Something To Meditate Upon
Whether or not you are religious, and whether or not you are spiritual, there are genuine benefits to meditation, and involving it in your yoga regime can really pay off big-time if you are stressed, depressed or concerned about anything. While meditation is a big part of yoga for those who are spiritual, there is a way of meditating that is entirely separate from any “bigger questions”, as it were. Should you wish to, you can simply choose to meditate on a positive thought. The more you do this, the more positive thinking will become a habit.
Say, for example, that you have been suffering from stress for a while. The one thing you will most want to meditate upon will be calm – you will want a sense of inner calm upon which to meditate. Let this be your focus, and take a seat with your legs crossed somewhere quiet. Close your eyes, relax, and repeat your focus word on the exhalation as you breathe slowly and naturally.
If your mind wanders, do not let it drag you away, just don’t engage the thoughts. Let your mind wander back to you. By doing this you enable your mind to stay concentrated on what you are meditating upon. The optimum duration for a spell of meditation is considered to be between ten and twenty minutes, but if you have nothing pressing to be getting on with, then you can go a few minutes over without worrying about it. After all, this s all about clearing your mind of worry.
The Three-Part Breath – A Relaxation Exercise To Cherish
One yoga exercise that is beneficial in a number of settings – not least for insomniacs and sufferers of stress – is known as the “Three Part Breath”. You will see in a moment how it got its name, but you can probably already guess. As you will see, this exercise works very well when lying in bed.
You begin by lying flat on your back with your eyes closed. Allow your face and then your body to relax. Simply lie there paying attention to your breath, Do not modify it at all, at this point, just let it in and out. If your mind keeps chiming in with unwelcome thoughts, let them go and keep thinking about your breath.
Slowly, inhale deeply through your nose, allowing your belly to fill up with breath until it feels totally full. Once you come to exhale, breathe back out through your nose, ensuring that you empty your belly properly. Repeat this process for a total of five breaths.
The next time you inhale, allow the belly to fill with air and then take in a little bit more. This will cause your ribs to widen. When you exhale, repeat the previous process of breathing out through your nose until your belly is clear. You will repeat this process again for five breaths.
The third and final part of the three-part breath is as follows: You repeat the steps above for breathing in and once you have got to the point where the ribs expand, take in a little more again, allowing it to expand your upper chest. When you breathe out, similarly let it all go. Once you are doing this, repeat it for about ten breaths and then relax. By now, you should feel very chilled and ready to sleep.
Use Yoga To Say Bye-Bye To Stress
Anyone who suffers from stress can easily bear witness to the destruction that it causes. For anyone who has had to live with stress – or live with someone who lives with it – the effects are quite distressing. It rips the enjoyment out of things you had come to rely on. It can lead to you taking your anger and annoyance out on undeserving friends and family, with harsh words or worse. Learning yoga can be an excellent way to beat stress and get your smile back – something that some sufferers can easily end up thinking will never happen.
Yoga helps to beat stress in three major ways; the first is the exercise itself. Exercise in general causes the body to release endorphins – the brain’s own happy chemicals that allow you to feel chilled out. Yoga also works to release muscle tension, which lets the body feel more relaxed – a message it will soon pass on to the brain.
The second beneficial element of yoga for stress relief is the effect of breath control. Breath control, or Pranayama, is a part of the exercise regime of yoga that can be taken separately from the exercises themselves. When you know how to control your breath – yes, it sounds stupid but bear with it – you can find yourself quickly adapting to take deep breaths when you are feeling stressed. This normally leads to the stress lifting very quickly.
Finally, yoga helps you to clear your mind. One major cause of stress is constant thoughts of what you should be doing, what you will have to do tomorrow, and how you are going to deal with situations. Once you learn to clear your mind through meditation, you will be much closer to a stress-free life.
How Yoga Can Help With Your Back Pain
It may seem like an insane suggestion, given the poses that some of the experts manage to find themselves in, but if you suffer from back pain you may find that the answer to your problems lies in yoga. One caveat to this is that you should always speak to your doctor before signing up for classes – yoga can be great for back pain, but there are some injuries and conditions that it may aggravate. Ask your doctor whether you can do basic yoga and to give you some advice on how far you can go.
After you have spoken to your doctor, you should go to a qualified yoga teacher and sign up. It is essential that you do not try to teach yourself – there is a reason that you need to be qualified to teach yoga, and if you ignore the facts it can end up with you aggravating your back pain. A trained teacher will be able to work within your limitations, showing you how you can exercise to first avoid, and then potentially even reduce your pain.
The reason that yoga can be so beneficial for sufferers of back pain is that there is often a discrepancy between the strength of your back muscles and their flexibility. This causes muscle tension, which can be reduced by the correct yoga exercises. Remember, yoga exercises help to improve your core strength and flexibility, achieving the balance that makes everything else so much easier. For long-term sufferers of back pain, yoga has proven to be a lifeline, allowing them to get on with their lives when they had thought they’d be stuck with the pain forever.
A Breath Of Cool, Fresh Air
Most of us have a similar problem with our home country’s climate. In the winter, we are often cold no matter what we do to try and fix it, yet when summer arrives it becomes unbearably hot, and this can affect our sleep, our mood and several things in between. As well as a few cooling glasses of water, one excellent way to lower the temperature is a yogic exercise known as the Cooling Breath.
The exercise begins with the subject sitting in a cross-legged position which can be held comfortably. To prepare for any breathing exercise, it is a good idea to breathe in and out, deeply, through the nose about three times. Then you roll your tongue into a tube and stick it out through pursed lips (if you cannot roll your tongue, don’t worry – simply make an “O” shape with your mouth.
You then inhale slowly through the tube that you have made with your tongue. When you come to exhale, exhale through your nose. Repeating this process between five and ten times will make your body begin to cool down quickly. It really works – although if you are in a crowded office you may receive one or two funny looks. Don’t worry about them – they will simply be annoyed that you are feeling cool as a cucumber while they sweat it out. This exercise was developed in India, where the people know a thing or two about keeping cool in hot weather. Try it for yourself and see.
Whatever Helps You Sleep At Night – How Yoga Can Help With Insomnia
Anyone who suffers from insomnia will be only too aware of the damage it can do to your quality of life. You make extra time to have an early night so you can be confident that you will at least get some sleep, and it just makes you more aware of how tired you don’t feel. It can be absolutely infuriating – which doesn’t make it any easier.
There are some basic yoga exercises which will help you if insomnia is threatening to ruin your life. They will allow you to clear your mind when it seems it won’t stop racing, and they can also be good for clearing tension from your muscles when you really need to feel relaxed. If insomnia has been getting you down, then a three-times a week dose of Ashtanga, a vigorous form of yoga, can be the answer. It is best to do the exercise a few hours before going to sleep, as vigorous exercise just prior to bedding down is a really bad idea.
When you are lying in bed, a good yogic tip is to practise the unfortunately-named “corpse pose”. To do this, you lie on your back and focus on each part of your body starting with your feet – indeed, at the tips of your toes. Focus on releasing tension and softening each body part, and then spend a few minutes breathing naturally, in and out. Your conscious mind may try to cut in during this process. It is simply important that you do not let it engage you. After a few minutes of breathing naturally, you should find yourself drifting off.
The Portable Keep-Fit Routine
One of the things that makes yoga so popular is its simplicity. Not only is it relatively easy to do once you are into the swing of things, and inexpensive to practise, it is also fantastically simple to “put down and take up again”. If, for example, you are on holiday or working away from home, there should be no problem in finding a local yoga class. The tempo and feel of the class may be different from what you have gotten used to, but it should pose no problems.
If you do have to miss a class at your local studio while you are away, then it may be an idea to check ahead of time to see what is available where you will be going. A quick internet search involving the search term “yoga classes [name of town you will be in]” should really tell you all you will need to know. Then you can just show up – ideally a little early, so you can explain you’re on holiday or business in the town and didn’t want to miss your yoga.
As well as the above tips, another wise move is to prepare for something a little different. Many yoga classes in Europe and on the Asian subcontinent will be conducted largely in Sanskrit – the ancient Indian language that informs much of the yoga practised all over the world. Just learning the names of the poses will be fine – the rest of the class will usually be either in English or extraneous for your purposes.
Your First Yoga Class – What To Do And What Not To Do
Although yoga is a refreshingly basic pastime, it goes without saying that there are some ground rules, and some simple etiquette which should be followed when you go for your first few classes. After a while, it will become second nature to follow these pieces of advice, but so that you aren’t going in blind, here are the things you need to know.
Before a yoga class, you should take off your outdoor shoes. Yoga is practiced barefoot, and if you walk on the studio floor wearing outdoor shoes, you could be bringing in some unwanted visitors, stones or glass. So that no-one steps on anything they shouldn’t, leave your shoes by the front door.
You should also turn off any cell phones. Yoga is best practised in an environment of peace and quiet, and if someone’s phone rings while you are trying to clear your mind of outside influence it will be embarrassing for the person whose phone it is and annoying for everyone else. It is important for you not to be the embarrassed one.
Then there is the issue of basic respect. This means that if you are not impressed with the teacher’s style you should accept you made a bad decision and not interrupt the class by walking out. Stay to the end, do the exercises and – if you need to go to the toilet – you should only go out during a resting pose. The final bit of yoga etiquette is that you finish with a period of Savasana – a relaxation spell which rounds off the class. Leaving without doing this is considered bad etiquette, and will also undo most of the good work you have done.
Yoga Equipment – Some Good News About What You Will Need
When you take up yoga for the first time, you will want to think about equipment. The good news is that there is very little equipment required to make a beginning in yoga. In fact, you can turn up to a yoga class with a small bag containing a t-shirt and some tracksuit bottoms. If you want to be really sure, then you can bring along a yoga mat – they are not expensive – but that is it for your first lesson. The best thing about yoga for beginners is the fact that you can travel light and not spend much money.
Yoga is a very simple process – it has been practised since a long time ago when there were no sports supply stores. The simplicity of the process is such that you only really need to bring yourself. In most yoga studios, there will be mats available for loan or rent. They won’t cost much – if anything – and they permit you to get started at very short notice. If you don’t feel prepared without bringing along a few pieces of equipment, then you can always fork out some cash for a “mat bag” in which you can carry all your bits and pieces.
This is all you will need for your first yoga class. There are other props that can be used in more advanced stages of yoga, but you will find out more and more as you begin to learn the basics and see where you want to go with them. As a beginner, all you will really need is available for a couple of hours’ wages.
Yoga For Beginners – All You Need To Know To Get Going
Yoga has been around for a great many years now, but there are still plenty of people who have yet to take it up and are considering it as a way of keeping fit. For anyone who wants to make a start, there are a few things to consider. Once you have those in place, the process of taking up yoga really is simple – and you’ll be surprised how much fun you have.
The first decision you have to make is what type of yoga you want to do. There are numerous different styles, but as a beginner you will want something fairly basic that allows you to learn your base moves before you graduate to more intricate yoga. For those who want to take up a slower form of yoga, the best place to begin is with a “hatha” class. If you want a faster style, because you are hoping to lose weight, then “yinyasa” is your best option.
If you are hoping to begin yoga, then it is important to find a class. From a geographic point of view, it makes sense to find a class that is close to your home. The best place to look is in local newspapers and listings magazines. Additionally, you may find a class by searching on the web for “yoga classes” and the name of your town.
Additionally, you need to consider equipment. The good news is that yoga can be done with virtually no equipment at all. Finding some comfortable, loose clothing which will not hang too far down and impede you. The only other thing you will need is a yoga mat – which can be borrowed from most studios.