Yoga for Long Covid (free resources)

I’ve been working with a client with Long Covid on her recovery for over 12 months. It occurred to me that what we have learned together might be of help to others.

Her symptoms have been shortness of breath and a feeling of pressure on her chest; brain fog; waking up feeling exhausted even after a good night’s sleep; unremitting exhaustion and unpredictable relapses.

What we have done is to work with her breath and with very, very gentle movement to improve her lung capacity and to stimulate her vagus nerve and the parasympathetic nervous system which stimulates the rest and digest systems in your body. Her body seems to go into the fight/flight nervous system response (anxiety, racing heart, poor digestion) for no apparent reason and these practices have really helped her to manage those symptoms and to help her body to recover feelings of calm groundedness. They also help with mood - it is so challenging dealing with long illnesses and your mental health can easily suffer. Doing these exercies can help with that.

My client has changed her diet completely. This may or may not work for everybody, but I would suggest little or no gluten and dairy while you are dealing with the effects of long covid. If you suspect food might be a trigger for you, then try keeping a food/symptoms diary for a week or two and see if you can discern any patterns between what you eat and the symptoms that arise.

It’s so hard to be ill for a long time with no recovery in sight, or to have glimpses of better days, only to relapse for no apparent reason. I urge you to be patient with your body. It is going to take a while and this kind of condition never does respond well to the attitude of pushing through - in fact it is likely to make you feel much worse.

Here are some free resources that I hope will help you:

Click here for a free 30 minute yoga for Long Covid practice that contains some of what I have been doing with my student and which has really helped.  Can you find a way to do it almost every day?

Click here for a free yoga nidra practice to help your body recover its balance and restore some of its energy.

Click here for a free guided breathing practice to restore your body’s natural breathing patterns and lung capacity.  Calm breath makes for a calm body – it’s very powerful even though it is very gentle.

Please feel free to share this blog with friends if you think it might help.

Please contact me if you would like to take a regular online yoga class with me so that I can share all that we have discovered about what yoga works for Long Covid.

You will get better, but it might take a while. Gather your loved ones around you, find a way to take the pressure off yourself, do this practice or something like it every day that you are able.  Move to a slower rhythm of life and your body will thank you.

 Sarah x

Is Yoga Teacher Training Worth It?

The truth is that anyone can start teaching yoga and many have, without any training at all. But you’ll want to be the best teacher you can be and you’ll want to run a successful yoga business, so you’re going to need some help with that.

Here are the top five reasons for doing a teacher training course:

1. The support of a senior teacher: someone who can teach you all about yoga philosophy - what it’s about, where it comes from, how to tell the difference between genuine yoga philosophy and more recent interpretations that may not be authentic. Someone who loves yoga in all its forms and has a long-standing practice of their own, someone you can trust, someone who is enthusiastic and wants you to be the confident, authentic teacher that you really want to be.

2. The support of your fellow trainees. You’ll meet like-minded souls, who will support and encourage you during the course and beyond. These are some of the closest friends you’ll have in yoga - they get what you are doing and why, they are exactly as enthusiastic as you are about yoga and they genuinely want you to succeed. They’re on the same jounrney you and they’ll celebrate your successes and comiserate with you when life gets challenging.

3. You’ll choose a course with a teacher who has an amazing knowledge and understanding of anatomy and physiology so that when you teach your students, you do it with the confidence to help them grow into a deeper yoga practice, whilst keeping them safe .

4. You’ll have the backing of the awarding body - at Oak Tree Yoga Teacher Training School that is Yoga Alliance Professionals, a world leader in overseeing teacher training courses (none of your ‘learn it all in two weeks’ charlatans here) from whom you’ll go forward with a qualification that is highly respected the world over.

5. A mentoring relationship after you have finished the course. At Oak Tree Yoga Teacher Training School we continue our interest in you and your teaching, maintain our friendly teaching community and stay in regular contact for as long after the course as you wish. That way you can feel supported and confident in those scary early days of setting out as a teacher.

Oak Tree Yoga Teacher Training runs yoga teacher training courses in Berkshire every weekend a month for 11 months.  Click here for our latest trainings.  We want you to be the best teacher you can be – 75% of our teachers are teaching within one month of completing the teacher training course.  Excellence starts early on during your training, so choosing the right course is crucial.

Graduates, 2021

Am I Doing Yoga Wrong?

1. It's not possible to do yoga wrong. Yoga is a simple thing really: just move your body, stretch a little in a few different directions and think about deepening your breath while you do that. Five or ten minutes a few days a week is enough to make a difference.

2. Yoga clothes, mats and props are just there to give you something to buy and someone else some money for selling them. There's nothing wrong with that, but you can do yoga on your carpet in your pyjamas. Sometimes its better that way.

3. The only thing to ask yourself when you are finished, is DO I FEEL A BIT BETTER? If the answer is yes, well done, you've just done yoga

4. Only modern yogis focus on yoga postures as we see them on Instagram, for centuries yoga was about sitting quietly, feeling grateful, calming your breath and being aware of yourself and your body in this moment. So if you just feel like sitting quietly, looking at your garden or favourite view and breathing calmly for a few minutes - that's yoga.

5. Are you the kind of person that doubts yourself and your abilities? Perhaps this is why you think you are doing yoga wrong ... because you often think you are missing something or that you're not very good at stuff. This is just mental chit chat. There is only one of you in the whole world and there will never be another: learning how to be you - confidently, calmly, positively you, will stand you in good stead for all of life. So when you hear that little voice telling you this isn't what yoga looks like, thank it kindly for its input, then ignore it and carry on doing your thing.

Make a commitment to yourself to try a little yoga for a few days for a few weeks and see how you feel at the end of it. Hopefully better. You've got this.

Sarah x