"Hot Yoga Can Kill You," and Other Funny Stories
"She was the healthiest person I know.
"She did hot yoga three times every week. She meditated every day. She ate organic vegetables, gave up red meat. She wouldn't even talk to a smoker, and to her, drinking meant water...and then, she died."
Let's say this once and for all: you will die. I will die. Everyone you know will die.
Even if you do hot yoga.
A New York Times article suggested that yoga is responsible for everything from slipped disks to fatal strokes. Should you worry? Actually, that New York Times article on the "dangers of yoga" made me laugh. Here's why...
1. Like to exercise? YOU WILL DIE.
Do you prefer a leisurely walk? Well... if you don’t get your heart rate to 96 percent capacity for fourteen minutes, eight times in a 15-day cycle, YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.
Ready to trade Twinkies for tofu, Coca Cola for green smoothies, red meat for red beet juice? Good for you; you're about to feel a whole lot better. And guess what...YOU ARE STILL GOING TO DIE.
Before you run off screaming, "I should just smoke crack and eat Big Macs!" remember this: we are all going to die. But that's the best reason to do what makes you feel fully alive. Right now.
2. So many stories, so little time...
People connect their injuries and illness to all kinds of crazy causes.
"I was taking out the trash just like I do everyday, when I fell on a crack in the sidewalk....."
"I was just raking leaves when I leaned over to get a better grip on the handle, and my back froze!"
"My expensive new vacuum cleaner sucked my arm up into the hose....”
Does this mean you should stop taking out the trash? Never lean over again? Let the dust become thick as fog?
Everyday items can be involved in your catastropic injury. It doesn't necessarily mean these innocent items are to blame.
And neither are you.
On the other hand - you do have a measure of control over how you feel about it all. For instance, have you ever been flat on your back and suddenly gotten a text from the hot guy you dated last weekend, and felt miraculously cured?
Injury and illness are complex subjects with a strong emotional component. And who is in charge of your emotions? That would be you.
Of course, people get hurt. And sick. In yoga, on their front porches, out walking the dog. And they get over it. In three weeks, three years, three minutes. And they still vacuum and rake leaves and walk the dog....and do yoga.
Injury and healing are two sides of the coin. You may draw a lot of faulty conclusions trying to figure out the root of it all. Perhaps it's best just do what feels better and know that means you're headed in the direction of, well, feeling better.
3. Stranger than fiction.
“A college student, after more than a year of doing yoga, decided to intensify his practice. He decided to sit upright on his heels in a kneeling position known as Vajrasana for hours each day, chanting and breathing deeply. Soon he began experiencing difficulty walking, running and climbing stairs.”
Duh. Come on, folks. Use common sense and avoid making faulty assumptions.
4. Was it you or was it yoga?
The NY Times articles cites, "a woman who did wheel pose, came down hard on her head, and hours later had a stroke."
When a stroke occurs, it isn't likely that the moment of the stroke is the actual cause of the stroke. If wrong moves in yoga class are so dangerous, thousands of people all over the world would be having strokes every day.
Medical doctors recognize that there is always an underlying reason for an acute illness; strokes don't usually happen overnight. If a stroke follows trauma to the head...well, that could set it off, certainly.
Avoid head trauma during yoga or just any old time.
5. Bad yoga teacher, bad yoga teacher!
Can your yoga teacher hurt you?
There are bad teachers. And bad policemen. Bad psychologists. Bad dry cleaners. Bad restaurants.
Overall, in my 40 years of practicing yoga, I've had very few yoga teachers I would consider "bad." And I’d still rather go to a bad yoga class than a bad movie. It's more relaxing.
6. Breathe and reboot
What’s wrong with yoga is not yoga.
To quote the Bhagavad Gita, yoga is "[o]ffering inhaling breath into the outgoing breath, and offering the outgoing breath into the inhaling breath."
Yoga is breathing.
The first and last parts of hot yoga are Pranayama breathing and Kaphalbhati breathing. In between the poses there is Savasana with deep breathing. During the poses there are instructions to inhale and exhale in Ujayi (Darth Vader) breath.
Breathing is yoga.
Enjoy your hot yoga, especially when it's challenging (that is the best time to feel the power of it).
If you love how you feel during and after hot yoga, do it as often as you like. Exploring what makes you love your life may just be worthwhile doing while you're alive....just in case The New York Times is right about this whole death thing.
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
Reader Comments (10)
This is so funny and another great reason why we maybe shouldn't take the news so seriously. I think people create truths in their heads and sometimes the News is just silly. I once broke arm riding on my sister's bike ( I was 7. It had training wheels. ) I think next time I may come to class in bubble wrap.
Oh no, not bubble wrap...plastic will kill you!
It's really funny to think about... I love talking to people about being so hyperconscious because I see such things within myself. Food will kill you, Meat is bad, Sugar is bad.... Talking to people is bad, Not talking to people is bad. Blah Blah Blah. I think sometimes maybe what I see is becoming so phobic and it becomes so much more stressful like you said. We Are going to Die. Yay. That's really cool because now we can go to yoga and eat ice cream anyway.
Today I read a study that said sitting will kill you. No kidding....sitting! I wonder if the researchers were sitting when they conducted this study...
I also read the sitting article! Have we become such an advanced society that we're starting to think about how leisure can kill us?
I like hot yoga because of the realities it reminds me of: it's hot when your air isn't air conditioned, you'll be ok if you sleep on the floor without the padding of a bed, sweat is actually good for you, drink water when you can and as often as you can, when you relax you should truly let the tension go.
Don't come to class in bubble wrap, the rest of our lives are all ready so wrapped up!
A student in hot yoga class this past Sunday had a powerful reaction AFTER class ended; sitting in her car, her arm became stiff and she felt unable to move; her fist was clenched in pain. She became panicky and had trouble breathing. We worried she might be having a heart attack with these symptoms. Later, at the hospital, she checked out fine; after being given IV fluids she was told that she was suffering from heat exhaustion. To be honest, heat exhaustion happens in the presence of too much heat and too little hydration and is often characterized by lack of sweating, very red skin, disorientation, fainting...while in the heat, not afterwards. She exhibited none of these. Nevertheless, after IV fluids she felt better - and she texted me that she would return to hot yoga shortly. I would always recommend a visit with your healthcare practitioner after an episode that involved pain or something worse - but what good is adding fear to the mix, especially if it keeps you from something you love to do? How much does fear add to the problem? How many ailments are we told to "watch out for" and "prepare to face" without considering if the fear itself is a major part of the problem? Healthier perhaps be someone who won't be stopped by a bad moment....or even a had diagnosis - in hot yoga or in life.
Listen, I was told at a younger age that I would on medication or be a size 26 forever. I was told that x , y, and z would always happen... Why? Because that's the way it was. And I thought this way with everything from heart disease and weight to family problems. I think sometimes "we" and when I say "we" I really mean myself is continuously looking for something to fear. I notice in in the studio when my brain wants jabber on about something. It's eye opening. I never had anything to be afraid of.
Fear, like everything else, is a self-fulfilling prophesy: what you fear is what you attract - especially because fear is SUCH a powerful emotion and the emotional component of your feelings is what makes them even more "attractive." So if you did stay on medication and remain a size 26 forever, those who told you so would say, "See, I told you so..." when it was their planting this seed that you watered with your attention that MADE it so.
Glad you proved them wrong!
Yeah, fear is a silly thing. Kind of like a unflattering dress that points to all your no no zones and says "HERE. LOOK HERE." I've been reading alot of good quotes about fear in Autobiography lately. Sometimes, you really got to look into the layers of what worries you... and not necessarily figure out why but looking them in the face really helps me. And then I find everything that was oh so scary was only monsters under the bed.
That's one way Alex .... I personally find looking away from what I fear works better for me. Today I felt all sorts of fear about missing my rise to Squamish and being stranded here in van Couver... Then I remembered to look towards what I do want and get into that feeling place and afterwards I calmed down - a real physical relax- and remembered that everything is always working out for me.