Yoga for Restless legs

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#1

“While I’m not a medical doctor I don’t particularly by in to “restless legs” even though it’s now advertised as a “syndrome” on the telly. That manifestation is usually disruption of the nervous system. It is remedied in a variety of ways but not the point of this post.”

This was a comment InnerAthlete made to another poster on another problem.

I suffer since I can remember from “restless legs” and have come to accept it and live with it. I can’t say if anything triggers it, I have studied my diet over the years and cannot pinpoint anything in my diet that would trigger it. It is worse at night when I go to sleep, most of the time during the day I am not even aware of it. The occurance is very random, sometimes weeks will go past without any occurance and then one night it is back, without any warning. It is specifically located in my calf muscles and nowhere else in my legs. I can describe it as follow: it is just an urge that come over me to constantly flex my calf muscles and usually this reliefs the lame feeling I get when I hold them still. What I can say is that since I started yoga 12 years ago its frequency is becoming less and less. In the past it used to be about every second night, now it occur once every 2-3 weeks maybe.

I am currently 39, was full vegetarian until a few months ago when my homeopath and nutritionist strongly recommended that I include fish again in my diet due to certain deficiencies that became too serious for them. I now eat fish about 2-3 times a week again. I drink one cup of coffee every morning, my only “luxury” I allow myself. Avoid sugars, drink no alcohol, no processed or refined foods and eats lots of veggies and fruits and drink more than enough water the rest of the day.

I was wondering if anyone out there might have some advice for it and InnerAthlete if I may kindly ask for the remedies you recommend.

#2

Hi Pandara!

By definition of a syndrome, it IS a syndrome but my issue comes with the fact that most doctors will prescribe harsh medications aimed at numbing and stopping the involuntary movements.

To say that I used to have restless legs would be an extreme understatement. I no longer do unless specific criteria come into play. For me, the main variables are sugar and stresses that cause my sympathetic nervous system to become highly active (I enter fight or flight). At this point I can almost feel the cortisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine flooding my system :smiley:

In my opinion, restless legs are often a sign that a person is in fight or flight. The body wants to run or fight, but the mind doesn’t allow it to, so we get stuck. It also makes sense to me that the legs really take off when the mind is quiet or distracted as then the body can sneak in and do a little of what it wants.

If you’re interested, I can provide you a series of poses and means to allow the body to do what it wants to do. Would it help you? Obviously I have no way of knowing for sure as I can’t be certain you’re not dealing with something else, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to try. Please note, some people experience intense emotional releases during the practice.

#3

Hello Pandara,

So wonderful to have a question from you as you are so often answering them. Perhaps a breath of fresh air for you as well?

Are there other neuromuscular events going on or is this it? Are you able to be still with the eyes closed in Savasana and if so for how long? Is this also the case for you in pranayama? When the eyes are closed are they looking at the upper or lower eyelid?

Good diet is not necessarily “appropriate diet” and I want to commend for responding to your life by taking in some fish. It shows a true open mind on your part.

I would suggest looking at the diet in two ways: the first is yin foods. The one I believe to be most yin is NuPlus from the sunrider line. I’ve tried many things and this feels most appropriate. However you can also do your own research and find which table foods might meet this. The second is alkalinity. Eat in such a way that the PH shifts from acidic to alkaline. I’d also suggest finding a new luxury.

For asana I would do Ardha Uttanasana in the wall ropes. Inverting the spine in this way (hanging) allows for decompression and frees the nervous system. Also I would install a chin-up bar (or two straps) and catch it several times per day and hang - keeping the shoulders in-joint and the serratus very engaged.

Avoid any passive twisting altogether. This requires a rooting/recoiling before a rotation.

When you feel the agitation rub oil on the legs. Organic, untoasted sesame is the preferred. Olive oil is second. Organic only please. See if that eases the calling.

And, of course, in your meditation carefully examine the nature of the nervous system and it’s relationship to the external.

Hope this is helpful.

gordon

#4

[quote=David;19857]Hi Pandara!

By definition of a syndrome, it IS a syndrome but my issue comes with the fact that most doctors will prescribe harsh medications aimed at numbing and stopping the involuntary movements.

To say that I used to have restless legs would be an extreme understatement. I no longer do unless specific criteria come into play. For me, the main variables are sugar and stresses that cause my sympathetic nervous system to become highly active (I enter fight or flight). At this point I can almost feel the cortisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine flooding my system :smiley:

In my opinion, restless legs are often a sign that a person is in fight or flight. The body wants to run or fight, but the mind doesn’t allow it to, so we get stuck. It also makes sense to me that the legs really take off when the mind is quiet or distracted as then the body can sneak in and do a little of what it wants.

If you’re interested, I can provide you a series of poses and means to allow the body to do what it wants to do. Would it help you? Obviously I have no way of knowing for sure as I can’t be certain you’re not dealing with something else, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to try. Please note, some people experience intense emotional releases during the practice.[/quote]

Hi David,

Thanks for the response. I have never taken any medication for it, I know my body tries to tell me something, but this is the one I just can’t figure out, it evades me time and again. So I have come to accept it over the years. What you say about the fight or flight do make sense in a way, which has much to do with the level of violent crime in my country which affects my stress levels sometimes and interesting enough my last bout of restless legs was when we had an attempted break-in at my house about two months ago.

I would appreciate the series of poses and I have never been afraid of emotional releases, so please either publish them here or sent them to me via pm.

Thanking you in advance.

#5

Hi Pandara,

PM incoming my friend :slight_smile:

#6

[quote=InnerAthlete;19880]Hello Pandara,

So wonderful to have a question from you as you are so often answering them. Perhaps a breath of fresh air for you as well?

Are there other neuromuscular events going on or is this it? Are you able to be still with the eyes closed in Savasana and if so for how long? Is this also the case for you in pranayama? When the eyes are closed are they looking at the upper or lower eyelid?

And, of course, in your meditation carefully examine the nature of the nervous system and it’s relationship to the external.

Hope this is helpful.

gordon[/quote]

Namaste Gordon,

Yes it is strange to stand on the other side of the Q&A for a change. I have few complaints in my life and in general enjoy very good health. Restless legs is one of the few and I didn’t even think of it until you have mentioned in in another post.

I have no other neuromuscular problems, have been for tests about 10 years ago and they couldn’t find anything out of place or abnormal of indicative of any abnormalities during the tests. I have never experience restless legs during savasana and my eyes are always closed, turning up. Duration is anything from 15 - 25 minutes at the moment depending on my time, but never shorter than 15 minutes. I have never experienced restless legs during pranayama, in fact I have found that when I experience resless legs that pranayama actually helps to relief it a bit. Ujjayi pranayama seems to be especially very helpful.

Thanks for the other advice and recommendations will try them out, I am trying to ween myself of the coffee slowly but surely, but this seem to be a difficult one for me. Anyway, I am trying and will get there eventually. :slight_smile:

As I have said to David as well, I know my body is trying to tell me something, but this really seems to be one of those I just can’t figure out, just as I think now I have, then the resless legs will pop up again. My own teacher once told me that it is something from many past incarnations that culminates in the one issue and that I must have patience with it. So, patience is what I have cultivated towards it over the years.

From my heart thank you for your response.

#7

For what it is worth, i did read of one chiropractor attribute the mysterious ‘restless leg syndrome’ to a tight psoas.

I’ve had symptoms before (as part of a package though),night-time , caused by tight hip muscles and quads. What is really causing it-- the reality behind maybe a less simple like you suggest.karmic baggage & current circumstances,emotional factors,energy imbalances,stress,lifestyle,diet etc. you seem to intuit very well that evrything we do,think breathe affects everything that follows hence.

I would suggest or look into an effective form of meditation practiced over the long-tem.i would do it in a seat first for a couple of months before movingi nto any sitting posture.the main thing is obviously your legs are comfortable(i.e not restless,otherwise you may get less than optimal results).And i would also use a proven technique and stick with it daily until you experience a shift.

Of course my advice could be redundant, but there’s no harm offering it.All i have is my own experience, no one else’s and what has seemed to help me.

You need to get your hands on yoga power tools to laser-burn away your karma as a first step, and then continue some more, combining other approaches in an integral manner.

Suffering is needless if we have the right or effective tools and the motivation to practice them.,very important-the biggest ingredient.

You need to affect your internal physiological responses and breed the cultivation of a subtle awarness of the mind-body-spirit matrix through penetrating allthe koshas through training and patient persitence practice. Most of this boils down to a love of God.Asana by itself is likely to fall short without combing them with other tools like pranayama.

In simple terms this probably mainly boils down to a love of God,and so a love of love,and a desire to reach the divine and penetrate the infinite.

when we surrender completely, ego,mind and all & previous samskaras,we can taste thee divine,and it is lush, like sweet nectar.

#8

Indeed. Should he choose to follow what I sent him, he’ll be specifically targeting the psoas. It’s one of the primary muscles associated with the fight or flight response.

#9

Namaste Core,

Thanks for the suggestions. I have never so far experience restless legs during meditation and I sit for about an hour to 90 minutes per day, meditating longer than 15 years already. But, yes, I have used my meditation already to sense or intuit what is going on, but with little success in this one. David dit pm me a programme which I will start to follow from tomorrow onwards and I shall report back on my progress here.

#10

Hey Core, Thanks a lot for the information. This would certainly help.

#11

[QUOTE=Pandara;19846]
I suffer since I can remember from “restless legs” and have come to accept it and live with it. I can’t say if anything triggers it, I have studied my diet over the years and cannot pinpoint anything in my diet that would trigger it. It is worse at night when I go to sleep, most of the time during the day I am not even aware of it. The occurance is very random, sometimes weeks will go past without any occurance and then one night it is back, without any warning. It is specifically located in my calf muscles and nowhere else in my legs. I can describe it as follow: it is just an urge that come over me to constantly flex my calf muscles and usually this reliefs the lame feeling I get when I hold them still. What I can say is that since I started yoga 12 years ago its frequency is becoming less and less. In the past it used to be about every second night, now it occur once every 2-3 weeks maybe.
[/QUOTE]

Just to add to this a bit (and make my first post) I also have symptoms similar to the ones you’ve described. I’ve seen the “restless leg syndrome” commercials but don’t like the idea of taking (any more) medication to treat something which is only isn’t disrupting my life.

I thought I’d point out that while I do occasionally have the types of irresistible urges you described at night (a handful of times a year) it happens much more often when I’m on an airplane or sometimes on some other form of transportation. I think it’s a combination of the slight vibration and not being able to get up and move around. It can be terrible on a flight because even if I’m exhausted and try to sleep I can’t fight the urge to continue to flex/unflex/move my calves (it’s almost always below my knees). I try to exercise before taking a flight or taking a road trip, and this helps somewhat but I definitely haven’t found a way to prevent it from happening.

Anyway, just wanted to throw this out there. You aren’t alone!

#12

Saritalr,

I just came back from a retreat and was on an aeroplane for an hour and I must say I have never experience restless legs during or after a flight, even longer flights to India for example as well.

What I can say, I did receive and followed the excellent advice from David via a pm and from InnerAthlete in this thread and what came out of it was both amazing and a revelation. I don’t want to go into too much details as it is personal, but our deep seated emotions coupled with karmic influences of past lifes makes for interesting experiences in our bodies.

I trust that I have reached the root of my restless legs and will report back in a couple of months again. To all that took the time to reply, thank you from my heart, every bit of it was taken with love and applied where I could and I am sure the combined effort of All has lead me to a point of great release. :slight_smile:

#13

I realize you said a couple of months, but I thought I’d check in now. How are you doing thus far? :slight_smile:

#14

Namaste David and All,

Was planning to give some feedback over the weekend, but I will do it now.

This has been a very intense journey for me in terms of really going back into the past and releasing some old emotional issues, some of them going as far back as age 7. I haven’t had a single restless leg episode since I have started following your advice and that of Gordon. I must say I have developed a nice new hobby and that is to hang upside down, thanks Gordon it is a nice one, was something I did as a young boy, perhaps remnants of my past life as a bat. :slight_smile:

But back to the restless legs. The one thing that I also take from this whole process is, and this is something that I strongly belief and it was now just reconfirmed again, that our emotions are remembered by our bodies and they are stored very deep and if we tend to ignore these emotions they manifest as physical imbalances, illnesses and diseases. These imbalances, illnesses and diseases are all reminders that we have an emotional issue stored and that we need to pay attention to that.

During this process I was constantly working with old emotions, which I have burried so deep that I forgot about them in the mind, but time and again as I followed the programme you mailed me, something would pop up, a memory of something that happened when I was 10 or 15 or 23 and each time it lead me to release the emotion and with that more of the physical imbalances.

I am a great supporter of Louise Hay and her work and I have said this many times here on this Forum and say it now again: yes treat the physical side, but also look at the emotions behind the physical imbalance, as I now more than before belief that many (I would say nearly 80%) of our physical ailments originate in emotional issues, which was emphasized for me during this whole process again and again.

To all who contributed, thank you and I trust that this will serve as a good thread for the future in terms of restless legs and other seekers. To those who may come here in future, please ask David for the programme he mailed me, it is a tough one, especially in the beginning, but if you persist with it, it is worthwhile doing. :slight_smile:

#15

Pandara,

I am so pleased to hear you’re doing well!

Maybe you can help me with a struggle I’ve been undergoing.

What you speak of is absolutely true. The process you are undergoing can be extremely intense for some people. The ONLY reason I provided you with the methodology is because I knew you could handle what might come up due to your advanced practices. And yet, I also knew it would (and will be) very tough at times mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

The program I provided you was based upon the work of David Berceli, the founder of the “Trauma Release Process”. Going deep into that process, I realized I was not just practicing yoga, I was experiencing it. As a yoga teacher, I went to David and proposed we form a new type of yoga which has been very well received by the people we’ve taught thus far.

The problem is how to spread it. Based upon my experience, what comes up can be incredibly intense and will at times require someone who has gone that deep within themselves and/or a trained therapist to guide the practitioner through those murky waters. In short, I fear this process being taught by people who have no business teaching it and/or students practicing it who are not ready to handle what may come up. I know that if David Berceli was not there for me at times, I probably would have ended up heavily medicated in a psychiatric hospital.

I’m at a crossroads because I know this can be incredibly healing but at the same time, the potential that more harm than good might be done is there and I’m unsure how to proceed.

Thoughts?

#16

Hi David,

This is a tough one. Personally I don’t think your programme is for everybody and this in itself makes it difficult to teach, because how do you determine if it is meant for a particular person or not and assessing people over the net via a Forum such as this pose many pitfalls and dangers for you and for the person asking for it.

I know that you said that I should ask you for support, but to be honest I needed support physically here with me and fortunately I am surround by many great yogis and friends who have great wisdom and insight into these things and a wonderful homeopath/accupuncturist who worked with me on this as well. So, one of the first things I would recommend is make sure you have an excellent support system around you.

Secondly, there are a few people in my yoga classes who need this type of work and I have slowly started to incorporate especially point 1 of the programme in my yoga classes and I don’t hold it too long, just long enough for a few tremors to happen, sort of a little slap in the face to say hey wake up look at this. What has happened sofar is that in one particular lady it has awaken her just enough to start to search a little deeper and to ask more. Between her, the homeopath/accupuncturist and myself we are now working on her issues as well and the relief she has already experienced from her sciatica and other issues is just tremendous. What I have seen also is that in those who are not ready for this it has absolutely no effect, except for a few sore muscles the next day. I think this might be our own inner “firewalls” that prevent this when it determine that you are not ready for it. Note that it was very light and just point 1 and not the entire programme you gave me.

I want to pause a little at accupuncture. During this whole process I could feel that there were points where there were a blockage and the accupuncture in a weird sense relieved the aches, but at the same time it was as if pandoras box was opened at certain points and actually helping the emotional issues for me to flow more easily.

I think this is a programme that should be taught to people who are sensitive enough to understand it themselves and who are open enough to deal with all the emotional, physical, spiritual and mental issues that do arise. Mine was mostly emotional as I am a person who internalise my emotions.

David, I wish I could give better advise, but at this point this is what I can offer. If I may encourage you, it is a great programme and it should be taught, perhaps time will reveal the perfect avenue for you. I hope it will.

#17

So I sometimes experience ‘restless arms’ and have been practicing Yoga for 5 years now, I’d say in some ways I am an intermediate practitioner…(though in regards to arm balances, I’d say I was beginner/intermediate). Now I have for around 15 years now studied Metaphysics. I have my third degree in Reiki, and feel I am very in touch with my spiritual side. I’ve done so much inner and outer work, I feel it’s a natural part of my daily life now. I am a vegetarian who occasionally consumes fish (so pesce-veggie) anyways…I’ve done some research regaring the method David has mentioned (TRE) and according to the website, you do not need a doctors supervision to do the program, they’ve mentioned anyone can do it, I don’t want to lead anyone astray, I’m simply wondering if this program would be right for me based on the fact that I have very little outside support…I’m basically on my own with this sort of thing.

I would really love to try this method, as I said, I am a regular Yoga practitioner, and would love to try something new.

Thank you very much!

#18

From a yogic standpoint, this thread has it about covered. From a nutrition standpoint one simple remedy has not been mentioned. When crapms or restlessness occur at night while lying prone or supine, it can often signal a magnesium deficiency. While would not want to “prescribe”, it should be a simple and most likely harmless experiment to add some supplemental magnesium (it could also contain a full electrolyte complex as potassium may help as well). Just my two cents. I have seen it provide relief numerous times.

#19

one of my clients has restless legs during massages I will give him some tips to help

#20

Living a Yogic lifestyle, the nervous system of the body becomes balanced and healthy. This type of lifestyle supports the healing of all disease. I am confident that patients with Restless Leg Syndrome can recover and live and sleep normally. This is not to say that the journey is easy, it most certainly is not.