Yoga & Hiking: Complementary Practices for Health and Wellbeing

In my free time, I’ve been spending more time hiking and backpacking in the last couple of years. It doesn’t hurt that I live in this amazing state that has so many beautiful trails to travel and discover. It’s become an important part of my weekly routine and a great complement to my yoga practice. Throughout the pandemic, it’s also been an important point of connection to the natural world. Here are 5 reasons why hiking can be complementary to your yoga practice and an important component to your health and wellbeing.

Legs up the Sign Summer 2018 on Mt. Katahdin. My first 4K footer turned into a 5K footer. Whoops!

1. Cardio & Strengthening - In my classes I tend to focus on yoga not only as physical movement, but a wholistic practice that includes the mind, body and spirit. That’s not to say you won’t find some physically challenging classes. However, most yoga classes you’ll find don’t really qualify as cardiovascular exercise. The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) defines aerobic exercise as "any activity that uses large muscle groups, can be maintained continuously, and is rhythmic in nature." While it may seem like yoga would fit the bill here, especially the vinyasa style that I mostly teach and practice, a typical yoga class just isn’t going to raise your heart rate enough and sustain that elevated rate long enough to really qualify. Hiking on the other hand can do just that and if you’re carrying a pack with any weight in it (did you know one liter of water weighs 2.2 pounds?!) you’re definitely going to be keeping your heart rate up for a longer period of time. In addition to strengthening your heart, you’ll also be strengthening your legs and core. This has been incredibly good for me personally for managing my back pain. Balance this with a yoga practice and you’re on your way to a more well rounded fitness routine and a stronger body all around.

2. Time to disconnect from devices - Technology rules our lives more than ever these days and it’s influencing our health. It’s messing with our sleep patterns, causing physical issues like “text neck”, and may even be causing mental health issues in some people. While you’ll definitely see me using my cell phone to take pictures and occasionally navigate when I’m on the trail, being out of cell phone range for a even a little while can be an amazing way to refresh our tired minds. While your 75 minute yoga class can be a great small break (provided you actually turn the phone off), even a day hike can give us a greater opportunity to experience this relief from the everyday requirement of being connected to devices.

3. Mindfulness practice - When we aren’t able to respond to every text message right away we create a space and an opportunity to bring ourselves more to the present moment and practice mindfulness. There’s so much to discover out there if you’re paying attention! I can’t tell you how many times I nearly walked by something small like a red eft or a snail, but since I was actually in the moment outside I got to see the finer details. If I’m hiking with other people, we get to talk and interact (even if it’s between gasping breaths) in a way that is seemingly so rare these days. We might even help each other notice the small details we’d otherwise pass by. What a great way to take what we’re practicing on our yoga mats for 75 minutes off the mat and into our experiences with others for a longer period of time!

4. Letting go of watching the clock - Your yoga class is going to begin and end at a certain predictable time. 99.9% of the things we do in our daily lives are like this and we need that structure in our lives. However, every now and then, to be able to do something without a definite ending time, especially when it’s something we enjoy, can be *so* liberating. I’ll often go out on a hike and tell my husband if I’m not back by dark, that’s the time to worry. I purposely don’t put too definite an end on this time I’m spending with Mother Nature and myself. There is something really freeing and mentally restful about that. If it’s a great day and the weather is amazing and my body feels good I can go for hours. If the bugs are swarming and I forgot to bring enough food and my feet hurt I can go home. There’s a freedom there we don’t often get in our daily lives. It can help us tune back into a more natural rhythm and relieve stress in a way that’s hard to describe.

5. Change of scenery - We all live with a variety of stressors in our lives. Some of these are welcome and others might be more than we’d ever wish for. Sustaining ourselves physically and mentally over the long haul of life requires times to refresh, get a new perspective and look at the world differently. You’re probably going to have a yoga class that you go to on a regular basis at the same location with mostly the same people, but that class will be different in some way every time and that’s a really good micro break. Similarly, hiking can be a good micro break as well. Even if you walk the same path every day *something* will be different. Being able to notice that change and recognize it can relax your mind and relieve stress in a way similar to your yoga class

These are just a few of the benefits you might find by getting out on the trails this summer. I’m sure you’ll find even more reasons once you’re out there!

I’m considering guiding some outdoor experiences beyond the outdoor yoga classes in the late summer or early fall.

Interested? Leave a comment below!

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Leave No Trace is a Form of Ahimsa

One of the good things, in my mind, to come out of the pandemic is the number of people that are reconnecting to public lands and outdoor spaces. Given the extra hours all of us have been spending in front of screens to find safe forms of connection to others, to learn, to take a yoga class and so much more, time away from screens in the three dimensional world is all the more important. But if you’re going back into nature for the first time in awhile (or the first time), you may not understand the impacts of your presence. In this post I’ll give you a few ideas and some information that might help you draw your awareness practices from yoga out into your interaction with the outdoor world so that you can see the connection between Ahimsa and Leave No Trace and make your interactions with nature less negatively and more positively impactful.

Yoga is, in so many ways a practice of awareness. One of the most important points of awareness we can have, especially these days, is our impact on our natural world and outdoor spaces. Yoga philosophy goes beyond the physical postures and addresses our mental and emotional interactions with ourselves and others. Many people often describe these principles as the ethical principles of yoga because they guide our interactions and are a code of conduct. Ahimsa is a foundational tenant of yoga philosophy that asks us to do no harm to the best of our ability. That includes our thoughts, words, deeds and actions. Without awareness, none of that is possible.

Leave No Trace principles explain how we can bring more awareness to and minimize our impacts on nature, whether we’re spending time in the “backcountry” or the “front country”. Practicing these principles keeps our wild spaces wild, leaves things for others to experience as we got to experience them and may even encourage us to leave those spaces BETTER than when we arrived. They are also an ethical code in that they guide our interactions and conduct, specifically with the natural world in this case. Many of them may seem obvious when you look at them, but as with yoga, when you dive deeper into the details and can be truthful with yourself, you’ll find that there may have been things you missed along the way. The seven principles are:

1. Plan ahead and Prepare.

2. Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces

3. Dispose of Waste Properly

4. Leave What You Find

5. Minimize Campfire Impacts

6. Respect Wildlife

7. Be Considerate of Other Visitors

(© 1999 by the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics: www.LNT.org)

So in my mind, Leave No Trace is a form of Ahimsa. Both give us ethical guidance on how to interact with our world outside of ourselves. Both ask us to be kind and consider others whether that’s other people that we’re sharing the environment with or the plants, animals, etc. we may encounter when we’re outside. Both ask us to bring greater awareness to the impact of our actions from a perspective outside of ourselves and our immediate needs. And both ask us to recognize that when we are aware of our actions through thought, word and deed we can have great positive impact on our world.

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To inspire you to learn more about and put LNT into practice, here are some ideas, experiences, information and thoughts that I’ve been sharing recently on my social media channels. In preparing each of these, I certainly learned a few things along the way! I hope you enjoy some of the pictures from my outdoor adventures too!

Plan Ahead and Prepare

I had a conversation with my Dad on my way home from a recent hike where he was surprised to find out I had a complete change of clothing in my pack. I was hiking Mount Jackson, a 4000 footer here in NH and a place like many in the White Mountains where conditions can change on a dime and one false step might mean waiting for search and rescue. When I told my Dad I packed to stay overnight if I had to, he suddenly understood. While you might not be climbing mountains, even when you go out to the local park, a sudden change in weather, a wrong turn or an accident may have an impact on not just yourself, but that park you’re enjoying. So be sure to plan ahead and consider what you might need if you had to be out there longer than expected.⁠⁠

Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces

It’s what we all affectionately refer to as Mud Season here in New England and it’s a time when we may be having impacts on our local trails more than we might think. Some places in NH and VT actually “close” trails this time of year because most of us don’t really want to walk through that big puddle of muck that’s right in the middle of our path. But when we walk off the designated path we may be trampling plants that will never grow back and “blazing a trail” for the person behind us that was never meant to be there. With so many people trying to get outside these days due to the pandemic we’re seeing this impact on a lot of places. So the next time you come up to a mud puddle in the trail, knowing that you already planned ahead for it, channel your inner child and just jump right in!⁠

Dispose of Waste Properly

I know many of my students are dog owners and lovers (and you know I love dogs too), so I thought a reminder about dog poop in the outdoors might be helpful for y’all. Leave No Trace Center had some very interesting facts about why this is so important in a recent instagram post. We all know it’s unsightly, but there are far worse impacts.⁠
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The high nutrient value in dog food when left behind in dog poop and leached into streams from run off can cause algae blooms. Dog poop can have all sorts of bacteria and disease vectors that find their way into waterways in the same way. Thousands of POUNDS of poop get left behind in parks every year all across the country. No one’s saying you’ll always be perfect, but if you do plan ahead to pick up fido’s droppings you’ll be doing Mother Nature a solid (sorry, had to get a poop joke in there somehow! 😂💩)⁠
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Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJZMBzijsM9/⁠

And please, please don’t leave that poop bag behind and think you’ll get back to it later. Things happen! Take it with you now!

Leave What You Find

I’m particularly guilty of this one, but we’ve all done it. You pick up that one cool rock you found on the trail and take it home with you as a souvenir of your time outside. Now imagine that the person after you does that. And the next one. And the next one. If not a rock, maybe a flower. Or an acorn. It seems like such a little thing. How could it possibly be that big a deal? One of my favorite little quotes is shown here. We can choose to do small things for the greater good or the opposite. Which will you choose next time you’re outside enjoying our amazing outdoor spaces?⁠⁠⁠⁠

Respect Wildlife

“A fed bear is a dead bear.” 😢⁠

⁠This is a sad but true saying I’ve heard a lot in the hiking community. We all know to bring in the bird feeders in the spring because Yogi (see what I did there 😉) is looking for his free lunch. But if you head out to a state park or other campsite in the warmer months it’s really something to think about there too. Most campsites in parks (not backcountry) have wash sinks and dumpsters just for this reason - to control food and waste smells to certain areas. And while it may not seem like a big deal to wash out a pot or plate and toss the dishwater into the woods or to leave the ketchup on the picnic table overnight, the food smells can attract all sorts of animals and make the next person’s experience a little “hairy-er”. Some estimates say that a bear’s sense of smell is 7 times better than a blood hound!! Let’s let Yogi find his own lunch, shall we?⁠

(Picture is the closest encounter I’ve ever had with the biggest bear I’ve ever seen in GSMNP in 2019! Video will be posted to social media on 4.24.21 if you’d like to see the bear in action!)⁠

I hope this post as inspired you to learn more about practicing Ahimsa in the great outdoors! Please visit https://lnt.org to learn more about the 7 principles and how you can practice them when you’re outside.

If you’re ready to take your yoga practice outside my Outdoor Yoga Class offerings begin May 2, 2021! To learn more and sign up

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Take a hike!

One of the reasons there's a "Take a Hike" square on our #BINGO card this month is because I find it so personally essential to get outdoors for my health and wellness. Physically I benefit from #walking, #hiking or #biking for sure, but the mental and #spiritual benefits abound as well! When we get outside we realize our #connection to creation, to all the other beings we share this world with, and how if we just put one foot in front of the other over and over again, we make progress. Sure we might stumble or fall, but we will move forward. And there's nothing better than a walk to help get #grounded and refocus during the challenges of life.

What's your favorite outdoor trail or path?

(And anyone know what kind of snake that is? I have to admit I was kinda glad it was tiny!)

#hikenh #greatoutdoors #gooutsideandplay #foreveryoganh #newhampshire #uncanoonuc #hiking #uncanoonucmountain #goffstown #goffstownnh #yoga #yogaandhiking #mindful #yogateacher via

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