07/12/2025
Now, keep in mind, I’m not your typical yoga teacher, and I try to keep my opinions to myself regarding practices that are a hit with the general public… but today I’m reminded why not every yoga practice is suitable for everybody.
Today I taught our Rigazzi Wellness class at Peaceful Side Brewery, and I asked our participants to feel the sensations of their bodies in our naturally heated environment compared to the sensations in their body when the temps were cooler.
While demonstrating certain yoga postures, I noticed I needed to use extra care as mild subluxation was occurring within my right shoulder girdle. I’ve had issues since childhood with that shoulder popping out of place, but usually my shoulder strengthening routine helps to keep it from happening. I also most likely have POTS which is one of many comorbidities that correspond to connective tissue diseases, but since more testing is needed for a definitive diagnosis, I’ll call it dysautonomia for now. It’s an autonomic nervous system disorder that causes nausea, dizziness, fainting, heart palpitations, and issues with temperature regulation. That temperature regulation is a real thing for me. If I get too hot, I can’t cool down. If I get too cold, I cannot warm up. There is no in between. So in class today, I gave the option to practice or NOT to practice standing forward folds and headstand variations. I try to encourage everyone to listen to their own bodies and to do what feels best for them at any given time. Since I knew the abilities of our participants today, I did not demo these inversions because I did not want them to have to pick me up off the floor, even though I know they would have taken good care of me! The heat was causing issues, and I knew I had to listen to my own body.
I have a hypermobile connective tissue disease called Loeys-Dietz syndrome (LDS), which is a more aggressive cousin to Marfan and Ehlers-Danlos syndromes. My condition went too long without the proper care, and through the years, my body has tried to protect itself by providing rigidity throughout the connective tissue system all throughout my body. While I still mostly maintain an incredible amount of hypermobility and super flexibility throughout my joints, I have developed chronic body pain presented in full blown fibromyalgia, trigger points and all.
In Ayurveda, I’m a Vata Pitta constitution. Unless you’re a client of mine or study Ayurveda in depth with a qualified educator, I know that means nothing to you, but simply put, Vata is associated with space and air. Vata regulates all movement and processes in your mind and body, including processes like blood flow, elimination, breathing, and the movement of thoughts in your mind. A Vata personality in balance has good energy levels and is often vivacious, with the ability to learn quickly and fall asleep easily. He has a clear, focused, and alert mind, a healthy digestive system, and good circulation and even body temperature. When out of balance disease occurs, usually first showing up as symptoms like constipation and overthinking/overanalyzing, then anxiety or symptoms of ADHD. When not treated properly early on, Vata is responsible for over 80% of all disease.
In me, elevated Vata pushes Pitta into imbalance, too, causing all sorts of inflammatory issues such as increased gut dysfunction (think nausea, loose stools, diarrhea, heartburn/GERD), migraines and chronic body pain, severe PMS and extremely heavy menstrual bleeding. This is where it is imperative that I limit strenuous activity in extreme heat, and I encourage you to be cautious as well. Pitta is related to fire and water and regulates digestion and transformation. When in balance, a Pitta person exhibits as that Type A perfectionist who has good digestion and sleeps well at night. When out of balance, Pitta predominance symptoms present as fiery, irritable or angry, and even controlling personalities. She may even be a passionate worker turned workaholic. Skin issues are common as is interrupted sleep.
It is important to say this again, most hypermobile humans begin as Vata types and Vata eventually pushes Pitta out of balance creating inflammatory mental and physical responses.
Vata has the qualities of cold, light, dry, rough, mobile, subtle, and clear. In Ayurveda, we introduce and use the opposite qualites as medicine to create balance in Vata. In simple Vata imbalances alone, certain gentle and grounding movement in a heated room could be ideal. However, for those with hypermobile joints, high temperatures no matter how controlled, may be too much.
What I noticed today was that the heat in our space relaxed a great deal of muscle tightness and rigidity that I felt before the session. That is great, and usually my goal in treatment. However, I eventually became too relaxed for what poses we were doing, and subluxation became a concern.
After our session, I had ice cream. Definitely not the healthiest choice for lunch with friends, but I needed to balance that heated practice with something cold and soothing so as to not elevate Pitta any further. I’ve already experienced the inflammatory effects of my elevated Pitta dosha in the forms of migraine and anger over the past few days, so getting that Pitta in check before it goes fully into an autoimmune flare up is a must. Pitta qualities are hot, sharp, oily, light, and liquid, and like Vata, we use the opposite qualities to bring balance into that dosha.
It’s often difficult to treat what seems like two opposing imbalanced doshas. It takes time, patience, commitment, perseverance, and dedication. I have a long way to go in my recovery process, but today I was reminded that healing is happening. I was also reminded of the things I need to do for myself to bring balance back into my body, mind, and spirit. While I don’t want to discourage anyone from a yoga practice or any other thing they enjoy, I do encourage you to take note of how you feel AFTER your practice. Most practices feel great while on the mat, but how they affect us afterward may bring more overall harm than good. The first clue that I was out of balance today wasn’t that I felt like I might pass out or that my shoulder was in subluxation, it was that Pitta perfectionist tendency turned OCD as I straightened my mat before today’s class to be in line with the seam in the brewery’s concrete floor.
Photo Credit: Andrea Redman 😍
