Archive for the 'YOGA' Category

The power yoga is so called because importance and focus are placed on connecting with your inner core of power, recognizing the power within, on several levels.

The physical tension can be released by physical power developing strength and health for the body.

Power yoga concentrates on developing physical flexibility and cultivates the desire for self-discipline.

It has the same prospective of following thorough full body workout and encourages mental stability and concentration.

Power yoga is preferred mostly by younger generations as it gives quick results.

They can also enjoy exercising with minimum amount of meditation practice with their yoga. It is mostly based on ashtanga yoga primary series.

Power yoga requires the basic poses like bikram yoga. It gives an energetic workout and offers basic challenges that can be done by the beginners. It concentrates on proper form of executing yoga poses and perfecting them by holding the pose longer improving the flexibility and stamina.

Power yoga is done while synchronizing the breathing patterns to each movement. Warm up exercises should be done before starting power yoga session to relax and stretch your muscles of the body.

Pregnancy yoga works wonders on women’s health. Practicing yoga during pregnancy is the healthiest way to well being and for an expectant mother.

Pregnancy has lot of risks and you can overcome with pregnancy yoga. Pregnancy yoga postures stretch and explore your body.

During pregnancy, these exercises help you to keep active and flexible. Strenuous exercises are not suited for pregnant mothers.

The pregnancy yoga techniques:

Yoga exercises: Yoga exercises works on your reproductive organs and pelvis gently to have smooth pregnancy. These exercises supply blood and nutrients to the fetus.

Deep relaxation: Deep relaxation helps for physical and mental relaxation.

Meditation: Meditation helps to resolve fears and differences which are common during pregnancy.

Breathing: These techniques help in supplying plenty of oxygen to you and your child.

Pregnancy yoga exercises:

Standing Mountain: Stand with feet slightly more than hip width apart. Bend your knees slightly and keep your toes pointing straight. Keep your palms at the centre touching your heart.

Breathe deeply by closing your eyes. Inhale and sweep your arms out and overhead, bending back slightly. Exhale and stand straight returning hands to the center of the heart. Repeat it for ten times.

Yoga for kids is very much important as kids are now suffering from many disorders such as eating disorders, sleep disorders, and headaches.

The kids are also suffering from stress related to pressure, tensions from competitive education etc.

Therefore to help the kids, yoga for kids is essential as it involves whole body, soul and mind.

Yoga is the movement connected with correct breathing and meditation.

From yoga, spirit can be discovered through the body. Kids become alert and flexible with yoga for kids and attain a healthier body.

Yoga for kids is taught differently for kids because all the asanas cannot be taught to them.

Yoga for kids exercises:

Fish pose: Sit on or between your heels. Slowly lie back so that your back and head are flat on the ground. Relax your arms by side. Breathe and feel like fish in the water. Relax for sixty seconds.

Cobra pose: Lie on your stomach. Keep your hands on the floor under the shoulders. Stretch your upper body up high with your arms straight and your stomach resting on the ground. Stretch your head as far back as you can.

Yoga includes variety of techniques which are most suitable for your individual needs.

The techniques of yoga differ for a teenager, woman, aged person, an athlete and child.

Yoga for health has many advantages and fulfills needs for almost all people.

Yoga for health helps every one to play their roles efficiently, comfortably and smoothly.

Yoga for health has many advantages over other exercises such as aerobics, gymnastics etc. You can practice yoga inside the house or outside alone or in groups. You should practice yoga on an empty stomach and can be performed at any time during the day.

Irrespective of your age, personality, rich, poor, lean or heavily built, it will give benefits. Yoga for health prevents diseases and ailments and maintains health and fitness in your daily life.

Although yoga can be practiced by all age groups, some techniques are suitable for some age groups. Asanas which involve backward and forward bending are good for children aged from six to ten years.

For children above ten years of age, upside down position asanas and deep breathing asanas can be started. Irrespective of age, relaxation is necessary for all. Daily meditation can be practiced by people of all age groups. Old people should avoid asanas which involve over stretching.

Ashtanga yoga means purifying your mind through eight steps. The eight steps in ashtanga yoga are: yama, niyama, asanas, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, Samadhi.

Yama: The first step in ashtanga yoga is yama. Yama is described by five universal vows.

These vows are guidelines for how you interact with the outer world and the social disciplines to guide in you in your relationship with others.

The five vows are truthfulness, non-violence, celibacy, non-covetousness, and non-stealing.

Niyama: The second step in ashtanga yoga is niyama. Niyama describes how to interact with internal world.

Niyama is about self-regulation. It helps you to maintain a positive environment in which you grow. The five niyamas are contentment, purity, self-education, austerity, and meditation on the divine.

The yama and niyamas help to view yourself with compassion and awareness. Yama and niyama help you to lead a conscious life. These are about being honest to yourself. These help in respecting the value of this life.

Yogasanas: The third step in ashtanga yoga is yogasana. Yogasana is a posture in harmony with inner consciousness. It helps in attaining a comfortable posture for meditation. It helps in balancing the basic structure of the human body. The five basic functions of asanas perform are mental, spiritual, conative, cognitive, and intellectual functions.

Bikram yoga is also known as hot yoga. Bikram yoga has twenty six postures performed in a special environment where the air must be heated up to ninety degrees Fahrenheit.

Heat is utilized in this yoga to let you go deeper and to melt safer in to bikram yoga asana.

Bikram yoga consists of standard postures, backward bends, forward bends, and the twists.

If the environment is heated to ninety degrees Fahrenheit, the body becomes more flexible to perform the asanas.

It reduces injuries, causes your body to sweat more and helps in removing the harmful toxins in your body.

These postures work with your muscles as well as with your inner organs. Each posture stretches and strengthens your muscles, joints and tendons and works on your glands and nervous system.

Bikram yoga increases your strength and toughens your body. As you work in high temperatures, you need to wear comfortable clothes that breathe well enough while you are sweating.

Bikram yoga also helps in stress management and improves your blood circulation. It also helps in losing weight and developing toned and strong muscles.

Yoga is nothing but postures and poses. There are many number of yoga poses and postures. Keep in mind some important things before starting yoga pose or posture. You should know about your body and body limits.

You should not perform any yoga pose which your body cannot stretch. Listen to your body in the beginning and don’t push yourself for any pose.

If you are pushing yourself too hard, you may injure yourself and may not enjoy the yoga pose.

Before starting yoga pose, take help of a yoga teacher. Your teacher guides you how to start the yoga and how to perform basic yoga poses and postures. After training, you can practice yourself using videos, websites and books.

Before starting difficult yoga poses, start with warm up exercises. Warm up poses will prepare your body for the difficult poses and you can stretch easily for different yoga poses.

Warm up poses includes shoulder exercise, neck exercise, eye exercise, and arm exercise.

Both yoga and Pilates have distinctive approaches to fitness and can provide significant benefits for the strengthening and conditioning of the body.

Yoga was developed five thousand years ago in northern India. Yoga was practiced and refined by Vedic priests, who documented the practice in their writings.

Yoga approach to exercise and conditioning focus on overall health. From its Hindu philosophical origins, yoga practice involves body, mind and spirit, and encourages you to seek balance in the way you live your life.

Yoga is the best time tested path to physical and mental well-being known to mankind. While some of them think that yoga is simply a physical exercise, it is actually a complete system for overall health and well-being. It includes personal hygiene, healthy diet, premeditation, physical postures, breathing and relaxation techniques.

Yoga asanas effectively stretch and strengthen your body. The benefits of yoga asanas come from the internal systems of the body. By stretching, twisting, flexing and bending in various postures, the oxygenated blood flows through the internal organs of the body.

Yoga asanas tone and soothe your nerves and regulate the endocrine system, which is responsible for the production of hormones. Yoga also improves your digestion and elimination, tone the reproductive organs and strengthen the respiratory system.

Yoga pose works on your mind and body and makes your body lighter and healthier.

Yoga pose helps in supply of blood to brain and various parts of the body.

Your body becomes purified and you become healthy and conscious.

Some of the yoga poses are described here.

Lotus pose (padmasana): Lotus pose requires crossing your legs while keeping your back straight. Sit down on the floor with legs stretched and keeping your palms down. Hold your right foot and put it on the left thigh until it touches the hip joint. Similarly, hold your left foot and put it on the right thigh until it touches the hip joint. Keep your hands upwards or downwards.

This pose has lot of benefits such as increasing attentiveness, stimulating body parts, relaxing effect and increasing awareness. It also develops in maintaining good body posture.

Easy pose (sukhasana): Easy pose is a comfortable seated position for meditation. Sit on the floor by crossing the legs and placing the feet below the knees. Place your palms facing up on the knees. Press your hip bones down in to the floor. Drop the shoulders down and back and press the chest forwards. This pose is used to open the hips and strengthen the spine.

Kundalini yoga is a dynamic yoga which is kept secret for millenniums.

It is a method of expanding consciousness and maintaining the new awareness.

It concentrates on the awakening of the energy that is found at the base of your spine. This energy is going to take the form of snake.

Therefore it is called as kundalini; the meaning is ‘coiled up’. Kundalini yoga awakens this snake and sends moving up your spine to the brain which results in uplifting state of delight and attentiveness.

Kundalini yoga deals with basic life energy, prana. Prana is the sub atomic energy, the life force. Kundalini yoga teaches how to use prana as it is the path of the discovery of the source of the prana.

It passes through different chakras or centers of consciousness which are in the human body, once the kundalini is awakened. Awakening the kundalini is not a big deal since for life to exist in us, it must already be active. We do not know what contributed to this awakening but moments of deeper awakening happen in life.