Year to Best: Act #13 - Hot, Hot Yoga

I enjoy yoga.  I enjoy yoga MOST at a real yoga studio (i.e. not LA Fitness or another health club), as the classes tend to be much more effective and authentic in a regular studio.  I began hearing about hot yoga and its many health benefits, so although it sounded horrible, I decided to give it a whirl.

Hot yoga is basically yoga in a room heated to around 104 degrees.  It's HOT.  It's sweaty.  You have to go hydrated, but without a full stomach (the heat might make you want to hurl).  Most people are wearing very skimpy clothes...because...well, it's hot.  I don't blame them and wore tiny clothes as well.  

The yoga class was 90 minutes, with about 20 minutes warm-up, 20 minutes standing/balance poses, 20 minutes sitting/stretching poses, and the other half hour restorative, strength, breathing, meditation, etc.  It was mega sweaty.  I was dripping sweat, and I am not a very sweaty person.  I was completely soaked...clothes, hair, everything.  It was hard to hold some poses because my skin was so slippery, and I had to use my towel a lot.  Next time, I am skipping the small face towel and taking a beach towel.  It's good to put it on the mat to catch drips and keep you from slipping.

I left the class feeling pretty loose and calm.  As far as the health benefits...

Hot Yoga claims...

1. THE CLAIM: "Increase Vitality: If you want to gain more spring in your step and recover the “vim and vigor” of youth, the Bikram series practiced in a heated room is a great form of yoga. It has the potential to reverse the elements of aging, giving you the ability to take much deeper breaths to navigate your way through a hectic modern world or simply run up a flight of stairs! Keep up with a consistent practice and you’re guaranteed to look and feel younger."  
MY EXPERIENCE: not sure yet - I've only gone once.  I didn't notice truly deeper breathing, but I breathe pretty deeply during yoga most of the time.

2. THE CLAIM: "Weight Loss: Practicing Bikram in a heated room creates a much safer approach to your yoga practice as it allows you to stretch quicker and deeper. This is turn leads to stronger flexibility in the muscles which burns fat. As every fitness trainer knows, building muscle burns fat — doing the Bikram sequence in a hot room jump-starts this process. Additionally, one of the overall effects of Bikram yoga is a general improvement in diet as the body craves healthier food. As the practice itself sharpens our perception of the mind-body connection, so does our overall awareness of what the body needs, reinvigorating the body’s natural processes to long for healthier food."

MY EXPERIENCE:  I was able to stretch deeper and longer since my muscles were so heated.  And they do focus on being strong and stable, but isn't that the case with most yoga?

3. THE CLAIM: "Detoxification: The massive elimination of toxins from the body occurs during hot yoga, primarily thru sweat. It’s possible to drop up to 10 pounds of sweat (which includes oil, salts and water) during a class. As water rushes out during the course of a 90 minute class, this creates immense benefits such as super clean skin and the detoxification of pores in the body’s largest organ — the skin."

MY EXPERIENCE: I was definitely sweating, and if that was cleaning my body out, good for me!

4. THE CLAIM: "Increased Mental Clarity:  As the body is cleansed, the mind is sharpened. Regular Bikram practice leads to  improved mental clarity, clearing out the “fuzz in brain” caused by the modern world’s list of negative stimuli — traffic, stress, bad food, pollution, etc. In addition, poses with significant time spent in forward bends sends blood rushing to the head, which is a fantastic way to “clear out the mental cobwebs.”

MY EXPERIENCE: Need to practice more to really know, but most yoga helps with mental clarity, I think.

5. THE CLAIM: "Reduced Stress: Perhaps one of the most significant Bikram yoga benefits is the increased connectivity with the body, gained from regular practice. The intense focus in the sequence causes the chatter of the mind to decrease, leaving one less mentally preoccupied, both in and out of the class. Also, with consistent practice, the muscle memory of taking deeper breaths carries over into daily life, automatically providing instant relief to the temporary stressors that plague our modern world."

MY EXPERIENCE: Need to practice more to know, but this is about the same as #4, for me.  Mental clarity helps with less stress.  Also, regular yoga helps with this.

Overall, I'd say my hot yoga experience was intriguing, but I am just not sure how much more beneficial it is than regular yoga.  Sure, it's a bit like taking care of a sauna session and yoga in one, so if you're in it for being efficient, that makes sense.  I am going to give it a few more tries, but I'm still up in the air on how this might contribute to my wellness overall.