Rachel Zinman is a 49 year-old yoga instructor from Mullumbimby Australia. She is the founder of Yoga for Diabetes Blog. She is an American citizen, despite being born in Holland and living in Australia. She has been practicing and teaching yoga for 32 years, and her travels throughout the world have come as a result of her yoga practice. She joined the Diabetics Doing Things Podcast via Skype on a Sunday afternoon in December.
DDT: You have a special case of Type-1 Diabetes, tell us about that.
RZ: Yes, I have what’s called LADA Latent Auto Immune Diabetes in Adults. So it’s a little bit different, because I was diagnosed in 2008 at age 42.
For those of us who don’t know, LADA is pretty rare yes?
Of the 400 million people with Diabetes, 10% have Type-1 and 5% of those have LADA. Which is a small percentage, but it’s a larger percentage than you think.
Tell us about when you believe your Diabetes was triggered.
I was living in New York during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and on that Tuesday I had to pick up my son and walk back through the debris to our home in Brooklyn. So I was under all this stress and had so much anxiety following 9/11 and at the time I was convinced I was having this spiritual awakening, but now I sort of joke about it because I know my pancreas was breaking down.
What would you say are the main differences between your life now and your life before Diabetes?
I think I look after myself a lot better, I don’t drive push myself so hard. I say no to things. I’m a real stickler for going to bed on time, for eating on time, etc. I think the main thing is routine, before my diagnosis I didn’t really have a routine outside of my yoga practice. Now I just really enjoy eating my meals on time and doing things in a very regulated way. I find that the routine helps me so much.
How do you use yoga differently now that you have Type-1 Diabetes?
I use the yoga now not so much to try to cure myself, but rather to calm myself down and de-stress. The difference between blood sugars between high stress and low stress are just so dramatic, so my practice just gets me through whatever is going to come up in the day.
Have you noticed a difference in your blood sugar through your yoga practice?
It’s interesting, because I’ve tested it on a few people, and for one woman it has definitely lowered her blood sugar. You can see it, she tests before her routine and you can see her blood sugar come down throughout the 40-minute exercise. Working with her was incredible because you can see it really works! Whereas another person I’ve been working with who isn’t on insulin the same workout would raise her blood sugar, so I had to lower the intensity to keep her more level throughout the workout.
Where can we get in touch with you online?
I have a blog called Yoga for Diabetes blog, and that’s the hub where I am. I’m trying to update that weekly with yoga practices and my own personal experiences. I’m also on Instagram and Facebook on Yoga for Diabetes blog. I’m in the process of writing a book on yoga and Diabetes as well.
For a more in-depth interview of Rachel, check her out on Episode 004 of the Diabetics Doing Things Podcast.