Group items tagged

By Faye Martins Is Yoga for weight loss a reality? Yoga is a great tool for enhancing your weight loss efforts. Yoga tones the entire body. It also helps to keep you limber and, if performed in optimal alignment, the Yoga poses will help to prevent injury and heal injuries that you may have previously suffered. Vigorous Yoga practices, such as Power Yoga, Bikram Yoga and Ashtanga Yoga all increase your heart rate, metabolism and muscular strength. A well-rounded Yoga practice will also enhance your balance, coordination and flexibility. If you integrate Yoga pose that specifically target your abdominal muscles into your practice, you will also tone your entire abdominal area and help to trim resistant belly fat.

This asana is a combination of Baddha Konasana (Cobbler's Pose) and the seated twists. It greatly enhances digestion, elimination, fl exibility of legs and arms, and relaxation of the shoulders, neck, and spine. It tones the legs and arms and lengthens the hamstrings. 

This pose can be an effective tool to control urinary disorders. The pelvis, abdomen,and lower back receive additional circulation. The kidneys, prostate, and bladder are kept healthy, and sciatica and hernia are reduced. There is the added benefit here of permitting the brain to relax. Tension in the neck and shoulders is reduced. The pose reduces agitation and nervousness, thereby lowering stress.

By: Virginia Iversen, M.Ed Spring is upon us, and many Yoginis and Yogis alike are feeling the seasonal urge to detoxify after a long, cold winter. Well, the winter was long and cold, at least in the Northeastern United States. If you live in a warmer climate, the shift between winter and spring may not be as pronounced, but you will be most likely still be feeling the seasonal urge to wax your car, clean out your closet and plant some fresh flowers and herbs. Engaging in a seasonally appropriate detoxifying regime is one of the fundamental cornerstones of Ayurveda, Yoga's health-promoting sister science.

Despite my best efforts to do just that, some of the children have difficulty maintaining focus and following the postures and movements I have been guiding them in. The atmosphere has therefore sometimes devolves into overall chaos, me losing control of the group. At those times, the teachers have sometimes not intervened. At other times, they strongly and clearly have. For instance, one teacher has taken children out of the group, for what I sometimes perceived as minor infractions. Other teachers have yelled at the children, with clear anger in their voices, to stop "fooling around" and listen to me. I haven't felt comfortable attempting to override those disciplinary actions; though they have been directly against my philosophies and instruction practices, and the groups are mine to lead, they are still the teachers' classrooms. To me, it hasn't been worth it to create more negative energy through further objections.

"There are many different kinds of safety factors that should be adhered to when you are exercising. For instance, it is essential to warm up beforehand and warm down afterwards to prevent muscle and tendon strain and injury. It is also wise to start your exercise regime at the low end of the scale and build up gradually over some weeks, so you don't strain muscles that are weak. However, there are less obvious considerations that are often forgotten when you go off to your exercise class."

"There are many different kinds of safety factors that should be adhered to when you are exercising. For instance, it is essential to warm up beforehand and warm down afterwards to prevent muscle and tendon strain and injury. It is also wise to start your exercise regime at the low end of the scale and build up gradually over some weeks, so you don't strain muscles that are weak. However, there are less obvious considerations that are often forgotten when you go off to your exercise class."

People are always looking for new things to eat and these healthy recipes and healthy diet gives them ideas to stay healthy and slim. Decreasing the fat and calories, while same time adding nutritional value to the food is the key for healthy recipe and healthy diet.

By Sarah Labdar Yoga was first experimented with in the US in the 1960's and has steadily grown in popularity since. Approximately 30 million Americans practice Hatha yoga. Like many of the other alternative medicines, yoga promotes a whole-body approach to health and exercise. Unlike traditional medical practices yoga is a physical and mental discipline that uses posture-related techniques that involve gentle stretching, breath control and meditation. As patients delve more and more into the alternative medicine fields to cure their health problems the followers of acupuncture, chiropractic, meditation and yoga are growing at a rapid speed.

By Sangeetha Saran Many people practice yoga training to relax and unwind, to stay fit and active and to relieve tension and pain throughout the body. Yoga can also be an effective way to heal the body from a number of ailments and serious medical conditions, from insomnia to cancer. Many people turn to yogic techniques as a way to accompany other more conventional medical treatments. When pursued on a consistent and regular basis, yoga can be a successful treatment. Numerous studies have shown the healing benefits that yoga provides.

Yoga practice aims for internal balance. Fundamentally this involves optimisation of your endocrine system. Yoga postures and breathing techniques, in conjunction with meditation practices and chanting, stimulate your endocrine glands to enhance their functioning. This is achieved by internal massage on muscles and spine, by internal massage through sounds, by improving circulation, by stimulation of body areas which have connections to specific organs as demonstrated through reflexology techniques, focusing on chakras, and exercising the triple warmer muscles of your thorax.

By Faye Martins If you have decided to become a yoga instructor for students who have had a previous stroke, there is much you should know about asana modifications and how to properly use props. Specialized yoga teacher training and therapy are needed in order to give students the best attention and care. A stroke can have devastating effects on the body. Victims can lose the ability to walk or even stand unassisted. Depending on which part of the brain the stroke affects, speech, balance, visual perception and memory can also be altered. Recent studies on the effects of yoga on stroke patients have shown positive results. Yoga helps patients regain balance and agility, and yoga can help patients release the negative emotions associated with this life-altering event.

By Faye Martins Yoga teacher training courses enhance an interns ability to connect with children on many levels. Teaching yoga to children is very rewarding, but there will be challenges in your classes. Perhaps if adults had the energy, optimism and honesty of children, the world would be a different place. Looking at the world through the eyes of a child means taking things one moment at a time, stopping to appreciate seemingly insignificant moments and attractions, and releasing your emotions as you feel them. Essentially, children are living some of the most fundamental of yogic principles: mindfulness, gratitude and inner peace. It makes sense, then, to teach children yoga postures and breathing while they are young and eager to accept healthy, lifelong concepts.

By Faye Martins How can yoga help young athletes? The American Heart Association recommends that all kids ages two and over participate in at least 30 minutes of medium-intensity physical activity every day. Children enjoy physical activity, and many get involved in competitive sports, but more and more, parents and whole families are coming to see the value of cooperative activities. Yoga helps children increase balance and body awareness, and relieves social pressure from trying to "win."

By Kimaya Singh Yoga is an ancient physical and spiritual practice that has become a part of the western mainstream culture. A regular practice of Yoga has many physical, emotional and spiritual benefits. A Yogic workout is also quite easy to customize to a particular group of people. Since a regular practice is so beneficial and easy to modify in order to accommodate different flexibility and strength levels, Yoga training has become one of the most popular offerings in the fitness industry today. Many health clubs offer at least a few Yoga classes per week, if not per day. This popularity makes Yoga much more accessible to the general public and also creates many positions for certified Yoga instructors in gyms, spas and health clubs.

By Kathryn Boland Challenges, Success, and Fun How can you create classes that are a fruitful yoga experience for your students? In Dance Studio Life Magazine's November 2014 issue, master modern dance teacher Bill Evans states that he seeks to offer his students three elements in every dance class - challenges, success, and fun. Challenges offer growth; without pushing the boundaries of our comfort zones, people can't expand their skills and achievements. Success, in some measure, keeps us coming back for more. Without feeling some sense of accomplishment, after a certain amount of time and trial-and-error, we (some might argue, wisely) often move on to other pursuits. Success also brings the confidence we need to be at our bests. Fun engages students, and also puts them in a positive, confident frame of mind.

By Gopi Rao Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a form of depression that fluctuates with the seasons. It is most prevalent in areas of the world that receive little or no sunlight during the fall and winter seasons. The sun's rays and Vitamin D production from sunlight helps to keep our brain chemistry optimally balanced. When we don't get enough sunlight, serotonin and dopamine levels begin to fall. These are two critical neurotransmitters in the brain that keep our moods positive and healthy. Low levels of serotonin, dopamine and Vitamin D are some of the main causes of depression. Taking walks in the brief periods of winter sunshine is a great way to help boost your serotonin and Vitimin D levels.

By Gopi Rao How are happiness and the art of yoga connected? In the search for perpetual happiness, many men and women are turning to yoga classes a few times each week. In fact, certified yoga instructors will be able to help their students gently coax their bodies into various flexible positions. When the blood flows through the muscles in just the right way, peace and serenity can be restored to both the mind and the soul. Here are three yoga poses that will leave students ready to confront anything and everything that life can throw at them.

By: Virginia Iversen, M.Ed Deeply restorative and refreshing sleep can be quite elusive for many Yoga practitioners. With the frenetic pace of many Yoga teachers and students' lives, winding down for a good night's sleep is frequently challenging, if not impossible. As we all rush to squeeze in one appointment after another during our already fully scheduled days, the fight or flight response is often locked on overdrive and anxiety and stress levels can stay high well into the night. When this happens, the body and mind are physiologically unable to unwind and ease into a peaceful state of being, rather than constantly doing.

Actually it's simple and easy to stop smoking. Many people find it difficult and are unable to quit because they don't know how to invoke cooperation from their subconscious mind, how to harness that power in their everyday lives and so become the individual they want to be. By practicing yoga and self-hypnosis, we can find joy and pleasure that within days to weeks will empower an individual to quit smoking and remain a nonsmoker for the rest of his or her life.

By Kimaya Singh There are a number of energizing Yoga asanas and sequences that will help students to increase their level of productivity. Students are often challenged by many different commitments to their academic studies, personal interests, friends, sports and family obligations. Yoga postures and sequences that help to energize and invigorate both the body and the mind will help a student to reach his or her goals while maintaining good mental and physical health.