YOGA/WINTER

Winter Yoga

It’s important to remember that winter is not a time to stop your yoga practise – it’s time to adjust your practise in accordance with the season.

Winter has arrived! The Kapha dosha (energy that defines a person’s makeup) dominates with its characteristics of coolness, dampness, heaviness and sluggishness. In the colder months the natural instinct is to rug up in front of a fireplace and hide away from the winter weather – the desire to hibernate. A nice but unrealistic notion, we have to keep moving, life demands it.

You can’t escape the changing seasons; you still have to function and go about your daily life regardless of the weather. You can partially withdraw from life over winter but to do so you have to live an artificial life, fake heating, fake lighting, eating unseasonal foods, the list goes on.

The recent covid lockdowns and mandatory quarantine have highlighted the adverse effects of isolation and the loss of community on mental health.

What is required is an innovative approach to yoga movement. A winter practise helps you keep warm, muscles in motion produce heat in the body when they contract and extend, the process of converting chemical energy to mechanical energy produces heat, this increases the flow of blood through your body, which keeps you warm. The human body is designed to move. It heals, repairs and functions at its optimum through movement. When a person becomes sedentary every physiological process is adversely affected. Patients who have hip and knee replacements are up on their feet and moving 24 hours post-surgery.

Intelligent yoga movement will help prevent muscular-joint pain and stiffness, your immune system remains strong and combined with a healthy diet helps prevent the usual winter illnesses. As soon as mobility is lost, wellness declines.

Have you noticed how people walk around in contracted bodies during winter, shoulders hunched, upper backs rounded and arms wrapped across their chests all in an effort to maintain body heat. This “closed” gesture affects function through poor posture and at a deeper level prevents the flow of subtle energy throughout the body causing a decline in function and wellness.

Dull, gloomy and cold weather might make you feel low and lethargic but there’s nothing more uplifting and mood changing than your regular yoga practise. There is a science behind the sequencing of your yoga class, hopefully you’re noticing that your practise has been altered to cater for the change in season. An intelligent and well-structured yoga sequence is easy to maintain in winter or any other time of the year if you’re motivated. Avoid set yoga sequences, it makes sense that the seasons have changed so why would you practice the same sequence all year round. Avoid artificially excessively heated or cooled practice areas, all that does is confuses the body’s natural cooling and heating systems.

You can stay strong and healthy if you keep moving and don’t allow the cold weather to hinder your practise. We offer a zoom class option as well but don’t forget the importance of “community” and being part of your yoga tribe, come to the studio and you’ll benefit from the collective energy.

Stay warm, keep moving and be gentle with yourselves.

John Wilson – Principal teacher and founder of Peninsula Yoga on Gnostic. www.peninsulayogacentre.com.au