Body and Breath - Yoga Shop Talk

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Yoga shoptalk, September, 2003

With the sudden change of weather, I feel cold all day, and the last thing I want to do in the early morning is practice of hatha yoga. What about eating first to get warm? And do you have any suggestions for how to warm up and begin the day with yoga postures?

Answer: I once had a friend who went camping every January in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area of northern Minnesota. To the uninformed and unprepared this can be dangerous, since the temperature can easily drop to minus 40 degrees F or even colder on a winter night in that part of the country, and if you make one of several mistakes before going to sleep, your body might not be found until late spring. And according to my friend, what you do the first thing in the morning (assuming you do indeed wake up) is crucially important. She told me the first rule of the day is to warm up from inside out by doing exercises that generate heat internally, and that warming up by immediately building a fire and cooking breakfast can be a mistake, as this is likely to leave you feeling cold the rest of the day, depleting your energy and increasing your vulnerability to the extreme environment.

This directive for extreme winter camping suggests that the best way to start the day when seasonal cold appears in an ordinary environment is with hatha yoga practices that similarly warm you up from the inside. Here are some simple suggestions. First and even while you are still in bed and under your bed covers you can draw your knees partially up and do crunch exercises (chapter 3, Anatomy of Hatha Yoga). Then you can turn over, still under the covers, and do any number of active prone backbending exercises (chapter 5). If you do these exercises and poses with enthusiasm, it won’t be long before you can face dealing with a cold room. Then, dressed appropriately for the temperature, you can do a dozen sun salutations or other standing postures (chapter 4), which will warm you up even more. Finally, you can sit in a meditation pose and practice the warming blacksmith’s bellows breath (chapter 2). As soon as your practice is completed, be sure to remain alert and conscious, at least for the rest of the morning. Getting drowsy and going back to bed is likely to bring on chills and discomfort.