How a garden is your inner world: you can decide to cultivate it or leave it to the nettles, to discover it or keep it tightly closed within yourself.
In this context, yoga assumes the role of a good gardener who helps to bring order, to nourish the most delicate shoots, to weed out weeds.
If your spiritual flower is to be cultivated, it is advisable to know how and why to make it ever stronger and more splendid. However, it is equally important to understand when it is essential to stop each treatment and let the soil rest . In other words, when to give free days to our trusted gardener.
This article wants to give you a hand just in this sense: if yoga is good and the practice is important, there are contexts in which instead it is preferable to roll up the mat and avoid it?
Yoga? Better to avoid!
Regarding the potential risks of yoga, we agreed that, like all human activities, practice can also cause injuries in the vast majority of cases which are absolutely avoidable and of minor magnitude. The important thing is to always keep the level of awareness high and approach the rug with humility .
Beyond the traumas, we now provide you with some advice to guide you on whether to practice or not in the course of ordinary daily life. When, that is, we must accept the limits that our body or our mind put on us and listen to their need to suspend appointments with yoga, at least momentarily.
(These indications concern the practice of hatha yoga and are, by necessity, generic and partial. They are not transiently valid for the other styles, like bikram yoga or acroyoga, to give two examples, because very different worlds from the hatha).
Injuries and physical ailments
In the case of physical injuries, especially if serious, it would be appropriate to renounce the practice in order not to aggravate an already compromised picture. Fever is a more questionable state because some people experience it with an ease that others lack. Understand which group you belong to and adjust accordingly: if you feel comfortable with it, practice as well, otherwise go to bed!
Stomach and bladder ... empty!
Generally we practice with an empty bladder, but above all on an empty stomach : yoga and large meals are a truly unhappy couple!
Period
Many teachers advise against the practice during the menstrual cycle : on a personal level I do not agree with this point of view, because it could be a support against menstrual pain, unless there are specific problems. Precisely in the name of this discordance of views between teachers, we invite you to weigh your psychophysical state during menstruation to understand for yourself whether the practice is appropriate or not for you.
Emotional and psychological fragility
Another question is very delicate: if one is very shaken, upset, internally torn, is yoga recommended? From the beginning and from the academy, I would answer: yes, the practice can help calm the waters of the mind, gives lucidity, offers breath to a suffocated emotional state. Deepening the answer, perhaps a cautious " depends " is wiser: the human soul is so complex that we do not feel able to give dry answers.
For once, we tell you dispassionately: if you don't feel like approaching the mat, don't do it, without feeling guilty. In yoga the principle of "non-violence" primarily applies to oneself. Especially if one practices in collective classes and with a group of strangers, a certain reserve and special attention to one's emotional fragility is legitimate.
Follow the doctor's instructions
Perhaps this point is obvious, but we would like to add it to the list: if your doctor advises you against the practice, do not hesitate to follow his instructions!
Obviously, this handful of stakes do not exhaust all possible ambiguous situations about the opportunity to follow your lesson. For further information, we suggest you rely on your yoga teacher and his competence and sensitivity.