Happy Friday everybody, I wanted to share that no matter what my step meter says with zero intensity minutes
measured all week ;) that I have been working out every day. This has been my
first week of the 3-Week Yoga Retreat that I've been doing online from
Beachbody on Demand and it's been amazing.
Most people know that yoga can help you relax and
increase flexibility- within the first four days this week I was already getting
deeper into stretches and felt so much more flexible. The direction given by
the trainers is so precise that I have made little adjustments to poses that I
have been doing wrong for years. I've been getting deeper stretches; I've been
feeling less pressure in my lower back as I'm learning to even breathe more
correctly in order to support my lower back. I have always suffered from low
back problems until I found PiYo but this yoga retreat has been amazing for my back:
it hasn't even been cracking at all in the morning or feeling tight at all.
Another thing I know people don't like to talk about, but
yoga has helped my digestion amazing even more than the added bonus than having
my daily Shakeology with the digestive enzymes and probiotics and all that good
stuff. I did some Googling and I didn't realize that so many yoga poses with
the twisting and the concentration on your core and your breathing really help
loosen up your intestines and get everything moving so there's no stagnation or
no uncomfortable feelings or anything like that.
I have also noticed since I wear a Garmin Vivofit all the
time is that my sleep graphs in the morning have been really different: it seems
like there's a lot more dark blue (deep sleep) on my graphs every morning as
opposed to light blue (light sleep). I am a numbers nerd, so I went through the
9 nights that I have been doing the Yoga Retreat so far and then I did the same
number of nights before I started. I wrote down the amount of deep sleep and
total sleep that my Garmin has telling me I've been getting.
I had been averaging 9 hours and 15 minutes of sleep in
the 9 nights leading up to my yoga program and I was spending 23% percent of
that in deep sleep (2 hours, 11 minutes) each night. Since I started the Yoga
Retreat, I've actually only been averaging 9 hours of sleep a night (I had
bible study, girls night, and have been up late watching the Cubs in the
playoffs). So I’ve actually been getting less sleep per night then before the
yoga program but I have been spending 29% of my night in deep sleep, which
works out to 2 hours and 45 minutes. This means I've been getting less sleep
overall but I have been getting half an hour more of deep sleep at night!!
Deep sleep is so important to your physical health, your
mental health, and to your whole body because that's when your body regenerates.
Deep sleep is when things get moved from short-term to long-term memory; it's when
your muscles rebuild themselves; it's really where you just get reset for the
next day. The fact that I have been sleeping less but been getting more deep
sleep has been such an added gift that this program has given me…in addition to
the better digestion, in addition to the less tightness in my lower back, in
addition to the increased flexibility, in addition to not just the less tightness
in my back but I feel taller and lengthened.
That is an amazing benefit of yoga: you feel just stretched out and you don't
feel as so compressed and tense.
Oh, and more deep sleep means that I have had more energy
during the day it's just one of the greatest things that I think Beachbody has
come out with because anyone can do this! The fact that it is free is totally
amazing. If you want to try this yoga program, it takes 21 days and no more
than 30 minutes a day (the weekends are actually shorter)- it's totally free
with your trial of Beachbody on Demand. If you have never tried yoga before, you
should give it a try! It's going to help you sleep better; it's going to help you
de-stress; it's going to help your energy, your digestion…everything! It's not
got some of the Eastern religion connotations or weird music to it, it's just
stripped down simple basic yoga and it's going to make you feel great.
I had been looking for a low-impact program to continue
on from Country Heat and this program fit the bill for me. If you want to learn
more about it or if you want to keep following my journey please stay tuned and
make sure you are following my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/boeknowscleanliving
