If you’ve taken even a handful of Bikram Yoga classes, you likely eagerly anticipate “party time.” That’s the point right after Eagle Pose, about 25 minutes into the class when the teacher says, “Party time! Drink your water.”
There’s no official water break before that point or after really; for the rest of the class you’re on your own for water breaks.
So the questions remain:
- When should you drink your water?
- When should you not drink your water?
And of course … - How much water should you drink?
My personal philosophy regarding water consumption during a Bikram Yoga class is pretty lax: drink when you’re thirsty, enough to take care of yourself, not too much to make you uncomfortable.
Seems simple enough, but there’s a bit more that goes into this outlook.
Here’s the thing … if you find yourself constantly reaching for your water and guzzling the entire class, there are a couple of things you’ll want to consider:
Dehydration
First and foremost, the water you drink in the hours and days before coming to class is the water that will hydrate you for that class.
Now, if you end up in a Bikram Yoga class when you’re even a little bit dehydrated, you instinctively reach for your water. And that’s fine. In yoga we’re learning to take care of ourselves so it’s totally necessary to hydrate when you’re completely parched.
Here’s the key point when you’re in that position:
If you need to drink a lot of water in class because you’re dehydrated, then you’ve gotta then go easy in the postures. Don’t try to work to your max with a full belly. That creates a vicious cycle of unnecessary discomfort where you’ll be drinking to ease the dehydration and doing postures on a fully belly. Hello nausea … yuck!
Instead, drink your water to the point that you need, and then – here’s the big takeaway – go very easy when you try the postures.
Envision lying on your back, doing the sit ups, then bending forward and backward with a ton of liquid sloshing around in your stomach. Yeah. Not fun. You can see why you’ll want to take it easy in the postures if you’ve just downed a liter of water!
So we’ve covered the dehydration scenario, but there’s one more piece of the equation.
Discomfort
We as humans are comfort-seeking beings. Just think about every aspect of your life:
When it’s cold we turn the heat up.
When it’s hot we turn the AC on.
When we’re uncomfortable going to sleep we switch positions.
If our sweater is scratchy we change shirts.
If our food tastes bad we eat something else.
We want to be comfortable, yet in Bikram Yoga, so much of the benefit lies in the discomfort.
Getting comfortable with discomfort takes time, self-control, and patience.
A completely natural tendency is to reach for that icy cold, refreshing beverage sitting just inches off your mat as soon as you reach an uncomfortable point in the practice. But … and here’s the key part … you might not actually be thirsty.
Your water might be a little way of making you feel more comfortable.
Your drink might be a little distraction from the transformation taking place in your body.
The act of sipping and stepping outside of the moving meditation might disturb the shift about to take place in your mindset.
So what’s a yogi to do?
First of all, don’t worry! You’re human, after all. You might not even be aware that that’s what you’re doing.
As soon as you reach that awareness, though, you can ask yourself, am I really thirsty, or am I just uncomfortable? I remember finding this awareness and thinking, well yeah I’m uncomfortable and I’m just going to drink my water anyway! Such a rebel, I know 😉 But sitting with my discomfort, facing it head on wasn’t something I was ready to tackle as a new-ish yogi.
Pretty soon though, all that water guzzling got in the way of putting forth an honest effort in the postures. It actually became easier – more comfortable really – to stretch and balance and work through each pose than to drink my water.
Finding and practicing patience and self-control is part of the yoga experience. It doesn’t happen overnight, and it takes time just like locking your knee or balancing on one leg.
Takeaways
All of this information regarding drinking water in Bikram Yoga will hopefully lead you to a more productive practice.
If you know you often come in to the hot room dehydrated, then set some reminders throughout the day to drink plenty of water before class.
If you find yourself super uncomfortable throughout class, try putting forth less of a strenuous effort and breathing more.
Drinking water in Bikram Yoga can really help you in your practice. And the awareness of why you’re drinking and when you’re drinking enhances your yoga journey.
