The missing link

My clinical practice is to view the body, mind and spirit together as the three pillars of health and wellbeing. Balance all three and health is the reward.

I would like to share how I perceive the integration of yoga with what our current healthcare system provides for us, and how much responsibility we take to maintain our own wellbeing. Please take a moment to consider and reflect upon the following:

• What is it that you expect from your healthcare system?
• What are you the three most important factors that influence your wellbeing?
  
• If you practice yoga, what are the main benefits of your practice?
  

Yoga and meditation are methods to help you find stillness in a busy mind and to enable thoughts to slow down to bring calmness, clarity and presence.

Practicing asanas (postures) can be as challenging to the body as achieving quiet is to the mind. The reason being that physical practice is often directed only to the body with little attention to the mind. Despite this missing link in many classes, yoga is still a wonderful way to move your body and spend time in a class with other like-minded people. Compare the impact on your joints and bones of running on hard concrete, or the consequences of excessive weight lifting that may compromise posture and balance by unknowingly creating asymmetry in the body. Yoga is for anybody and can be adapted to even the most infirm with the right guidance and understanding of the body. This is yoga in the broader sense that goes far beyond postures but delves deeper into personality and spirit.

When it comes to physical illness we would like our healthcare system to take a holistic approach to diagnosing and treating. It is clear how important this is to achieve good patient care for so many illnesses from IBS, depression to arthritis and cancer. Diseases manifest in the physical body with symptoms, which are relatively easy to recognise and address but often the underlying cause is not. The state of mind and the history of events in a persons life have a far deeper involvement in the manifested symptoms.

Ayurveda is a medical practice in which the mind is considered at the outset of a diagnosis in order to get to the root cause of the problem. According to this science, almost all disease results from a 'stress' within the mind system which over time spills into the body system and forms the visible symptoms. Other than infections and physical injuries that have an external cause, all other problems can be deemed as rooted in the psyche. Ayurveda and its associated science of Yoga will treat the mind either before the body or in tandem with the physical. If we ignore the root causes of disease then it is unlikely the body will ever be brought back into ease and comfort without returning to disease and discomfort. It follows that symptom eradication is rarely the cure of a disease.

If as a clinical practitioner I spend time with a participant discussing where the root cause of their ailment began, we have a higher likelihood of cure than if I were to simply treat the symptoms being presented at that point in time. Illness can indeed be of both internal or external causes, where the former can be slow developing and deeper rooted than the latter. A holistic approach to health is necessary to achieve positive outcomes for prognosis and for cure.

Linking the body and mind is the first most important link to make in health.

In yoga, it is the breath that allows us to link our movement to our mind. Without the breath link, yoga posture practice becomes a single focused gymnastics with the aim to jump higher or twist deeper at the expense of the physical. Then after class you return to your anxieties, ailments and addictions. Your yoga teacher is the guiding breath that takes you on the journey of bringing physical and mental together, much like the doctor who can appease your mind by removing the discomfort of your body. In both scenarios, what we need is that third vital element: the breath.

The breath is the bridge between our physical body and subtle mind.

Inhaling we take in oxygen, and exhaling we remove carbon dioxide. Very basic correlation here is we take in nutrients and remove toxins. Some of us however, will consciously decide to take in toxins and remove nutrients. The deeper the breath, the longer we hold, the more time and space for exchange between the lungs and blood, and the better the stretch and control of the voluntary reflexes of a predominantly autonomic system. Every blood cell is revived by the fresh oxygen that attaches to the elemental iron and takes it voyage around the body through vital organs to every other cell that is given the energy to perform its functions and maintain our health and wellbeing. This is a very crude and simplistic way of looking at it, and it returns us to the cliché of ‘we are what we eat’ as well as 'we are what we breath, think and perceive'.

The breath is the energiser for the body and it cleanses and soothes the mind and helps our postures become more refined. The breath gives us ease in our body and mind. Here we identify three elements of existence, the physical, causal and spiritual; in other words the body, mind and spirit. Let us not shy away from the spirit in this context. We are all used to the expression “I’m in good spirits” and this is not religious or spiritual comment. It simply means we are happy and enjoying our moment. I like to direct our attention to spirit often, because I define it as:

“To be in good spirit, is to be happy in the present moment where the body and mind feels light and able to overcome all obstacles to achieve greatness”.

So let us all embrace our spirit and let us not deny that we like the idea of good spirits. This is my spirituality; to be happy right now. My yoga is driven by the stillness of my mind and the energy of my breath. My clinical practice is to view the body, mind and spirit together as the three pillars of health and wellbeing. Balance all three and health is the reward.

When my doctor takes the time to really ask how I am and not just about my symptoms, I can leave the consultation feeling lighter and usually better [with or without a prescription in hand]. As a clinical practitioner and yoga teacher I like to combine the most clinical aspects of health with the spiritual effects on the mind and heart. Our attendance of yoga class is our responsibility, as is our overall health and our decisions as to what we eat, drink, live and breathe.

Responsibility is the key factor to health and wellbeing, and to never shirk it, and to never think that the healthcare system should make me better, but firstly think how you make yourself better. I believe in providing the tools to help an individual learn to accept responsibility for every action they undertake and to gently work toward a future of good health and wellbeing that incorporates a form of disciplined routine which could be yoga, meditation or any activity that suits you and your needs.

Every spirit is different, every body is unique and every mind has its own capacity to heal.

Health is bespoke, and one size definitely does not fit all.

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