Health, Beauty and Fitness

Health, Beauty and Fitness Everyday Yoga for Everyone

GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM WITH BOAT POSE

Navasana or Boat Pose is an intermediate hatha yoga pose that is excellent for strengthening the core muscles. This pose also strengthens the muscles of the lower back, the hip flexors and the muscles of the pelvic floor, and stimulates the abdominal organs, improving the functioning of the digestive system. The following versions of Boat Pose increase in difficulty. The first three are variations of Ardha Navasana (Half Boat Pose) and the fourth is Paripurna Navasana (Full Boat Pose). Build up gradually, easing into the posture and letting the muscles relax as much as possible. Keep your focus on where your body contacts the floor as this will help to maintain your balance and focus. Try to remain in the pose for a round of 5 slow and even breaths. Choose your favourite river and imagine floating along on a lovely sunny day.

VERSION 1: 1. Sit with your knees bent, legs together, and feet flat on the floor.

by Rebecca Novick backs of your knees to support the pose so that the arms are straight. 7. Lift the sternum towards the ceiling to elevate the spine. 8. Balance on the ‘tripod’ of your sit bones and tailbone.

VERSION 3: Perform the same steps as 1-8 of VERSION 2, then: 9. Once you feel stable, slowly release your hands from behind the knees and extend your arms out straight parallel to the floor, palms facing inwards so that the hands end up either side of your knees. 10. Keep your gaze fixed on your big toes to keep your head at the correct elevation. In this version of Navasana, the arms and shins are in line, parallel to the floor.

2. Slide your hands a little behind your hips, fingers pointing toward the feet and elbows bent away from you. 3. Lean back slightly without rounding the back and lift your heels an inch or two off the floor. 4. Draw your shoulder blades together by rolling the shoulders back to lift and open your chest. 5. Inhale, and lift your legs higher off the ground until your shins are parallel to the floor. 6. Lift the sternum towards the ceiling to elevate the spine. 7. Balance on the ‘tripod’ of your sit bones and tailbone.

VERSION 2: 1. Sit with your knees bent, legs together, and feet flat on the floor. 2. Slide your hands a little behind your hips, fingers pointing toward your feet and elbows bent away from you. 3. Lean back slightly without rounding the back and lift your heels an inch or two off the floor. 4. Draw your shoulder blades together by rolling your shoulders back to lift and open your chest. 5. Inhale and lift your legs higher off the ground so that your shins are parallel to the floor. 6. Now lift the hands off the ground and slip them behind the VERSION 4: Paripurna Navasana (Full Boat Pose) After you have mastered Version 3, you can deepen the posture even further to perform Full Boat Pose. Slip your hands behind your knees for support and slowly begin to straighten your legs through the heels until they are at a 45-degree angle to the floor and your whole body makes a V shape. Release the hands and bring the arms straight out, palms inwards. The eye line will now be at the middle of your shins. Be careful not to round the back. Too often we focus excessively on straightening the legs at the expense of an upright torso and straight spine. Full Boat Pose takes more balance and makes the core and lower back muscles work harder. This version of Navasana is quite a bit more advanced than Version 3, so I recommend gradually building up your core muscles with the other versions. For info on private classes and breathing courses contact rebecca@yourgroundyoga.com

Respect yourself, explore yourself.

Rebecca

For info on private classes and courses, please email rebecca@yourgroundyoga.com

Health Matters

by Sue Lennon

Hi, I’m Sue Lennon, an ex-Macmillan nurse from the North of England. I’ve been living in France for 6 years already (time truly does fly!). I’m registered under the ME regime with a few strings to my bow, all under the umbrella of health. I’ve been invited to write a series of articles in the DSM that are health related, educational and, where possible, a bit light-hearted. Tony suggested I start by introducing myself, so this is me.

I had a 28 years career working in cancer care, finishing my career in Harrogate, where I worked for 14 years as a Macmillan Nurse. My role was to support people with urological malignancies through their cancer journeys from diagnosis, through the information gathering and treatment decision making process, recovery and on to long-term follow up or sadly for some, on to palliative care. I ran a nurse-led follow up clinic for men with prostate cancer and started a very successful support group for these men and their partners and was “... only the beginning part of a multi-professional team that developed and delivered lots of of what has turned innovative services. out to be an incredible It was early on in my time in Harrogate that I realised that no one career adventure .....” was really talking to patients about the impact of urological cancer (or cancer treatment) on sex lives, despite the huge body of evidence that demonstrates the potentially catastrophic effects on sexual function, fertility and relationships. I decided to change that and was funded by Macmillan Cancer Support to train as a psychosexual therapist (and a nonmedical prescriber) and two years later launched a sexual rehabilitation service for oncology patients. Of course, it didn’t end there – in fact that was only the beginning of what has turned out to be an incredible career adventure that has taken me around Europe speaking at numerous nursing conferences, writing patient support booklets, recording podcasts and guesting on webinars, as well as seeing clients of course. In the early days, other departments in the hospital discovered that oncology had this new sex therapy service and I started getting requests to see people following heart attacks and strokes, people who had had bowel surgery, especially those who had an ‘ostomy’ (a bag for their poo or wee), diabetics, amputees and people with spinal cord injury. So, these days I run an online rehab psychosexual therapy service for people who are suffering the sexual consequences of a life changing illness or spinal cord injury and who want to recover that aspect of their life. That is my main job. My clients find me in many different ways, sometimes through charities such as the Cauda Equina Champions Charity (who fund 6 sessions of therapy for their members who need help), some through compensation lawyers after trauma that caused a Spinal Injury, some through specialist nurses or physiotherapists or simply through social media that links to my website. The second part of my job is the educational component. Its pretty common for health care staff to say that they don’t really know how to deal with ‘those issues’, that they are afraid of embarrassing themselves and / or their patients and its so awkward that they just avoid the subject, so I get involved in all sorts of teaching linked with assessing and addressing the sexual impact of disease. Along with a colleague I’ve delivered workshops at every spinal unit in the UK and will be ‘Zooming’ education to specialist nurses in Oz soon! Linked with this is writing. I’m not a professional author but I write a blog for my website, and I really like the process of putting together something that, hopefully, someone somewhere in the world will find useful or thought-provoking. I’ve written on subjects from Menopause to Inflammatory Bowel Disease and I thought ‘If I’m writing anyway, why not try and contribute something to The DSM readership community?!’ And now this is the disclaimer bit. I’m not a doctor, my clinical practice is now 6 years out of date and I am VERY aware of that. Nor am I an expert on every aspect of health care in France but I will try to find out! My goal with my articles is to empower people, to encourage folks to develop a good therapeutic relationship with their doctor and seek their advice or reassurance when required. Nothing I write can be a replacement for that! See you next month! Sue.

Since moving to France (and especially due to the pandemic) my work changed enormously. No more travel to nursing events for starters and having to work differently means that new IT skills allow for such a lot of my work being done over Zoom, but that’s fine by me as it allows me to stay in France, with the added bonus of it being better for the planet!

TAKE A BREAK - SOLUTIONS - PAGES 26 - 27

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Sudoku:

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Toughie Crossword ("Anagrams")

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CONNECT FOUR :

Q1. Prime Numbers Q2. Elements associated with above prime numbers Q3. US Presidents associated with above prime numbers Q4. Above prime numbers in Binary

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