Heart condition and hot yoga

Hi Suzy

This is a very personal question and also poses a medico-legal problem for someone to answer it. So I ask you to recognize that I am just giving you my opinion!

It is great that your mother expresses her interest and is wanting to take her health in her own hands. The only person who can make the decision to do the yoga is your Mom.

I am thinking that the best way to approach this is to give you both some things to think about? It could be a starting point in the decision process for her.

It is important to know that the yoga can be challenging for anyone, regardless of fitness level, age, flexibility and strength, their physical or emotional wellbeing. The heat seems to be a multiplier of the effects of the yoga itself so starting gently for me would be key to determining the best approach. If it were my Mom I would probably consider starting by doing it at home without the heat. You could be helping her through some techniques. She could for example watch the first set of a pose and do the second with you.

There are other considerations too. Are there any other cardiovascular conditions present? The advice about the best approach to the class and to specific poses could be affected by whether she has high blood pressure, low blood pressure or if she has labile hypertension.

What are the current issues your mother has on Warfarin? Are you considering starting the yoga after the procedure? With the effects of her drugs there is no indication of her ability to cope with exercise at the moment. What is your mother doing now to keep fit? How will that ability change with the procedure? Is it worth waiting for some rehabilitation before attempting something new and unknown?

One step at a time, gently. Your Mom will know what she’s capable of but with her current issues and the fact that I too have little information I would say don’t throw her into the hot room as her first experience. You could for example be at a studio where the heat is too high, there are too many people, with the heat index too high (combination of heat and humidity) making it too hard to cope and so on.

I am sure I could give you more but a lot of this is based on conjecture so if you want to give me more information then we can take it from there

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂