Benefits of Yoga: A youthful spine

camel pose: ustrasana

"You're only as young as your spine is flexible." I'm not sure who said this, but it makes sense when you think about how much we rely on our backbone. Our spine is flexing and contracting with almost every move we make.

According to CBS News, eight out of ten Americans will experience debilitating back pain sometime in their lives. Additionally, more than 1.2 million Americans undergo spinal surgery each year. That's more than TRIPLE the number of coronary by-pass surgeries (415,000), and nearly FOUR TIMES the number of hip replacements (327,000).

The most common culprit of back pain, is believed to be related to the gelatinous disks which cushion the vertebrae.  "I think most people would think it's the inter-vertebral discs, whether it's herniated or whether it's just worn and arthritic and associated with pain," said Dr. Augustus White, a professor at Harvard Medical School.

In the adult body, these inter-vertebral discs have no blood supply of their own, but instead rely on nearby vessels to nourish them. With normal aging, the limited supply of blood flow diminishes and the discs gradually dry out and become thinner. Dry and thin discs become rigid, causing in pain and injury along the spine.

Enter Yoga. Yoga has long claimed that all its bendy, stretchy, and twisty poses are good for your spine.  In  2011, a scientific study examined such declarations and found that yoga can, in fact, counteract deterioration of inter-vertebral discs. The 2011 study involved a group of 36 participants, who were each examined by a team of physicians in Taiwan. "Half [of the participants] had taught Hatha yoga for at least 10 years, and the other half were judged to have exhibited good health. The two groups showed no statistical difference by age or sex. The physicians then scanned all the spines and carefully inspected the discs for signs of damage. The results, the team wrote, showed that yoga teachers had 'significantly less' degenerative disease then the control group."

"Why? The physicians suggested that spinal flexing may have caused more nutrients to diffuse into the disks. Another possibility, they wrote, was that the repeated tension and compression of the disks stimulated the production of growth factors that limited aging" (Broad, 41).

Science is beginning to catch up to what yogi's have known for years.

References:

Chin-Ming Jeng, Tzu-Chieh Cheng, Ching-Huei Kung, et al., "Yoga and Disc Degenerative Disease in Cervical and Lumbar Spine: An MR Imaging-based Case Control Study," European Spine Journal, vol. 20, no. 3 (March 2011), pp. 408-13.

Broad, William J. (2012) The Science of Yoga. New York, NY: Simon & Shuster.

Photo credit: Lauren

teeki: Cyber Tuesday

Ganesha's Dream Hot Pant (teeki.com)

Happy late Thanksgiving everyone! I had a great holiday spending time with my family and my adorable 6 month old niece. I avoided being on-line and shopping of any kind!

In case you missed the Cyber Monday deals like I did, you can still nab some of  teeki's fabulous yoga pants made-from-recycled plastic-water-bottles, on-sale today.

teeki has extended Cyber Monday to Cyber Tuesday-- offering 25% off the entire site. Check out their sale and newly launched web site here.

Feel Cool in Chikum Athletic Wear

Yoga class today, was hot. Uber hot. I don't know if it was because it was a little cooler outside today (the weather actually resembled something other than summer), but my yoga instructor cranked the heat in class. I felt a little nauseous. My mascara was burning my eyes because I was sweating a constant deluge down my face... it was a difficult practice. Thanks for listening. Maybe I will be more diligent about washing my make-up off before class. Eh, probably not.

So anyway, right now these itty bitty yoga clothes from Chikum look really appealing. Their shorts remind me of Wonder Woman's shorts.

I think I could pretend I was Wonder Woman in my next hot yoga class with these shorts. Not only would I feel cooler temperature wise, I would feel cooler in my imagination. The  Zed Shorts are even named after a quote from Pulp Fiction. Looking like Wonder Woman and named after a Quentin Tarantino movie? That's about as cool as a pair of shorts can be, really.

Zaardula Shorts

Zed Shorts

meSheeky, not for the sweaty.

meSheeky's ODETTE capri

I ordered these capri pants from meSheeky. I kept trying to find some cute yoga pants online, and whenever I found a pair I liked, they were always out of stock in my size. This brand had my size in lots of colors, so I was pretty happy I had found them.

I liked meSheeky's website.. they have cute designs and great photos. They also have amazing customer service. I wrote them a note with a question about where their pants are manufactured, and they replied right back to me a couple hours later (they are made in Hong Kong at a factory that also produces Lululemon apparel).

Anyhoo, I got the pants and was disappointed. The material is not soft. It's kinda picky and rough, and doesn't feel cool on the skin, more like suffocating. The cut of the pants is also odd. They fit comfortably in the glutes and thighs, but are really tight around my calves. This is strange because I have proportionally small calves... I've always wished they were bigger. I ordered these in the berry color shown above. When I wore them in class, it was a little embarrassing, I have to say. When I was sweating, the sweaty spots on my legs turned the fabric a much darker color, so all my sweat spots, especially the crotch, were very obvious.

This is a bummer. I thought I found a source of cute pants readily available in my size besides the usual Lululemon. Also, I can't return the pants now that I wore them. Sorry, meSheeky, I wish I had better things to say about your pants. You have great customer service!