Yoga and being Immunocompromised: How to Develop a Practice to help you Recover

As someone who is a movement aficionado, hearing the news of being immunocompromised wasn’t easy to hear one day in a doctor’s office. In the United States alone — about 6.6% of the population are immunocompromised (estimated to about 18 million people) — which signifies you are definitely not alone on this and can receive treatment and still live your best life!

For a very long time, I felt alone in my journey and my whole world was changing — from my diet, my loss of energy, wearing a mask whenever I go, and my social life was affected too. But, the number one thing that kept popping up in my mind was — my career. As a yoga instructor myself, this news was difficult to hear and I felt lost. But, as time went on I’ve realized I can still enjoy the things that I love to do in my life — just wearing a mask :) and taking things more slowly and intentionally everyday.

For this article, I want to help those who are navigating through this journey by implementing a yoga practice to clear your mind, start your day on the right foot, and to help yourself build strength and energy to help you through your treatment and recovery!

BEFORE RECEIVING TREATMENT

In the stages before receiving treatment — make sure to take things slow in your day to day — such as no high impact workouts, (as it can temporarily suppress your immune system and cause extreme exhaustion), HIIT workouts (high intensity interval training), high intensity running, and workouts using heavy weights.

It was difficult for me to let go of high intensity workouts in my stages of recovery but then I soon realized this made me want to explore all of the ways yoga can help with my recovery as I handle my day to day!

Some postures can help boost your immune system and energy are:

- Downward facing dog

- Lord of the fishes twist

- Reverse warrior

- Upward facing dog

- Legs up a wall

- Triangle posture

- Bridge

- Camel or 1/2 Camel pose

Implement these postures into your daily routine to help boost your energy and not overwhelm you with a flow sequence until you’re in the treatment phase.

DURING TREATMENT

While receiving treatment for your condition — it’s important to take into account what specific treatment you’re undergoing to ensure you can incorporate a yoga practice to help with your recovery.

If you’ve undergone surgery or a transplant for your treatment, please make sure to listen to your doctor and don’t participate in any rigorous activity to ruin the effects of your treatment. If you’re taking prescribed medications, take note of how you’re feeling while taking them so you can see if you’d like to add yoga to your recovery plan. Always listen to your doctor before you participate in any physical movement activity.

But, if you are given the green light — try to add more stretching & yin postures to your routine to start building your yoga practice before adding faster paced movements.

Here are some Yin postures you can do to start building your yoga practice:

- Supine twist

- Child’s pose

- Cobra posture

- Seated forward fold

- Reclined butterfly

- Seated twist

- Knees to chest

- Savasana

RECOVERY STAGES

After some time spent in your recovery — depending on how you feel and your “a-okay” from your doctor — now it’s time to incorporate more slow flow vinyasa based yoga postures to help build up your mobility and start building strength. Again, take note of how you feel with a faster paced practice and adjust accordingly to make sure you enjoy your practice but also to feel a difference internally :).

What I’ve been doing within my recovery stages myself are yoga routines I would find on YouTube (oh what a wonderful world we have of YouTube) — it’s free, you can do it in the comfort of your home, and plus we don’t have to worry about a crowded room (just kidding)!

Some of my favorite YouTube channels you can find more slow vinyasa based styles include:

- Jess Yoga

- CharlieFollows

- Yoga with Kassandra

- Yoga with Adriene

Also, here’s a slower paced vinyasa flow I’ve created if you like to try it too:

- sit at the back of your mat with legs extended - focus on your breath

- inhale — arms reach to sky

- exhale — forward fold over legs

- inhale — half way lift (to flat back) hands on knees

- exhale — bend your Right knee let it fall open and fold over your Left leg for a nice stretch

hold for a breath

- exhale — bend your Left knee let it fall open and fold over your Right leg for a nice stretch

hold for a breath

- exhale — straighten your Left leg to meet your Right leg and walk your feet closer to you — place your hands behind you — lift your body to a reverse bridge posture

hold here for a couple of breaths

- exhale — lower your bum and start to sit cross legged — clasp your hands — extend your arms behind your back for a nice back and shoulder stretch

hold here for a couple of breaths

- exhale — release your grip & place your hands on your knees for meditation

BUILDING STRENGTH

The final stages of our recovery, my favorite part of this article!

We finally reached our highest in how we feel and where we feel our strongest — which means our yoga routine has to match by incorporating strength building vinyasa flows.

Now, I know you want to reach for your heavy dumbbells and immediately start your mile run, but we’ve made it this far and don’t want to mess up our treatment — please always consult with your primary doctor (if they gave you the thumbs up to the weights and mile run then go for it — but take it slow!).

In order to build long lasting strength, make sure you listen to your body (always number one!) and to create a yoga routine that builds endurance — aim to create a consistent practice timing between 15-20 minutes — this timing helps to build endurance by having a longer practice time but also keeping it short to not overly exert yourself.

One good way is incorporating Sun Salutations to help warm up your body, you can alter how fast you go or slow you like, and also works well with the postures recommended to build your own vinyasa flow.

Here are some examples of vinyasa postures that builds endurance and strength to work alongside your Sun Salutations:

- Reverse table top

- Side plank (or Supported side plank)

- Bird dog posture (or Hold high plank)

- Chair posture

- Three legged dog

- Warrior 2

- Warrior 3

- Crow posture on your toes

- Incorporate chatteraungas

An example strength building practice that includes Sun A and a couple postures from above:

Sun A

- stand at the top of your mat

- inhale - arms above head

- exhale - forward fold over legs

- inhale - 1/2 way lift (hands on knees to flat back)

- exhale - place hands down on top of mat step feet back to high plank

- lower your whole body to your mat

- inhale - upward facing dog or cobra

- exhale - lift your hips to sky — keep your hands and feet grounded to downward facing dog

Included postures:

- three legged dog

- warrior 2

- chair posture

- place hands on top of mat to crow posture but keep toes grounded

hold here

- drop your knees on mat and fold into child’s pose

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, you can live a very fulfilling wonderful life doing what you love while immunocompromised but in different ways that pairs well with your recovery and treatment.

By adding Yoga to your recovery, it can help you by calming your mind, bringing your mind and body to work together, and most of all — building strength and endurance without overly exhausting yourself by incorporating postures that help you wherever you are in your journey — either before treatment, during treatment, your recovery, and starting to build strength and endurance.

A reminder, always consult with your doctor if you’d like to add a yoga practice either alongside your treatment or in the stages of recovery.