How Yoga Changes Your Life

The power of breath, a simple yet transformative element of yoga. This episode of Better Wellness brings you the wisdom of David Delrahim, a wellness visionary who has journeyed deep into the heart of yoga, not just as a physical exercise, but as a profound path to unite body, mind, and soul. David shares the ancient origins of yoga and explains how it's so much more than the poses—it's a practice for life, aiming to achieve self-realization, liberation, and mindfulness.

With host, Roland Perez, David recounts the personal transformation that led him to explore his untapped potential. Join us as David unfolds the story of how yoga transcends the mat, bringing about a sense of freedom and balance that permeates every hour of the day. If you're feeling called to a practice that nourishes every part of your being, let David's journey inspire you to roll out your mat and begin with that first, life-changing breath.

From the producers of PBS's American Health Journal and Innovations in Medicine. Thank you for listening to Better Wellness.

Transcript

Roland Perez: 0:04

Welcome to Better Wellness. I'm your host, Roland Perez, and we're listening to a podcast that explores the newest innovations in true wellness. As the executive producer of the American Health Journal for more than 25 years, I've produced over 500 30-minute award-winning television shows that air nationally on PBS with an audience of over 100 million viewers. But Better Wellness is more than all that not only keeping your body healthy, but developing a mindset and balance that prevents illness. Our guests are experienced experts from all over the world on staying healthy, young and well. Our guest for this edition of Better Wellness is David Delrahim, a wellness expert, noted visionary in the area of wellness. David has incorporated yoga into his daily wellness regimen for years and he's going to tell us all the different aspects of yoga. So, david, what is yoga?

David Delrahim: 1:03

Let's talk about yoga and let's start with the meaning of yoga. I believe the meaning says it all is to unite. Uniting the body and mind and the soul is the unification that happens. What we are doing right now, as we call it yoga.

David Delrahim: 1:27

It is not yoga it's a yoga practice big difference. But the whole yoga goes back thousands of years ago from ancient India. Sarjee Patanjali wrote a book that wanted to define what the core principle of yoga and the yoga practices, and it's in three different parts. He said that the yoga is about the journey inward, getting to our own truth through self-realization, which is the harmonization of our body, mind and soul that comes from balancing. Number two is liberation, One is breaking through the limitations of life and the third one is the mindfulness being present. So that is the core principle of the yoga. Why do we call it yoga practice? Because for one hour we get on the mat, small real estate and we practice all of those three things that I just explained. We're trying to get better at it. We practice it, so when we leave the mat we can go ahead and do it, Exercise the whole thing through the other 23 hours of our day. Mindfulness, that liberation, that self-realization, all of these things.

Roland Perez: 3:23

When you get up and roll up your mat after you've done yoga, what do you get out of it as you continue the rest of your day?

David Delrahim: 3:33

In this small real estate of mat, there is no judgment. You're not judging yourself. You're moving freely, you breathe easier, you bring oxygen, as we say it, but in yoga we call it prana, which is the life force that you're bringing in. I remember my first yoga teacher. We practiced yoga on the mat for eight years and when he came to the breathing, I always said that I'm bringing light into my body and by closing my eyes and really connecting with light and breathing the light inside the body, I would feel relieved, rejuvenated and liberated. So we're taking that and we go through the day, but we know that we are on the yoga mat all the time.

Roland Perez: 4:52

David, how do I get started? I really want that kind of peace of mind that you get. I want that, but where do I start?

David Delrahim: 5:01

Let me share with you how I got turned into yoga and how I started. I had a therapist that you know. She would work on my body every week because I had an enormous amount of pain in my shoulders, upper back and my neck, and when she would work on my body I would feel great for a day. And after that back to the same thing.

David Delrahim: 5:30

And she said David, you need to do yoga if you want to help yourself, if you want to help with your back problem and neck problem. And of course you know I had this severe challenge with my posture and I said sure. So I called in and I started with my first teacher the first session. She said sit down and I want you to breathe, just breathe, I'm breathing. And after a few breaths she said do you know that you're only utilizing your lungs for about maybe 30% of its capacity? I said that's it. She said that's it. So she said your body is really suffering for lack of oxygen because you're not bringing a lot of oxygen in and you're not exhaling the CO2. So your body is not optimized. I said so what are we going to do? She said begin to start by learning how to breathe. So that for two weeks that's all we did. You know it was two sessions a week.

David Delrahim: 6:49

So for four sessions she just taught me about how to be mindful about breathing. Then she said let's start moving our body. And then we always finished with the meditations. So she taught me how to breathe, she stretched my body, she started building my muscles strength, and then it was the mind that she was teaching me how to control through meditations. And within a few months I truly believe that I tapped into the best thing in my life. Now my breathing has gotten better, I'm sharper, I have more clarity just because more oxygen and I'm breathing out my CO2s. And as I'm stretching, within a few months I literally found out that I probably gained about a couple of inches in height. I was straight and then my mind got much calmer. So you see, it is more than just a stretch. It's perhaps the body stretch, it's the mind stretch and calming and the connectivity that I started really realizing and practicing with my soul and spirituality.

Roland Perez: 8:33

You know, I've been thinking, David when can you start doing yoga? What age and how old can you be and still continue doing yoga?

David Delrahim: 8:42

I believe you can start at any time. It's never too late. It's just it's never too late to go after self-realization. It's never too late to experience liberation. It's never too late to experience mindfulness.

Roland Perez: 9:06

There are yoga classes everywhere the city, special organizations. You can google it. Where's the nearest place to do yoga?

David Delrahim: 9:16

Yoga has become a huge component of wellness. In many of the hotels that you check in nowadays now they have you, they're offering yoga classes, or maybe you even find a yoga match in your room, so they are definitely connecting yoga to wellness. I wish we would go back to the principle, the original principles of the yoga, based on those three things that I mentioned Self-realizations, liberations and mindfulness. And the body movement is essential, but calming the mind is as essential. Of course, we have a lot of different variations of yogas in modern time and there are a lot of different options of yoga, but I'm hoping that, no matter what, we do not steer away from the core principles of yoga.

Roland Perez: 10:32

What does yoga physically do to your body, David? What transformation happens? I understand the mind, but what about the body?

David Delrahim: 10:43

The transformation of the body through yoga movement is profound Better movement, your joints, the muscles, they get stretched and, which is very important because as we age the muscles are getting shorter and shorter and, before we know it, we have no movement. One of my great memories from really receiving the benefit of yoga I was traveling on a plane and I had a window seat and there were two other people to my left and I wanted to use the restroom and they were sleeping and I didn't want to wake them up and I didn't want to interrupt their sleeping, so just wanted to see whether I can spread my legs to go over these two without touching them. And I did. And then I stood up and I said wow.

David Delrahim: 11:53

And when I came back to my seat they were away. They said when did you leave? I said well, that was like 10 minutes ago. I said well, how did you? I said that's yoga.

Roland Perez: 12:08

What's interesting to me is the diversity of people who practice yoga, like celebrities, engineers, just about everyone. They're all different types, different races, different genders, but they're all brought together on the mat.

David Delrahim: 12:24

Absolutely. Yoga means to unite. Yoga is not only your body, mind and soul, but it's to unite with your fellow human beings in the same space, and I have been part of a group that we had a teenager all the way to 80, 85 year old gentleman, and I believe yoga belongs to everyone. I find that to be absolutely essential, for me at least. I've been doing it for 10 years, even when I'm traveling. If I cannot find a class, I make sure I would do it at least half an hour a day and it helps me especially during traveling with the stress with the body stress with the mind stress, with the potential lower back issues, because sitting all the time the knee issues. It's just a way of life. Yoga is a way of life.

Roland Perez: 13:38

You mentioned doing it in classes with a lot of different, diverse types of people, and also you've mentioned it doing alone in your hotel room. Absolutely Do you get more out of it alone than you do with the class. Is there a different aura about it when you're doing it with other people or that you're doing it alone?

David Delrahim: 13:58

I believe it is all up to you. Where do you find yourself to be and how calm your mind is.

Roland Perez: 14:05

How does yoga help your quality of life?

David Delrahim: 14:10

By being connected to yourself and being mindful, you're a calmer person. You have more gratitude for all the blessings around you because you get to see it. It is there either way, but with calmer mind and mindfulness, you get to see it, you get to enjoy it and you have gratitude.

Roland Perez: 14:38

How does yoga help with healing? And I'm thinking that you meant the healing of the mind and the healing of the body, or did you mean just the healing of the body?

David Delrahim: 14:48

When I'm talking about the healing, I'm looking at the healing on 360 degrees, all of it the mind, emotions, energy and spirit. Our mind drives our emotions and or vice versa, which one comes first, I believe, is the mind that creates the emotions. So, by having that imbalance and stretching our body and breathing, bringing more prana into our body, and meditating and doing that, cleansing, it is a healing exercise. Now, if you really want to enjoy it, you just have to follow that exercise that you just did. You know, talking in a healing way, thinking in a healing way, you're creating it for yourself. Nobody else is doing it. So again, just thinking in a healing way, talking in a healing way, expressing in a healing way.

Roland Perez: 16:12

And maybe this is the big question how has yoga changed your life, David?

David Delrahim: 16:18

Yoga has changed my life in a very profound way. I believe the change that they experience. After doing yoga, I realized that I'm striving for alignment. Alignment is the key word in yoga. Yes, I was doing, I was going to the gym before all right, I was doing meditations, but I didn't have the alignment. Yoga helped me structure everything that I was doing, putting order to everything that I was doing, and create an alignment, and the alignment is, of course, with the body you know the posture all right. With the mind, calming it down, all right. Create an alignment. It's about balance. Yoga created balance, or taught me how to strive to creating balance in my life.

Roland Perez: 17:16

Now it's become part of your life. Wellness is a lifestyle.

David Delrahim: 17:22

If yoga is a component of wellness, guess what Yoga is a lifestyle, you know. But once you start doing it and you see the benefit of it, you're at the point of no return. You cannot go back to the old habits of not doing it. You know what? Because the liberation that you would experience through yoga practice is profound. You know what? Once you experience liberation, you cannot go back to the chain.

Roland Perez: 18:00

The way to break the chain is with yoga.

David Delrahim: 18:03

You recognize the chain. You owe it to yourself to break away from it and find liberation.

Roland Perez: 18:11

Do yoga. Thank you, David, and I hope we can make yoga a part of everybody's wellness journey. And remember Better Wellness is available just about everywhere, including Spotify, Amazon Music and iHeart Radio. So once again, thanks for supporting Better Wellness. I'm your host, Roland Perez. See you next time.