The goal for January was to practice yoga three times per week. 

Preparation

This one didn’t take much prep work. I downloaded a program called DDPY and followed the schedule given for three days a week of yoga. More on that program below.

What Helped

  1. I set an alarm on my phone for 5 pm everyday, to remind me it was time to stop working and start yoga. While I din’t actually do yoga everyday, I liked that the alarm was consistent. This was helpful because:
    • it served as a reminder to STOP working past 5 pm every day (Work/Life Balance, people!) and also
    • it served as a transition between work and life. This is important if you work form home, which I’ve been doing for about a decade. I’ve tried several things to serve as the transition period. This habit of 20 to 40 mins of yoga after work has by far worked the best. It made the habit feel comforting, as part of a routine, and became something I looked forward to.
  2. My husband joined me. Because it’s nice to have a workout partner. And because his doctor recommended more movement when he was diagnosed with prediabetes.
  3. We chose a spot in the house to do yoga and stuck to it. This seems simple, but according to the rules of habit formation, it’s important to plan when and where you will do your chosen action and to be consistent about it. We chose our bedroom.
  4. We got into a routine. While my husband set up the program on the TV, I opened curtains for natural light, lit some LED candles for ambiance, and made sure we both had water to hydrate with during the session. Something about this made it more relaxing for me. More intentional.
  5. Sometimes, the classes were only 20 minutes long. When I first started, I thought that was too short. I had gotten used to yoga classes that were 60-90 minutes long. But I gave grace for this shortened time frame, as long as we were doing it three days per week.

The Results

As you can see, my Systolic pressure (the amount of pressure in the arteries during the contraction of your heart muscle) came down by 8 points between December and January. My Diastolic pressure (the amount of pressure in the arteries when the heart rests between beats) came down by 7 points. And my heart rate (the number of times the heart beats per minute while at rest) came down by 5 points.

I take my blood pressure every week, on Monday mornings right when I wake up, taking an average of three readings in one sitting. I also switch arms every week. The numbers above are the average of those weekly readings. Learn more about this process here. During both December and January, I was taking a multivitamin and 120 mg of CoQ10 every day. The only variable that changed was the regular yoga practice.

As you can see, my numbers are still not yet within the range recommended by the American Heart Association. But I am happy with the results. The goal here is a slow and steady and most importantly sustainable decline.

I am not my only test subject. My husband is also looking to lower his numbers. He, however, is not a nerd like me. So he was not taking regular blood pressure readings in December to give himself a baseline before starting. Also, blood pressure is not his main concern. He is looking to lower his A1C. Since those numbers have to be taken through blood tests, the reports on those will be more sporadic.

The Tools We Used

The yoga program we used was DDP Yoga Now. If you’ve never heard of DDPY, let me give you a rundown. Diamond Dallas Page was a professional wrestler, which right away might give you qualms about his ability to be a serious athlete. Let me help alleviate those doubts by pointing you to this video of a paratrooper who thought he’d never walk again, and used the DDPY program to do just that. Warning: It’s gonna make you cry.

I saw this video years ago, but there wasn’t a lot of marketing behind it. Page appears on the video, but there wasn’t a link to his program. It was just a personal story on YouTube. So I didn’t know there was an entire exercise empire that Page had created, inspired by this patient. I came across this again when researching online yoga programs and remembered the video and was intrigued.

The DDPY program is specifically designed for former athletes or military personnel with injuries. There is a stage that starts with lying in a bed, using his techniques to get you strong enough to eventually get you out of the bed. Then he has a stage sitting in a chair, with techniques that help you get stronger. Eventually, you move to a standing position with a chair that you lean on for assistance while you get into the poses. And finally, the program moves into harder yoga moves that you’ll be able to do after going through those first three stages of the program, slowly getting stronger along the way.

I’d been doing yoga for years, and did not need the first three phases of the program. But I absolutely appreciated the flexibility of it. And the compassion of creating methods that could lead someone back to health when they think all hope is lost. 

My husband was leery about his flexibility and really liked that there was an option to hold onto a chair during certain poses. He also liked that Page was on the screen, using the chair, showing him how to do it, providing a judgement-free zone. In the background weren’t workout professionals in fancy gear, like you normally see. Instead, there was an 88-year-old man, a 66-year-old woman, a man with a prosthetic leg, and a woman of size, and they were all real members of the program, working on their health. It was refreshing. And, more importantly, it was real.

My husband also liked the deep military discount for the program. Lots of people have military discounts. But DDPY offers HALF OFF. Which made the decision to purchase a year of the program really easy.

The main thing I like about the program is it gives you a schedule. It shows you week by week what days you should be doing the program and what days you should be taking off. I like this because it holds you accountable. And makes the program automatic. They tell you exactly what to do and all you have to do is click on the workout. We mostly did three days per week of the program, but if we missed a day, we forgave ourselves and stated again the next day. Beating yourself up about missing a workout can bring you down. And the goal of this is to keep going.

Page does a lot of DUDE-ing up the yoga moves. Mountain Pose becomes “Touchdown” and Warrior Poses become “Road Warrior.” And he treats the sessions more like a high school coach, and less like a yoga instructor, which both my husband and I can appreciate. If you are a fan of old school yoga, however, you might not like this program. It’s important to find something you like, something that works for you.

FREE YOGA: While we paid for the above yoga platform, there are many free options available. YouTube alone has tons of free yoga, for any level of expertise. Feel free to explore and use these options.

Overall, February felt easier than I thought it would. And I’m very happy with the results. Now, on to experiment #2:

Sugar Free February