For more than two years I’ve been practicing yoga, usually about five times per week when I am back home in New York. It is a great way to strengthen your core muscles, stretch out those ever-shortening hamstrings and build breath control. But yoga during the summer months (and even during the winter when the room is overheated) can be miserable if the room is too hot and, particularly, if there is no circulation of air from open windows or fans.
I’ve noticed that many yoga instructors have the misguided belief that sweating somehow detoxifies the body and that sweating is good. Let’s clear this up this misconception right from the start… you have kidneys and a liver that detoxify your body and your sweat glands do not play a role at all in cleansing the body. It is just not true! The single purpose of sweat is to cool the body when the core temperature rises, since evaporation is an endothermic reaction. When your students are sweating, it is a strong signal that their core temperature has risen to a point where the body is trying to cool itself… and this is not a good sign and one you should pay attention to!
It is true that when blood flow is increased to muscles, through exercise, that they become more pliable and can be stretched more easily and with a lessened chance of injury, however this is totally independent of your core temperature (you can be warmed up but not sweating.) This is probably a misconception that comes from Bikram yoga, which is based on the physiological myth that by increasing the core temperature you help the muscles, ligaments and tendons stretch. There is no scientific evidence that this is true and actually there are dangerous possible side effects that come from raising the body’s core temperature that would offset any possible advantage in flexibility and muscle/tendon pliability.
So, when the body starts to get warm and the core temperature rises, you begin to sweat as the body tries to cool itself… which is the entire process of thermoregulation. However, for the elegant process of evaporative cooling to take place, you have to have air moving past the water on your skin and the tiny droplets hanging out on those little hair follicles, which means that you need a breeze for the body to do what that body wants… to stay cool. So, most yoga studios have or should have fans that circulate air so that our bodies can do what our bodies do so well.. keep themselves regulated. There is nothing more artificial than exercising in a closed, still room without any circulating air. The concept of “prana” is all about circulation and flow, so why do yoga instructors fear the fan?
First of all, you cannot physically get chilled from circulating air from overhead fans if the temperature in the room is anywhere above 65 degrees and you are working out. The chill that a student may feel is the evaporative process, which will stop as soon as his or her core temperature returns to normal and the sweating stops. We are really very, very efficient at thermoregulation as long as there is air moving over our skin. If someone complains about the circulation of air please do not attempt to appease the lowest common denominator but either suggest they put on a wrap or shirt or wait for a moment to warm up during the practice. If is much easier for them to put on clothes to “warm up” then for us to cool down.
Secondly, not all bodies heat up at the same rate. Just because the 110 pound lithe yogi can’t work up a skin glow does not mean that a muscled 185 pound guy generating some serious wattage during a Vinyasa class isn’t overheating. If you can’t figure that out, then look at the puddle on my yoga mat and see it not as “toxins leaving the body” but a signal that the room is too warm and you need to turn on the ceiling fans.
Finally, turn on the fans before your class overheats. Just like thirst is a lagging indicator of dehydration, sweat is a lagging indicator that the core temperature is rising. If you are teaching in a closed environment, do as much as can to make it like a spring day inside your class.
Yoga studios should have clear policies based on sound exercise physiology that mandate the temperature of the studio and the necessary circulation of air in the classrooms to protect the health of their students and to avoid the vagaries that abound from location to location and between different instructors.
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