Yoga: The Right Exercise for Me

By Elaine Fox

I knew yoga was the right exercise for me when one of my early teachers passed on this favorite yogic maxim: “Don’t just do something, sit there!”

Like any woman with normal body obsessions, I’ve done my share of exercise videos and aerobics classes; I have a closet full of free weights and stretchy elastic bands; and I’ve wasted my share of gym memberships. It wasn’t until I discovered yoga that I learned there was something out there for which I did not have to make deals with the devil in order to go. I did not have to motivate myself with the fact that I’d feel better afterward. And I didn’t have to grit my teeth to get through it.

I remember early on lying in an incredibly comfortable reclining half twist, feeling my body melt into the mat as my lower back released and my spine stretched and my brain sank into tranquility, thinking, “This is nice, but am I getting in shape?”

A few short months later I was noticing how much more comfortable my jeans were, how my arms had muscles I could actually see (though not in any gender-bending way), how much more energy I had.

I graduated from the sheer, blissed-out stages of early yoga, where I reveled in the fact that every pose was followed by a rest and every challenge was doable, to get into such things as headstands, backbends and power yoga. I have sweated so much I could feel it dripping from my earrings and landing in rainy-day patterns on my mat. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that yoga is not aerobic!

But the thing is, it doesn’t have to be. To start out, all you have to do is move. Just a little. Just in this way that feels good.

I could go on and on about all the positive changes I’ve seen in myself -- I’ve become quite the yoga zealot -- but here’s what it means for writers: It means sitting in a chair for hours at a time does not leave you doomed to pull a muscle or throw out your back when you suddenly have to do something active. It means those aching neck and shoulder muscles can be unknotted, stretched out, loosened up with just a once-a-week class. It means focus and concentration can be practiced, learned -- achieved! -- and used in your daily work.

But most of all what it means is that all those neuroses, all those head-centric, mind-wearying, running around in plot circles problems, and the is-my-career-doomed-to-failure worries can be soothed by using the body. I always knew you could use the mind to relax the body. I had no idea you could use the body to relax the mind.

What a revelation! You don’t have to think your way out of everything. You can stretch, breathe, lift, breathe, hold, breathe, and finally lie down in corpse pose (really!) and know that your only task is to stop thinking. After a while you realize that this process will bring you back to writing in shape to be more productive than you’ve ever been.

(P.S. I would like to add one last thing. Many people take one yoga class, often at a gym, and end up with a teacher who treats it like a high school football practice with the goal of making the participants suck it up and sweat, stretch beyond their means, and try things their bodies can’t do. This is not yoga. Yoga should feel good and get progressively more challenging when you decide it should. I recommend going to an actual yoga studio for classes, because the teachers there are generally more schooled in yoga philosophy, but some independent teachers are good too. Just don’t decide you hate yoga because you got an instructor who tried to kill you. :)

Be sure to visit USA Today best-selling author Elaine Fox's site here.