Friday, August 15, 2008

Yoga Helps Fight Mid-Life Bulge

.../p>Body Awareness a Factor

"From my experience, I think it has to do with the way that yoga makes you more aware of your body. So when you've eaten enough food, you're sensitive to the feeling of being full, and this makes it much easier to stop eating before you've eaten too much," Kristal explains.

"Most people practice yoga in a way that's not aerobic enough to burn a lot of calories, so it has to be some other reason," adds study co-author denise Benitez, owner of Seattle Yoga Arts.

"People who regularly practice yoga develop the inner resources to stay with a little bit of discomfort," she says, hypothesizing that those inner resources help people to stay with the discomfort that is caused when they deny themselves junk food.

In order to accurately measure the effects of yoga on weight maintenance and loss, these preliminary findings will need to be replicated, Kristal cautions.

Yoga Tips

The following tips for enhancing one's yoga practice, offers Benitez, may be particularly helpful for those who wish to maintain or lose weight:

1. Practice in a room without mirrors and pay more attention to your internal experience than to your outer performance.

2. Learn to feel sens...more

Yoga Instructor Training - Yoga for Arthritis

...ou begin to work with any student that has arthritis, understand their reluctance to move. The pain can be excruciating, and it will take time and patience to improve.

There must be patience, both on behalf of the patient, and you, as the instructor. Never force a student, with arthritis, to push past the point of pain. The student must keep pushing their limits, but never force the arthritic joint. This could cause damage of the joint.

Arthritis is the number one cause of disability in people over fifty-five. People a...more

top 10 Profound Health Benefits of Yoga

...ength of your internal physiological systems. Strength of your immune system, nervous system, digestive system, respiratory system, circulatory system, reproductive system, etc.

3. Healing: The power of Yoga to heal ailments and cure diseases is becoming more and more an integral part of mainstream medical practice and treatment methods. This ability of Yoga to heal also promotes longevity.

4. Flexibility: Yoga postures (asanas) are perhaps the best type of exercises you can do to improve flexibility. Flexibility is essential for avoiding injuries as well as for the health of the joints, tendons and muscles.

Emotional Health Benefits of Yoga:

5. Peace: Yoga meditations and practice methodology promotes a greater awareness and appreciation of the present moment, which calms the mind and allows the peace deep within to surface.

6. Joy: With the maturing of a Yoga practice, the beauty and depth of life become more apparent and the spontaneous joy of existence emerges.

7...more

Universal Principles of Yoga, Part 3

...e from religion, but also hatha Yoga could be integrated into any religious practice. hatha Yoga is a separate entity from religion.

Strangely, Yoga has sometimes been compared to witchcraft. The first time I read that one, I burst into laughter, but a few people must feel strongly about it, if they take credit for writing such claims. Just like anything else people have difficulty understanding, Yoga can be misunderstood. When one of my first Yoga students stated that she got rid of migraine headaches, after practicing particular Yoga techniques, I never thought the devil would receive credit for it.

A few of the more vigorous and contemporary hatha Yoga styles have ...more

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