Improving Immunity via Yoga
Given the drastic rise of covid-19, I wanted to share a quick story on how I’ve managed to improve my immune system over the past 3 years.
In the past I would get sick 3–5 times per year, through various forms of viruses and infections (cold, flu, sinus, ears, etc.). Each one would knock me out for a week or two, and linger on for weeks thereafter.
I changed a few things in my life that have helped drastically through various forms of advice:
- Don’t let allergies turn into colds. An ENT specialist suggested over the counter Pepcid-AC whenever I start to have allergy symptoms. It has helped quite a bit.
- Flu shots. I never used to get flu shots. Now I do each October.
- Yoga. Lots and lots of yoga. I used to do crossfit or weight lifting, and then would do maybe one day a week of yoga. I was more of a dabbler and had some some yoga for about 7 years, enough to understand it, but not enough to really feel a major impact. I was always sore from working out. I decided to flip this around and turn yoga into my primary workout form, as in 1–3 hours per day.
Since these changes, at most I’ve had minor cold symptoms for 1–2 days, as my body suppresses and fights things off. If I feel a cold I might take a zinc + vitamin C lozenge, and I’m ready to attack it further if it gets out of hand, but so far that hasn’t happened. It’s been a drastic and dramatic shift for me.
Event with social distancing, there’s still a decent chance you may catch covid-19. If you’re constantly finding yourself getting sick, maybe it’s time to try something different.
For me, nothing beats the energy of an excellent in-person yoga class, so much that I started teaching yoga for fun at a local gym during my spare time.
Unfortunately it’s now become nearly impossible to do an in-person yoga class. There are many great options for online yoga, and I follow some of these classes. But I also want to make sure I keep doing yoga and keep teaching and sharing it, so I’ve started a YouTube channel where I’ll be livestreaming and sharing recordings of each yoga set I do. The format will be rather informal… you may see my family or pets run across the screen. I’m doing this not for perfection, but to share my practice and you’re welcome to follow along live or at your own pace. And it will all be offered for free with the goal of helping us stay connected and keeping our immune systems strong.
Yoga was never easy for me. It was a significant challenge to get to where I am with my practice today. My hope is to have something approachable, clear, and perhaps slightly humorous, helping you with your practice, or just helping you feel less isolated by doing yoga from home with someone you know.
There is a very low key mailing list where I’ll send out updates. And there’s a Google Calendar you may subscribe to to learn when the next live classes will occur. I may ask some of my yogi friends to share some of their favorite sequences as well if there’s interest.
During the livestream and recordings, I cannot share music due to copyright rules, so you may listen to one of my spotify yoga playlists if you’d like.
Upcoming Schedule:
(all times Pacific Daylight / Mountain Standard Time):
Thursday, March 19th
- Vinyasa flow sequence — 11:30am
- Restorative/gentle sequence — 7:30pm
Friday, March 20th
- Vinyasa flow sequence — 7:30am
- Vinyasa flow sequence (wall work at the end) — 5:30pm
Saturday, March 21st
- Vinyasa flow sequence — 10:30am
Sunday, March 22nd
- Vinyasa flow sequence — 8:30am
- Gentle vinyasa flow sequence — 10:30am
Note that the livestream will commence ~5 minutes prior to the posted start time. Classes will run approximately 1 hour, perhaps a few moments longer.
If you have a mat, great, if not, just find a carpeted service. If you have blocks, great, if not, maybe a foam roller or thick pillow.
The classes each day will be my yoga sequence for that day. There will be similarity across days as I have a consistent foundation I follow, with some variation each day.
My style is fairly deliberate, starting with waking up the spine and moving from there. The vinyasa flow sequence (with or without wall work) will typically be the most challenging, the gentle classes will be less ambitious, and the restorative/gentle sequences will be closer to restorative or yin style practices, but do not strictly follow the guidelines of these practices. If you don’t know what any of that means, don’t worry, just show up and bring an open mind.
There’s zero pressure, you don’t need to be perfect, you can just lie down for an hour and listen along. Do what’s right for you at that moment. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.
