Confino:

Major points:

1. Small Yoga pauses during the working day can refresh and relieve discomfort.
2. Carol has developed a series of minute movements, breathing and meditation to bring the body, mind and emotions into a healthier state during the workday.
3. Carol is helping people develop sustainable habits that are beneficial and easy to do.

 

 

 

00:41                                     This is episode one hundred twelve of changing face of yoga. And my guest today is Carol Confino. Carol has been a nurse for over 20 years and she's now shifted to preventing illness and disease becoming a yoga teacher, a yoga health coach and a certified yoga therapist. She's found ways of dealing with depression, self doubt and anxiety. The simple prompts process of noticing when these issues come up begins the process of overcoming. Welcome. Carol. Is there anything else you'd like to add to that particular introduction?

01:38                                     Just to clarify, I was an RN way back. I was an RN 14 years, but it's been 20 years since I've actually been a practicing nurse. But, I've been teaching yoga since 2006. Transition.

01:55                                     We all are doing that, aren't we?. I was very interested in what you were talking about doing desk yoga classes at a health fair. And you said it's a really different format from just doing office yoga or corporate yoga or whatever you want to call it.

02:23                                     It was interesting because I hadn't really thought about doing much corporate, but I was offered this job to do a health fair. Not so much in handing out flyers about my business or anything, but to teach office yoga. first time I had done hour long workshops at offices in the past, but I wasn't sure how this is going to work in a health fair. And I hit on what I call pause practices. I had done a workshop at my studio, Sun and Moon Yoga Studio here in Fairfax, Virginia. I did practices to pause during the day where you just take a minute or less and do some kind of practice that's going to either change your mind or your body in some way. So I used some of that and some of the things that I did with the desk yoga and there were a few practices that when I did them really resonated with people who didn't usually do yoga. So that's when it hit me that there's a whole population cause I've gone in offices and I've done a yoga class before or after work. But actually having it as part of their work day. Because yoga is more about mindfulness, being aware and when you start to become aware of when your posture is getting out of whack, what can you do?

04:04                                     And you know, you can go through all the alignment cues and things and sit up and you can bring your shoulders back. But I found that just bringing your arms out to a tee position brings in all the alignment cues and then you can add some practices that bring some strength up into your shoulders so you don't round forward so much. And if you incorporate that during your day, like as you're typing away on the computer, you notice you're rounding and you're in the middle of a thought, bring your arms out to a t, you've just broken up the muscles that were tight rounding you forward. And then you go back to typing and you roll down again. When you get to a breaking point where you've come to the end of the thought or the paragraph, you can do some stretches that will keep your shoulders up and keep you in better alignment because it's not so much the rounding forward that's bad. It's staying there. So if you can a couple of times an hour come in and out of it and to get them to sit and listen cause everybody's in a hurry.

                                                All these practices take a minute or less and I have about 20 different ones: minute meditations, eye exercises, shoulders and the arms. And they all fit into a nice little format and I give them a little handout they can take back to their desks that goes through all the practices, some breathing practices, some energy medicine practices and I go over the ones that are more unusual and then I say you can look everybody can round and arch their back and roll the shoulders. But explaining some of the things that I do that can keep you in better alignment and gets you through your day a little more comfortably.

06:13                                     Oh, how clever. That's really interesting. I'm sitting here doing the T thing.

06:22                                     If you do that t and then bring your arms in a cactus position. So you bend your elbows.

06:27                                     I am.

06:30                                     So if you turn your palms towards your head, okay, your upper back muscles are getting a little stretch and so your shoulders and the chest is contracting but they're not moving any bone. Really turn your palms away. And now the upper back muscles contract and the chest muscles stretch. So you go back and forth between those two. And then bring your arms down without moving your shoulders. I found this out from doing it over and over again. By at the end of the day, when I go to round my shoulders, I would feel a little more resistance than I did before I did cactus arms, which is different than if you bring your arms behind your back and squeeze your shoulders together. Your shoulders can come immediately come forward because you haven't gotten the stabilizing muscles to stay there. So that's like a revelation for a lot of very tight men particularly. But even women, they come and they do this and they notice it right away. And there's other ones, a couple of other ones that I do, and I talk about how to fit that practically into your day. Just like I said you're middle of something and then when you get to a stopping point, you do the stabilizing things and before you go on break, you can do some eye exercises. There are lots of different ones, there's even more than that. I didn't even go into the wrist with the ones that I do with the office. The wrist is much more subtle to work with.

08:06                                     I saw you had a a youtube video on it.

08:09                                     I had some on there and I'm going to have a little course. I'm doing the health fairs. Then I started making up the whole little handout that I have is going to come out as a course where all 20 practices are done. And the minute meditations I have recorded about a minute and a little longer because I just startto welcome them and then do about a minute. I've had people ask me when I've done this in offices, do you have any videos with this? And I said I have a few on youtube but this is going to be an actual little course package.

08:58                                     It's interesting.I think it's hard for people when they're working, but to take that time to take an hour or so for a yoga class, but just to get that habit in of really noticing where your shoulders are or whatever is, it's quite clever really. Because they can do that without really taking away from there their time at work.

09:21                                     And it makes them aware because actually if you do it over and over again, it actually becomes more comfortable to sit upright. You're really working your body very hard rounding your shoulders forward. It's not a bad position but the strongest position for your spine is when your head is balanced on top of the spine. Once you get your muscles used to that again, because that's how you were when you were a little kid. Your head couldn't go forward cause it was so heavy. Babies when they sit up, sit upright. Because that's where your spine is the strongest. You don't usually see little kids with rounded shoulders cause their heads are so heavy. Then when they bring them forward, it throws their balance off.

                                                But if you can kind of get aware that this is really more comfortable and also it gets them moving, even if like it's not get up and walk around the office. But even when you're in your chair you can change your position a lot. You've seen a belly dancer move, they have their arms in a tee position, they can bring a lot of movement to their body. But their shoulders stay where they are. It's actually not a very tight position, rounded shoulders. You can't move as well. You're restricted cause you're crushing your chest.

                                                You know, if the belly dancer had rounded shoulders, she couldn't get that movement down through the rib cage because she's crushing it. But if you bring your arms up, you actually can get a lot more movement. Your body is free or to twist. Not that you're going to stay still. Your body likes to move, your eyes like to move. Those things that you do every day is going to have more of an impact then what you do once a week in a yoga class or at least as much impact. Developing habits that are sustainable that aren't hard.

                                                We've had master teachers, like Leslie Kaminoff. He talks about even how you walk you can really, if you really are mindful of how you walk, it can help prevent some bunion's and things like that from just being aware of how your body's designed, which we didn't come with a book of how to, and so you kind of winging it. And when when somebody talks about what bones hit the floor first. When you put more weight on the outside edge of your foot, you're going to get a bunion there because it's protecting you. Work on your muscles, which isn't just the foot, it's the muscles of the leg and all that. They are all connected and bringing people in with these simple things they do at the desk, it might get them more interested. Some of these other aspects that aren't necessarily yoga poses, but like mindful movement and mindful sitting.

12:32                                     Let's go into that. How do you define mindful sitting?

12:38                                     Well, mindful sitting is noticing when my shoulders are rounded forward first of all. Where your feet are; are you really comfortable where you are? Because I do share with my classes at the studio sometimes and even when you do like cactus arms, when you're seated, notice that what happens with your feet and your legs too. If you don't cross your legs, your feet kind of come flat on the floor and the knees come over the ankles and your rib cage is lifted and you're in alignment without me telling you anything else. Now it's good to break it up and really notice and why you want everything aligned. But your knee likes to be at a right angle or a little, maybe a little bit straighter. I was just hearing something on the radio about when you put your car on cruise control, now they're saying put your feet flat on the floor in the car and sit up a little. But anytime you habitually do the same movement, always have your knees apart or together it's going to put strain on the knee, ankle or wherever. If you always cross your legs, real tight, that's going to start working on your hip. Just kind of noticing and being aware.

14:20                                     I was just going to ask do you give them help with getting that habit into their daily movement? I think that would be the hardest thing is just remembering to do it each time,

14:36                                     I'm building this as a business idea. I started with this office yoga, with the health fairs and then I'm going to start to work with either local companies or even online doing. My ideal is to have like little 15 minute things once a week or a couple of times a month because much longer people don't really want to do a lot like at work there. When you're busy, saying take an hour and for this relaxation practice or whatever it is, too much time, 15 minutes sounds reasonable. And then I'll have time for questions after, but what I can talk with them about whatever their issues are and it's like chipping away. So if you first get this idea of just coming into that cactus once in a while when you're at your desk. When you find that successful, then you start to notice other things. And I have talked to people about, do you notice, , what do you do with that arm that always hurts? I mean, is that the arm you use your mouse with.

                                                 It's sometimes just bearing your position a little bit can make a big difference, and what kind of wear and tear you do on your body. That's kind of what I can build it into. From my own experience in working with brand new people to yoga because it's the type of people that really need yoga. It's the people who aren't going to go to work an hour early with yoga clothes and then change and go to work. These are the people that are just going to sit at their desk and not do anything unless it's really quick and easy. Some of the CEOs or the people running the thing running the health fairs will come over and they say, oh, office yoga, what is that? Or it's called all different things. Desk stretches. Each place has a different name, but they say, oh I only have about five minutes. So I'll just say, okay, I can do something in a minute or less. And I do it. You can see in their eye that it made an impression like wow, that does feel different. And it was so easy. And it's really easy.

                                                And especially when you think about it, even mindful sitting you kind of once somebody brings your attention to it. You think my outer outer part of my knee, that is always getting pulled out once because I sit with my knees apart all the time and it's fine to do, like I said, all of these positions like I tell the people at the health fairs is: none of these positions is wrong for your body. It's just what you do all the time is going to cause wear and tear. Knowing what is neutral for your body or because you kind of know what isn't putting any stress on your muscles. If you ever carried a crate or something and you had your fingers around it and you had to hold it longer than you expected. And your fingers don't open really quick, that's what happens to your back. But we sit with our back rounded forward for an hour and that's what happens with any muscle. You hold in one position for a long time.

                                                 Our muscles are meant to move And whether we think about it or not, we're always moving like that. Even when you hold a Coffee Cup with your hand here, move your fingers up and down. You know, you never perfectly still and we don't think about that. But we do sit in front of the computer now and, and it's, I think as we do more and more on the computer, it is going to take its toll on our eyes, on the body. You know, they, they show that picture of how people progress from programs. Magnum man, the little, yeah. Chimps off and then they're going back. I've seen pictorials where they show it coming back down and this guy sitting at his desk all curled up looking just like the monkey at the beginning. Whatever you do over and over changes your body. People develop the hunchback and their shoulders are always rounded and that has long-term health impacts.

                                                What I usually have next to my station when I go to these health fairs is, there was an article in the Washington Post that you can Google just by putting in, don't just sit there. And what it is, is it's a picture of a guy over his desk and a cross section and next to it, it's got all the things that can happen from sitting improperly. And what that picture does is it draws people over, either laughing or you know, or concerned a little bit. It shows it crushes your heart. It doesn't let your lungs open up just from the way you hold your body and people know that it's not working well. And then when you explain that your body was meant to sit up, right? You've let certain muscles get stronger and other ones get weak that you feel like rounded forward is more comfortable. But after a while, once like I noticed as soon as my shoulders round forward now just because I've been doing yoga for so long.

                                                One other thing I do with the eyes is eye exercises and it struck me that even working in the office when we didn't have the computer doing everything, you would get up from your desk to look up information. You'd have to go over, get a book, find it on the shelf, bring it down and then your focus would change four or five times just looking up something. So your eyes got a little movement and your eyes didn't stay right in center right on this middle of the screen and just move in like an eight inch or 12 inch square. Even with the big screen, it's still only about 18 inches. Your eyes got a lot more range. We keep on for eight hours looking the same distance away with the same focus. Because now you can look up everything online. You don't have to move and , it's taking its toll on the eyes as well. And those are really simple just looking near and far, I'm making a point, you know like before you go on break, when your eyes are a little fuzzy focus far away, focus near in. you know, if you'll have a window, look at, look out the window, think about looking around, up, down at and then the sides.

                                                 So these are all little things that don't take any time. You don't need a yoga mat, you don't need special clothes. But it's yoga, it's my your mind becoming aware of your body and then breathing practices to calm you down or to get you energized. There are all kinds of practices that it can be done in a very short period of time.

22:57                                     Excellent. I really think that's interesting because you're doing the essence of Yoga aren't you, of noticing, of being present and feeling what your body and your breath and your mind are doing. And that's basically, yoga is more than the Asanas. Where do you see this going? it sounds like a very accessible, easy to do kind of practice that it has a lot of benefits. How do you see it growing?

23:35                                     Well, I'm just trying to get it started. I think like having like either live or recorded 15 minutes little sessions periodically and seasonal, like doing packages of seasonal or topical like could be longer 45 minute sessions. If places want something like that can be customized to what the needs of an organization would be. You could bring in all kinds of practices like for anxiety and depression for sleep. and pain. I have a lot resources from all different certifications for Yoga, for depression and even with the brain, brain longevity, and memory and incorporating right and left brain and work like that can all be brought in. Make it really simple and easy practices that can be brought into any of these companies.

                                                My ideal is at some point to have people doing a year-long program where either a monthly or biweekly or quarterly packages where I could do either the short ones and even like for new employees when they come in, maybe have a recording like a, a zoom or a, not a Webinar, but a little video of me of going through the basics of these press pause practices; taking a practice and incorporating it every day.

                                                 On the front of the flyer that I give out, it usually says, pick one or two to do each for the day and see which ones benefit you the most. And then maybe there's ones you always go to. And what happens eventually is you notice, oh, I really need this one now. End of the day practices, things like to leave work at work. So all of these we are creating either through a breath practice or a mindfulness practice at the end of the day, instead of rushing out the door. Do something that like almost like a little, not a ceremony, but a little thing that work is over. I clear my mind, I clear my thoughts and just let everything go and now I'm ready to go home and I'm not in a panic getting out the door.

                                                 I'd like to see more and more corporations are getting more and more into the wellness and into retaining employees and in to employee health and these kinds of practices where they do it, they can do it anywhere, any not even just at the desk. You can do it anywhere, anytime. It can be incorporated in your daily life without you having to worry about being flexible.

                                                That's the whole thing. When you talk to people about doing yoga, they're all worried. You have to be very flexible and the idea is you're really thin and really flexible and you get into all of these positions. The positions are just way of someone who is real flexible of getting sensation. Someone said the difference between a flexible and an inflexible person is how much they have to move to feel the sensation. So someone is tight doesn't have to move as far. And they feel it. And somebody else who's more flexible has to move deeper and everybody's body is different. So things that work for some people aren't going to work for others and that's where you kind of tailor things in the therapeutic vein. That helped bring us all together. But where I'm seeing is that corporations might might be interested in having this be a regular thing that they can share with their employees. It can vary over the year or different topics?

28:16                                     I could see where, especially since it's not taking them away from work. It's just giving them a little time to reset themselves as you say.

28:36                                     Pause, reset, refresh is like on my website. That's another little catch thing.

28:44                                     You said you're a yoga therapist. Do you do these kinds of things with your Yoga therapy clients also?

28:54                                     I haven't done as many privates. When training. I did a lot of yoga therapeutics with clients, I also got into Yoga Health coaching with Ayurveda. Kate Stillman had these 10 practices where you do things in Kaizen. So kaizen, which is taking little, little things at a time. And I think between the Yoga Therapeutics and the Yoga Health coaching with these health fairs, I kind of combined some of that.

                                                When I work with individual students, you give them small things to do, get them to incorporate them and then build on that instead of a whole bunch of things to do at once.

                                                What is the main focus of what I want? What do you want to accomplish? What the client wants to accomplish. What are the simplest practices that can get you there that you can do easily along with a more formal practice you can do during the day daily or three times a week. Practice would be longer if I was working with an individual client, but what things you could change in between. Something simple, even like a pause practice. If they're working with me for depression or anxiety - a breathing practice. What breathing practice is most effective? We'll try these different ones. Which one would work for you? And you said every time you're feeling stressed because with any of the therapeutic things, the earlier you recognize that you're having an issue, the easier it is to head it off.

                                                So sometimes in the west we tend to ignore pain and ignore signals from our body, which may or may not be pain. There may be just discomfort, but we think we can push through it and sometimes we can, but it's all taking a toll because with pain and discomfort, your body is telling you something, If you don't listen and make an adjustment, your pain level usually increases because you keep ignoring the pain signal and then all of a sudden things fall apart. I'd often hear, people say it would be like I was healthy and then I had this one thing go wrong and now everything is off.

                                                And even back then before I had done yoga, I'm thinking it probably was happening all along. You just chose to ignore it. Your body has this amazing ability to help you do whatever you want to do. Even if you're having pain, it will, it will push you through it. But it's taking its toll and body can compensate for a lot of the things we do, which is why a bunion is a compensation for your gait being in a way that you always are rubbing on that part of the foot. Your body, in order to protect your foot, forms a bunion forms harder skin there. if you start to notice it earlier and instead of ignoring it, take action. that's really helpful.

                                                Working with people with anxiety and depression and pain and arthritis you do your regular practices and then you notice when something's aggravating it and when it's aggravating it, you stop. Then you do a practice that you know will relieve it and then go back to it. So it's all again yoga; your mind listening to your body.

 Your breath will often be an indicator of when things aren't working well. And if you notice, I notice every time this happens, my breath gets faster in my heart rate goes up a little bit. You do a breathing practice or even just a sigh or something that changes your breathing pattern, changes your muscle movement which in turn changes your mind, your mindset.

                                                This is a global yoga therapy day is coming up. Yoga therapy is fairly new and a lot of yoga teachers do yoga therapy they modify things, but the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT) actually created a certification for people who are focusing on going beyond the poses. And a lot of what IAYT is doing is funding and working on research to show that yoga therapy is effective. And, it's kind of hard to do some of the yoga therapeutics because a lot of it is preventive, so it's can't prove that something, did not happen. But a lot of people are doing research with pain, anxiety, arthritis, trauma, and are documenting changes that they see. For the next seven weeks before this comes up the global yoga therapy, it's on a Facebook page is just a global yoga therapy day and they're putting up videos every week of somebody's research and then other topics through, on the website that might be papers and things like that.

36:03                                     That sounds like a great resource.

36:10                                     YogaMate, is a place where you can look up yoga, yoga therapists and they put out all this information you can get all kinds of names of yoga therapists and how yoga therapy is researched. This Yoga therapy day is to highlight how yoga therapy it is making itself known a little bit more. Most people don't really think about yoga therapy or don't even know what exists.

36:46                                     Is there anything that you would like to add to what you've said or talk about something else that you would really like the listeners to know?

37:04                                     I think this is going to be kind of a, maybe not what I'm doing, but yoga I think is going to become more of a useful element even in medicine and in daily life. Even if they don't have enough, it's not called Yoga, this mindfulness and all it is really kind of the wave of the future. So I'm kind of happy to be here at this time and share some of this information with you and your listeners.

37:37                                     Thank you. It's been really interesting and I'm really impressed with how you've made it so accessible because I think that corporate yoga is probably really needed and yet it's a difficult a place to be because people are really busy. It's hard for them to do it, but I think you've done it really cleverly. I think it's really very interesting. So, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I really appreciate that you're bringing this information to the listeners and I'm sure they'll be interested also.

38:12    , thank you for having me. It's been really nice.

Contacts:

website: www.CarolfinoYoga.com

FB: CarolfinoYoga

 

If you enjoyed the podcast and would like to learn more about what I do I am offering a free 5 day challenge.  In this challenge, each day you will be offered a practice to include your day to see the difference to take a minute break.  

Energy Reboot Challenge: https://www.carolfinoyoga.com/energy-reboot-5-day-challenge/

For more information on yoga therapy you can still access all the videos and information from the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/GlobalYogaTherapyDay/

If you enjoyed the podcast and would like to learn more about what I do I am offering a free 5 day challenge.  In this challenge, each day you will be offered a practice to include your day to see the difference to take a minute break.  Follow this link https://www.carolfinoyoga.com/energy-reboot-5-day-challenge/

 

For more information on yoga therapy you can still access all the videos and information from the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/GlobalYogaTherapyDay/