Suggestibility, personal belongings & dietary fat

Posted in ashtanga yoga, dog! on 03/30/2009 12:53 pm by karen

There is something incredibly delightful about thinking of practice as stretching my nervous system. I am super-sensitive to metaphor and simile, so these kinds of ideas can be very inspiring for me.

This morning: standing poses, half-primary, intermediate to kapotasana, Sweeney ustrasana variations, closing, and a 5 minute savasana. Total time: 60 minutes. Was my nervous system relaxed? Well, kinda. Pretty good for a Monday morning, certainly.

Given my real-life time constraints, I am usually willing to jettison savasana in order to do more poses. Or to give a pup a break. Waylon doesn’t love being in a closed space.

Today, though, The Cop got up early, so set the inmate free. (The Cop now says Waylon’s name with a Cajun accent — something like “Waay-lone” with an almost non-existent French “n.” It is very dear.)

Anyhow, Waylon goes into the crate at yoga time. I put his toys in the crate, and put some peanut butter in a Kong toy and gift him with that, but he pretty much can’t get past the closed door. This morning he stood for long minutes with the peanut-butter-filled Kong in his mouth, facing the door of the crate and willing it to open. It’s a wire crate, and it’s big, so it’s really not at all constricting — but still, he has a problem with the closed door.

He whines a bit, then settles with the Kong, then whines some more, then plays with another toy, whines, plays, whines, paces, whines — you get the picture. After about 30 minutes of that, he usually falls asleep.

But as I mentioned, this morning The Cop rescued him. Waylon happily ditched his crate and followed The Cop into the livingroom. I went on with my practice.

A moment later, Waylon was back. He marched into his crate, picked up one of his toys, and took it into the livingroom. Then he came back, picked up another, and removed it to the livingroom. With great gravity, he marched back for every single toy.

I figured that was it — he’d retrieved his belongings like some angry ex-boyfriend. He was done with me. But no, I looked up a few minutes later and there he was, sitting in his empty crate, door open, gazing at me.

Oh, little buddy! How I love you in these moments. :-)

***

Okay, so my nervous system had its stretch and relax, and I’m also going to factor in an additional suggestion from Sri Narasimhan: dietary fat.

I never hold back on fat (Yay for nuts, avocados and mayonnaise!), but I need to get more conscious about it. I say this because I have incredibly dry skin to begin with, and it’s been especially bad lately.

So I’ll use the CRON-o-meter (which is an excellent little piece of software) to track my fat for a few days and see what’s going on. I’m betting some extra fat will help my skin and make me feel bendier.

Oooh, I think there may be an article for Naive Science Journal a-brewin’!

 

13 Comments

  1. Fat does make you bendier. In Vanessa’s Totally Unscientifical Opinion, of course.

  2. hi Karen
    V’s comment makes me laugh. how about getting a massage? doesn’t it make us bendier also? I love C-O-M and use it daily. it’s so easy to use and you learn a lot about your nutrition with it.
    cheers,
    Arturo

  3. I added everything up last night and came out low on all counts (calories, protein, carbs, fats). In the interest of the dietary fat experiment, I supplemented with a piece of cheese before bed. And I took a vitamin pill, because I was kind of shocked at how lacking my day’s intake turned out to be. I’ll use CRON-o-meter more this week to see if yesterday was just an aberration.

  4. Karen, have you ever practiced yoga nidra? Alfia sent me some mp3s a while back and I’m just starting with them now.

    My skin is so dry these days, too. It’s been three years, but maybe I’m still not adjusted to the low humidity here? I just bought some karite shea butter…maybe I should up my fat intake as well.

    This cron-o-meter is interesting. I’ll need to try that out.

    Kiss Way-lone for me. I LOVE the cop’s cajun stylings on that name… a big smile spread across my face while I was reading that!

  5. um. I don’t think I need to up my fat. I’m almost scared to even look at the CRON-o-meter.
    But I’m always up for a sneak peak at what is about to be published in the Naive Science Journal!

    I’m going to tell my man that I need lots of fudge and chips to make me bendier. You know, from the fat.

    I know, I know.
    not that kind of fat. Let me dream.

  6. ps- that Waylon story was super sweet.

  7. The CRON-o-meter is interesting, for sure. Very educational!

    You know, you joke about the kind of fat you like, Liz, but I did kind of wonder, after reading what Narasimhan said, whether fudge and chips are better than a super-low fat diet. I don’t know the answer, but surely you can research and submit and article to the journal… :-)

  8. Oh, and Joy, I have Swami Satyananda Saraswati’s book “Yoga Nidra” due to arrive this afternoon. I am very curious to read it. I’ve read more about Tibetan dream practices — not sure how or why I overlooked the Indian yoga nidra. I’ve been a little stymied by the Tibetan stuff, always bumping up against a point where I think: “Gee, this all seems so odd and exotic!” But Indian practices seem perfectly normal. Go figure.

  9. I don’t believe in low fat diets. There, I said it. They make skin dry and brittle and are particularly bad for women. Again, this is all just my opinion. Also, I heard someone in Mysore say that ghee is very important when you are learning Second series (this is in the context of studying in Mysore) because your nerves get all stretched and the fat in the ghee helps repair them. Never found out if this has any scientific validity or not, but I can testify that when I’m doing Second regularly, not only I get much hungrier, but I desperately crave oil. Speaking of which, it’s time to eat fried eggs on spelt bread. Yum.

  10. I have many articles to submit to The Journal.
    I’ve never believed in any low fat diet. On a serious note- I’m talking about good fats, of course, not Krispie Kream fats! Your body needs it! And it’s tasty.

  11. The need to repair my nerves.. hmmm, I guess that explains my cravings for brazil nuts (coated in sugary carob to make palatable), sushi, goat cheese and putting hummous on everything :)

  12. My skin’s dry too though, but I thought it was just ageing..

  13. I read an article that talked about good moisturizers, and it mentioned three ingredients a moisturizer should have: glycerin, hyaluronic acid and dimethicone. It took me a while, but I managed to find one at Whole Foods. And it really seems to help.

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