Anna Kerry went from yoga fan and enthusiast to Yoga teacher. Then the pandemic hit. A year later, at age 35, she had a stroke due to as PFO.
In this episode she shares her story. She tells us how yoga got her through stroke recovery and how it informs her work today. Anna talks about the relationship between trauma and yoga, and she talks about the impact stroke has had on her life with her husband.
As Anna has gone through this journey and continued both her studies and her teaching, she developed a yoga program specifically for stroke survivors.
And Anna explores the power and near sacredness of her own yoga mat.
If you don't see the audio player below, visit http://Strokecast.com/Anna to listen to the conversation.
Who is Anna Kerry?
In Anna's own words:
I had a stroke aged 35 in March 2021. I've had a regular yoga practice for about 10 years and decided I loved the practice so much that I wanted to learn how to teach and share my love of yoga. I qualified in Aug 2020 and had only been teaching for around 7 months when I had a stroke. As the stroke came out of the blue I had to dig deep into my yoga practice to help me through and believe that my yoga practice has helped my mindset and my mental health during this traumatic time.
I'm now in a position where I want to help other stroke survivors through their recovery so I designed The Life After Stroke Programme -- a 6 week programme designed to help stroke survivors regain their life and confidence through a holistic and embodied approach to recovery.
What is a PFO?
Anna's stroke was caused by a PFO. She found that out a month after her stroke, and she will likely get it fixed eventually.
A PFO is a hole in the heart. Roughly 25% of the population has one. I have one. Guests Misha Montana and Christine Lee both had PFOs that led to their strokes.
After we are born, our blood follows a path through the heart. It comes in the right side. When the heart beats, the blood on the right side heads out of the heart to the lungs. There, it drops of CO2, picks up oxygen, filters out clots, and heads to the left side of the heart. It will pour into the left side and when the heart beats, it sends that oxygen-rich blood on to the brain and other parts of the body. Then that blood drops off its oxygen, picks up CO2, and heads back to the right side of the heart to start the whole cycle over.
Before we are born, though, the process is different. While we are developing in our mothers’ uteruses, we don’t breath air. All the oxygen and nutrients we need to build fingers and toes and kidneys and hearts and brains comes from the umbilical cord.
Since we’re not breathing air, there’s no point in sending blood to the lungs. Instead, in utero it goes straight from the right side of the heart to the left side of the heart through a hole in the middle. That hole is called a Patent Foramen Ovale, or a PFO. It normally closes on its own shortly after we are born.
A quarter of the time it doesn’t close after birth, and that allows unoxygenated, unfiltered blood to sneak across the heart, skip the lungs and drag a blood clot to the brain.
So, if you’ve had a stroke, and you have a PFO, should you have surgery to close that hole?
Maybe.
Christine and Misha had their PFOs closed. I did not. Anna is waiting to get her PFO closed.
I talked about this issue in a lot more detail with Dr. David Thaler. You can listen to that conversation at http://Strokecast.com/pfo.
A Place of Her Own
Anna Kerry has a special place in this world -- it's her yoga mat.
At first glance, it's just a piece of material, but once she is on her mat it becomes a portal to take her to another special place.
The mat allows her to center herself. It's a place she can experience joy and agony; happiness and anger; tears and laughter; and everything in between. When Anna is on her mat she can take a break from the rest of the world so that she can deal with the rest of the world. It triggers a mind shift to put her in a place where she can process things and, well, do yoga.
Lots of us have things like a yoga mat. Maybe it's a special blanket or a childhood toy. Maybe it's a trinket that takes us back to a trip we took years ago or it's a gift from a lover or friend. Perhaps it’s a special chair that holds our memories of the past.
Once we touch or engage with that thing -- whatever it is -- we can feel a change in our own energy.
Is that a bit woo-woo? Not really. Perhaps it is a metaphysical portal to a different plane of time and energy.
Or perhaps it's another example of the core principle of neuroplasticity -- cell that fire together, wire together.
Our brains work on patterns and shortcuts. That's why therapy works. The more repetitions w get in PT, OT, or Speech Therapy, the more we drive new neural pathways so we can walk, speak, or bake cookies again. Repeating a process reinforces those connections until we can almost do it automatically.
A special place -- like Anna's yoga mat -- can do that, too. Sitting down on that mat can kick off those routines in the brain that shift us to a different place. The object starts the program running in our brains, and our brains do the rest.
And the really great thing about Anna's yoga mat is that when life dictates, she can roll up her special place and take it with her.
Other Yoga Themed Episodes
Teaching Yoga after a Stroke with Leslie Hadley
Leslie Hadley went from Corporate executive to yoga teacher to stroke survivor and back to yoga teacher. Along the way she added life coach and tapping expert to her repertoire. She joins us in this episode to share her journey and explain what tapping and the Emotional Freedom technique is.
Stroke, Naps, Gratitude, and Yoga with News Anchor Kristen Aguirre
Kristen worked as a news anchor in Denver, survived a stroke, and was fired. She worked to pick up the pieces of her life, returned to the anchor desk back east and found gratitude is the key.
Win of the Week
Shelly shared her win of the week with us. You can hear it in the episode. Here's what she had to say:
My name is Shelly, and I had a stroke four months ago.
I was at the hospital for two weeks of acute rehab. I came home in a wheelchair, but I've been working really hard, and this week I did my farthest walk -- 4.2 miles.
Things are still not 100% for sure. My arm isn't working that well. I can't feel in the arm.
But the leg -- I've just been walking so much that I think things have improved. The more I've done, the more I think things improve.
I didn't understand that when I first had the stroke. In physical therapy, when they would say that I could learn to walk without feeling, but as I've done it and now people can't always tell that I had a stroke when I walk, so that's been exciting for me.
Thanks for letting us be part of your recovery, Shelly!
What is a recent win you've had?
Maybe you walked a lot. Or said a complete paragraph out loud. Or got a new job. Or slept a whole night. Or chewed and swallowed regular food without incident. Or booked a new OT appointment.
I want to know what's gone well with you, big or small. And I want to share it with the listeners.
You can record a brief message telling me who you are, when your stroke was and what you accomplished. You can do this with the voice memo feature on your phone or another recording process and email that recording to Bill@strokecast.com.
Or you can do it the simple way. Simply call (321) 5stroke, any time day or night, and leave a voicemail describing your win.
I'll share wins in future episodes so we can all celebrate with you.
Hack of the Week
Anna explained we need to take time to check in with ourselves. Yoga breathwork is one way to do that. It doesn't need to be yoga, though. Anna offered 3 key ways to do this.
First, don't shy away from your feelings. A therapist can help you explore them further.
Stroke is trauma. Grieving is natural. Clinical Depression is a common result of stroke (see http://Strokecast.com/depression for more information). It's a major life change and it's perfectly normal to feel feelings about it.
Ignoring them won't make them better. Therapists can help. Neuropsychologists are also available with special training to help folks with brain injuries (see http://Strokecast.com/karen for more details).
Second, acknowledge and recognize anger, anxiety, and other uncomfortable feelings. Those feelings are trying to tell you something. Talk to your anxiety like it's a small child. It wants attention and it's throwing a tantrum. Why?
Third, offer yourself kindness and compassion. You're not an expert in this new body, brain, and life. You'll get things wrong, and that's okay. Forgive yourself for not having it all figured out.
Links
Where do we go from here?
- To learn more about Anna Kerry and her work, follow her on Instagram @theikosyoga and check out her website at https://theikosyoga.com/.
- Share this episode with someone you know by giving them the link http://Strokecast.com/Anna
- Send in your win of the week to Bill@Strokecast.com or call 321-5stroke
- Don't get best…get better.
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