Conscious Choice Seattle: Power to the Posture

September 2005 | Cover Report

Power to the Posture

Overcoming clinical depression or simply beating the blues can be an overwhelming prospect. Yoga can come to the rescue.

By Bob Condor

“Yoga cultivates your witness consciousness. It allows you to observe yourself on the mat. You aren’t numbing out or going into default mode by watching overworking, watching TV or reaching for the alcohol or carbs.” —Amy Weintraub, instructor and author

“Yoga has helped me turn the corner. I haven’t been on meds for three years.” —Teresa Luttrell, yoga enthusiast

It never fails. When yoga instructor Shannon Cumming mentions certain breathing exercises and postures as effective for lifting depression, heads pop up all over the room.
“I will say, ‘This is taken from the book, “Yoga for Depression” and people’s will look me straight in the eyes,’ ”says Cumming, who teaches introductory classes and manages the 8 Limbs Yoga Center in West Seattle. “I would say it catches the attention of about 80 percent of the class every time I mention it.”

That would be pretty every time Cumming teaches. She says she believes there are “many people suffering on one level or another.”

Who’s to argue? The statistics on depression are staggering; just how many millions of Americans are affected depends on who is estimating (watch out for pharmaceutical company perspectives) and what you define as depression.

Here’s one thing certain about depression: It is both the most overmedicated and least diagnosed illness in this country.

“I used to be a bit shy about mentioning depression in yoga class,” recalls Cumming. “But not any more. It is just too powerful for helping people.”

Cumming changed her mindset last fall when attending an 8 Limbs workshop conducted by Amy Weintraub, author of the 2004 book, “Yoga for Depression: A Compassionate Guide to Relieve Suffering Through Yoga” (Broadway Books, $14.95). Weintraub’s book and a CD of breathing exercises (called “Breathe to Beat the Blues”) have provided both personal and professional inspiration for Cumming.

“I really liked three to four of the breathing exercises,” says Cumming. “I do them every day at home and include them in my classes.

Wakeup call

Cumming performs the breathing workout when she awakes each day at her south Seattle home. The whole thing takes maybe five minutes and makes a “big difference” in my day.
One example: Cumming performs what Weintraub labels “breath to fortify the nerves” (Right, I thought the same thing, sure could use that). You start in a standing position with your feet parallel and one fist’s width apart for stability. Draw your tailbone down. Lift your shoulders up to your ears, take in a breath, make fists of your hands, tighten the muscles of your face, hold the breath.

Squeeze all of the tension into a little ball at the back of your neck. Hold for as long as you can.

“I have actually worked my way up to 70 seconds,” says Cumming. “I’ve been doing the exercise for a year.”

Next, release the breath through your mouth, sighing out the tension, the “to do’s” on your list, the obsessive little thoughts, the expectations for how you’re supposed to act. Let them go.

Pause and notice where you are feeling open and relaxed. Notice there may still be tension and discomfort in some parts of your body.

Then stretch your arms out in front of your waist, palms face up. Inhale and make fists of your hands. While holding the breath, pump your fists back toward your waist. Exhale and relax. Close your eyes and feel the effects of the breathing exercise. Repeat a second time.

“These breathing exercises clear my head,” explains Cumming, 32, who started yoga six years ago. “I can wake up sort of numb and I am more clouded and detached when I don’t do the exercises.”

’Life was meaningless’

For her part, Weintraub came to yoga 20 years ago. She was living in Rhode Island and regularly seeing a psychiatrist. She recalls feeling her life was meaningless.
“You’re one of those people who will always have empty pockets,” her psychiatrist told her one cold, gray November afternoon.

“I visualized myself, like Virginia Woolf, filling those empty pockets with stones and stepping into the river,” says Weintraub. Until she found her way to a yoga class at the Kripalu Center in Lenox, Mass., Weintraub didn’t dispute her psychiatrist’s words or her prescription for antidepressant medications.

Here’s what shook Weintraub loose. In that first class, the teacher asked the students to place their hands in a prayer position in front of their hearts.

“Take a deep breath in,” said the teacher, “and fill your heart with light. Hold the breath and feel the light as healing energy expands through your chest and whole body. Exhale and open your palms to receive. Stay empty. God loves your empty hands.”

This time, it was Weintraub’s head popping up. She speculated her “empty pockets” meant she had “more room for the divine inside me.”

Weintraub’s mental fog didn’t lift in that one day. But yoga and her subsequent decision to become an instructor opened a new world for her. She now travels the country leading workshops and teacher trainings on yoga for depression. Her 8 Limbs Yoga Center workshop is Sept. 11 at the Capitol Hill location (check out www. 8limbsyoga.com or call 206-325-8221 for more information).

Yoga is effective for lifting depression and beating the blues for two primary reasons, says Weintraub.

“First, you are focusing on the breath,” she explains. “Lots of us walk around with our shoulders slumped and taking shallow breaths. Yoga reverses that. It gets more oxygen to the brain and blood to the lungs.”

A quick note: Some yoga classes and disciplines are more physical than wholistic. Instructors who incorporate breathing exercises will be most valuable if lifting depression is your goal.

In her book and on her Web site (www. yogafordepression.com), Weintraub provides plentiful research citations on why yogic breathing can significantly enhance emotional and mental outlooks. She makes a scientific case for how yoga can positively change our body chemistry—and allow people to gradually wean off drugs. The second reason why yoga works so well for depression is harder to measure and quantify.

“When you are practicing awareness of your breath and how your body feels during poses, it cultivates your ‘witness consciousness,’ ” says Weintraub. “It allows you to observe yourself on the mat. You aren’t numbing out or going into default mode by watching overworking, watching TV or reaching for the alcohol or carbs.”

The result, says Weintraub, is you can become “less reactive” in everyday stressful situations.

Drilling deep

Yoga’s deepest value comes from making it a habit or practice.

“You’re going to feel good after yoga class,” says Weintraub. “A new Australian study using Vietnam vets showed mood elevation up to 48 hours after taking a yoga class with breathing techniques. But the feel-good effect wears off unless you have a home practice [or find the time to make it to a class most days].”

To that end, Weintraub recommends CDs rather than DVDs or tapes, at least once you learn a routine.

“Then you are not comparing yourself,” she says. “You just listen to the voice and move with it.”

Weintraub does offer a proviso. Some instructors are going to make you feel not good enough (translation: flexible enough). Your best strategy?

“Probably find another instructor,” says Weintraub. “Lots of people are at the end of their rope. For them, I suggest a one-on-one session. It can be a safe container for the person. You want to find an instructor and class that when you roll out the mat, it is sacred space for you.”

While lots of new yoga participants feel “so good, alive, connected to their families and spirit” after just a few classes, Weintraub suggests it will require six to nine months of yoga practice to make it a life-changing habit.

For Teresa Luttrell, the Dahn-style of yoga helped pulled her from a clinical depression diagnosed in 1991.

“My psychiatrist told me I would be on meds for life and that I should just get used to it,” says Luttrell, who does public relations work for Dahn centers in Seattle. “That’s not something that sat well with me.”

Luttrell’s mindset shifted when she started a ministerial program, she “still went back and forth on the depression treadmill and was on and off meds, especially in the winter months.”

“Yoga has helped me turn the corner,” says Luttrell. “I haven’t been on meds for three years and the depression issues are mostly gone, although I still have to watch my thoughts and keep up on my practices or else it starts to sneak back into my consciousness. I’ve found consistency is the key.”

Getting started is a formidable obstacle.

“I started out slow because of my own depression,” says Shannon Cumming. “It was all I could do to get to one class per week for the first year. I came to yoga for the stress relief from working in the film business with long days and hard stretches followed by no work at all.

“What I found was the relief was emotional and compassionate. The combination of self-discipline [as little as five minutes of daily breathing] and compassion is what makes yoga a healing art.”

Bob Condor is editor of Evergreen Monthly.

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