NurseWeek: Breathing lessons

Breathing lessons
Yoga helps busy nurses find physical freedom, maximize relaxation

By Heather Stringer
January 8, 2001
Photo: Photodisc

Yoga’s emphasis on healing both body and mind serves nurses’ dual role of physical assister and mental healer.


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Judith Munyon, RN, was in nursing school when pain began radiating through her back every time she stood up. Standing upright was so uncomfortable that she hunched over when she walked.

Wary of taking pills to cover up the pain, Munyon signed up for a yoga class. After two months, the back pain started to subside. As a new yogi, this home care nurse with Houston-based Healix Inc., now could bend over without pain and walk standing straight up.

The new physical freedoms were not the only fruits of the yoga classes. Munyon listened more attentively to the dying or chronically ill patients she cared for daily. Instead of brooding about a previous patient’s problems while talking to the next one, she tuned in without distraction.

Munyon, 56, and nurses throughout the country are turning to Hindu traditions dating back five centuries to cope with the 12-hour shifts and emotional toll of caring for the sick. Instructors say that yoga’s emphasis on the mind and the body is particularly suited for nurses, who serve the dual roles of technical assistants and conduits of compassion.

"Yoga truly saved my body," said Sue Miller, RN, of Redding, Calif., who has taught this Eastern art to nurses for the past two decades. "Nurses can have good intentions to protect their bodies, but it is inevitable that they will run into problems unless they have postures that keep them limber and flexible."

Nurses have one of the highest rates of work-related injuries, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. About 17 out of every 1,000 licensed practical nurses reported injuries in 1996 – the 11th highest rate of 75 professions listed.

Miller, 59, teaches nurses to avert injuries by paying attention to their bodies throughout the day. Tension in an affected muscle can be remedied with a few minutes of breathing and relaxation techniques. In fact, breathing is one of the vital secrets of yoga, said Charles MacInerney, a yoga teacher in Austin, Texas.

"In our culture, the importance of breathing has been completely forgotten," he said. The stresses of the 21st century are to blame, MacInerney explained, speaking in a calm, unhurried voice.

A frenetic lifestyle leads many people to breathe by expanding their chests, but he teaches students to breathe instead with their diaphragms. Excessive chest breathing is unhealthy because it activates a flight response, which increases blood pressure and heart rate. Breathing with the diaphragm not only avoids this flight response, but also speeds digestion by pushing on the intestines and increasing blood supply to the liver and kidneys.

Students use this breathing technique throughout a yoga class. Classes are available for everyone from gymnasts to arthritic patients. Instructors often begin sessions by asking students to release tension in their necks and shoulders. Next, they contort their bodies into poses, such as lying on the stomach and lifting the hands and chest off the ground. Finally, students finish with sitting exercises and positions that elevate the feet above the head.

For nurses, good body posture is one of the most valuable lessons they can learn in yoga, MacInerney said. He teaches them to hold their shoulders back and chest up.

"Nurses are caregivers, so they have to be careful because they can run into takers and be consumed," he said. "Emotionally, this posture helps them feel powerful and opens them to be compassionate."

MacInerney said yoga is more therapeutic than other forms of exercise. Yogis become more attuned to their bodies and know how to push themselves to the ideal limits, which results in maximum pleasure. Sports usually draw the participant’s attention away from the body and outward to the game. Riding a stationary bike may seem more yogic than a game of soccer, but MacInerney said most people ignore their bodies by distracting themselves with music or watching the television while pedaling.

Yoga teacher Tara O’Neill, RN, also trains students to be sensitive to their bodies, but her pupils sometimes present more challenges than most. She works with patients who have had heart transplants or open-heart surgery. Many are high-strung, intensely motivated people – personalities that can be a risk factor for heart disease.

"They are a hard sell," said O’Neill, a nurse at Brackenridge Hospital’s Regional Trauma Center in Austin, Texas. "I try to get people to simply breathe and rationalize with them that they are not wasting time."

The classes for cardiac patients use more gentle yogic methods, such as breathing and hand gestures that can relax the body. O’Neill learned how to teach cardiac patients through Yoga of the Heart, a 10-day course offered in Nevada City, Calif. More than 100 nurses from hospitals throughout the country have completed the program.

For O’Neill, teaching yoga to patients can be more rewarding than nursing. She is not simply taking care of people, but training them to take care of themselves.

"Instead of taking a pill to help themselves fall asleep, they do yoga," she said. "When I see people really get yoga, it is the best feeling."

Although nurses are enjoying the benefits of this Eastern tradition, Munyon admits that it’s challenging to fit the sessions into her busy schedule. She ends her workday just in time to make a yoga class from 6:30 to 8 p.m. three times a week.

But for Munyon, it’s always well worth the time.

"A lot of people get to my age and take medication," she said. "I do yoga instead."