yoga saves lives
OK - funny but true story! 
(photocred to stock.xchng)
I got sick last year with gall bladder disease, and had to undergo a battery of tests leading up to my surgery. One of the tests was gastroscopy, a painless but irritating procedure during which they put a scope down your throat and into your stomach and upper GI to have a look-see, maybe snag a few tissue samples, etc. Most people go under for this procedure and are required to stick around for a few hours until the drugs wear off. As I've maybe mentioned before, me and hospitals DO NOT mix, and so, even though it was a same-day outpatient procedure, I decided to forego the knock out meds and lessen my stay by that much more time.
Now, there are two reasons people get knocked out for this procedure. #1 is obviously the gag reflex. The head of the scope is maybe 2 inches long and about the diameter of a nickel, while the tube is about the diameter of a dime. They pump air into your stomach, which on occasion sneaks past the tube and breaks the seal in your throat, which can also cause involuntary gagging. #2 is the panic part of it, where a person has a camera shoved down the throat and has to stay still and calm for an indeterminate amount of time. Gagging brings on feelings of panic, and panic brings on feelings of gagging, and so... they tend to knock you out.
Successfully having a camera tube shoved down my throat and NOT choking on it and NOT panicking I attribute to none other than ujjiya breathing, because not only does it develop excellent control over the muscles in your throat, but is also meant to soothe, calm, and focus your mind while you fine tune your body. Seemed like the perfect marriage of wholistic and modern medicine to me... So, I walked into the appointment, and walked out of it, not a second wasted spending extra time in the hospital. Gastroscopy with meds is for sissies. ~smirk~
Some of the ladies I work with take a yoga class on Fridays. As anyone who has 'taken up yoga' knows, the first couple of yoga classes can be really difficult. Not only do you learn exactly how stiff and inflexible you really are in places you didn't even know could BE stiff or inflexible, but you are also asked to put your body in strange and sometimes compromising positions and make funny noises when you breathe. When the ladies first started up, they were all a bit apprehensive. I decided to share a broadened spectrum of benefits yoga has to offer outside of increased flexibility and balance, including spiritual ease and mental focus and, of course, not needing meds for gastroscopy, should occasion arise.
Apparently last night one of my yoga-convert coworkers was eating a jawbreaker, which got lodged in her throat. She initially panicked, then remembered my story about using yoga breathing during gastroscopy. Lo and behold, she managed to calm herself down enough to keep breathing and let her body do what it needed to dislodge the jawbreaker.
So. There you have it, folks. Yoga saves lives.
Now, there are two reasons people get knocked out for this procedure. #1 is obviously the gag reflex. The head of the scope is maybe 2 inches long and about the diameter of a nickel, while the tube is about the diameter of a dime. They pump air into your stomach, which on occasion sneaks past the tube and breaks the seal in your throat, which can also cause involuntary gagging. #2 is the panic part of it, where a person has a camera shoved down the throat and has to stay still and calm for an indeterminate amount of time. Gagging brings on feelings of panic, and panic brings on feelings of gagging, and so... they tend to knock you out.
Successfully having a camera tube shoved down my throat and NOT choking on it and NOT panicking I attribute to none other than ujjiya breathing, because not only does it develop excellent control over the muscles in your throat, but is also meant to soothe, calm, and focus your mind while you fine tune your body. Seemed like the perfect marriage of wholistic and modern medicine to me... So, I walked into the appointment, and walked out of it, not a second wasted spending extra time in the hospital. Gastroscopy with meds is for sissies. ~smirk~
Some of the ladies I work with take a yoga class on Fridays. As anyone who has 'taken up yoga' knows, the first couple of yoga classes can be really difficult. Not only do you learn exactly how stiff and inflexible you really are in places you didn't even know could BE stiff or inflexible, but you are also asked to put your body in strange and sometimes compromising positions and make funny noises when you breathe. When the ladies first started up, they were all a bit apprehensive. I decided to share a broadened spectrum of benefits yoga has to offer outside of increased flexibility and balance, including spiritual ease and mental focus and, of course, not needing meds for gastroscopy, should occasion arise.
Apparently last night one of my yoga-convert coworkers was eating a jawbreaker, which got lodged in her throat. She initially panicked, then remembered my story about using yoga breathing during gastroscopy. Lo and behold, she managed to calm herself down enough to keep breathing and let her body do what it needed to dislodge the jawbreaker.
So. There you have it, folks. Yoga saves lives.
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