Casey and I just returned from a retreat in Costa Rica - we relaxed, we meditated and went inward, we ate exceptionally well, and we did a lot of yoga. The time away gave me the space to reflect a bit on my own self-care practice. What might I want to change? How have I felt short in caring for myself in the past? What could I add (or subtract)? I came back to yoga again and again.

In my younger years, I practiced yoga purely for the physical benefits. I liked feeling flexible, I liked sweating (as I’d only go to hot yoga), I liked how tough it felt for me. I’d listen to the instructor tell us to keep our focus on our own mat, but I wouldn’t *hear* it. In my head, I was competing with the person next to me, or the bendiest person in the room, to see who could yoga the best. And while I did get a lot out of the practice physically, I didn’t benefit much mentally, despite wanting to. I couldn’t see what I was missing, and eventually fell out of practice in favor of other hard ways of training (lifting, running, hard HIIT classes and nothing else).

I’m a little older now. My 30s have been amazing, and I’ve felt the little call in the back of my mind to start slowing down a bit. I’m comparing less, I’m savoring more. I still have anxiety, and I still feel stress, so I still have a lot of room for improving my patience and ability to stay in the moment. During our retreat, we focused largely on yin yoga, a practice I wasn’t very familiar with. We used a ton of props and focused largely on breathing through very long time periods in each pose. It was very difficult at first, but by the third or fourth night, I had finally begun to master the breathing techniques our instructor was teaching us. It became far easier to calm my nervous system down quickly. And I was able to take it home with me after, which has been huge.

I also realized that those long asanas were familiar - it wasn’t terribly unlike floating. Your first float (or first float back after some time off) can feel very uncomfortable. What am I going to do for an hour? How do I get comfortable in here? You end up having to fight the urge to constantly adjust (don’t want to ping-pong around the tank), or to scratch every itch. And even harder, you have your mind to grapple with. Those breathing techniques, like alternate nostril breathing that I’ll describe down below, have been useful inside the tank as well! They bring you back to your center, back to the present, and allow the mind to slow down and come to rest. 

And ultimately, what is floating but not the ultimate elongated savasana?!

Alternate Nostril Breathing (Nadi Shodhana Pranayama):

1. Relax your left palm comfortably into your lap and bring your right hand just in front of your face.

2. With your right hand, bring your pointer finger and middle finger to rest between your eyebrows, lightly using them as an anchor. The fingers we’ll be actively using are the thumb and ring finger.

3. Close your eyes and take a deep breath in and out through your nose.

4. Close your right nostril with your right thumb. Inhale through the left nostril slowly and steadily.

5. Close the left nostril with your ring finger so both nostrils are held closed; retain your breath at the top of the inhale for a brief pause.

6. Open your right nostril and release the breath slowly through the right side; pause briefly at the bottom of the exhale.

7. Inhale through the right side slowly.

8. Hold both nostrils closed (with ring finger and thumb).

9. Open your left nostril and release breath slowly through the left side. Pause briefly at the bottom.

10. Repeat 5-10 cycles, allowing your mind to follow your inhales and exhales.