely in large amounts. But check it out. It is definitely worth finding a supplier. If not then online is an option!

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Emily

This is urgent enough to address this straight away. DVTs are not anything I would take chances with. I wonder what your doctor said about activity in general.

My guess is that you’re under strict instructions at the moment. Correct me if I am wrong. I wouldn’t be doing anything to put myself at risk. Get your issue handled before attending yoga classes. You seem to acknowledge that you know that yoga will help your circulation. What can I say but act accordingly.

Best wishes for your recovery. Once you’re cleared of the thrombotic area then that should remove your risk! There are times when medical science gets it wrong and should be questioned and times when they get it right. This is one of those times where you need to proceed with real caution. Be guided by the people who have their hands on you and who know the situation firsthand.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi everyone

Coconut water is definitely a great thing to have. But I guess it’s also better to have the fresh stuff too. I would be interested to know what nutritional value if any is lost because it has been pasteurized or processed in whatever way and placed in those cartons.

It’s also very expensive in Oz. So it can become a rather expensive habit. I am with Pamela on this one. 😉 Go and buy the unrefined sea salt. It’s inexpensive and is IMHO more beneficial to you! And it’s delicious on food and even a little in your water is very popular. And for those who are responsible for feeding more than just themselves, it’s an inexpensive way to provide these nutrients to the family.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Jeffrey

You can get tremendous benefit from those 4 classes. However …What I want to say is that you just have to stay present with it.

Go to class knowing you have the possibility of doing a second class, but keep in mind that you don’t have to decide until you are at the end of your first class. Don’t make a ‘no matter what’ commitment or you could find yourself ignoring the important signs that you would normally recognize as warning signs to stop etc.

It could be possible as well to think of taking a class in the morning and returning in the afternoon.

Your weekends are also your time. And remember that you must have some recovery time and enjoy yourself and maybe do … well … nothing!

And hey, you may not make a 90 minute class during the week. But what’s to stop you getting up and doing a small set of Pranayama, a Half Moon with Hands to Feet and any other pose or 2. It’s not an all or none thing.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Sarafina

What occurred to me when I read your post (the second one) is that it’s possible that you’re thinking too much in class. I know it’s paramount to get good alignment but is it at all possible to let go and surrender a little? Are you able to cover the basics and then letting your body change at its own schedule?

You can’t make your body change faster than it can. That pain you are getting in your QL region is so familiar to me!

Start with the gross adjustments, work on hips square, shoulders even or whatever it is. On the floor try to lie straight. But then let go and do the pose. Have an awareness of your body in space but don’t try to do too much. You could be setting up too much tension in your strong intention to fix things.

Does that make sense?

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Fonny

Answering the easy question first: Have you tried massage to iron out the muscular knots?

Muscles are rarely ‘all or none’ contraptions. For example just turning on your quadriceps isn’t necessarily going to completely lengthen you hamstrings. Although in the simplest anatomical terms of muscle agonists and antagonists, that is what we’re led to believe. It’s correct in theory but you’re not always at extremes. Take for example balancing on one leg and locking out your knee. That requires quadriceps contraction and therefore you’d get hamstring relaxation. Right? Well not completely. The hamstrings don’t just turn off, because they’re required in maintaining balance.

So I invite you to let go of the minutiae of theory and work with good pose technique. And now that you have the Hot Yoga MasterClass (and I thank you for that!) you can examine the techniques for all the Paschimottanasana poses as a very good starting point.

Online you can also check out the post called Opening Up the Hamstrings in Hot Yoga

Come back and let me know how you go

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Donna

It really depends on the amount of bone density loss and the fragility of the spine. Many people have to be very careful and afford certain movements, others with less severe conditions use yoga and weight bearing exercise to prevent worsening of the condition.

So the questions to you are, what have you been advised? What are you comfortable doing? What’s the severity? Fill me on in more. There is no blanket response.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Jennifer

About 2 months ago you posted a couple of comments and questions that were about your sacrum. There were some questions I had for you in there that you may not have seen because they have not been answered.

So, a couple of things:

Is this problem related to the other question? And what are you visiting the osteopath for this time? That is a very general question you asked and I won’t be able to answer that without knowing a LOT more.

Your osteopath must have a reason why he says you should not do forward bends. But he might mean particular forward bends or poses or it could be that he said ‘don’t do them unless ….’ So what else can you tell me?

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hello Emad, Jeffrey, Cyberry and Pamela

Thanks so much Emad for the detail. You are correct, you really have to do something about this. What you describe is out of the ordinary for sure!

I like to think that people are doing the best they can and that they really DO want to stay in the room for the whole 90 minutes.

The fact that a person leaves and then others follow, to me says that these people could actually have got to a point where they have validated their own feelings simply by acknowledging that someone else is feeling as bad as they are. For some reason they don’t validate their own feelings until they see that someone else has had the courage to get up and walk out. They probably realize that what they’re feeling is not in their imagination and they can finally do what they’re body is telling them to do. They are finally practising yoga and not surrendering to someone else’s will.

OR on the flipside of that you have a whole lot of people who just are wimps. Do you really think that?

Let’s stop for a second and presume one of 2 things. The experience you had was normal for everyone in the room. Either there is a difficulty for the teachers to keep people in the room because of an issue with the way they teach (it could be an issue in being forceful or dogmatic) in trying to KEEP people in the room and not allowing them to leave having the opposite effect.

And believe it or not, the more dogmatic studios are about keeping people from leaving during class the more likely students are going to entertain the idea.

The other thing is that it was literally WAY TOO HOT. I think that studios’ temperatures should really be automatically controlled by thermostats. Once the heat goes on there should be only rare occurrences when the system needs intervention. I think that the teachers should be concerned with the needs of the students and not have the ADDED PRESSURE of being heat monitors. It’s really bad for business and frankly the perception of heat is so subjective that it’s really not fair to expect that the teachers could accurately work out ‘the fix’ to the heat issue.

It starts at studio owner level.

I do believe however as a teacher, if you see one or 2 people lie down or or someone leaves the room and it’s out of the ordinary, it COULD still be warranted to put that down to coincidence and just keep your radar on high alert.

But if a lot of people are sitting down into the second and third poses and people are leaving the room regularly, then there is something wrong. And especially if many people are taking constant breaks. It is definitely not in the nature of people practising hot yoga to willingly and frequently take breaks.

A teacher in that circumstance really has to ask themselves, hey, even check in with the students and find out what they are thinking and feeling about the heat.

I absolutely and thoroughly reject the notion about that comment about the heat and how you should power through it. My goodness, that kind of attitude will one day get someone in a hell of a lot of trouble. To me that doesn’t seem like compassion. And it is putting people’s safety at risk.

I really believe you ought to talk with the studio owner. On the one hand, as I said it is too much pressure to put on the teachers to try and monitor the heat to such a detailed level. The heating system should be accurately measuring the average temperature in the room (not just in one spot) and there should be a humidity gauge in there somewhere.

And teachers should know to what levels these readings should be below to guarantee a consistent environment (of course there will be changing effects due to numbers of people but then when it gets hot the heaters should be cutting out automatically and not controlled by flapping doors open momentarily). And then their attention has to be on the class. So when it does seem that too many people are ‘dropping like flies’ they can do something. What? They could turn off the heaters, turn on some fans, do one set of poses, encourage people to take breaks, get everyone to lie on the floor and take savasana, open the windows… there are things to do, I can’t say what exactly because it’s a hypothetical situation but you can always do something that is safety, respect and compassion driven.

You’re not supposed to be going to yoga emerging with a sense of accomplishment proclaiming, “guess what? I didn’t collapse today, so therefore I powered through it and am so much stronger as a result”. Or come out berating yourself: “I lay down today in class and therefore I am just not strong enough. I really have to work on powering through it so that I can be stronger”. Those ideas within both those utterances do not go together and unfortunately the hot yoga culture often puts them together. In doing so there are judgments made about the ‘kind of person you are’ because you did or didn’t lie down, leave the room, drink water or whatever.

Emad, I am concerned that you had tingling toes and pain. I wonder about your electrolyte levels. And if you ever experience this again (or not) I would encourage you to get a blood work up and just confirm for yourself if everything’s AOK.

The anxiety and other issues could be significant or not. I can’t say if it was a one-off (because that is possible) or whether it had to do with the extreme heat. Has this situation happened since that terrible class?

I don’t think it’s necessary to invalidate your experience to anyone. The heat experience might be subjective but your assessment is based on past experience. Go with that. Deal with it and move forward. But above all, never let your own health and safety be put at risk. I would love to know what the studio owner’s response was when you get a chance.

Geez, that was LONG!

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Jeff

You will always get some benefits. But in order to know if you’re getting the same or similar benefits I would have to ask you exactly what your hips and shoulders are doing when your hands are on your heels. Where is your butt?

The graze on your elbows can be very uncomfortable. What are they contacting? Floor boards, carpet, towel, mat?

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Mairi

I am sure there are thousands who could help with juicing advice. We juice everyday here at our house. Although it takes longer than those you-beaut-lightning-fast juicers that you find at department stores, the one thing that I would recommend is looking at the slow ones that are called masticating juicers. There are 1 and 2 gear varieties. The 1 gear ones are less expensive. You may have heard of Champion or Samson juicers.

I have never used a 2 gear one and can’t give you an appraisal. But the theory behind all slower juicers is that the enzymes in the vegetable and fruit stays active for longer. The faster ones heat the juice through friction and so the juice is less nutritious to start off with, and then it lasts less long.

Of course, if you use organic produce that will be better.

And I have heard (and I as a result I do this) that you should only put in as much apple or pear per person as one would eat in a regular meal. So rather than a big apple juice made of 6 apples or whatever, have an apple juice mixed with vegetables.

That’s enough from me for now. What you juice is up to you. Experiment. I really look forward to my juices every day! You can also juice and add to smoothies for a more filling meal/drink.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Sarafina

I don’t know how I overlooked this one! In the beginning I went 6-8 times per week for about 5 months. I started experiencing pain but the pain I had was never during class. It was more at night time when I was in bed. I found it really hard to turn over in bed without waking up. I actually LOVED that because I had proof positive that something was happening.

So, what I need to know is what sort of pain, where, what triggers it exactly. In order for me to work out what’s going on I really request more details. I need to work out if it’s a problem of technique in your poses and to direct you appropriately!

As far as hyper-extending knees: The imbalance that causes this issue may very well respond to some strengthening exercises. Have you checked out this thread on Hyperextended Knees?

It could have some answers in there for you, and it may help us get closer to what you can specifically do!

Looking forward to hearing from you and sorry for the delay.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Mairi

Cleanses are really a short term solution to a long term problem. Even though you can lose weight on a cleanse the important thing is to examine why you are doing the cleanse.

There are people who eat the way they always eat, go on a cleanse because they think that will reverse the bad things they’ve been doing to their body over the last x number of months.

They eat ‘normally’ (and by normally, I mean their normal habits and doesn’t necessarily mean healthily at all) and then the cleanse and then they return to their normal habits again. It’s as if the cleanse is there to purge their guilt for their bad eating…

If you approach your cleanse in a way that is to rest your system and improve your eating habits afterward then that is obviously better. 😉

But don’t necessarily do it because you want a fast, easy and quick way to lose weight. Actually the opposite can happen. WHAT? Yes, because the most important part of your cleanse is what you do at the other end of it. You must return to normal eating in stages otherwise your body which has been in starvation mode will respond by storing…

Some people like the idea of cleanses that are fasts. They work, but you actually have to work the cleanse not the other way around. It’s an opportunity to be super conscious of your ingestion habits. If you’re doing it with a focus on denial then you would have a harder time.

Hmmmm. That was a little complex. Just my opinion. Not saying good nor bad, but stay mindful!

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂