When NOT to do Yoga for Self Care

Transcript & Further Thoughts about Self Care

I’m filming from home today, obviously! And today’s topic is when NOT to do yoga on your own. Now I taught yoga for well over 15 years and owned a prenatal yoga company in South Florida (Yogafairy.com).

You often hear yoga thrown out as a self care term or something you should do. “Go do 10 minutes of yoga and you’ll feel so much better!”

I work with a lot of entrepreneurial women, very successful, leaders in their community and you’ll often hear them say, “Oh I wish I could I could go to a yoga class but I need to do yoga on my own and maybe I should do it on my break . . . ” Something like that.

And we go through this and what I say is that if you have injuries going on you shouldn’t be doing yoga on your own. Unless you know how to work with those injuries. So if you have foot injuries and you know how to work with them o.k. –  do some yoga. There are a lot of poses you can do on the mat that don’t involve standing on your feet so much that aren’t so hard on your feet, that you can do.

Or if let’s say you have some neck injuries going on or some back injuries going on. Those are not the time to do yoga on your own. You either need to be with an instructor who knows what they’re talking about. Or you can pay for a private lesson to have someone teach you how to work with those injuries safely. That’s an option.

But, you know, if your neck – you can barely move it side to side . . . And I’ve had neck pain. That’s actually how I started doing yoga is to try to help my neck pain. I’ve had all kinds of injuries that I’ve had to learn how to work with over the years. But if you’re in that position, where you can’t even move you shouldn’t be doing yoga on your own in your office to try to help that. Like nooo, you could injure yourself worse.

Take care of yourself in other ways

So take care of yourself in other ways. Go see someone who can help you with that injury that’s an orthopedist or a physical therapist or yoga instructor (certified Iyengar level yoga instructor) or massage therapist, someone like that.

But don’t try to handle that on your own and call it “self-care.” I know you’re really busy. I know you only have like 10-15 minutes sometimes throughout the day to even do anything. But don’t sacrifice your body that way. That’s my advice for today.

I know some yoga people are not going to like to hear that. But I always say Safety First! And as I get older, that becomes more important. If you’re like 21 and watching this then you’re probably good. I’m kidding. No, if you’re 21 and you have injuries you really need to go see someone! Anyway, that’s it for today. Have a great day!

I specialize in hypnosis for anxiety and chronic conditions. Although my office is in Broward county and the Fort Lauderdale / South Florida area, I work with people all over the world. To see if we’re a good fit to work together, schedule your free consultation at 954-309-9071 or with the big green button!

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Yours in health,
Dr. Liz