Come to live TV taping for Yoga for Pain Relief!

In the SF Bay Area and want to attend a live TV show taping on 2/15? See invitation below -- I'll be leading the two hosts in some yoga movements and the audience in some breathing.

----FROM THE PRODUCERS OF VIEW FROM THE BAY

I would like to extend a special invitation to Kelly McGonigal's friends, family and colleagues to be in our studio audience the day that she will be appearing on “The View From The Bay” Monday Feb. 15th, 2010.

Meet Spencer Christian and Janelle Wang and get a chance to see the behind the scenes of a live television broadcast. Tickets for the show must be reserved in advance. Audience doors open at 2:15pm with a cut-off time of 2:30pm, the show is live from 3-4pm.

To reserve your seats please call the ticket request line at (415)-954-7733 or visit www.viewfromthebay.com and click on “be in our audience” and fill out a ticket request form. Or click on this link to go to our online ticket request form. Simply fill out your information and press submit.

Please be sure to note under “comments” if you are requesting a specific date to support someone scheduled to be on the show.

We strongly encourage you to post this invitation and its contents on any blog or webpage that you host or participate in. Please pass this email on to any friends, family or colleagues who may be interested in being in our studio audience.

You can also post an announcement on your webpage!

*Please note that all seats must be reserved in advance. Tickets that have been requested will be sent via an email confirmation with detailed instruction on where and when to arrive at the ABC studio. Also note that audience members come in a separate entrance and time than guests appearing on the show. If you are a guest on the show and you will be bringing your guests with you they will need to check in with me (Rachel Wyatt) by 2:30pm to be seated in the audience.

Book Trailer for Yoga for Pain Relief

I was inspired by blogger Nathan Bransford to create a simple trailer for my new book. The music (a composition called "Ritual") is by Kevin MacCleod, the photographer is Kim Shetter, and the voice is myself reading an excerpt from the book's introduction.

Link to youtube video.

You Are What You Eat

My latest Science of Willpower column is up on Psychology Today:

"My apologies to any PhD students reading this blog. I recently stumbled upon two studies that suggest you can get college students to abandon an unhealthy behavior if you can convince them it's what graduate students do. Apparently grad students are so uncool, college students do not want to be identified with their habits. Even when those habits include junk food and binge drinking, two mainstays of undergraduate life for many.

The studies, published in the Journal of Consumer Research, provide insight into potential strategies for public health. They also reveal how our desire to shape our self-image, and how others perceive us, lead us to make healthy or unhealthy choices."

Read the full Psychology Today post here.

On a side note, one of the studies was conducted at Stanford University, using dorm flyers warning undergrads they might be mistaken for a "sketchy grad student" if they drank too much. Having been a grad student at Stanford back in the day, I found this enormously funny. As much as the pressures to finish your dissertation might drive you to drink, I personally never met a sketchy grad student who crashed the undergrad parties. But whatever it takes to keep those undergraduates sober (enough)!

New Guided Meditation Practice

I just added a guided meditation practice to the Yoga for Pain Relief resources page.

This 15-minute audio meditation is a concentration and mindfulness practice to help stabilize and focus your mind. I created it as a basic introductory meditation for a course I'm teaching at Stanford this quarter, The Science of a Calmed Mind. It's a great track for people who need a little extra encouragement to practice.

After I review the instructions, you will hear silence. Every five minutes, you will hear the sound of a meditation bowl being struck. You can finish your practice at 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or 15 minutes.

In the first 5-minute segment, I check in twice to remind you to notice where your mind is, in case it has wandered. At the first 5-minute mark, I invite you to drop the counting practice and focus on the sensations of breathing. At the 10-minute mark, I remind you to stay resting with the sensations of the breath and body.

When you finish, acknowledge the success of sitting, no matter how focused or distracted you were. Your focus will be different on different days, even as you cultivate more and more skill at concentration. The success of this practice is your sitting down and staying put, and honoring the intention of the practice.

For more guided practices, check out the Yoga for Pain Relief resources page.

Befriend Your Body

Yoga Bear, a non-profit I advise, recently asked cancer survivors and members of the yoga/medical communities how they befriend their own body -- what they are grateful for, how they take care of and nourish themselves, and what steps they have taken to heal the mistrust, anger, or grief toward the body that commonly goes along with illnesses, injuries, and cancer treatment.

I got to choose the winning response, which you can read here. It is honest, heartfelt, and relatable, and communicates well the imperfect but compassionate relationship many of us have with our bodies.

If you want some support befriending your body, check out the audio practices here, adapted from Yoga for Pain Relief.

Thanks to Rae Johnson, a two-time breast cancer survivor from Maryland, for sharing her story.

Guide to New Year's Resolutions for People with Chronic Pain or Illness

Below is a guide I wrote for New Harbinger, the publisher of my new book Yoga for Pain Relief. The resolutions aren't just for people with chronic pain and illness--we could all use a little more self-care and a little less stress.

Happy Holidays!

A Guide to New Year’s Resolutions for People with Chronic Pain or Illness

1. There’s nothing wrong with hope. New Year’s resolutions are a celebration of hope, and you deserve hope as much as anyone else. Let yourself imagine future events or experiences that will bring you pleasure or satisfaction, and make a list of at least 10 such things to look forward to in 2010. Think small and predictable, but nevertheless enjoyable (such as new episodes of a favorite TV show), as well as big dreams that you can work toward (such as finishing writing your novel, or a trip you’d like to take).

2. Make peace with your body. Most people with chronic pain or illness feel betrayed by their body. However, you’ve only got this one body, and it is your companion for this journey. This New Year, resolve to befriend your body. Start by reminding yourself what you’re grateful for. Heart still pumping? Thank your body. Able to enjoy a delicious meal? Thank your body. Can you still find sensual pleasure and contact comfort from touch? Thank your body. Whatever your state of health, thank your body for doing its best. Then resolve to do your best to care for and listen to your body, whether it’s with a nourishing diet and exercise, getting a manicure, or seeking the complementary care that feels most healing to you (e.g. acupuncture, massage, music). Pick at least one specific thing you are going to do to befriend your body.

3. Give yourself permission to do something you’ve been putting off. Time to take a look at how your world has gotten smaller because of stress, pain, or illness. Medical care and researching medical conditions can consume as many hours in the day as you let it. Doubts about what you can handle can push important activities into the uncertain future. Even fun can start to feel frivolous when your energy or time is limited. In 2010, reclaim your time and energy as your own. Ask yourself: Is there anything you need to give yourself permission to do, or to return to?

4. Remove something from your self-improvement or to-do list. To help you stick to resolution 3, ask yourself how you can take back your mental, emotional, and physical energy from something that just isn’t important enough to make your “what really matters” list. You may need to lower your housecleaning standards or decide that your daily chocolate habit is not a problem after all. Or maybe you need to find a way to forgive someone so you can cross resentment off your emotional to-do list.

5. Ask for support. Tell your support system about your resolutions. Let friends, family, therapists, and healthcare providers know what you are looking forward to, what is working with your body and in your life, how you plan to take care of yourself, what you want more of in your life, and what you are ready to let go of. If there are ways they can help, be specific and ask for it.

Kelly McGonigal, PhD, is a health psychologist at Stanford University and author of Yoga for Pain Relief: Simple Practices to Calm Your Mind and Heal Your Chronic Pain.

Yoga for Pain Relief Released!

My new book Yoga for Pain Relief was released this month by New Harbinger. It's now available at Amazon, Borders, Barnes & Noble, and other book retailers.

I'm especially excited that the book made Disaboom's 2009 Top 10 Books for People w/Disabilities! Disaboom is a wonderful community and resource for people living with disabilities, and their caregivers. See their entire holiday gift guide here.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

The Problem with Dieting

Latest Science of Willpower column up on Psychology Today!

"Bad news for yo-yo dieters this week: according to a recent study, cycles of feast and famine can create fast-food junkies–at least in rodents. The researchers put rats on a cyclic diet of 5 days of standard rat chow, followed by 2 days of the equivalent of rat fast food (high fat, high sugar, highly delicious). In other words, a compressed version of most dieters' swings between self-control and indulgence....

....Another study offers hope for ending the cycle. Researchers at Laval University in Québec, Canada have been following the benefits of a unique weight control intervention for over a year. This intervention, called 'What about losing weight?' emphasized the possibility of being healthy at every size."

Read the whole thing here.

Ethical Dilemmas for Yoga Teachers

Below are the ethical dilemmas we will discuss in Avalon's Yoga Teacher Training today. We first review the yamas and niyams, then identify our own core yoga and teaching values, and use them to guide self-reflection and discussion.

1. You have the opportunity to sub a class in a style that is very different from yours. Further, you don’t personally enjoy this style. Should you take this opportunity? If you do, how do you approach the class and students? What thoughts, emotions, and behaviors do you need to bring special awareness to?

2. A student in your class invites you out to lunch “to talk more about yoga.” You suspect he or she is interested in friendship or a romantic relationship. What do you do? Does it matter whether you find this person interesting or attractive? What does your decision say about how you perceive your role as a yoga teacher? Does having an outside relationship with a student change or limit how you interact with them in a class setting?

3. You have gotten very busy teaching yoga, and are excited to have so many classes to teach! Unfortunately, this is getting in the way of your personal practice. You haven’t attended a class in a few months, and you aren’t practicing formally at home. You tell yourself that your life is your yoga practice, and you don’t really need to practice asana, pranayama, meditation, etc. Is there an ethical component to this decision? What are the risks in this situation? How will you respond if you find yourself feeling like a “fraud”?

4. You witness one of your favorite, most inspiring yoga teachers outside the classroom doing something that really strikes you as “unyogic” but not necessarily illegal (pick behavior that conflicts with your personal yoga values/ethics). How does this make you feel? Will you tell others about this? Will this person continue to be an important teacher for you? What standards do you hold yourself to as a yoga teacher? How will you feel when you fail to live up to your own or another person’s standards?

5. You are so excited! You just received a request for private yoga instruction. The potential student is new to yoga, and his doctor recommended he learn yoga to help recover from hip replacement surgery (or knee surgery, or back surgery, or heart surgery…something you don’t know much about). Do you agree to help the student? Why or why not? If you do, what are you going to do to prepare? Where might you start? Who can you consult in this situation? How can the potential student be involved in making this decision or making any yoga lesson safe and helpful?

6. You have been teaching at a few different places that pay you very different amounts. One studio pays you by the student, and your classes have been very small but building a base of regulars. Another gym pays you a very low per-class fee, but the class is full and you love teaching it. Your corporate class pays a very high per-class fee, but attendance is poor and there are few regulars. Because of time constraints, you feel like you need to drop at least one class from your schedule. What are the ethical dimensions of this decision? How would you make this decision? What factors—besides class size and pay rate—would you consider?

Can working out help you avoid or recover from a cold or flu?

My latest Science of Willpower column on Psychology Today is a response to a wonderful article in the NYT:

"A recent New York Times article by Gretchen Reynolds asked and answered the question: Does exercise boost immunity? The answer may surprise some, and its lessons extend well beyond the world of working out."

My Science of Willpower class starts at Stanford this Monday (still time to register, through 10/26) -- I look forward to blogging some of the interesting insights and questions that come up!