What can yoga do for you?

If you’ve never stepped foot on a yoga mat, tiptoe over to one and give it a try. And while you’re at it, bend over and try to touch your toes. Go ahead, go for it. Before you know it, you’ll be doing things with your body you never thought possible. If you keep thinking about trying yoga but never get around to doing it, stop procrastinating and get going! Yoga can do so much for you, no matter what age or physical condition you’re in. In fact, once you start doing yoga it’ll make you feel better all over, whether you’re 18 or 80.

According to The Everything Yoga Book, by Cynthia Worby (Adams Media Corporation 2002), yoga:

• Gives you lots of energy.
• Helps you to age gracefully by keeping your spine healthy.
• Helps you stay fit.
• Improves your circulation.
• Eases menstrual, perimenopausal and menopausal symptoms.
• Helps keep your reproductive organs healthy.
• Relieves chronic ailments.
• Relieves stress.
• Helps you relax.
• Creates a sense of inner fulfillment.
• Develops self-esteem and positive body image.
• Improves your posture.
• Increases your bone density.
• Has a profound impact on your emotional health.
• Improves your sex life.
• Focuses the mind.

Want to learn more about yoga? Get a copy of The Everything Yoga Book.  In this easy-to-read book about yoga, you’ll learn what yoga is, what it can do for you, the many styles of yoga, how you can get started, and breathing basics. This helpful book also includes lots of photos of warm-up poses, standing poses, seated poses, twists, supine and prose poses, inverted and balance poses, back bends, and sample practice sequences. Toward the end of the book you’ll find special sections about how to practice the sun salutation, relaxation poses, pranayama, meditation, and special applications (such as poses for pregnancy or cancer, for example). My copy is dog-eared, with little tabs scattered about, because I refer to it again and again. It’s one of the most important books in my yoga library.

I wish you the best in your yoga journey. Namaste.

The Attraction of Chair Yoga

Eat, Pray, Love an inspiring read

I hadn’t even thought of picking up Eat, Pray, Love until a co-worker of mine recommended it to me. Kathy, a middle-aged woman who took off for a weekend alone leaving her husband and her grown epileptic son to try to come to terms with her sad and unfulfilled life, is like many women in this world — unhappy and rooted to lives they chose yet don’t have the heart or the mind to leave.

Eat, Pray, Love, a #1 New York Times Bestseller and now a major motion picture, is the true story of Elizabeth Gilbert who, after realizing that life wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, goes out on a limb to find meaning in her life. She and her husband had just bought a house in New York and were in the prime of their lives, ripe for having a baby and starting a family. But Elizabeth didn’t want to be a mother, and she was convinced there was something wrong with her. While Elizabeth grappled with the reality of her life, one nagging thought kept taking over. I don’t want to be married anymore. So she did something about it.

She leaves her husband once and for all and starts to pray, meditate, do yoga, and travel the world. She finds herself in the most unlikely places, in the midst of cultures far beyond anything she’s ever experienced, and fosters friendships with people she never thought she’d meet. Hers is a life guided by the God she never met before, a life that gets sewn back together after a deep unraveling, and a life reshaped by a vision only she can see.

If you haven’t yet read Eat, Pray, Love, get your copy today!

Lavender eye pillows comfort and soothe

I collect eye pillows, mostly ones that I make myself on my grandmother’s 40-year-old Sears Kenmore sewing machine. I have a whole basket of different eye pillows–cotton, silk brocade, flannel– you name it, I have one. I learned how to sew myself, and it was no easy feat, given that I didn’t grow up with many domestic skills. My mother died when I was five years old, and I grew up under the careful guidance of my father and brother. Sewing just wasn’t something I learned as a child. At age 47, however, I wanted to try to start making and selling a unique product that my fellow yogis would love just as much as I do.

My lavender eye pillows are made with soft pre-washed cotton fabric and filled with flax seed, rice and organic dried lavender. They’re 9 x 4 inches and weigh about 8 ounces. I wrap each eye pillow individually in a hygienic poly bag. They can be placed in the freezer to create a cold compress, or microwaved for 30 seconds to warm them. Great for yoga practice, headaches, or for insomnia.

Compliment your yoga practice with a luscious lavender eye pillow, to comfort, soothe, and guide you further into yourself for a totally relaxing experience. Affordably priced at $10 each, plus shipping and handling. Buy one today!

Cost: $10, plus shipping

See my other eye pillow selections by clicking here!

No Slip Yoga Toe Socks

Are you uncomfortable showing your bare feet in yoga class? Do your feet get cold? Are you looking for a better grip than what your mat can offer? Do you not want to use a mat at all? Do you need an alternative for doing yoga while traveling? Get a pair of No Slip Yoga Socks by Gaiam.

I received two pairs of No Slip Yoga Socks for Christmas and I love them! Mine are size small/medium, to fit a women’s shoe size 5-10 (even though I doubt you’ll wear shoes with these). At 81% cotton, 11% nylon, 5% polyester, 2% rubber and 1% spandex (boy, that’s a lot to know!), they’ll keep you from slipping when doing those balance poses. They grip well, too, and if you’re in a hotel room without a yoga mat, these’ll work just as well.

One problem I found about No Slip Yoga Socks is that it takes a while to get all my toes in the right slots. If you’re in a hurry, these won’t speed you up. And as far as I can tell, they only come in black.

If you buy a pair of No Slip Yoga Socks, give them a try and let me know what you think.

The Secret Universal Mind Meditation

After I read The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, I became hooked on how I could use the Law of Attraction to create a life filled with purpose and abundance. It’s not that I don’t have a good life already, but I have my desires and doubts just like anyone else. Who wouldn’t want a bigger bank account, better health, a luxurious car or house, loving relationships, or purposeful and meaningful work.

Sure, I’m grateful for everything I have, especially in the wake of the devastating earthquakes in Haiti. When I made my husband an omelet this morning and it fell apart, I got mad at myself. He told me to be grateful that we have this omelet. We could be living in Haiti and have nothing. He brought home the fact that I shouldn’t let the little stuff bug me because there are people who are much worse off.

I don’t doubt that I have everything I need, but do I have everything that I desire? No.  Underneath the polished exterior of my life, I have a desire to abandon legal secretarial work and become a yoga teacher. Plain and simple. And that desire becomes more profound as I near age 50. I’ve been a legal secretary for almost 30 years and I feel like I’m wasting away in a cubicle pushing paper, something I do more out of habit and force than out of love. I dream of a different work life and I know it’s possible. I just have to believe in the Law of Attraction to get me where I need to go.

So I decided that I needed to do something about working toward my calling, to see if the Law of Attraction could work for me. Reading The Secret wasn’t enough, but it got my curiosity peaking. I needed to study more, to put those teachings to work for me. So . . . I started with guided meditations.

Kelly Howell’s The Secret Universal Mind Meditation is one meditation CD that has had a profound impact on my life. This 60-minute CD is meant to listen to while falling asleep at night, and imparts the teachings of The Secret using soothing and effective brain wave therapy. Kelly starts out by saying “Close your eyes . . . and begin to breathe.” Her soothing words reverberate into your conscious and subconscious mind and subtly change your belief system so that you can make positive changes in your life.  Over time (she recommends listening to the CD every night for 6 weeks) you’ll begin to understand and accept The Secret as true, and everything you desire and want will begin to take shape in your life. And the good news is — you don’t have to stay awake to get the benefits of this powerful CD.

Don’t get me wrong. Your life won’t change miraculously just by listening to this CD, but it’ll help more than you know. You can read reviews from people on Amazon.com and find a disparate array of pros and cons. One thing I found with this CD is that I wake up more refreshed and more positive about my life. I’ve even woken up in the middle of the night with new ideas flowing through my brain. It’ll get you thinking about the power of the subconscious mind and that anything is possible if you just believe.

I listened to this CD for 6 weeks and became addicted to it. So much that I’ve also bought and listen to Kelly Howell’s The Secret to Attracting Wealth regularly. I’ll talk about that CD in another post, so stay tuned.

I highly recommend Kelly Howell’s The Secret Universal Mind Meditation CD to anyone who wants to change their life, but who isn’t afraid to work a little to realize their dreams.

Buy your copy of Kelly Howell’s The Secret Universal Mind Meditation by clicking here. Enjoy your new CD and make positive changes in your life, starting today!

Let me know what you thought by leaving your comments. I’d love to hear from you!

Feel sad during Winter? Try restorative yoga

Do you feel depressed in winter because you’re not getting enough sun to brighten your days?  Do you want to curl up under a blanket and not come out until Spring? The dark, cold days of winter affect about one in 10 people, according to Dr. Phillip Keller, a family medicine physician with Clarian Arnett Health, quoted in an article entitled Seasonal affective disorder affects some people during the cold, wintry months  (jconline.com, 1/12/10). Dr. Keller says that seasonal affective disorder, or “SAD” can have different symptoms than depression, such as “increased appetite, an increase in sleep, irritability and interpersonal difficulties.” If you’re suffering from any of these symptoms, chances are you’re not getting enough sunlight. You’re hybernating indoors and feeling the effects of cabin fever. Most people don’t seek help but just wait for their feeling to pass.

Don’t want to wait for blue skies and the bright, warm sun to feel better?  Sink into restorative yoga poses to rebalance and restore your central nervous system. In an article entitled Beat the Blues by Carol Krucoff (Yoga Journal, February 2010), Carol describes her journey from winter blues to a form of emotional salvation after she trained with clinical psychologist and Integrative Yoga therapist Bo Forbes. Forbes recommended a regular yoga practice, pranayama and meditating in front of a lightbox to ease her SAD symptoms. 

Forbes highly recommends doing restorative yoga poses to treat SAD. “Restorative yoga may look passive from the outside, but it’s very active internally on both subtle and dramatic levels.” She further says that “Many people don’t realize that SAD has three distinct phases. In the dead of winter [December through February], it looks like depression, with symptoms such as lethargy and carbohydrate craving.” Forbes advises her students to follow a series of restorative poses, such as supported corpse pose, reclining bound angle pose, and supported legs-up-the-wall pose. You may want to do a few active poses first, especially if you’re feeling anxious or restless.  Deepening into restorative poses all year long, and not just during the cold, dark days of winter, will strengthen your emotional health and help you rise above those gray skies with a new spring in your step.

Yoga for Active, Older Adults

By Karen Scully

I began my yoga practice about 10 years ago with an incredible teacher, Julie Wright. I was in my early 40’s, and had been a runner for many years. I developed calcium deposits on my left thigh which caused great pain after my runs, to the point of crying while trying to go to sleep. When my doctor informed me that I had to stop running, I spent the next year looking for some form of exercise that I could do the rest of my life and would give me the “highs” of running along with the benefits – mainly weight loss. That was also when my doctor informed me I was in my early 40’s and should find a form of exercise I could do for a lifetime.

So I practiced yoga almost daily for about two years. I took mainly power yoga classes, some Bikram, some meditative. I was amazed at how strong and limber a 43 year old could be. Through different injuries that were a result of my job as a personal trainer, I turned to yoga to cure my aches, pains and depression at no longer being the young thing I thought I was. So my yoga experience grew out of a need to find health through exercise and that is what my focus is on – health for all through yoga, but specifically for the “mature adult.”

The one thing I have run into with active older adults is the need for yoga for therapeutic reasons, be it physical or mental. One of the incredible things about practicing yoga is that yoga strengthens all different areas of the body: heart, lungs, muscles, cardiovascular and nervous system. Yoga can also improve our digestive systems, send oxygen to all our different systems to bring them to a healthier state, and helps our psychological well-being. All of these are a like a jewel found in one place for a person needing to remain healthy for life. Another thing I find with active older adults is stress caused by either injury or physical conditions plaguing them, such as diabetes, etc., and the stress leads to depression. It is like a vicious cycle: injury or poor health leads to stress leads to depression leads to stress leads to poor health and so on.

Studies have shown that people who practice yoga recover from surgery faster, reduce symptoms of diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, just to name a few. Why is that? Is it that yoga helps to reduce stress? Is it because the breathing sends healing energy through the body? Is it because their muscles and bones move more easily because of the asanas? Is it because you become more toxin free because of the twisting poses? Does meditation play a part? It’s because of all of these things, which is why yoga is perfect for anyone but specifically for the active older adult. And since no two people are alike – everyone has different strengths and weaknesses and different degrees of health, we have different types of yoga available for everyone.

Let’s begin with breathing, the most important part of a yoga practice. We are taught different types of breathing in yoga to help us in our asana practice and in our meditation. But anyone knows just from having to go in for, say, a big test and slowing their heart by taking deep, slow breaths that you can indeed rule your heartbeats and in turn, rule your blood pressure by slow, deep breathing. We take oxygen into our lungs that is transmitted into our bloodstream and carried to our muscles to increase our ability to exercise and stretch without muscle fatigue. Proper breathing techniques can relax a person immediately and anywhere and we know that because of studies done regarding shifting the balance of the nervous system to the parasympathetic side causing the relaxing to begin almost immediately. We know that relaxing muscles can help chronic pain, most commonly found in older adults from either physical illness or treatments used to help with their illness. So breathing is an essential part of anyone’s yoga practice, and it will be discussed again.

Yoga is a great stress reducer. Stress can come from lots of different things: daily work, issues with income/health, poor muscle alignment, chronic pain. As a matter of fact, arthritis and back pain are the two most common forms of pain, exacerbated by stress, found in older adults. Stress makes our muscles more likely to go into spasm, causing more pain/more stress. Stress can interfere with our deep sleep, essential for health, and common older adults. Lack of sleep increases pain. It is another vicious cycle. A regular yoga practice can help relax muscles, relieve stress and relieve pain.

Older adults also tend to slump, especially in their upper spines, causing muscle fatigue around their upper back and necks, ultimately causing pain. If continued, either due to sitting for hours watching TV or on their computers, or by the beginnings of arthritis or bone loss, their bones can slowly start to fuse in this manner so they can no longer stand straight. That’s why you see lots of older people stooped over from the middle of the back up. That is what happened to my father. Regular use of different asanas to strengthen our upper backs, using something like locust pose or cobra pose, can help strengthen these muscles and relieve the stress in the upper back, in turn relieving the pain.

Yoga also helps a person differentiate between whether they are feeling pain or are suffering. Pain can cause suffering but it is important for a person to know the difference and the difference is mostly a matter of the mind. This is where meditation comes in. Generally an active older adult cannot avoid pain, but they can control how much the “suffer” from pain. Studies have been done to show that long-term meditation can change the “wiring” of the brain in beneficial ways. Meditation activates the left prefrontal cortex which has been associated with greater levels of happiness. Personal happiness has a great deal to do with a person’s pain and suffering from the pain. Also, studies have shown that meditation can help reduce the pain signals from the thalamus to the higher brain centers where our brain interprets pain. Meditation is a huge part of biofeedback which has been shown to greatly help with a person’s pain. And where does our meditation always begin – proper breathing.

Studies have also shown that the vibrations we use, the Oms or the chanting (here we are back to breathing properly) helps to regulate the inhalations and exhalations we do. Regulating our inhalations/exhalations will regulate our involuntary muscle control, such as our heartbeats and blood pressure. Also, chanting helps us to redirect our thinking away from the pain we feel, giving a release, even for a short time, to our brain interpretation of pain, and we can learn to lengthen these periods of not necessarily removal of pain but ceasing to think out pain, thus teaching our bodies to do/think what we wish instead of the other way around. This has been found to be really helpful in older adults dealing with things such as fibromyalgia or even chemotherapy.

Older adults also seem to become depressed more easily than younger adults. Maybe our kids are grown and gone, we are unable to participate in golf or tennis the way we did due to illness or injury, whatever – depression is a huge problem in older adults. Many doctors want to treat depression with anti-anxiety drugs but yoga really leans toward a loftier goal. Yoga wants to quiet a restless mind, put us in touch with our deeper purpose in life, give us an inner source of calm and joy. Does this mean that older adults should not follow their doctor’s instructions and just do yoga? No. But it does mean we can incorporate the two to help a person to become well again, both in body and in spirit. And as we get older, we are less worried about our bodies than we are about our spirit.

If a person is physically able to do the sun salutations, these truly do bring energy into our bodies. Deep inhalations breathe energy into our bodies, and vigorous poses, such as the sun salutations or balance poses actually keep us from thinking about what may be our problems because we are too busy just trying to do the poses. The most important thing for people we work with who we know are suffering from depression is to not worry too much about their alignment (as long as we know they are not hurting themselves) but to just focus on their movement and breath. This keeps their mind focused. While they are focusing on the various movements and breathing, their body is taking in essential energy, stress relief, relaxation to help them combat depression. It works for everyone, no matter what their age but is particularly useful in older adults. Good poses for them are, along with the sun salutations are back bends because sending blood to their brains helps. It is always better to get quickly into the poses with persons who are depressed instead of focusing too much on relaxation or meditation because sometimes they can sink deeper into their depression and dark thoughts. It is also important to remember when you are doing their relaxation or savasana to keep their eyes open because closing their eyes causes them to focus inward and can lead to dark thoughts which are counterproductive to our practice.

We also understand that chanting and other devotional practices associated with yoga can help because they go directly to our emotions, again stimulating the left prefrontal cortex that is associated with calmness, happiness and emotional resiliency. Learning to bypass our bad thoughts and emotions through these practices can help us better deal with the emotional ups and downs of our lives.

Yoga also stresses a mind/body connection that some people think is elusive but yogis believe is essential. A good example of mind/body connection is does our mouth water when we think of apple pie? Does it elicit a good mood – a mood of contentment? On another level, are we so caught up in thinking of our problems that we cannot sleep? Are we so stressed about the difficulties we face as older adults that we develop an ulcer? Our physical bodies can affect our state of mind. We can’t walk as well as we used to so we become depressed. We take a hot bath to relax and relieve stress. Certain backbend poses can elicit a state of happiness in us. We can use different poses in yoga to make ourselves feel a certain way, and we can direct those poses specific to the older adult.

We need to remember to work on proper alignment, being careful to avoid poses that could cause problems with people with osteoporosis such as twists, lateral flexion and spinal flexion. We move gently through our poses incorporating spinal stabilization poses in every class, we feature poses that are comfortable and steady and encourage rest whenever necessary, we are cognizant of problems associated with older adults such as heart or blood pressure problems, and we urge the use of props, including chairs or walls for balance.

I have talked about asanas but I haven’t really covered the benefits of practicing yoga poses. Let’s take Big Toe pose – just a simple folding over of the body and holding your big toes. It, of course, benefits the low back. It also calms our brain to help relieve stress and anxiety, stimulates our liver and kidneys, stretches our hamstrings and calves, strengthens our thighs, improves digestion and helps relieve symptoms of menopause, headaches and insomnia. Next let’s take a look at a high lunge. It focuses on our ankles, calves, thighs, groin, abdomen, chest, shoulders, armpits and neck. It also helps with sciatica, heart problems and blood pressure problems. Warrior I focuses on the same as a high lunge, but also incorporates the lungs. It also strengthens the shoulders, arms and muscles of the back along with strengthening the thighs, calves and ankles. So even though I glossed over the poses a little, it would be exhaustive and take up the whole essay to discuss the benefits of each pose. Every pose strengthens, stretches and relaxes.

The purification we achieve from our twisting asanas help keep our systems working as God intended. As we wring our out visceral organs and the toxins are released into our bloodstreams, we flush them with water. Any twisting asana helps our bodies purify themselves.

Lastly, yoga also teaches us that the more we think something, the more likely we are to do it again. Our habits become deeper with more repetition. So our negative thinking or our self-flagellating inner dialogue may fuel depression. And the more an active older person sits alone or is inactive, the more they fuel their depression. So if we’re going to have a habit in our old age, let it be yoga. Let it be breathing properly, strength through asanas, meditation and purification through yoga. Let it be health in our mature years through yoga.

Karen Scully teaches Power and Hatha Yoga classes in Dallas, Texas.

How to Use a Neti Pot

Are you curious about how to use a neti pot? Well, you’ve come to the right place. Although I’m a new neti pot user, I can vouch for its safety and cleansing benefits, and now that I’ve tried it I’ll never go back to my old ways. Taking its roots from a very old cleansing technique embraced in India, Jala Neti is the sanskrit word for “water cleansing.”

What are the benefits from using a neti pot? Well, for one, you can use it as part of your nasal hygiene ritual, just like brushing your teeth. Using a neti pot can also help you to recover after  nose surgery, and relieve nasal congestion, infection or irritation. Irrigating your nose with a neti pot can also help relieve cold and allergy symptoms, as well as post nasal drip and a dry nose.

A neti pot treatment will flush out your nasal passages using gently salted — or saline — water that streams naturally in and out of your nostrils, ridding your nose of mucus, allergens and other irritants.

How do I use a neti pot? First, you need to buy one. There are many types on the market today, including stainless steel or ceramic. Below is a stainless steel neti pot available for purchase from HealthandYoga.com for a very affordable price.

Next, get yourself a natural salt, such as sea salt without added iodine. Some neti pot kits will include a spoon in which to measure your salt accurately, and some even come with salt packets. How much salt you use will be up to you. Next, fill your neti pot with warm water. You can test the temperature of the water by pouring a couple of drops on the inside of your wrist.

Stand in front of your sink or a special bowl that you’ll use just this purpose. Bend over and breathe naturally through your mouth. Be sure that no air enters your nose. Place the cone of the neti pot into the right nostril and make sure that no water can escape. Gently bend your head forward and roll it to the left side. Your forehead and chin should be at about the same level.

Start by pouring a half pot of water into the right nostril, saving the other half for the left nostril. Keep experimenting with the angle of your head so that you can feel the water coming out the opposite nostril smoothly and effortlessly. Then, tilt your head up a bit toward center and remove the neti pot. Gently blow your nose. Repeat the process in the left nostril, tilting your head this time to the right. Bring your head back to center and blow your nose gently, letting all water flow out naturally.

Want to learn more about how to use a neti pot? Purchase a kit with instruction DVD included. Click below for your own personal neti pot kit!

Keeping Gratitude in Thanksgiving

Now that the holidays are upon us, this is the opportune time to give thanks and feel deep gratitude for everything we have. The yoga studio I go to regularly is holding a two-hour gratitude practice on Thanksgiving morning which I would love to indulge in, but instead I’m going to stay home with my husband and cook our traditional big breakfast together. I’m so thankful for my husband and our marriage, and staying home with him is a choice I’m making. So many people are stuck in bad or even abusive marriages, but I’m so grateful for the husband I have — big, strong, loving, caring, and supportive, and he gives great hugs. We don’t have children, nor do we have family near us, but that’s okay. We spend the holidays alone, and we don’t get invited to anyone’s home for dinner, but we are still grateful because we have a warm home, healthful food, loving pets, a big, warm bed, jobs to pay the bills and then some, two cars in the garage (even if one is a clunker) a phone to hear the voices of faraway loved ones, and a mortgage that we can pay every month.

There are so many people who simply don’t stop to be grateful for what they have. Instead, they focus on what they don’t have, and complain about all the little inconveniences that make life oh, so intolerable. Stop to think for a moment about all the homeless and hungry people out there. They’ve lost their jobs and their homes have been foreclosed on. They stand in line at the shelters with their little children in tow, and cry tears of joy if they can get a bed to sleep in. They eat at soup kitchens and savor the hot food they can get, even if it’s only once a day. They give thanks for whatever comfort they can get.

Let’s give thanks for the roof over our heads, the bed we sleep in, the food in our pantry, the televisions in our living rooms, the money in our checking accounts, the jobs we go to every day even if we don’t like them, and the love of family, friends, and pets. Be thankful for your health and the joy we get from our yoga practice. Envision for a moment what it would be like to be a homeless person, and just be grateful and give thanks that you’re not in their shoes, because if you think some things in life are inconvenient, think of how they have to live.

Namaste, and Happy Thanksgiving.

Taking Time to Relax

By: Lester Best

Stress is the curse of living in modern times. Everyone suffers from stress. And the stress we suffer takes a heavy toll on our bodies, emotions and minds.

Feeling stressed out, worn out by fatigue or just simply having a miserable day, the best thing to do is relax.

Watching television may be a form of relaxation for some, but is not a recommended method by experts. When we watch TV we are bombarded with commercials, ads, sounds and images. So how do we achieve relaxation? If there are thousands of ways we can get stressed, one of them is not meeting deadlines, there are also many ways we can relax.

In recent studies, experts have determined that heart disease is linked to anger and irritability is linked to mental stress. Too much stress brings about ischemia that can lead to or cause a heart attack. Relaxation takes on added importance in light of this matter. Managing your anger and attitude is significant to heart health, and relaxation can help you manage stress.

One way of relaxation is transcendental meditation. Recent studies have also shown that this method might reduce artery blockage, which is a major cause for heart attack and stroke. People practice transcendental meditation by repeating uttering soothing sounds while meditating, this is to achieve total relaxation. The researchers found that practitioners of transcendental meditation significantly reduced the thickness of their arterial wall compared with those who didn’t practice transcendental meditation.

Another study on another method of relaxation, acupuncture, seems to reduce high blood pressure by initiating several body functions for the brain to release chemical compounds known as endorphins. Endorphin helps to relax muscles, ease panic, decrease pain, and reduce anxiety.

Yoga is also another method for relaxation and may also have similar effects like acupuncture. In another study, participants were subjected to several minutes of mental stress. Then they were subjected to various relaxation techniques, such as listening to nature sounds or classical music. Only those who did Yoga significantly reduced the time it took for their blood pressures to go back to normal. Yoga is a form of progressive relaxation.

Breathing is one of the easiest methods to relax. Breathing influences almost all aspects of us, it affects our mind, our moods and our body. Simply focus on your breathing, after some time you can feel its effects right away.

There are several breathing techniques that can help you reduce stress.

Another easy way to achieve relaxation is exercise. If you feel irritated a simple half-hour of exercise will often settle things down. Although exercise is a great way to lose weight, it does not show you how to manage stress appropriately. Exercise should also be used in conjunction with other exercise method.

One great way of relaxation is getting a massage. To gain full relaxation, you need to totally surrender to the handling and touch of a professional therapist.

There are several types of massages that also give different levels of relaxation.

Another method of relaxation is Biofeedback. The usual biofeedback-training program includes a 10-hour sessions that is often spaced one week apart.

Hypnosis is one controversial relaxation technique. It is a good alternative for people who think that they have no idea what it feels like to be relaxed. It is also a good alternative for people with stress related health problems.

Drugs are extreme alternatives to relaxation. They are sometimes not safe and are not effective like the other relaxation methods. This method is only used by trained medical professionals on their patients.

These relaxation techniques are just some of the ways you can achieve relaxation. Another reason why we need to relax, aside from lowering blood pressure in people and decreasing the chances of a stroke or a heart attack, is because stress produces hormones that suppress the immune system, relaxation gives the immune system time to recover and in doing so function more efficiently.

Relaxation lowers the activities within the brains’ limbic system; this is the emotional center of our brain.

Furthermore, the brain has a periodic need for a more pronounced activity on the right-hemisphere. Relaxation is one way of achieving this.

Relaxation can really be of good use once a relaxation technique is regularly built into your lifestyle. Choose a technique that you believe you can do regularly.

Yoga for Pregnant Women

Yoga For Pregnant Women…Author: aiman

Yoga for plus-sized students a growing market

Have you ever walked into a traditional yoga class and found a plus-size woman trying to fit in? Her mat is usually set up in the back of the room where she won’t draw attention to herself, embarrassed by her voluptuousness and extra pounds. Yet she deserves to be there just like everyone else. Unfortunately, the problems faced by plus-sized women in traditional yoga settings aren’t addressed in a class full of 20-something skinnies able to swing their legs into downward facing dog or bend forward without breaking out in a sweat. And there are many yoga teachers out there who just won’t give the plus-size woman the time of day, unfortunately, and continue to teach class as if she doesn’t exist. Yes, this happens.

Enter the new yoga class for the plus-sized woman, a growing market that needs more and more teachers. And the time is right, because over 60% of women in the United States are overweight, and it would be a sad thing if they weren’t allowed to embrace the practice of yoga, where they could tap into their inner consciousness and learn new ways to love their bodies and embrace their uniqueness.

This past weekend I attended a 10-hour teacher training workshop in Scottsdale, Arizona geared toward adapting yoga and modifications for the plus- and super-sized woman taught by Lanita Varshell, owner and founder of A Gentle Way Yoga Center in San Diego, California, the oldest and most respected yoga therapist and hatha yoga instructor for the plus-sized population. While Lanita is also an expert in stress management and an inspiring speaker and yoga teacher, she is also known for her Gentle Yoga Meditation in Movement Style, working primarily with people who are overstressed, in chronic pain, or who are seniors, plus- and super-sized looking for a way to change their lives for the better in a safe and nurturing environment.

Thirteen yoga teachers at various stages of their careers gathered together in a room for two full days at the Hilton Garden Inn and shared their stories, soaked in knowledge and filled notebooks with helpful tidbits about how to teach and modify poses for plus-sized women. We learned how to use chairs, blankets, bolsters and straps to make yoga more accessible to someone who has just a bit more rolls than the average yogi to someone who’s extremely obese. Lesson plans included sun salutation modifications to deep relaxation sequencing on the floor covered with cozy blankets and bolsters to rest weary oversized legs. The second day rewarded us with actual students who graced us with their large presence while Lanita guided them through some relaxation poses that gently moved their bodies in ways they never thought possible, opening up channels in their minds that will hopefully send signals that tell them to keep coming back for more.

Although I’m not a plus-sized woman myself, I went to this training because I want to help plus-size women practice yoga in a safe and comfortable environment. More studios need to open classes specially targeted to the plus-sized women, because they need their own space and their own modifications to enjoy the practice without fear of being made fun of or not being able to reach their goals effectively. Yoga for plus-sized women is a very focused niche, and someone who aspires to teach plus-sized women must have a specialness about her that demonstrates caring and understanding uncommonly found in traditional yoga classes where the focus is mainly on the perfect pose and the perfect body. Understanding how to modify to certain poses and what props are essential for a safe and effective practice is paramount to its success, and Lanita’s style of teaching is something that should be broadcast all over so that more and more studios offer classes geared toward the plus-size woman.

Lanita Varshell offers a 200-hour teacher training at her studio in December and July of every year, as well as various workshops and retreats throughout the year. If you’re interested in breaking out of the traditional style of yoga and advancing toward a more rewarding and specialized niche, consider teaching yoga for the plus-sized woman and let your heart sing with joy as you share your wisdom and love with women who are just a little plumper and who need a little extra dose of tender loving care while they explore their own unique yoga journey.

Judith Lasater coming to Salt Lake City

Do you want to become a restorative yoga teacher and need training? Do you live in or near the Salt Lake City area, or are willing to travel from a neighboring state? Here’s your chance to train with renowned restorative yoga guru Judith Hanson Lasater, PhD, P.T.

On February 6-10, 2010, Judith will be in Salt Lake City offering her Relax and Renew Learning to Teach Restorative Yoga Teacher’s Training at the Black Box Theatre, Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. Cost is $600 if paid by December 1, 2010. A deposit of $300 is required to reserve your space, so don’t hesitate! Make an investment in your teaching career and add restorative yoga to your valuable experience.

Judith Lasater, the author of Relax and Renew: Restful Yoga for Stressful Times, is an internationally-known yoga teacher and has taught since 1971. She is a founder of the Iyengar Yoga Institute in San Francisco as well as Yoga Journal magazine. Judith is the author of several books including A Year of Living Your Yoga: Daily Practices to Shape Your Life (2006), and writes frequently on yoga and health for several nationally recognized magazines.

In Salt Lake City, Judith will team up with Charlotte Bell, a Salt Lake City yoga teacher and author of Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life: A Guide for Everyday Practice, to conduct the training.  Charlotte has been practicing yoga since 1982 and began teaching in 1986. In 1989 Charlotte became certified in the Iyengar style of yoga, and received her 500-hour certification from the Yoga Alliance in 2000. She currently teaches a restorative yoga class at Avenues Yoga in Salt Lake City.

If you would like to register for the Relax and Renew Restorative Yoga Teacher Training in Salt Lake City, email Charlotte Bell at charlottebell@earthlink.net.

Meditations from the Mat an inspiring read

I wanted to tell you about a treasure of a book called Meditations from the Mat, Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga, by Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison. This is another one that I read from several times a week before a yoga practice. Expanding on the teachings of the Eight-Limb Path of Yoga, Meditations from the Mat offers inspiring daily readings that draw on the authors’ knowledge and experience on beginning and sustaining a yoga practice and incorporating valuable lessons into daily living. Each chapter is a joyful compendium of how to live fully and completely as we walk singularly on our own path toward yogic consciousness.

If you’re interested in deepening your yoga practice and drawing on the teachings of Patanjali, this book is a must. Every day I learn and grow from the excerpts and it gives me strength and encouragement to get on my mat and cultivate the wisdom of the words I just read. Sometimes when I open this book at the place where I last left off, I am surprised to learn that the next excerpt is just what I need for an “ah ha” moment.

In the introduction, author Rolf Gates says: “Yoga is essentially a journey inward. Whether we squeeze into a class of seventy, practice alone in front of a video, or pair up with a partner at the beach, we all experience solitary periods in our practice. We are often far from the support of our teachers when we practice yoga, and further still from their guidance as we seek to truly live our yoga from one moment to the next.”

I encourage everyone who is truly serious about their yoga practice to get a copy of Meditations from the Mat. Click here to order your copy today.

Yoga for Office Workers with Back Pain

By Paul Jerard, E-RYT 500

Therapeutic forms of Yoga have been around for thousands of years. Among the many ailments of humankind is back pain. Long before the personal computer was invented, people suffered with pain in their backs. Albeit, the usual source of our ancestor’s pains and aches were often related to manual labor.

From within Hatha Yoga, many therapeutic styles have sprung up. One of the most common ailments Yoga teachers observe, in students today, is pain that originates from the spine or the muscles surrounding the spine. Therapeutic Yoga techniques can be practiced as a form of prevention or as a remedy to chronic pain.

A physically, active lifestyle is beneficial to anyone who spends excessive time sitting. When we spend time sitting – during our commute, at our desk, operating a laptop, and watching television when we get home, we then need to spend time on good posture all day long.

In fact, we have to sleep in good posture with the best possible alignment. This requires the use of pillows, a firm mattress, and knowledge of proper skeletal alignment. However, most people are advised, by their family doctor or chiropractor, to practice Yoga or adopt an exercise routine which is beneficial to skeletal alignment. This may involve any form of exercise, which stimulates your body and mind or by attending Yoga classes.

During work hours, it would be advisable to drink a fair amount of water. Sometimes, the act of hydrating can create more fluids throughout the body. As the body sits still, the vertebrae tend to squeeze moisture out of the discs. With that said, it may be wise to lower your coffee intake during working hours. This is not a mandate to give up coffee completely, but to be moderate in your consumption.

If your office permits, it might be good to sit on a stability ball while you are at your desk, part of the day. This gives relief to the lumbar region, sacrum, pelvis, and hips. It is only natural to gently rock in circular and linear movements, as you are doing your office work, while sitting on the stability ball. To receive proper instruction, on how to use a stability ball, you may want to attend a specialized Yoga or Pilates workshop.

If you spend an hour of constant sitting, you should get up for at least five minutes and walk or practice Yoga postures. You could easily practice lunges, balancing poses, forward bends, back bends, lateral bends, or twists from standing or seated positions.

If you add small five minute segments of Yoga movement to your daily routine, your back pain will be reduced or eliminated.

© Copyright 2009 – Paul Jerard / Aura Publications

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Yoga Techniques to Prevent Problems that come with Aging

Author: AffiliatePro

It’s no secret that yoga increases flexibility. With practice, you will notice that you can bend and stretch your body in ways you never have before. Yoga teachers say that an individual’s age can be identified with the flexibility of the spine, and not through number of years. Yoga helps you in preventing body’s degeneration. The years have put a strain in your bones with the wrong diet, abuse with work, and wrong posture.

If you’ve gone through these active years without regular exercise, then your body will ultimately collapse. Like a machine, it needs proper care and maintenance. The best way to care for your body and bones is through yoga. This exercise has proven to dramatically increase your health if you do it regularly. There are poses you can do as you age. These are great in preserving your age and maintaining your body because it slows down the aging process by: providing suppleness to your abdominal muscles, flexibility to your spine, eliminating tensions, firming up your skin, improving your posture, and removing your double chin.

First and foremost, keeping your spine healthy is ultimately important, especially if you lead an active life. The stretching and breathing exercises involved in yoga help increase agility and flexibility. There are no age requirements in yoga. Whether you’re a strapping youngster or a meek senior, you can get into the routine and enjoy the benefits.

The secret is to start slowly after consulting with your physician. The warm up exercises that go with it is just as important because it prepares your muscles before it stretches and pushes itself. The moment you feel discomfort, stop and rest. With time and patience you will see that you will soon be doing the difficult poses with ease. If you have avoided exercise but would like to be flexible, it is never too late to begin. Yoga enthusiasts believe that they get into the holistic experience to refresh the mind, body and spirit.

Recent studies reveal that older people who started practicing yoga poses have slowed their aging process and felt better than they ever have. Yoga aims to unite and balance your body’s different components. It is an integrated system for the benefit of the body, mind, and spirit.

If you are really serious about getting into yoga to slow down aging, look into the practice of asanas. The said practice involves breathing exercises and meditation to remove digestive disorders, varicose veins, chronic weaknesses, and other conditions that come when you age.

Regular yoga practice also helps in weight management by making you more aware of your body. You will be trained to respond to your body’s call and get you attuned to your mind.

There are books and websites that talk about your ability to enhance your body and to start on a new healthy lifestyle. With the help of yoga, you will naturally live longer because you are able to influence all the significant determinants of a long life: brain, glands, spine and internal organs. As you grow older, your body will need to take in more oxygen. Each and every cell in your system will be affected due to lack of oxygen. Yoga feeds all those cells that are greatly looking for the oxygen they need. Reinforce your back, stretch out your lung capacity, and make yoga a part of your routine.

Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_1041521_23.html

Basic Relaxation Pose with Legs on a Chair

I recently discovered Basic Relaxation Pose with Legs on a Chair and now I can’t live without it. In my yearnings to learn more and more about the power of restorative yoga, I had some lower back discomfort one day and thumbed through the chapter on poses for lower back pain in Judith Lasater’s book Relax & Renew: Restful Yoga for Stressful Times, and found this pose. I recently bought myself a sandbag and it was the perfect time to try it out.

Basic Relaxation Pose, or Savasana, can be modified to suit anyone’s needs, whether it be with a blanket roll under the legs or head, a small bolster under the knees and ankles, by placing legs up on a chair, or simply lying down and letting yourself completely sink into the earth. I’ve tried them all, and they all have their benefits for however I’m feeling at the time.

How to do Basic Relaxation Pose with Legs on a Chair:

• Lie on the floor in front of a folding metal chair (any other sturdy chair that doesn’t roll will also work) and place the lower half of your legs on the seat of the chair so that your hips and knees are bent. The back and buttocks are resting on the floor.
• Fold the long edge of a firm blanket and place it under your head so that your neck is supported.
• Place a 10-pound sandbag over your lower abdomen.  If you don’t have a sandbag, a 10-pound bag of rice will also work.
• Your breathing may feel a little restrained at first, but as you relax into the pose and tension is released, you’ll notice that the sandbag will feel lighter and you’ll be able to breathe easier, and your lower back will relax also.
• Rest with your arms out to the side, preferably with your palms up. Place an eye pillow over your eyes to block out light and allow yourself to relax completely.
• Allow your lower back to sink into the floor with the weight of the sandbag and let tension and stiffness melt into the floor.
• Take some slow, gentle deep breaths followed by an equally long exhalation. Follow that with your natural breath and repeat the process.
• Stay in this pose for 15-20 minutes for optimal benefit.  You’ll notice that this pose completely relaxes the muscles of the abdomen and lower back and invigorates the legs.

If you’d like to get yourself a sandbag, you can get one at a very reasonable price at Yoga Accessories.com. Click here to visit YogaAccessories.com

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