Okay, why don't we try another version of the sun salutations? And again, our theme is repetition. And can you tell us a little bit about cell mutation and DNA mutation? >> So lifestyle, environment, stress, exercise, what we eat all gets encoded into epigenetic markers. And those are what we're able to actually change, regulate and develop. So instilling some sort of repetitive practice like sun salutations in yoga on a daily or weekly basis allows us to start to change those epigenetic markers to promote different regulatory factors. >> So we can't control age, but we can control aging. >> Yes. >> To a certain degree. >> Absolutely. >> All right, also you spoke about, in the module on the cells, that every year we're 95% a new cellular body. Our stomach lining is every five to seven days or so. And our skin 1 to 30 days, and liver regenerates. So everything in our bones, 10% per year. So the food we eat, the exercise we do, the way we breathe, the way we think is all going to contribute to a new cellular body. >> Absolutely. >> Which is going to help reprogram our DNA to a certain degree. >> Yeah, if we are turning over cells, which we do naturally, and we're encoding them different and we're changing regulatory factors and we have healthier lifestyle. This time next year you will wake up in a 95% different body, and I promise you you'll feel the difference. >> And so for telomeres, when they begin to shorten, then aging increases or goes faster? >> It's more like aging causes them to shorten a little bit, but stress and environmental factors also play a huge role. >> Okay, so let's do a little bit more of a challenging sun salutation. I'll talk you through it, I won't demonstrate this one. because I might show some modifications, but for the most part you're going to do it straight up. And we are coming to our third type of sun salutation. At home you can choose whichever level of exercise or challenge you are comfortable with. You can do the first one, which was only the standing position. You can do the second one with the child's pose variation. Or if you're comfortable with this one, you can do this one as well, okay? So here we go, standing with the feet together. You're going to inhale your arms up over your head and look at the thumbs. And as you exhale, you're going to bend forward from your waist and come all the way down. Rest the head down and the hands by your feet. As you inhale, you're going to lead with the chest looking forward. And as you exhale, you're going to step your feet back one by one. And then you're going to lower yourself down into a push-up position without lying down on the ground. As you inhale, you're going to come forward into what we call the upward facing dog, which is like a high cobra position, with the thighs not touching the ground. And as you exhale, you're going to push back with your feet and your legs, coming into downward facing dog. So your hips are high up in the air. Your feet can be hip width apart. And you can be looking in the direction of your navel. And breathe slowly through the nose. So the breathing here is slow and smooth. You can hear a little bit of a hissing sound in your throat as you breathe, which happens naturally as you begin to make some effort and the glottis closes very slightly in order to control the airflow. That's where the hissing sound comes from. And on your next inhale, you're going to step your feet forward to your hands one by one. You're going to lift the chest up looking a little bit forward. And as you exhale, you'll fold over the legs from your waist. Soften the knees if you need to, inhale stand up and reach the arms over your head. Lengthen your waist as you reach up and exhale, come back to a standing position. Second time, inhale the arms up over the head, lengthen up. Exhale reach the arms out to the side and bend forward, keeping the chest open as you come down. As you inhale the chest forward, this time we're going to give a little hop back. So bend the knees and hop your feet together to a high push up. And then lower all the way down to the floor. If you're more comfortable stepping, that's okay. Inhale, come into upward facing dog. If you have any back discomfort here, you don't have to come up quite this high. You can even keep your thighs on the floor if you need to. And then an alternate way of pushing back is to drop your knees to the floor, push on to the hands and knees and then push back to downward facing dog. That's a good option too. Stay here and breathe slowly through the nose. You're going to hear a hissing sound in the throat as you slightly constrict the glottis to control your airflow. You can stay here anywhere from three to five breaths. But however many breaths you decide to choose, always stick with that rhythm. Five is usually a good number, three is okay too. And then as you're ready you can soften the knees and look forward and then hop your feet together up towards your hands. Lift the chest up, straightening the legs, exhale bend the head down towards your legs. Inhale stand up reaching the arms out to the side and up over the head and exhale the arms down. If you have any back discomfort you can keep your knees bent as you bend forward and as you stand up. Let's just do one more time. Inhale reach the arms up over the head, lengthen up towards the ceiling. Exhale fold forward, arms out to the side or forward and the head down. Inhale lengthen your chest forward, leading with your sternum and then bend the knees and exhale hop your feet back. And then lower gently towards the floor, coming into a push-up. Inhale into upward facing dog, arching the back, and you can tilt the head a little back. Exhale to downward facing dog, whichever variation you'd like to use to come into it. And breathe slow, deep breaths here. In this position you can feel like your hips are lengthening back towards the wall behind you. And you can feel like, in between the shoulder blades, you're pushing a little bit down towards the floor, not too much, just a little bit. And so you get length in the spine as you pull the hips back and a little of a stretch in the upper back. And after you've done your three or five breaths, you can soften the knees, bending them a little. Look forward towards your hands, and then hop your feet up to the hands. Lift the chest up, straighten your knees, exhale bend the head down. Remember, if you have back discomfort, soften your knees or bend the knees a lot here. And then stand up, reach the arms over the head and exhale the arms down by your sides. Breathe in one time, a long, slow inhale and a long, slow exhale. Okay, so now we're going to come to sit on the floor in a comfortable cross legged position. And you're going to put your hands on the floor in front of you. Walk the hands out and rest the head down. This can also be done by holding onto your wrists behind your back. And we're going to stay here and breathe five times. One. Two. Three. Four. Five, as you inhale, come all the way up to a seated position, exhale the hands on to the knees. You can either close your thumb and your forefinger in the traditional yogic meditation pose, or you can rest your hands on the knees. We're going to breathe now five times slowly, inhaling and exhaling through the nose. You're going to very lightly tighten the glottis which is the opening at the top of the esophagus. Very light constriction, as if you were whispering or trying to fog a mirror. And you can hear the sound that Ali is making is a very light whispering sound from the constriction. And what this does is it makes or ensures that the breathing is very smooth and very even. The inhale and exhale in an equal measure will help to balance the operations of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. And it will help to make the mind very smooth, calm and even. And it also provides a sound for you to mindfully be aware of as you're doing the breathing. Just do one more slow inhale. And a slow exhale. And then you can relax the breath for a moment. And when you're ready, you can open the eyes. So this is like a complete practice. You can do three or five of these sun salutations, and you get full body activation. And then you can sit down and do some mindfulness practice with breathing. And if this is the only exercise you did every day, you would affect so many different things that we've already spoken about. >> Definitely, and we encourage you guys to try at home, as well. >> Yeah, how many times should they do it, do you think, per week? >> I would say between three or five. But I also think it's important to do it as much as you can. So if once a week is realistic, then that alone will make a difference. But of course three to five times a week would be great. >> And what should they look out for as problems to avoid? And what should they look out for to know they're going in the right direction? >> So one of the biggest things, I think, integrating everything we've been talking about, is just mindfulness. So you don't want to feel like, or try to catch yourself if you start thinking about everything and you start to feel your shoulders creep up. You want to stay with your breath as much as possible. So if it's not possible to do the full sun salutation we just did, you can stick with one of the variations. And you want to watch for any extreme discomfort. So it should feel like you are doing an exercise. But it's beneficial, you're calm, you're breathing, you're not holding any extra stress or tension. >> But you're making some effort. >> But you're definitely making some effort. I'm sweating. [LAUGH] >> Yeah, okay, good, so sweat is good. >> Yes, sweat is great. >> Yeah, okay, so always you have to find the fine line between making effort and pushing yourself too hard. >> Definitely. >> The way that you'll know you're pushing yourself too hard, is if you're completely out of breath. If you're huffing and puffing or you're holding your breath a lot, then you're trying too hard. So the breathing will become a measure of your level of effort. If you can breath smoothly, you're making that nice hissing sound, then you know you're in the right zone. >> Right, and remember that we want to keep doing this every day or weekly or monthly or yearly. We like to say it's a life long practice. So you don't have to do too much too soon. >> Yeah, super. Okay, try it, see how it goes.
