Tuesday, December 6th, 2011
Yoga is an Indian traditional practice that combines postures, breathing, meditation, and stretching to achieve an enlightened state of total mental and bodily flexibility.
In its various forms, yoga has been around for centuries, and is generally acknowledged as a physical exercise for bringing about optimal health. Yoga is touted for reversing the aging process by improving flexibility, massaging the internal organs and glands, sending oxygen to all the body’s tissues, and enhancing a state of serenity. It can enhance sexual desire, calm neurotic impulses, and balance the mind and the spirit.
Ever notice that you can judge a person's age pretty darn well from a distance just by observing the way they walk and carry themselves? From two blocks away you can usually tell if someone is a teenager, middle-aged or beyond. It has nothing to do, in those instances, with the wrinkles on the face or the suppleness of the skin. Looking youthful has as much to do with the ease with which you can maneuver through your day as it does with cosmetics and superficial improvements. Keeping your body young and springy has more to do with stretching than with pumping iron.
You'll find very few yoga practitioners who look OLDER than their years. Yoga can keep you spry and stretched and help you look and feel younger than your years.
Yoga can help you lose weight because it allows you to work deeper into the muscles, pumping up the heartrate and burning calories. The increase in blood flow you get during a moderate to vigorous yoga class improves circulation. Better alignment through yoga improves your posture. Daily life activities seem easier when your range of motion is improved. You can run up that flight of stairs, walk the dog, or race to catch that last-minute flight with greater ease, thanks to yoga.
Yoga is one of the world's best stress-busters.
"Mentally, we go through life soaking up stresses like a sponge. Stress blocks energy. Doing a rigorous yoga rings out your sponge leaving you feeling clear and puts you into that calm eye of the storm ridding you of the poisons and pressures of everyday life. Yoga is like Mylanta for the mind," he said in that same interview.
Many yoga enthusiasts believe that as we age we become "mummified" if we don't keep our bodies limber and stretched through yoga. In effect, the theory goes, we become prisoners of our own bodies as they tighten and restrict over time.
Yoga has been proven to reduce stress and tension, increase overall health, energy and vitality, help create a stronger, more lean body, and improve mental concentration.
Although yoga is a physical practice, it also works for us on the spiritual plane. You learn not to judge yourself in life-just as you don’t when you get on the mat, breathe and fall off as you push for more advanced poses. So you can use yoga as an Inner Fitness technique as well as for physical purposes.
The thought of beginning a yoga practice fills many people with fear. "I've never been flexible and I don’t think I can learn now," some think. Or, "It's boring and I need a really fast-paced workout" others say. Super stiffies need not fear: some of the most flexible people in any yoga class did NOT start as as GUMBIES. With time, anyone can become flexible. And for those who think yoga is not enough of a "workout" I suggest they take a rigorous Power Yoga class and talk to me afterwards---if they can get their breath long enough to do so
Want to take give yoga a try? Sign up for a beginner’s class at your local "Y" or checkout that class you've been thinking about trying at your gym. You might be surprised at the compliments that begin to accrue after just a few weeks worth of groovy asanas (yoga poses).
In its various forms, yoga has been around for centuries, and is generally acknowledged as a physical exercise for bringing about optimal health. Yoga is touted for reversing the aging process by improving flexibility, massaging the internal organs and glands, sending oxygen to all the body’s tissues, and enhancing a state of serenity. It can enhance sexual desire, calm neurotic impulses, and balance the mind and the spirit.
Ever notice that you can judge a person's age pretty darn well from a distance just by observing the way they walk and carry themselves? From two blocks away you can usually tell if someone is a teenager, middle-aged or beyond. It has nothing to do, in those instances, with the wrinkles on the face or the suppleness of the skin. Looking youthful has as much to do with the ease with which you can maneuver through your day as it does with cosmetics and superficial improvements. Keeping your body young and springy has more to do with stretching than with pumping iron.
You'll find very few yoga practitioners who look OLDER than their years. Yoga can keep you spry and stretched and help you look and feel younger than your years.
Yoga can help you lose weight because it allows you to work deeper into the muscles, pumping up the heartrate and burning calories. The increase in blood flow you get during a moderate to vigorous yoga class improves circulation. Better alignment through yoga improves your posture. Daily life activities seem easier when your range of motion is improved. You can run up that flight of stairs, walk the dog, or race to catch that last-minute flight with greater ease, thanks to yoga.
Yoga is one of the world's best stress-busters.
"Mentally, we go through life soaking up stresses like a sponge. Stress blocks energy. Doing a rigorous yoga rings out your sponge leaving you feeling clear and puts you into that calm eye of the storm ridding you of the poisons and pressures of everyday life. Yoga is like Mylanta for the mind," he said in that same interview.
Many yoga enthusiasts believe that as we age we become "mummified" if we don't keep our bodies limber and stretched through yoga. In effect, the theory goes, we become prisoners of our own bodies as they tighten and restrict over time.
Yoga has been proven to reduce stress and tension, increase overall health, energy and vitality, help create a stronger, more lean body, and improve mental concentration.
Although yoga is a physical practice, it also works for us on the spiritual plane. You learn not to judge yourself in life-just as you don’t when you get on the mat, breathe and fall off as you push for more advanced poses. So you can use yoga as an Inner Fitness technique as well as for physical purposes.
The thought of beginning a yoga practice fills many people with fear. "I've never been flexible and I don’t think I can learn now," some think. Or, "It's boring and I need a really fast-paced workout" others say. Super stiffies need not fear: some of the most flexible people in any yoga class did NOT start as as GUMBIES. With time, anyone can become flexible. And for those who think yoga is not enough of a "workout" I suggest they take a rigorous Power Yoga class and talk to me afterwards---if they can get their breath long enough to do so
Want to take give yoga a try? Sign up for a beginner’s class at your local "Y" or checkout that class you've been thinking about trying at your gym. You might be surprised at the compliments that begin to accrue after just a few weeks worth of groovy asanas (yoga poses).
