Is yoga helping or hurting you? How do you know?

I have a lot of respect for the Yoga community. They have contributed an enormous amount of education to the fitness industry. Especially in regards to the importance of breathing and self awareness.

Is yoga good for you? The answer is-it depends! The same answer I give when I’m asked about any kind of movement practice.

Lots of people are educating on the idea that mobility practices that develop more active ownership of full ranges of motion is important for filling passive gaps. I agree! Sounds like great advice.

We are about to go 100 steps further into the brain.

Are you ready?

Enter Interoception and the Insula Cortex

If you are a well practiced yogi you might be an interoceptive ninja!

What is interoception?

Simply put, intreroception is our awareness of our internal homeostatic processes. The map for this lives in the Insula Cortex of the brain and it is the foundation of our emotional awareness.

All of the following are associated with interoception and they are also all associated with the Vagus Nerve:

• Warmth
• Heart beat
• Respiration
• Self-awareness
• Monitoring and predicting autonomic needs 

Kinda sounds like Yoga, doesn’t it!?

So, just like any movement practice, understanding what it’s giving you is key and understanding dosage is critical!

For some, Yoga is exactly what they need - a super powerful insular activation.

When done intelligently it can produce wonderful results.

For others, it’s a disaster! Making them worse in ways they really can’t even understand or explain. Even causes pain. Because remember! 

The Insula = emotional awareness!

BUT, some keep going back to yoga as the thing that they believe will fix them.

People with insular deficits are sometimes hyper-aware of their body.

These people can actually tell you that they feel their organs and other trunk muscles that we really shouldn’t feel by design.

Now don’t misunderstand - having a good interoceptive map is a skill. But, too good of a map creates a sensory mismatch!

And, it usually means another part of the map is really poor! Oddly enough my yoga clients usually have breathing dysfunctions and metabolic sensitivities. How could that be?

More to come in my next post - Part 2 of is Yoga Helping or Hurting you?

Cheers!

About the Author:

Taylor Kruse, recently featured in Men's Health, is dedicated to empowering you with the truth and tools for improved health and performance.

His inspiration stems from more than 10 years of education and coaching through systems like Zhealth Performance, The Burdenko Method, and various movement practices.

In 2013, he co-founded The Movement Project with girlfriend, Alisha Hale. Both are dedicated to inspiring people, coaches, and trainers into their best health and performance.