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How We Can Select Right Yoga Mat

yoger — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:41:28 +0000

Having decided to chase the practice of yoga it is then mandatory to consider how you can do your yoga exercises in the most comfortable and efficient manner. This suggests that you have to at least decide to get the right sort of yoga mat and then look at the qualities in the mat that will make sure that it provides efficient service to you. The very first thing to have a look for in your yoga mat is that it must provide adequate traction which naturally translates to allowing all of your body parts to get a good grip and which also forestalls your body from slipping.

Helps You Maintain Your Yoga Pose

The right yoga mat will ensure that you can maintain the required yoga pose for the required period of time, particularly when you need to hold a specific pose for an extended period of time. The right sort of yoga mat is also one that lies flat on the ground or floor after you spread the mat. Additionally, the yoga mat must be soft so that your body gets the correct quantity of cushioning while also being firm enough to provide proper support to the body. It also helps to select a yoga mat that can easily be cleaned up.

Most yoga mats are rather thin and their main purpose is to make you feel as comfortable as possible and so it can pay to understand that purchasing a yoga mat represents a sound investment and it should additionally be the first item of yoga accessory that you can purchase before starting your yoga exercises.

You should also expect to come across a variety of yoga exercise mats of which the Classic, luxury and Cotton Chemical Free or Organic mats are good examples. You need to also select your yoga mat according to the sort of material from which it is made of. You can select artificial materials or natural ones such as cotton and jute or you can use latex and even PVC that are also quite favored. Last but not least, you can choose to buy yoga mats that are ablend of both natural rubber and jute.

After purchasing your yoga mat it also makes perfect sense that you should buy a yoga mat bag with which you can store your dear mat in a safe and secure manner. You may also place your mat in the bag and then transport it handily and easily.

The following are my favorite health quotes.

The power of love to change bodies is legendary, built into folklore, common sense, and everyday experience. Love moves the flesh, it pushes matter around…. Throughout history, “tender loving care” has uniformly been recognized as a valuable element in healing. ~Larry Dossey

As a people, we have become obsessed with Health. There is something fundamentally, radically unhealthy about all this. We do not seem to be seeking more exuberance in living as much as staving off failure, putting off dying. We have lost all confidence in the human body. ~Lewis Thomas, The Medusa and the Snail, 1979

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Yoga As A Form Of Corporate Stress Management

yoga — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 11:10:09 +0000

In a corporate environment one of the things that makes a critical difference for employees is a relaxed congenial environment. The headquarters of Google is one of the most productive places in the world and every idea that comes out of the Google thinking tank seems to be another winner, yet this is achieved in a building that is filled with slides, relaxation equipment, staff libraries, canteens and even beds. The message is clear – we care about the results not about how long or hard you work. Not surprisingly the results come and the staff are happy to work long hours in a relaxing environment knowing that they will not be harshly judged by their co-workers for taking a relaxation break. In less ideal environments the opposite of this is often true with stress levels high because every decision, every move, everything could have the future of a company hanging on it. Successful businesses recognize that this stress is not productive and that if it can be reduced the level of accomplishment will rise proportionately. Google is the extreme of a trend that has been developing for a long time – providing recreation facilities inside corporate buildings. One of the most successful and popular is a Yoga centre.

The stress of the modern corporate world is usually a counterproductive thing, it puts people on a knife-edge and frequently leads to mistakes that a calmer more relaxed person would not make. Yoga is known to be one of the most effective forms of stress relief. Yoga is a special type of discipline that can be utilised on a number of different levels, places and situations. A perfect example is the Yoga breathing exercises such as Anulem and Vinolum. These are used to calm the thought process and allow you to maintain focus when overwhelmed with too much information or too many thoughts and problems at once. And because they are merely a deep and focused way of breathing they can be performed sitting in a chair, standing in an elevator or even while driving a car. Cramps and bad back posture are also often treated with nothing more than a steady breathing exercise with some quite spectacular results in some cases.

The simplicity of being taught to breath properly may strike some corporates as strange. Nobody teaches us to breath, or sit or even stand. These are simple things that we spend our whole day doing, yet at no point in our lives are we actively taught them. Incorrect posture when sitting is a very serious problem if you are in front of a monitor all day, but simply learning the correct way to breath can align your body properly and solve many of the problems associated with this bad posture. If you take deep breathes and focus on them your body is pulled in to shape by this most natural of human movements.

Where specific problems such as Obesity or joint pain are present, a Yoga class can be specially tailored to address them. Blood pressure problems and ailments of the kidney can be treated with Yogic Kriyas. Poor agility is a result of poor balance and this issue is frequently confronted and quickly overcome with a range of balance-enhancing Yoga exercises. Some people who have reported daily occurrences of problems like anger, tension, hypertension, stress and headaches have achieved very good results simply from using Yoga to it’s full potential. The increased flexibility that Yoga provides is a godsend for people in sedentary job environments.

The mental advantages of Yoga are also quite clear. Yoga has an ability to redirect our thinking to a more positive frame. The most common form of Yoga used in corporate stress management is Hatha Yoga because it is a particularly potent form of physiological and psychological cleansing. In any environment stress is a normal occurrence, what differentiates a successful person from an unsuccessful one (and by extension a successful business from an unsuccessful one) is how we deal with that stress. Hatha Yoga, and Yoga in general provide executives with the tools they need to deal with stress on a daily basis.

Some businesses will go as far as getting a staff medical done and passing the results on to a Yoga instructor who will formulate a customized program for an individual based on their health needs. Different Yoga techniques deal with different problems and a qualified instructor will be able to find those best suited to an individual’s personal situation. Through recognizing Yoga’s ability to deal with the individual needs of employees and incorporating it into part of the daily work schedule businesses are creating a happier work environment and being rewarded by their employees by increased productivity and a greater loyalty and appreciation of their employer.

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Yoga Poses And What They Achieve

yoga — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:10:13 +0000

Yoga has been described as a science which seeks to achieve the harmonious and balanced development of the body, mind and soul. It is a system which allows us to bring culture, balance and happiness to ourselves. It works via a need for strong mental discipline and the ancient theories, which it is based on regarding the interconnection between the mind and body, are now being regularly supported by modern scientific theory. Yoga consists of a number of different exercises or poses.

Examples of these poses are the cat and cow poses. Both are connected and begin with you on all fours on the floor. Arching the back upwards like a cornered cat places you in the cat pose and the reverse, lowering the back puts you into the cow pose.

Another common form of exercise is a forward bend that will help in the stretching of the lower back and hamstring muscles. There are a number of other advantages to forward bends: They release tension in the back neck and shoulder as well as increasing the flexibility of the spine. Forward bends can be uncomfortable if you have any injuries in the next or back area, but regularly performing will help assists in the recovery of these injuries and even strengthen the area for the future.

The counterpart of a forward bend is a back bend. These open up the chest, hips and rib cage area. As well as strengthening the arms, they also provide increased strength and flexibility to the shoulders. This type of exercise is fantastic at increasing the stability of the spine, but is also useful for relieving built up tension along the front of the body and the hips. The relationship between back and forward bends is a perfect example of the importance of the bodies balance in Yoga.

Hatha Yoga poses were developed in India during the fifteenth century. They are designed as an aid to relaxation and healing and usually introduced with a concept of “the contemplation of one reality”. The result of using these exercises properly and in conjunction with suitable breathing exercises and meditation is an increase in vitality, physical health and a stronger mental health. Hatha Yoga exercises have become a part of numerous different Yoga disciplines over the years and it’s quite common to see exercises such as the half moon posture, the bow posture of the salutation posture even if it is not Hatha Yoga you are practising. This is because the principles of Yoga and the movements and balances required are fairly consistent from one discipline to another.

Another simple Yoga exercise is doing the twist. Twists will strengthen and stretch your back or abdominal muscles and help to increase the flexibility of your spine. They also aid in increasing your bodies circulation that brings oxygen supplies to your cells. This fresh blood and oxygen supply that is released as you twist will improve the functioning of your bodies internal organs.

A yoga session will often begin with a standing pose. These are a very good low impact, low stress starting point for a Yoga session. Standing poses benefit the legs and hips and help provide a sense of centring, balance and of course strength to the legs themselves. The end of a Yoga session is usually marked by a group of poses known as Relation and Restorative Poses. This group of exercises is designed to give the positive energies and forces released by the Yoga session to move throughout your body and benefit you completely.

Yoga As A Life Philosophy

yoga — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:10:13 +0000

Yoga is different things to different people, so what it means to you will depend greatly on how you were introduced to it and how you enjoyed your initial experiences with it. For some people Yoga is simply a method of exercising that ensures they have a healthy supple body. For other people Yoga transcends a method of exercise and is a spiritual experience that allows them to find the balance and centring their lives need. This type of Yoga comes closer to a life philosophy than any other.

Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga is often placed in this final type when assessing it’s place as a Yoga discipline. It descends from a document known as Korunta Yoga which deals with the 8 spiritual movements which are described by Patanjali in Sutra Yoga. Today most Yoga disciplines are directly descended from the descriptions of Yoga exercises in these documents, and so most forms of Yoga are variations of Ashtanga Vinyasi.

Getting a complete understanding of Ashtanga Yoga is important as it’s proponents treat it as more that a form of exercise. While it’s base is in physical movement it is suggested that it’s power in fact comes from the strength of spirit that is developed from regular and disciplined practice of the 8 stages of Yoga. Through the eight stages of Yoga the body and mind become pure, and so they are seen as a purifying discipline.

Furthermore the discipline of Ashtanga Vinyasa deals with a profound and deep way of relating to others. The closest word to describe this aspect of the Yoga discipline is manners, but it really does go beyond that. Yoga is a discipline of balance, and the physical balance required to complete many of the exercises should be mirrored by an internal balance or harmony of the soul. It is said that a hyperactive person canot be successful with Yoga and this is true on several levels. Firstly they lack the discipline to sit calmly through the exercises, but they also lack the mental calm to focus wholly and completely on a single task. Yoga requires deep concentrating on the simple act of breathing and feeling the breath bring life to different areas of your body.

The power of Yoga is found in it’s combination of the physical strength and flexibility needed to complete movements and the mental discipline that is required to maintain them. Yoga is not just a form of exercise but most often it is thought of as a form of meditation. Meditating successfully with Yoga requires a pureness of thought and singularity of focus that is not found in most modern exercise programs. It seeks to bring the body back into balance and focus on maintaining that balance.

This aspect of Yoga is often misunderstood, but balance plays a huge role in Eastern Medicine and the purpose of Yoga and similar meditative techniques is often no more than to achieve and maintain the level of balance that keeps our bodies healthy. Yoga teachers will often talk about one-ness and inner harmony, and this can be mis-interpreted by people who lack a holistic understanding of what Yoga seeks to achieve. Simple the harmony that is achieved through Meditation and Yoga is a self-contentment or acceptance of oneself. This shows that the first step to becoming completely happy and healthy is to be content with yourself and your life.

Using Yoga For Weigh Loss

yoga — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:10:11 +0000

In today’s society carrying excess weight is becoming the norm rather than the exception. Lifestyles are increasingly sedentary, peoples diet is becoming increasingly processed and fatty and food contains more and more calories, additives and preservatives. Children prefer television over playing with their friends, which is perhaps a direct reflection on parents who prefer television over socializing or even making time for their children. This only scratches the surface of the social move towards a sedentary and unhealthy society which is making more and more people fat.

Yoga is a discipline designed to make the body strong and flexible and enhance the overall health of the digestive system as well as the hormonal and circulatory systems. It also assists us in controlling mental stress and achieving peace and clarity of mind. Yoga also has strong spiritual benefits which will see you becoming more content with yourself and more comfortable with who you are, all aspects which will lead to emotional stability. This mental component is often neglected in a physical approach to weight loss, but it is critical and should not be overlooked. So called “Comfort food” is a frequent problem for people who yo-yo diet(rapidly lose and gain weight) and the ability to be happy with your health and who you are reduces the need for this.

Yoga is based on deep and controlled breathing which is a method for enhancing our oxygen intake. This allows oxygen to travel to the fat cells in our body and assist in their processing. One has to ask given the benefits why more people don’t practice Yoga?

Many people think of Yoga as a passive or mystical discipline – something for hippies – not them. This is a shame as Yoga improves the physical body as well as our mental health. While it is practiced by a great many people in Eastern Populations only about 2% of the population in the United States has clicked on to the many benefits.

Yoga considers all the aspects that contribute to obesity – not just the physical but also the mental and spiritual reasons behind them. regular Yoga is not only relaxing but it does bring the body back towards it’s ideal weight and at the same time enhance strength, flexibility and stamina. Yoga nuts tend to end up slim, agile and efficient in everything they do and what’s more it is suitable for people of all ages.

A more active form of Yoga, Kundalini, was introduced to America in 1969 by Yogi Bhajan. It is a more active form of Yoga combining different methods of breathing, meditation and movement to compensate for the fact the American population has been conditioned to see exercise as requiring sweating.

Yoga can also be used to resist the temptation of snacking between meals. techniques learned from yoga can be used to suppress impulses such as that we think of as hunger between meals(if you eat proper meals you cannot be hungry between them – merely bored or restless).

Yoga is not just a method of losing weight, it is actually a method which restores a natural balance to our body and moves us towards our natural state. This has an interesting consequence with weight. It we are overweight then yes, regular Yoga will cause us to lose weight. However if we are at our ideal weight we will not drop weight, and if we weight too little we will gain weight until we are at our biologically natural size.

Yoga For The Non-Spiritual

yoga — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:10:11 +0000

For a lot of people the first image that will pop into their head when they think of Yoga is a little old man in a loincloth sitting on top of a stone pillar with his legs crossed and his arms on his knees. He’s probably chanting, humming or got a look of relaxation and serenity on his face. I’m not a person who likes to sit still and I hate any minute that I feel is wasted so this idea of sitting around doing nothing all day was not something that appealed to me. I’ve changed that initial perception quite a lot and in this article I want to tell you about the personal journey that taught me about the benefits of yoga for a very non-spiritual person.

The first yoga class I ever went to I spend a lot of time sitting in silence with a bored expression on my face and thinking, “This is so dumb”. I listened to the instructor drone on about inner peace and harmony and balance and energy flowing through my body and I was pretty close to never going back again. Then I got lucky.

One of the guys in the class was a professor at the local university and it struck me as a little strange that a professor of biology would be doing this spiritual Yoga thing. I got an opportunity and speak to him briefly. Actually he singled me out and observed I looked bored. He explained he had felt the same way when he began and then he translated the instructors talk into biology terms and it was all very sound.

That hit me like a ton of bricks. As I thought on it more and more I could see this from a purely scientific point of view. For instance take the ‘energy’ that flows through our body. A lot of people are turned off when they start to hear talk like that, but it’s a very core component of Yoga. I substituted ‘blood’ for energy and looked at this thought process again.

I know that blood carries nutrients and oxygen around our body. I know that if our cells don’t receive these nutrients and supplements they become weak and we can become ill. I know that people can become sick if they have high or low blood pressure. The regular healthy flow of blood is clearly a very important factor in us staying healthy. Of course, Yoga was first used many hundreds of years ago and while it would be arrogant to assume that we know everything about circulation and blood flow, we certainly know more than the average Chinese peasant from that time. “Energy” is just a nice word that anyone can understand for blood flow.

Yoga stretches out certain muscle areas and allows our blood to flow more freely and bring the nutrients to all parts of the body which need them. That is a nice scientific explanation I am quite happy to accept. You can do the same with the other ‘alternative’ terminology you don’t relate to when you hear the instructor talking about it. Inner peace, oneness, emotional calm – it’s all just a very dressed up way of saying concentrate on one thing – your blood flow and the health it is bringing you, or your breathing and the supply of life giving oxygen it brings you. Concentrate on that just for this one small part of the day and make being alive and healthy your only goal. Forget about what’s happening at the office because you cannot do it from here. Forget about what your husband or wife is doing or whether the kids are being bullied at school and just concentrate on being you, being alive and being healthy.

Now stress has been attributed as a major factor in over 40% of all medical issues. Stress, in a nutshell is caused by thinking too much. This practice shows us how to let all those worries be something we can think about later and leaves the brain free to concentrate on doing all it’s vital health giving functions.

It’s strange that as I’ve done more and more Yoga I have developed a spiritual side that I never had before. It’s not a religious thing but more a case of recognizing that my own health and wellbeing are important and worthy of being made a priority. Whether the same happens for you is yet to be seen, but if you’ve been putting off learning Yoga or giving it a try because of all the spiritual talk I can assure you there are scientific reasons behind it and that if you give it a chance you may just be surprised.

Yoga’s Holistic Treatment For Arthritis

yoga — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:10:10 +0000

There are a great many people who are in the unfortunate position of having to live with painful aches and pains caused by severely damaged or inflamed joints. For some people it is a discomfort, and that is bad enough, but for others arthritis can turn them into a virtual cripples. Arthritis has been something that has affected people throughout history since prehistoric times, but it is only recently that we have begun to understand it.

Arthritis is a join disease that can cause problems in any area of the body where two or more bones intersect. The arthritis itself can affect the join in a number of different ways, targeting different areas such as the synovium, the muscles or tendons or the cartilage. Cartilage is the soft protective material that protects the ends of the joints from rubbing against each other and the entire join is encased in a type of capsule that is lined with the tissue synovium.

Arthritis is a broad term which we use to describe a group of over 100 disease that effect these area of the body. Wherever there is a problem involving inflammation around the joints and associated discomfit in movement we refer to it as arthritis despite the multiple different causes that can lead to this. The other common name that is used in the same broad fashion is rheumatism.

Because it affects so many people arthritis is a very public problem and is discussed openly and frequently. Roughly one in every seven Americans is thought to have arthritis in some form and relieving the pain of Arthritis is a primary concern for all people suffering from it. Some people take medication, but others have found relief from the pain in exercises performed at a gentle pace and intensity. Yoga is the perfect example of this type of exercise.

Yoga is a very old art originating in India up to 4000 years ago. It uses poses or postures along with deeply controlled breathing exercises that lead to benefits to the body mind and spirit. Yoga is a very versatile form of exercise and meditation and it is used, in different forms, to treat a very wide range of medical conditions and injuries including such diverse areas as fibromyalgia, arthritic, migraine headaches, chronic pain, and sports injuries.

The common misconception with using Yoga for arthritis pain is that it will mean contorting and bending the body in unnatural ways in an effort to force the body to accept the pain and develop some level of comfort. The core attributes of a Yoga for Arthritis Program are still going to be breathing and meditation but the exercises are specially catered to the individuals level of movement and comfort. Stretching will still be involved but they are a part of Yoga’s core statement of developing balance and harmony between the body and mind and enhancing the bodies strength and flexibility. Each pose or position assumed during a Yoga workout has a specific purpose and a specific physical benefit. Sometimes the poses will be done in rapid succession to create heat in the body, a style known as Vinyasa Yoga, and sometimes they are performed more slowly to increase the level of stamina, perfection in the pose and core strength through holding the pose. The poses themselves remain the same but how they are entered and approached will vary greatly from discipline to discipline and teacher to teacher.

The Yoga poses can be tailored specially for specific joints or combinations of joints. For instance a common area for arthritis to strike is the hands and knuckles and in this instance there would be a series of poses that straighten and lengthen the fingers, although the level of comfort in the arthritis sufferer always dictates the extent of this. Stretching the hands also feed energy to that area of the body and over time will assist the arthritis in the fingers. The heat generated by these movements is proven to be very beneficial for sufferers of arthritis.

Why Yoga Is Important For An Office Worker

yoga — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:10:09 +0000

Yoga and office workers don’t usually mix, but they should. When you work in an office you will usually be spending a lot of time hunched over a keyboard and sitting in a seat. It can also be an environment that is prone to produce a whole heap of stress and very few outlets to release it. In this article we examine how these things are bad for your general health and how Yoga can help.

Let’s start with a little bit about what Yoga is. At it’s simplest level it is a very effective form of exercise. It involves flexing the body into static poses and holding them which is a fantastic method of increasing blood flow and circulation through various choke points in the body.

Yoga also puts a lot of emphasis on the correct patterns of breathing which allows you body to get the most benefit from each breath of air we take. Expanding from this we take care to un-clutter our thoughts when we are performing Yoga and the more advancement someone makes with the discipline the more focussed and calm they will become. Have you ever told someone to take a breath to calm him or her down? With Yoga it is the same principle.

So how does this all help our office worker?

An office environment is usually neither a calm nor a healthy place. Most office workers will spend the majority of their day stuck in a chair and often staring at a computer screen or hunched over paperwork or a keyboard. This causes a lot of tension to well up, particularly in the back and shoulders. The legs are also often denied a supply of fresh blood by the long hours spend sitting down.

Yoga forces the body to move in ways it would not usually do in an office environment. This can be a very effective way of clearing choke points and allowing circulation to resume it’s normal flow. The blood takes valuable supplies of oxygen and nutrients with it wherever it goes and without these supplies the organs cannot operate properly. The more starved the organs become the sicker we will become, so clearly restoring blood flow to the areas that are being deprived of it is an important health priority.

Did you know that most diseases are directly caused or antagonized by stress? It’s true, and it’s a much more serious problem than most people ever know. In an office environment this is even more so. The pressure of deadlines, the constant activity and the need to constantly be on the move are all primary factors in escalating stress levels.

imagine for a moment – stopping. Forget about all the things that you need to get done in the next week. Forget about the rent payment and the assignment you have to finish. Forget about your boss and your family and concentrate on one thing. Breathing. Yoga is as much a mental discipline as it is a physical one and it will teach you to clear your thoughts and focus on the activity at hand. While you will certainly benefit from the health benefits of Yoga, the mental benefits can be truly life changing. People who learn Yoga usually deal with stress better and are able to calm and centre themselves when there is turmoil all around them.

If you think these benefits would make your life easier then you owe it to yourself to start learning Yoga as soon as possible.

The Three Chief Benefits Of Yoga

yoga — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:10:08 +0000

Four thousand years ago Yoga was practiced in India, today it is popular all over the world and in numerous different styles and forms. Not only is the popularity of this form of exercises remarkable, but so is the results and benefits that people are getting from Yoga every day. The benefits can be broadly split into three different groups – physical benefits, mental benefits and spiritual benefits. Which benefits are most important to an individual will vary based on their preconceptions and motivations, but anyone can experience beneficial results in all three areas from a prolonged use of Yoga.

Physical Benefits

The first types of benefits are those purely on a physical level. Yoga is at it’s core a group of exercises. Some disciplines will use these exercises to prepare the body for a deeper meditative process, but they will still experience physical benefits from performing them as exercises. The deep breathing exercise has immediate health benefits due to increasing the intake of oxygen into the system. This oxygen is transported by the blood to our organs and tissues, which will become sick without sufficient oxygen and nutrients. Frequently these tissues and organs are starved of nutrients due to a number of reasons including poor air intake or quality, bad circulation or disease within the body. Yoga increases the oxygen intake, removes blockages in the circulation to ensure it’s safe delivery and also stimulates the lymphatic system to aid in the removal of toxins from our system, leaving our bodies auto immune system more free to deal with invading disease or viruses.

Beyond this internal health which many people take for granted, Yoga will also greatly increase a persons balance, flexibility and muscle strength.

Mental Benefits.

Many people see this as the most import benefit that we can gain from Yoga. It will of course depend on what your priorities are but the mental benefits of Yoga are certainly impressive. The ability to focus on ones breathing has a natural consequence of allowing extraneous thoughts to melt away and a state of calmness to be introduced. This is not a feat to be taken lightly as it provides a valuable skill in the ability to remain calm amidst turmoil. A mother can use this when everything happens at once in the home, a businessperson can use it to focus on a single task despite everyone around him being panicked or a soldier can use it to block out the bullets and noise and focus on an important task.

Yoga also requires a high level of discipline from those practicing it – both the discipline required to perform the exercises themselves and the discipline needed to stick to a regular exercise regime. Again this is something that comes surprisingly easy to people once they have mastered the basis of the Yoga breathing exercises.

Spiritual Benefits

Generally newcomers to yoga will not understand these benefits for some time. There are a number of benefits that can fall into the ’spiritual’ category. Yoga itself is built around a philosophy that includes it’s own set of ethics, but these are seldom taught as part of Western Yoga practise. Instead the spiritual benefits we talk about tend to be a persona acceptance of yourself and contentment with your place in life. For some people it goes beyond that but discussing spiritual feelings is always difficult to do so broadly. Overall the level of spiritual satisfaction you get is likely to depend on your own personal beliefs.

The Different Motivations And Benefits Of Yoga

yoga — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:10:08 +0000

There are many different reasons for taking up and practising Yoga. For one person they may be ill and looking to rejuvenate themselves. Another will want to maintain and improve their current level of health. Some people like the mental challenge…and for some it is a physical challenge that can be overcome. Some people may use Yoga as a relaxing form of stress relief. The great thing about Yoga is that all these people are going to find what they are looking for and so much more.

Yoga has a long list of benefits, both physical and mental, associated with it. Yoga can assist in recovery from a heart attack through it’s blood lowering and distressing effects. There has been a considerable amount of research done into heart patients and Yoga, most notably by Dr Ornish who is now also a best selling author. Dean Ornish has no reservations in recommending Yoga both as a way of recovering from heart attacks and also avoiding future heart problems. Yoga has also been reported to be very beneficial to people with diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis due to it’s ability to assist with balance and muscle tone.

Yoga gently works muscle groups around the back and spine of spinal injury sufferers and because it puts very little stress on the muscles while still working them thoroughly it is a fantastic way of strengthening this part of the body. Regular Yoga for back pain sufferers can result in complete restoration of their range of movement.

As we age most of us become frailer and less co-ordinated in our movements, but Yoga can help us age more gracefully by ensuring we are always in control of our body and mind. In fact most Yoga sessions are filled with a slightly older crowd who recognize the ongoing benefits it gives them.

Yoga is also a strength building discipline that allows even progression in the arms, the legs and the trunk or core of the body. Many of us take strength for granted until it fails us, but increasing your physical strength will benefit you not just with lifting heavy objects, but also in everyday tasks like getting groceries or mowing the lawn. It even makes it easier for us to move ourselves!

As well as strength Yoga will greatly increase the range of motion we are able to achieve, particularly in the spine and joint areas. Once again this is often something we take for granted unless it is missing. The act of reaching up to put something in a cupboard is natural to many of us, but for others it can cause a jolt of pain down their back, they simply cannot move their arm through the range of motion needed to reach up, or when they do their grasp is not strong enough to grab anything from the cupboard.

It’s important not to just focus on the physical benefits of Yoga because the mental benefits are at least as impressive. Simply put Yoga will focus and sharpen your mind. Each posture is performed with a focus and an awareness of your body and your breathing. This is not a gym session with mind numbing reps or chatter between exercises. Whatever you are doing during a Yoga session is done with absolute focus on the movement, the body, the breathing and the moment. Breathing is something that most of us do wrong most of the time. We are accustomed to taking shorter, quicker breaths, but with Yoga the breathing is deeper and fuller. These deeper breaths will make the mind calmer and more focused. Yoga enthusiasts often describe this calmness as a sense of well-being. The deep breathing also makes it easier to release the stress and negative thinking that accumulates in us. Just as the physical blocks are removed through increased blood circulation during the exercises, so the mental blockages are removed by clarity of thought.

Yoga is not a discipline you simply know or do not know; it is an ongoing learning process. There are a huge number of different postures and each posture has a number of different variations on how it can be performed. This never-ending sea of options keeps the body stimulated and engages the mind constantly. Behind the postures and exercises themselves there is a complex philosophical system based in the writings that Yoga derives from. Not many people think of a complete code of ethics including steadfastness, truth, self inquiry and an opposition to stealing, harming others and hoarding when they think of yoga, but these ethical issues are a central part of the system on which Yoga was founded.

The different postures, breathing exercises and the deep philosophy of Yoga all lead to the same end – a deep contemplation. Because Yoga relaxes both the body and the mind tension and stress are greatly reduced. This is highlighted during a Yoga class by pauses for us to get in touch with how we are feeling and reacting. Ending the class in a point by point contemplative meditation performed on the back is common.

Yoga is an exercise, but it is also a meditative process, a code of ethics and a confidence and character building course all rolled into one. It’s no wonder the group of people who attend the classes are so diverse.