Winter Solstice 2019 & New Year 2020 Yoga/Qi Gong/Meditation Sadhana...All welcome!

[hch]

(A note to the reader: This post is only about matters related to my heart rate, with no unrelated "sadhana thread" discussion, such as replies, reports, or other discussion. In other words, I didn't bury a reply near the end or something like that, and if this topic doesn't interest you, feel especially free to skip this post.)

Originally Posted by hch

One interesting thing that's happened, probably recently, is that my "resting heart rate" in certain contexts (sitting still for a few minutes, lying still) has slowed appreciably, and my best cautious guess is that the decrease may be a result of the meditation.

Yes, I'm aware of a few cautions: not every decrease in heart rate comes from a good cause, and I'm not even sure when my decrease happened, such that my best guess about the cause isn't extremely convincing, heh. I haven't habitually measured my resting heart rate and have done so only sporadically.

I first noticed while meditating while lying down: while trying the idea of timing something mantra-like to my pulse, I noticed my heart rate, which was surprisingly slower. (I'm not using any unusual meditation technique, and I'm not using anything intended to have physical effects like lowering my heart rate.) I was near a digital clock and counted for a minute. Later I noticed my pulse while sitting quietly and was surprised again.

What I do know:

In some way, this decrease just seems tied to something else, a recent "nice" feeling ("light" and quietly energetic, for example) that formed when I wouldn't have expected it to. I noticed a few weeks ago that even in the middle of a localized but bothersome physical problem--the main reason that my sadhana started late and then emphasized meditation for weeks--I otherwise felt good, much better than I would've expected. It wasn't the most noticeable feeling, and I noticed it largely because I was scanning my sensations for any signs of wider, more systemic problems that would've led me to look for medical attention, but this feeling was still there. (I told someone else something like "I otherwise feel great.") Now that the distractions are mostly gone, the feeling still doesn't scream at me, but I do definitely notice it when I apply my attention to it.

It's like a quieter but more persistent version of that soothing feeling when I pet friendly animals.

And these two feelings aren't exactly the same, but I feel even more as if I've been exercising all this time--even though I hadn't. I also notice that exercise is the only other thing that seems to have noticeably decreased certain versions of my resting heart rate, but the latest decrease is even more profound. My pulse is generally lower now when I lie quietly and also when I'm quietly sitting, in a way that it probably didn't reach before. For example, my pulse now, when I've been typing but have otherwise been sitting still and quietly with my eyes open, is around 60. Before, it might've been more like 70-80.

This feeling seems to have grown along with this meditation habit, which I began last year, before anyone here began this sadhana. (I'm not attached to the feeling, it doesn't motivate me to meditate, and I'm not entirely sure if it's a sign that meditation has benefited my health, but the feeling isn't bad, either. ) The decrease in heart rate still may be more related to something else, but this guess seems to be my best one.

I also can't think of anything else that probably would've caused it. For example, my eating, sleep, stress, and other things haven't changed much over this time. I don't have any very consistent caffeine habit, but I also consume some amount probably daily (and my previous lowest heart rate was at a time of my life when I wasn't at all avoiding caffeine but still rarely had it). The autogenics training mentioned earlier in this thread is probably not a primary cause--for example, I'd paused it several weeks ago, and earlier failed attempts at completing the program haven't had this effect. I definitely haven't been as active over the past several weeks as I had intended to be. I've been wondering if my recent medical problem or any treatment for it had this effect--whether as a side effect or maybe as a beneficial surprise--but I doubt it. I've read some about bradycardia, the medical condition of having a heart rate that's too slow, but don't seem to have the associated symptoms.

I've resumed some more active exercise in the past few days and will be interested to see what happens to my heart rate, both around the time of movement and in general, as I resume other activities. I may mention my heart rate sometime to someone with better knowledge, but I'm not urgently looking for an answer. I also intend to measure my blood pressure again, and I may buy a heart rate monitor (if only out of curiosity). The meditation also continues.

[Pat58]

Day 39 - Jason Stephenson, The Secret Garden.

Day 40 - beach walk; water, wind and wildlife meditation.

Completed! I have to say, it did not go the way I planned. My intentions were to have some more active practices, more Kundalini, and to practice mindful and nutritious eating habits. In the interest of having a positive mindset, the highlights of this sadhana were:

• Enjoying a semi-private class with my niece and led by my grandniece
• Activating my YogaGlo gift certificate
• Going outside my usual YogaGlo patterns and exploring different instructors
• Attended a super nice restorative yoga workshop

Thanks everyone who participated!

[toaster]

I guess today is day 36 for me? That went quickly!

I did another practice from the Jenni Rawlings site today, but this one was with a guest teacher, Francesca. I really liked it--it was a slow, full-hour practice focusing on the thoracic spine.

Henry, interesting HR results. Maybe I should check mine after doing meditation more consistently for a month.

[hch]

Originally Posted by Pat58

Completed! I have to say, it did not go the way I planned. My intentions were to have some more active practices, more Kundalini, and to practice mindful and nutritious eating habits. In the interest of having a positive mindset, the highlights of this sadhana were:

In the past few days, just before you posted, I've seen similar thinking described as "process thinking," a term which was unfamiliar to me but which seems to describe thinking that is. That initial source described it as thinking not so much about the "results" of something as about lessons learned along the way.

I was also reminded of this recent message from Jessica Smith, quoted in another thread.

[hch]

Originally Posted by toaster

Henry, interesting HR results. Maybe I should check mine after doing meditation more consistently for a month.

The idea sounds interesting to me, too. I was looking for more information online and found general statements about meditation, lowered heart rate, and lowered blood pressure, without too much detail. Although I saw a few reports, I also didn't find many personal stories about significant reductions in heart rate linked to meditation (if indeed what I'm still seeing is linked to meditation).

There are also procedures for tracking heart rate during meditation and similar things, related to tracking things called "heart rate variability" and "heart rate coherence," but I'll want to read more about the scientific thinking before I try those methods. I'd also prefer a wearable monitor that lets me view data later; having to move and having to track the data in real time would interfere with the actual meditation.

I've begun more vigorous exercise again and am tracking my heart rate more than usual, heh, if only to look for unusual occurrences (and also because of curiosity). Last night, I began an eight-week interval program (not HIIT). It's familiar: I last completed it some twenty years ago, and I've had some restarts in the past year, but I've had problems that have changed my plans--in each case, not related to the program itself but to some other thing. I wrote that last sentence simply to say that I do have some experience with the first workout.

This first workout was as easy as it's ever been, even though I hadn't done any exercise that vigorous since late last year. My heart rate at the end wasn't highly elevated, I wasn't out of breath at any point, I perhaps didn't even break a sweat (though it was cold, heh), and I didn't feel overwhelmed or "bad" in any other way. (Yes, as you readers may expect, the program begins lighter. I'll see what happens by week 3. )

Tonight I did the Harvard step test, which I've done before. I do it because of convenience, though, and I haven't been treating it as a very telling oracle. I've consistently scored in the "poor to fair" range, even when successfully doing strenuous workouts, and even though the page says, "The step test can be quite demanding," I've never found it that way at all. (I've also noticed that "220 - age" and even more refined formulae don't seem to apply well to me, and at supposedly high heart rates I don't feel overtaxed, and when I try the "talk test," I can even sing. I've always suspected that my body is an outlier.)

Tonight was similarly light-feeling, as it's always been for me, but this time I was in the "above to average range" (towards the average end), even though, again, I've just resumed strenuous work. I'm still not treating this change as very significant, but I'll probably be doing this step test at times, at least to see how I change. (Also, I just tracked my pulse: it was 67 as counted over a minute, 25 minutes after I took the test. I probably haven't had a reading like that before.)

I'm still thinking, at least tentatively, that the meditation has had unexpected benefits, but I'll probably ask for other guidance at some point.

[toaster]

Originally Posted by hch

Tonight I did the Harvard step test, which I've done before. I do it because of convenience, though, and I haven't been treating it as a very telling oracle. I've consistently scored in the "poor to fair" range, even when successfully doing strenuous workouts, and even though the page says, "The step test can be quite demanding," I've never found it that way at all. (I've also noticed that "220 - age" and even more refined formulae don't seem to apply well to me, and at supposedly high heart rates I don't feel overtaxed, and when I try the "talk test," I can even sing. I've always suspected that my body is an outlier.)

Henry, I think I am an outlier in the other direction! I learned about the Harvard Step test here years ago, and that's what I have used to set my HRM settings. (I probably should do again sometime to update.) My upper range is significantly lower than the 220-age standard (although maybe it's not quite as off now that I am 51, haha). Although I don't find the Harvard step test to be hard either, my HR can get up pretty high pretty quickly with cardio. I really should do the test again!

I'm still thinking, at least tentatively, that the meditation has had unexpected benefits, but I'll probably ask for other guidance at some point.

Oh, I am sure that this is true, whether it is a HR benefit or something else. When it comes to meditation (and yoga) having all kinds of unexpected whole life benefits, I'm a believer.

[toaster]

One more thing...

I just went to the Harvard step test info Henry linked to above to remind myself of what the test involves. I saw the pulse rate age ranges for men and women (not sure how much gender is a factor, but I won't get into that ).

Anyway, there was a period of time where my RPR used to be around 60. Now when I test it, is generally around 70-72, and I sort of had this impression that my current RPR was "bad," or at least not as good as it used to be. Well, according to those charts, my RPR is in the "good to excellent" range even for an 18 year old male!!!

Ha, just goes to show you that self-criticism well get you nowhere, especially when you don't have all the facts.

[hch]

More yoga nidra from Melissa West:

Day 29 (February 2): meditation, reading, yoga nidra: Yoga Nidra for Exhaustion
Day 30 (February 3): meditation, reading
Days 31-33 (February 4-6): meditation, reading, "attempted" yoga nidra: Yoga Nidra for Sleep Yoga Guided Meditation 20 mins
(each time, I fell asleep very quickly, during the non-meditative introduction, in a way that really showed that I was sleepy, heh, not that the introduction was "effective" or boring! )
Day 34 (February 7): meditation, reading, same yoga nidra but while staying awake for most of it
Day 35 (February 8): meditation, reading, same yoga nidra but while staying awake for all of it
Day 36 (February 9): meditation, reading
Day 37 (February 10): mediation, reading, Yoga Nidra/Sleep Yoga for Anxiety

I chose those first two not because I was exhausted or in need of a sleep aid but because they were shorter, and then I chose the anxiety one simply because it was easily linked from the sleep one. They have their commonalities and their own emphases.

An idea of mine is to do what I mentioned as a possibility in an earlier post: there are several more that I haven't tried yet, and I may try each of them.

(One of them has "daily yoga nidra" in the title. I haven't listened to it yet, but the text description doesn't seem to quite match a reading of "daily" that means a literal daily frequency. Nevertheless, that idea was my first reading. I doubt that I'd do daily yoga nidra at this time of my life; I doubt that I urgently need to do it daily, I'd do other things that have some level of overlap, and I'd have other priorities for my time. Even so, I can see myself doing yoga nidra more frequently than I'd been doing it before.)

In the meantime, I'll decide what I'll do next with asanas, and I intend to post here about it.

I also intend to have more responses, including (1) some more things about heart rate and (2) some thoughts about "awkward" asanas, for instance that body proportions and the like will be part of what each person considers awkward or not. (I'll post in more detail about asanas after reviewing the posts in this thread.)

[toaster]

Henry, you are motivating me to try more of Melissa's practices!

I finished my official 40 days on Sunday. I didn't do any asana yesterday but am continuing my daily meditation practice this month (with Sharon Salzberg).

[hch]

Days 38-40 (February 11-13): meditation, reading, "attempted" yoga nidra: Yoga Nidra for HSP and Overwhelm
(Again, I fell asleep during the introductory material, mainly because I tried this very late.)
"Day 41" (February 14): meditation, reading, same yoga nidra (done earlier in the day, without falling asleep)

This video was simply the only yoga nidra of hers in my "Up next" list that I hadn't tried yet, and therefore it was easy to find, heh. I wasn't interested in trying any particular video next, and I probably won't use any special sorting criteria besides ease of finding and video length. That is, some of the remaining untried videos are under 30 minutes, and at least one is around 45; I'll try to do the longer ones on more leisurely days, if only to reserve the shorter ones for less leisurely days, until I've tried all of them.

Despite a possible impression from the title, this video doesn't seem to differ extremely from her others that I've tried so far, such that anyone who likes and benefits from the others will probably like this one too. There is some mention of the concept of high sensitivity in her introductory material, but not much, and it seems to emphasize that HSPs (Highly Sensitive Persons) may especially benefit from yoga nidra, not that "HSP yoga nidra" is for them alone and not for other people.

I still intend to try her others as well and to write about them here, even if that writing is just a report with a link. This isn't a formal extension of the sadhana (I don't oppose the idea of an extension, but this continued posting just isn't one). I just like the idea of trying all of those yoga nidra videos, and it's most convenient to post everything in the same thread if I'll try the other videos in the coming days (and not, say, next year). I've also never had a very strict idea about matching asana-based practices to a sadhana timeline, either.

I also finished reading the work that I intended to finish during this time. I'll probably start another sadhana soon, if only because the basic idea is a useful mnemonic one for my reading. Other reading, more gradual reading, continues, as does the meditation; those are the "meditation" and "reading" in my reports of the coming days.

More later! I haven't forgotten about what I mentioned in my last post.