I always love the daily tid-bits from NaturalNews.com. There continually are articles that debunk western medical beliefs about all aspects of health. If you don’t subscribe to their daily Natural News Insider I can’t recommend it enough.
Here are a few yoga-related items that are priceless gems:
Release your excess pounds:
- Just one session of yoga will help tighten your muscles and improve your posture, making you look and feel five pounds leaner.
- Yoga twists stimulate and massage your internal organs, boosting your metabolism and releasing toxins and wastes from the digestive system.
- Yogic discipline flows over into every aspect of your life which helps you to become better equipped to ignore cravings for unhealthy food, which is a key component of any effective weight-loss program.
Reduce your cholosterol:
Practice inverted yoga poses where your legs and abdomen are higher than your heart. This in turn increases your circulation, allowing blood to flow more freely throughout your body. Example asanas: plough, shoulderstand, headstand, handstand, and crane.
Pranayama:
The real skinny on deep breathing (pranayamas) is that studies have shown regular deep breathing burns up to 140% more calories than riding a stationary bike. I know I always bang on about breathing properly in all of my yoga classes, but now I have some really great ammunition to get my students really taking the breath down into their bellies!
Most people are only using about 20% of their lung capacity, which I find frightening! It is becoming known that a great number of health issues arise in the body due to oxygen starvation, such as heart disease and sleep disorders. Plus with the added inundation of poisons and toxins in our environment and diets, we are hindering our lymphatic system’s ability to release toxins from our body. (The lymphatic system is governed by the straightforward action of deep breathing.)
So if you want to lower your heart rate and blood pressure, release muscular tension and enhance your body’s immune fighting defence against stress then it is really quite simple: Get breathing and try Dirga Pranayama!
Hands down, this is my favourite pranayama. Deep three-part breathing (Dirga Pranayama) forms the basis for expansive breathing, which allows all other breathing techniques to become possible and it guides your body’s innate ability to fully unfold in any yoga asana. Safety note: yogic breathing should never be forced or laboured. If at any time you feel shortness of breath, dizzy or faint, discontinue the practice and resume your normal breathing.
On to the technique:
Start by sitting in a comfortable position – any position that allows your spine to be long and expanded (you can lay supine on the floor). Place your right hand on to your abdomen and your left hand on to your chest. All exhalations and inhalations happen through the nose. Begin by inhaling through your nose, drawing the breath down to your belly. You should feel your right hand expanding out as the air presses the abdomen out. Continue to draw the breath up through the diaphragm into the lungs and then into the chest/heart. You should now feel your chest expanding into your left hand. Continue the breath up into your collar bones and throat. Now, slowly exhale through your nose in reverse order – chest, lungs, diaphragm, and abdomen. As you exhale you should first feel your left hand soften on your heart and your right hand on your abdomen. With each inhalation you are working to expand and each exhalation naturally contract and relax. Eventually each one of these parts will flow one into the next making it a seamless breath. Continue breathing wholly and completely.
This should be our natural breathing pattern, but stress and modern life have shifted us into shallow chest-breathers. If this three-part breath is practiced often enough it will eventually become your natural breathing rhythm. If you are lacking in inspiration watch any sleeping baby to see how they entirely employ their full lung capacity.
I hope this gives you that little bit of extra motivation to roll-out your yoga mat, get bending and even more importantly get breathing!
The above info was gathered from these two NaturalNews articles and of course my personal experience! However to read the articles in full follow the pretty links:
Yoga Takes Away Stress, Pounds, Toxins, Cholesterol and Cravings
http://www.naturalnews.com/026646_yoga_health_toxins.html
Pranayama: Benefit from Deep Breathing
http://www.naturalnews.com/026412_breathing_Pranayama_yoga.html
Psst…deep breathing can be done anywhere, at any time even while sitting on the tube or watching the tube!
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