8 Yoga Tools for Thriving with Chronic Illness

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Welcome…

I'm Christa and I want to be your yoga advocate. I want to help you

improve your life with chronic illness through yoga. I want you to thrive

and bee content.

I know what it's like to struggle with the symptoms of a chronic illness such

as pain and fatigue. I’ve been diagnosed with four auto immune diseases.

Yoga has been a huge part of my self-care journey for the past 25 years.

Yoga has given me a path to walk I can journey on my entire life. Because

of my diagnoses, I’ve had to stop multiple activities that brought me joy – blacksmithing,

horseback riding, lounging in the sun at the beach all day. Yoga is something I could do before my

health challenges were an issue, it’s something I can enjoy now, and I will be able to adjust my

practice in the future to stay with it. As we walk the chronic health path, it can be a challenge to

find things that are constants in our lives. We rightly have to give some things up, and I’m grateful

for the things I can still do in spite of my health. I believe yoga can fill that void for you as well

since it’s infinitely customazible. You can always practice yoga and this guide is about providing

you support in your yoga journey.

First - Involve your health care team

Always check in with your health care team before starting an exercise program. Since they’re

aware of your full medical needs, they will have the safest advice for your condition. Also,

involving your health care team will help you keep your practice evidence based. They want to

know the science behind what you’re doing, not the suggestions from Auntie’s Essential Oil

website.

Second – Gear up

Yoga requires very little gear but you’ll be more comfortable in relaxed stretchy clothes and your

own mat. Both can be had at discount stores or upscale boutiques. It’s more important to have

what works for you than where you get it. If you’re taking your practice into the pool, all you need

is your suit and the shallow end.

Third – Commit

If yoga is a new activity in your life, commit to it just as a trial. It doesn’t have to be forever, but

give it your best go for a month. That will see you through the initial newness phase, potentially

some changes in your health, and some practice challenges to see if it’s right for you. At the end

of the month, assess, and set a plan for moving forward based on what you learned. If you

currently have a yoga practice, use this guide as an opportunity to evaluate and reconnect with

your practice.

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Concentration

The original purpose of the postures in yoga

was to prepare your body to sit comfortably in

meditation. Meditation is essentially the ability

to concentrate on one thing at a time.

Meditation is not thinking of nothing, that’s

impossible. Meditation is about attaching less

to your busy thought stream to become better

able to reduce your reactivity. Meditation helps

you rewire your brain (see resources below).

Connect with your breath

The beauty of learning the power of your breath

is it’s always with you. Using your breath to

help you calm down and relax on the yoga mat builds skills you can take off the mat into your life.

Pranayama is the Sanskrit word for breath control. The simplest form of pranayama is just

witnessing your breath, noticing how you breathe. Where in your body do you feel your breath,

how long is your breath, how does it sound, what do you smell, etc.? Once you’ve built the skill of

witnessing your breath, you’ll be able to notice how your breath changes when you’re stressed or

overexerting yourself. It’s one more tool you can use in taking better care of yourself. This

witnessing your breath practice, would be considered a single pointed focus meditation.

Everything about yoga is designed to increase your ability to concentrate. Total focus on the state

of your body, mind, and breath as you practice brings you closer to a state of moksha (the Hindu

concept of being freed from the cycle of your unuseful patterns). Western researchers have used

yoga as an example of “flow”, “…a joyous, self-forgetful involvement through concentration, which

in turn is made possible by a discipline of the body.”1 It is a universally available way to immerse

yourself fully in bringing all aspects of yourself together.

“People look for retreats for themselves, in the country, by the coast, or in the hills. There is

nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his own mind. . . .

So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.” – Marcus Aurelius

Use your password: BEECONTENT in the members area to access a free gratitude meditation from

me.

Resources:

Meditation: In Depth

Medical Yoga Therapy

1 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

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Practice Self Compassion

When was the last time you gave yourself a hug

and a hive five?

When was the last time your internal dialogue

was all about how amazing, wonderful, and

beautiful you are?

For most of us, it doesn’t come naturally. If we

see a suffering puppy, we are filled with

compassion and motivated to take action to

improve its state of being. Is it as easy to do the

same for yourself?

Practicing self compassion is a radical act of

bravery. It involves showing up for yourself and squelching your fears. First responders and

military personnel get training in facing their fears and doing their jobs despite those fears. Aren’t

we all born to take care of ourselves and love ourselves? Did you get any training in how to do

that? How about after your diagnosis? Did anyone sit down and help you learn how to be more

compassionate and kind to yourself since managing your health is going to be a 24/7 job on top of

everything else you do?

What’s keeping your from being compassionate with yourself? How can you transform thoughts

about what you deserve to always be kind and considerate? Do you really have anything to lose

by transforming your relationship with yourself to one of kindness?

Use your time on your mat to practice self compassion. Always focus on what you can do, not

what you can’t. Your practice should nourish, enrich and sustain you. Your practice is for you,

directed by you, to meet your needs.

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else

- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” - e. e.

cummings

For more help on practicing self compassion, check out the work of Kristin Neff. She has books,

meditations and resources on her website on how to increase self compassion.

Research on self compassion:

The Impact of Compassion-Focused Self-Help on Well-Being

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Keep yoga accessible

A big barrier to practicing yoga is our

perceptions about what yoga is. It’s perceived

by many to be physical exercise for young,

flexible, white women who have the time and

money. As a yoga teacher, I hear variations of

that description all the time when people tell

me why they can’t practice yoga. Advertisers

reinforce those perceptions, but the reality of

yoga is far from that.

Yoga is for EVERY body.

“If you have a body and a mind, you can do yoga”.

– Jivana Heyman

Yoga is for everyone including those with health challenges. The biggest change people with

health challenges need to their yoga practice is their attitude.

You need to make your practice available to you right here and right now. Your practice should

always be a place of support, solace, and comfort. It shouldn’t increase your pain levels, cause you

stress, or be somewhere you encounter body shaming.

One way to keep yoga accessible is to find the right instructor.

Read my tips on how to keep yoga accessible. Find an Accessible Yoga Ambassador in your area

by visiting their website. Read my post on how to find a class for your health needs on my website

HERE.

If applicable, search out a trauma informed yoga specialist. This would be relevant if you have a

high ACE’s score along with your health challenges. If you haven’t read about the connections

between Adverse Childhood Events and chronic health, explore the ACE’s Too High website.

The only style of yoga you should really avoid under almost all circumstances would be Bikram

yoga. The super-heated room is designed to stress your physiology. If you’re trying to practice

yoga with a chronic disease, your physiology is already under duress, don’t make it worse.

Using yoga props is a great way to keep your practice accessible. When an instructor offers

suggestions for props, give it a try. An aversion to props is usually more about your ego than your

body.

Another way to keep your yoga accessible is to practice in the pool…

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Aqua yoga

Aqua yoga has some huge benefits for people

with chronic illness compared to other styles of

yoga.

It’s no impact. You’re not bouncing around like

an aquatics aerobics class, nor are you doing

jump-throughs like in a flow yoga class. It’s soft

on your joints, which really matters if you’re

practicing with arthritic conditions,

hypermobility situations, or spinal problems.

You stay on your feet. If you now have bionic

joints, they may not bend like your original

ones. Sitting on the floor may no longer be an

option, or you might have enough challenges with your hands and wrists that regular yoga is out.

Your weight doesn’t matter. If you have a chronic illness it’s hard to exercise with chronic pain,

some people self medicate with poor food choices and develop weight challenges or you might be

self conscious about your appearance. The buoyancy of the water is friendly for those joint

problems that are aggravated when you have an abundant body. Also, working out in the water,

no one can see you so there’s no reason to be self-conscious.

If you’re new to yoga, you’re more likely to stay with it. Research has shown for people with no

exercise regimen, if they start with an aquatics program, they report enjoying it more and sticking

with it longer, than a land based program2.

The hydrostatic pressure (the force of the water pushing in on you everywhere) of the water

reduces swelling and contributes to kidney health.

It’s extremely low risk. Yoga overall is no more dangerous than being alive, however3, as more

people turn to yoga, injury rates have gone up, especially for seniors. Since water removes most

of the risks associated with gravity, you’re less likely to hurt yourself in an aqua yoga class

compared to land.

Men like it. I have no research for this but I have men come to my aqua classes more consistently

than my land classes. I’ve heard similar reports from other aqua yoga teachers. If you’re looking

for yoga to do with a man, take him to aqua yoga.

If you’re looking for aqua yoga resources, check out my aqua yoga page.

2 Hydrotherapy versus conventional land-based exercise for the management of patients with osteoarthritis of the knee: a randomized

clinical trial, Silva et al. 3 Yoga-Related Injuries in the United States From 2001 to 2014, Swain et al.

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Use yoga philosophy

Yoga has endured for centuries not because it

has five great poses that build sculpted abs, but

because it’s a philosophy that helps you build a

better life.

One of the most powerful ideas for people

struggling with chronic illness is the idea that

you are perfect as you are.

“Yoga subscribes to the notion that deep within us

there is something that is also very real but, unlike

everything else, is not subject to change.” TKV

Desikachar The Heart of Yoga

You are not defined by your diagnoses. You would never introduce yourself to someone else

saying, “Hi! I’m osteoarthritis in my left knee, mixed with pre-diabetes and a dash of Sjogren’s

thrown in.” Yoga helps you rediscover everything that’s inside you that was there before your

diagnoses, and will continue to be there no matter how your health changes.

Practicing yoga helps you find your own inner landscape – wants, needs, passions, faults, fears.

You get to decide what to do about all those. You can drop the things that aren’t serving you. You

can strengthen your strengths by flexing the muscles of your talents. You can release your fears

about the future, and stop dwelling in the past.

If you don’t have a copy of the yoga sutras, check one out from your local library or buy one. Two I

like are Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by BKS Iyengar or The Secret Power of Yoga by Nischala

Joy Devi.

Read my book, There’s no P in our OOL, for more tips on how to apply the first two limbs of yoga,

the yamas and niyamas in your daily life.

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Keep a practice journal

A practice journal can help you in multiple

ways. It can help you track your practice, goals,

and development as a yogi.

That can mean your progress in asana for

example. If you want to be able to get to a

certain point in an asana it can show your

progress over time.

If you have a goal such as practicing 3X per

week for a month, it can help hold you

accountable to that goal.

If you want to study yoga philosophy, it can

provide you with a space to record your thoughts and observations.

If your yoga practice is bringing up emotional issues you need to deal with, it provides you a space

to hash those out.

If you have questions for your yoga instructor or health care professional that you think of while

practicing, it gives you a place to jot them down so you don’t forget, or have the struggle to

remember, be a distraction.

It can also serve as a symptom tracker you can share with your health care team. If suddenly one

hip consistently bothers your over the course of the month, or inversions are making you light

headed out of the blue, you have the documentation you can share with your health care team.

Exercise is important to everyone with a chronic illness, but it’s important to keep it safe and

appropriate, and this documentation can help.

You can journal with anything; scraps of paper, a recycled school notebook, or a fancy leather

bound book. The act of writing is what’s therapeutic, not what it’s in, so don’t let that be an

obstacle.

Use your password: BEECONTENT in the members area of the website for journaling resources

from me.

If you’re ready to go and just need some prompts, the next page will get you started.

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What inspires you about practicing yoga?

What have been the obstacles in your yoga practice?

Can you identify 3 resources you can use to get past these obstacles?

Next time your health is giving you trouble, what are three things can you do to still be

able to practice?

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Stay flexible

I don’t mean your ability to bring your head to

your knees in an asana here. I mean your

willingness to change your perception of what

your practice needs to look like in any given

day. You need to flex the muscle of self-

permission to meet your needs in the

moment.

Are you serving your yoga practice or is it

serving you?

“With humility (an open heart and mind), we

embrace the sacred study of yoga.” - Nischala Joy

Devi

That’s the first yoga sutra translated by Joy Devi who calls on us to practice with an open heart and

mind. This requires us to be open to change and humble enough to recognize our strengths and

limitations.

Having a substitution plan in place is an example of keeping your practice responsive to your

needs.

Here’s some ideas:

Instead of a land class Practice in the pool

Instead of a full 1:20 minute class Go to the 45 minute tune up class

Instead of a flow class Go to a gentle class

Instead of practicing 5 days a week Take a day off

Instead of a physical practice Just sit on your mat and read a book

Instead of sticking with a teacher who pushes you Try a restorative class somewhere new

You get the idea…

Write down three ideas right now below, to have a substitution plan for yourself on file, for the

next time you need it.

1.

2.

3.

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Find a practice buddy

Yoga is considered a solitary practice but

involving others can have its benefits. Do you

need accountability to make it to class? Setting

a date with another person to help get you

there, gets you there. Before you go together,

check in with your buddy and let them know

how you’re doing that day. If it’s a day you need

to back off, when you’re in class together and

they see you pushing yourself, they can give you

that little clue to help you keep your practice

right for you, instead of being pushed by your

ego.

Practicing with a buddy keeps you focused on what you can do. Any disease will require you to

make some changes in your life. Bringing others into the parts of your life that engage you keeps

you focused on what you can do, not dwelling on what you can’t. No friend says, “Hey come on

over and let’s bake some gluten filled sugar death bombs and then go lay in the sun on the deck

and work on some skin cancer.” A friend wants to be with you and support you in ways that work

for you. We need support in our lives.

Use community support also:

Reach out to others in your yoga studio

Post a notice for a workout buddy in your doctor’s office

Find a meditation community in your area

Find a local support group for your condition. Here’s a government run directory of over 1,100

support groups.

Take a CDC class on disease management – resources and provider link HERE.

Use online communities. I run a Facebook group on Yoga for Auto Immune Diseases. Join us

HERE.

In case you need some research to back this up:

Social and Emotional Support and its Implication for Health

Yoga will help you be the healthiest person you can be. Health is a journey not a destination. It’s

not the absence of disease. Your doctor is trying to keep you out of disability and premature

death, obviously important, but there’s more to life than not dying. We need coping tools to

thrive. Yoga can be one of those tools. I look forward to connecting with you on your yoga

journey and helping you find wellness, hope, and contentment.