Oh dear. Yet another thing to be wary of when it comes to laptop addiction.

For all that i love the portability that my 12 inch laptop affords me, I'm coming to accept that working at it full-time is *not* good for me. The postural problems that result from hunching forward over a laptop, and constantly looking down at a screen that's below eye level, are bad enough. But I've also started noticing something more insidious. 

I been noticing that when I work at my laptop for a while, my wrists and hands get hot from the heat coming off of it. The keyboard is directly over the CPU, after all. Worse than the heat, though, is the feeling of "vibration" that I've been feeling. It doesn't just feel like my hands are getting warm – it feels like they're being pumped full of some kind of energy. As I've become more attuned to it, it's become more and more uncomfortable to me.

Last week, I had an appointment with a craniosacral therapist named Mark Levine, in Richmond Hill. While we were chatting after my (great) session, the topic of working at a laptop came up. He pulled up a little device he has that measures electromagnetic radiation. When he holds it over things, it registers the radiation coming off of them. As he held it over his MacBook keyboard, the little indicator shot off the chart. As he held it over his external keyboard, it barely registered anything at all. 

He showed me that you really don't have to get too far back from the CPU for the EMFs to drop significantly – but when you type at a laptop, you really are working direclty in an intense field of radiation. Which explains what I've been feeling... and makes me rather nervous.

I've been meaning to invest in an iCurve and an external keyboard for a while now. No more excuses... I'm going to do it asap. It'll be much better for my back, and will hopefully also elimiate this creepy hot buzzy feeling in my hands that I've got as I type this!

I spent last weekend at a very inspiring workshop on Salt Spring Island with Michael Stone, at the Ganges Yoga Studio. The tradition of yoga is such an enormous and ancient one, and it is fairly rare to find yoga teachers these days who possess a truly extensive – and better yet, experiential – understanding of it. I'm really grateful, for my personal practice as well as my teaching practice, that I took the time and attended his workshop.

The very first thing we did, when we actually got down to "doing" rather than "listening", was to breathe. Ah yes, the good old breath. How many times can we practice doing this most basic thing, and still learn and experience new things? Apparently many! Sadly, most of us, no matter what our occupations, don't breathe properly. Years of bad posture, emotional tension, and never having been reminded how to do it naturally lead to chronic bad breathing habits. Computer users need to be aware of this, as a forward slouched posture tends to constrict the diaphragm and inhibit natural and full breathing.

The good news is that practicing good breathing is actually a pretty pleasant way to spend a few minutes a day. It's extremely calming and it feels really good! So read this through, and then go lie down on your floor and practice. Go on, do it. It's good for you.

Three-Part Breathing 

Lie on your back with your knees raised, so the soles of your feet are flat on the floor. Rest your hands by your sides, and feel yourself settle down into the ground. Exhale fully.  

You're going to divide up your inhale into three parts: belly, solar plexus (around your lowest ribs), and chest. Begin your inhale by taking 1/3 of your breath into your belly, feeling it rise as you do. Pause. Then take 1/3 of your breath into your solar plexus. Pause. Finally, inhale the last 1/3 of your breath right up into your chest. Pause at the top, and then reverse the whole thing. Exhale the air from your chest, your solar plexus, and finally your belly.

Repeat this a number of times. For many people, the hardest part to get is the solar plexus. Try and imagine your ribs expanding out to the sides as you breathe into them. So the belly rises UP, the ribs move OUT, and the chest expands in 3D. Try that out a few times. And as you move from one section to the next, you can just naturally release the previous area (so you can let your belly fall naturally as you move on to inhale into your solar plexus).

Work with this three-part breath for a few minutes, and then slowly come back up to sitting. If you have a yoga practice, see if you can find that same sense of complete breath in all your poses. And whether you regularly practice yoga or not, see if you can find that same sense of full and easy breathing in the rest of your day. It's a good thing to remember in odd moments when you find yourself sitting a bit tense at your computer.

Your breath... it's always there. Isn't it time you paid some attention to it?  

You might remember that a while back I blogged about WorkSpace – the awesome membership-based office space getting ready to open in Gastown. Well, WorkSpace is now open, and it's beautiful, and yoga classes – taught by yours truly – begin on Tuesday!

From the Workspace website:

Starting Tuesday, September 5, 2006, WorkSpace will be offering twice a week yoga classes in the space. Check out the schedule here.

Taught by WorkSpace friend and member Sarah Pullman, these classes are open to any and all WorkSpace members, regardless of experience or ability. Until further notice, friends of WorkSpace members are also welcome for a nominal fee (see pricing).

Classes will run for 1 hour and 15 minutes – long enough to stretch our your body, deepen your breathing, check in with the sore spots resulting from too many hours spent bent over your laptop at WorkSpace, and then relax deeply.

Please come a few minutes early for your first class, and inform the instructor of any concerns or injuries you have.

Equipment is provided, though you are welcome to bring your own mat if you'd prefer. Wear comfortable clothes, but don't sweat it – this is a low-fashion yoga scene.

Questions? You can email Sarah at info@yogaforgeeks.com.

Namaste!


(thanks to Megan Cole for her gorgeous Yoga for Geeks photo from BarCamp!)

I know this constitutes basically no notice, but I'm going to be on Freestyle today. Check it out if you've got the time, and you get the memo before the fact... Apparently it will be on air at 3:30pm PST. I'll also post the audio after the fact.

(Pardon the brief and late blog post, but I am just back from 6 days out in the middle of nowhere, and I'm still re-adjusting to the internet. I highly recommend getting away from it, if for no other reason than it does a body good to engage in activities that have nothing to do with a computer!)

Update: The mp3 of the interview can be found here.

Thanks to a post by Degan over at Beyond Robson, I was contacted today by not one, but two different CBC people interested in talking to me about Yoga for Geeks. How exciting!

Tomorrow morning I will be on the Early Edition at 8:15 out here in BC, and then I will possibly also be on Freestyle later this week. !!!! Tune in if you're interested in hearing more...