Embrace Your Destiny: Practice What You Love!

Several of our yoga teachers have said that often people start Hot 26 to look better, but they keep up their practice because of the mind benefits.  Both reasons work for me. MS puts me on the edge of stress all the time. In the moment, I can feel stress building up. My reaction of anger, fear, anxiety or whatever is way over the top of what it should be. This is definitely one of the day to day symptoms of MS that require a management strategy. For me, Hot 26 is my ticket to feeling calm as well as feeling good physically all day. I prefer practicing this yoga daily, but sometimes life gets in the way. Lucky for me, I love doing it and especially love the way I feel after class and the rest of the day.

I've been doing this practice for four years. For two years, I've been practicing daily. I firmly believe that Hot 26 has been a huge player in helping me arrest the progress of the Primary Progressive form of MS I have. For sixteen years, I was on a path of steady decline in both how I felt and how well I moved. After two years of regular practice of this yoga I noticed big changes. Most importantly, I was able to stop taking two support drugs. Let me explain.

Migraine headaches were a regular occurrence for me throughout my career and even after retirement. After the MS diagnosis and I realized headaches were one of my symptoms of the disease, I started tracking when they occurred and how many I had during a month. In a good month, I might only have five or six. During a bad month I might have migraines nine or ten days a month. I worked through them because I just thought they were stress related, weather related or hormone related. Wake up call!! The number of headaches I tracked each month declined dramatically after two years of practicing hot yoga. Now, after three years, I rarely have a migraine that compels me to take the strong Imitrex medicine. 

Another medication I stopped taking right a year ago was a drug for increasing movement capability. I took this compounded drug for about eight years and it worked well. In talking with Sarah my acupuncturist, about these night headaches, she thought maybe this drug may be the problem. She researched the active ingredient, amino pyridine and found headaches noted as a side effect. Since my headaches always started during the night around 2:00 AM, she suggested changing the time of day I take my second round of meds. That worked really well, resulting in even fewer headaches. Then it occurred to me that maybe I could go off that medicine entirely. When I talked to my neurologist about this idea, he said to go ahead and try. I was watchful for months after eliminating the drug. Now, after being off of the drug for two years I can report that I am doing great without it. 

I could go on and on about how the Hot 26 has helped me both physically, physiologically, and psychologically, but I won't right now. Normal people practice regularly too. I've talked with lots of yogis who practice regularly. Here is what they said is the draw for them:

Selfie with Sari 

Sari McCaffrey has been doing daily yoga for years and years. She started in New York and continued practicing  when she moved to Germany with her husband. Sari said it's her "me time". She also enjoys feeling the group energy and the coordinated movement both doing the postures and moving in and out of the postures. She says the yoga community is really special too.  

Angie, a ballet studio owner says she just LOVES Hot 26. She is sure it makes her a better ballet teacher. In short, she says she does it everyday because she needs it. Both Angie and Sari often do doubles. They will do the whole 90 minutes a second time when they have time or really need it.

Yogi, Mary

Mary told me she started doing Hot 26 years ago when she was a young mother of four teenagers spaced close together. She started doing it to maintain her sanity and says that she continues for similar reasons. The worry and responsibility for children never ends.

Minion said she needs the daily quiet time and inward focus of the practice. She has been practicing a long time as well. She says she never tires of coming. She intentionally comes only six days a week but always feels just a little off the day she misses. 

Liz appreciates that it is safe and is the same routine everyday. She says she can see improvement that way. She likes the way she always feels good after coming and says it's the only yoga that keeps her coming back.

Jaclyn said she backed into hot yoga. She had been a runner and was needing a healing practice. She remembers hating it early on. But the healing she needed took place and before she knew it, she was addicted. 

For me, hot yoga is the source of all the good things I'm feeling and experiencing. It's all about the good vibes of instructors and yogis in the room. Positivity is a key to success in anything. Yoga is naturally positive and draws positive people to the practice.