Author: Thamin Abdul

For Gail Stuart, who is finishing a beginner’s series, yoga is an antidote to the stress of her job at the Medical University of South Carolina, where she works with psychiatric research. You just walk through the whole process, and you feel yourself slipping away. It’s a different workout, she says, a welcome alternative to aerobics or exercise machines, which remind her of a torture chamber.

Yoga is the most prominent form of the burgeoning mind-body health movement, which includes tai chi, qigong and other meditative forms of exercise.

The practice of yoga should integrate every aspect of human existence. While many of modern Western practitioners focus on the physical asanas, for others, yoga is an all-encompassing way of life and a path to bliss.

Considering yoga’s lofty goals, it’s delightfully simple and can be done anywhere, anytime. Taken to its extreme, yoga encompasses everything from a moral code and dietary practices to deep meditation. Most commonly, though, it’s a combination of asanas, pranayama (breathing exercises) and some meditation.

Yoga would be an effective and relatively cheap substitute for many anxious and stressed patients, although they would probably also need to be motivated to become physically fit.

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The best place to start is with a class, where a teacher can show you how to adapt poses using props and help you learn proper technique for the postures.

The good news is that yoga classes have never been more widely available. You’ll find them at small studios, health clubs and gyms. The hard part is finding a class that’s just right for you. Studios that are dedicated to yoga also foster a more dedicated practice. The same students return to class week after week, and instructors usually follow a particular discipline of yoga. Some classes are aimed at beginners.

Whether you consider a studio or health club classes, here are some tips to find qualified instructors and classes that suit your needs:

Define your goals. Do you have chronic back pain or other physical limitations. An Iyengar-based class, with its emphasis on proper form and use of props, would be ideal. Looking to improve concentration and reduce stress. Consider a class that incorporates meditation. Seeking a challenging workout. Try an ashtanga class.

Ask about the instructor’s background. There is no national certification program for yoga yet, although some disciplines have their own rigorous teaching certification programs. You want an instructor who has been practicing and teaching for a long time.

Check out the space. Look for rooms that are spacious and well ventilated. Plenty of props sticky mats, straps, foam bricks, blankets and bolsters are a good sign, too. Ideally, yoga rooms are quiet, but that may not be the case in a gym setting where students have to contend with loud music and clanking weight machines.

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At one time it seemed that yoga was little more than a dated hippie fad, rather like the lava lamp. But now this ancient health system is back in vogue.

Celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna, and Julia Roberts and Sting are not shy about advocating the mental and physical benefits of the discipline.

It is cool to carry around a little purple mat and tie yourself up in knots in local gyms and draughty church halls. It seems yoga is everywhere, and nowhere is it more omnipresent than on the net.

Should you wish to learn more about Sting’s views on the subject, for instance, you might care to read the in-depth interview available at the White Lotus website.

You’ll find a glossily professional web page which features authoritative articles on the many different forms of yoga – and the debate about which is the best.

You can also access a shop selling books and videos, or click through selection of celebrity interviews.

Share the well-illustrated interview with Sting, in which he expresses regret at not having started yoga earlier. But he adds that, if anything, the exercise seems to be reversing the ageing process.

This view is echoed by fellow megastar Madonna. Indeed, the title song, Ray Of Light, in her best-selling album incorporates a traditional yoga chant.

If you are moved to discover more details, Roots And Wings, a ‘yoga, bodywork and natural healing centre’ will be happy to provide you with the original Sanskrit text of that chant.

Roots And Wings is largely geared to selling yoga products, but you’ll also find articles, discussion groups and a search engine for locating those all important Sanskrit lyrics (just type in Madonna).

Another site, called Evolution, describes itself as an online yoga magazine, and although it can be a little graphic-heavy and slow, it’s a snazzy and informative creation.

The visitor is offered enticements such as a free email newsletter, meditation advice, chants and even recipes.

Should you find Evolution’s animated yoga girl icon annoyingly limber, you might be tempted to compete with her by practising a selection of yoga postures yourself.

Evolution allows you to call up these postures on your screen.

It seems that cyberspace is not yet the proper place to learn the subtleties of this ancient discipline: for that you’ll still need to take a traditional class with a teacher.

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The size of the waist is an indication of overall fitness for many people. Most health experts agree that a smaller waist is healthier than a big one. The reasoning behind this is that increases in fat around the waist usually result in increased health risks such as diabetes, high cholesterol and blood pressure.

In evolutionary and biological terms, a small waist signifies youth and vitality. But doing endless workouts of crunches alone will not allow you to achieve that Venus-like waist of your dreams. You will need to supplement specific waist-orientated exercises with ones from various disciplines.

Specifically you will need to work the inner girdle of muscles – commonly known as the core muscles – with slow abdominal exercises that work very deep into these muscle groups.

While usually associated with building flexibility, some specific exercises from yoga-based workouts also target the underlying core muscles around the waist.

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In a corporate environment one of the things that makes a critical difference for employees is a relaxed congenial environment. The headquarters of Google is one of the most productive places in the world and every idea that comes out of the Google thinking tank seems to be another winner, yet this is achieved in a building that is filled with slides, relaxation equipment, staff libraries, canteens and even beds. The message is clear – we care about the results not about how long or hard you work. Not surprisingly the results come and the staff are happy to work long hours in a relaxing environment knowing that they will not be harshly judged by their co-workers for taking a relaxation break. In less ideal environments the opposite of this is often true with stress levels high because every decision, every move, everything could have the future of a company hanging on it. Successful businesses recognize that this stress is not productive and that if it can be reduced the level of accomplishment will rise proportionately. Google is the extreme of a trend that has been developing for a long time – providing recreation facilities inside corporate buildings. One of the most successful and popular is a Yoga centre.

The stress of the modern corporate world is usually a counterproductive thing, it puts people on a knife-edge and frequently leads to mistakes that a calmer more relaxed person would not make. Yoga is known to be one of the most effective forms of stress relief. Yoga is a special type of discipline that can be utilised on a number of different levels, places and situations. A perfect example is the Yoga breathing exercises such as Anulem and Vinolum. These are used to calm the thought process and allow you to maintain focus when overwhelmed with too much information or too many thoughts and problems at once. And because they are merely a deep and focused way of breathing they can be performed sitting in a chair, standing in an elevator or even while driving a car. Cramps and bad back posture are also often treated with nothing more than a steady breathing exercise with some quite spectacular results in some cases.

The simplicity of being taught to breath properly may strike some corporates as strange. Nobody teaches us to breath, or sit or even stand. These are simple things that we spend our whole day doing, yet at no point in our lives are we actively taught them. Incorrect posture when sitting is a very serious problem if you are in front of a monitor all day, but simply learning the correct way to breath can align your body properly and solve many of the problems associated with this bad posture. If you take deep breathes and focus on them your body is pulled in to shape by this most natural of human movements.

Where specific problems such as Obesity or joint pain are present, a Yoga class can be specially tailored to address them. Blood pressure problems and ailments of the kidney can be treated with Yogic Kriyas. Poor agility is a result of poor balance and this issue is frequently confronted and quickly overcome with a range of balance-enhancing Yoga exercises. Some people who have reported daily occurrences of problems like anger, tension, hypertension, stress and headaches have achieved very good results simply from using Yoga to it’s full potential. The increased flexibility that Yoga provides is a godsend for people in sedentary job environments.

The mental advantages of Yoga are also quite clear. Yoga has an ability to redirect our thinking to a more positive frame. The most common form of Yoga used in corporate stress management is Hatha Yoga because it is a particularly potent form of physiological and psychological cleansing. In any environment stress is a normal occurrence, what differentiates a successful person from an unsuccessful one (and by extension a successful business from an unsuccessful one) is how we deal with that stress. Hatha Yoga, and Yoga in general provide executives with the tools they need to deal with stress on a daily basis.

Some businesses will go as far as getting a staff medical done and passing the results on to a Yoga instructor who will formulate a customized program for an individual based on their health needs. Different Yoga techniques deal with different problems and a qualified instructor will be able to find those best suited to an individual’s personal situation. Through recognizing Yoga’s ability to deal with the individual needs of employees and incorporating it into part of the daily work schedule businesses are creating a happier work environment and being rewarded by their employees by increased productivity and a greater loyalty and appreciation of their employer.

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Yoga used to be the kind of thing someone’s eccentric aunt did – a woman with a braid wrapped around her head who entertained the children by putting her foot behind her neck.

I tried screening three different videos on a day when my neck and shoulder muscles were tighter than last year’s jeans. I had knots the size of Rhode Island that had been there for weeks.

Jane Fonda’s Yoga Exercise (A.Vision) relaxed them. Kathy Smith’s New Yoga (BodyVision) warmed them up. Three hours later, after falling under the reassuring southern spell of actress Dixie Carter’s Unworkout (MCA Universal), they melted away.

Here’s how it went:

An all-natural Jane Fonda appeared on a set that looks like a craggy moonscape, wearing plain red leotards and tights, and sporting a French braid down to her hips. (It’s a hair extension, but what do we care.)

She demonstrated the classical Sun Salutation, a choreographed yoga routine traditionally used to greet the day, her huge Ted Turner diamond gleaming in the spotlight.

Then she asked us to join her in a warm-up, several rounds of the Sun Salutation, and a relaxation and breath awareness segment, 60 minutes all told.

Yoga is slow, I decided, slow enough that I have time to examine the webs between my toes and the lint on the carpet while holding each pose. While nearly standing on my head, I meditated on the most profound of Jane’s statements: When in doubt, breathe.

After the relaxation segment, my thoughts switched to her final message: I am relaxed, and I will carry this feeling with me.

She said this hour would help me stretch, tone and energize my body. At that moment I felt lethargic, noodled, ready for lunch. The knots are still there.

Kathy Smith also appeared in a red leotard and tights and urged me to do the workout on an empty stomach, preferably just before dinner. She worked with Rod Stryker, yoga instructor of the stars, to update the ancient disciplines and merge them into a workout for fitness fans.

Kathy stood on a raised pylon as she led a more athletic version of the Sun Salutation, a half dozen other poses and a meditation, 60 minutes total.

The great thing about yoga, I’m learning, is the great names attached to each exercise: the downward dog, the cobra, the plank.

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There are a great many people who are in the unfortunate position of having to live with painful aches and pains caused by severely damaged or inflamed joints. For some people it is a discomfort, and that is bad enough, but for others arthritis can turn them into a virtual cripples. Arthritis has been something that has affected people throughout history since prehistoric times, but it is only recently that we have begun to understand it.

Arthritis is a join disease that can cause problems in any area of the body where two or more bones intersect. The arthritis itself can affect the join in a number of different ways, targeting different areas such as the synovium, the muscles or tendons or the cartilage. Cartilage is the soft protective material that protects the ends of the joints from rubbing against each other and the entire join is encased in a type of capsule that is lined with the tissue synovium.

Arthritis is a broad term which we use to describe a group of over 100 disease that effect these area of the body. Wherever there is a problem involving inflammation around the joints and associated discomfit in movement we refer to it as arthritis despite the multiple different causes that can lead to this. The other common name that is used in the same broad fashion is rheumatism.

Because it affects so many people arthritis is a very public problem and is discussed openly and frequently. Roughly one in every seven Americans is thought to have arthritis in some form and relieving the pain of Arthritis is a primary concern for all people suffering from it. Some people take medication, but others have found relief from the pain in exercises performed at a gentle pace and intensity. Yoga is the perfect example of this type of exercise.

Yoga is a very old art originating in India up to 4000 years ago. It uses poses or postures along with deeply controlled breathing exercises that lead to benefits to the body mind and spirit. Yoga is a very versatile form of exercise and meditation and it is used, in different forms, to treat a very wide range of medical conditions and injuries including such diverse areas as fibromyalgia, arthritic, migraine headaches, chronic pain, and sports injuries.

The common misconception with using Yoga for arthritis pain is that it will mean contorting and bending the body in unnatural ways in an effort to force the body to accept the pain and develop some level of comfort. The core attributes of a Yoga for Arthritis Program are still going to be breathing and meditation but the exercises are specially catered to the individuals level of movement and comfort. Stretching will still be involved but they are a part of Yoga’s core statement of developing balance and harmony between the body and mind and enhancing the bodies strength and flexibility. Each pose or position assumed during a Yoga workout has a specific purpose and a specific physical benefit. Sometimes the poses will be done in rapid succession to create heat in the body, a style known as Vinyasa Yoga, and sometimes they are performed more slowly to increase the level of stamina, perfection in the pose and core strength through holding the pose. The poses themselves remain the same but how they are entered and approached will vary greatly from discipline to discipline and teacher to teacher.

The Yoga poses can be tailored specially for specific joints or combinations of joints. For instance a common area for arthritis to strike is the hands and knuckles and in this instance there would be a series of poses that straighten and lengthen the fingers, although the level of comfort in the arthritis sufferer always dictates the extent of this. Stretching the hands also feed energy to that area of the body and over time will assist the arthritis in the fingers. The heat generated by these movements is proven to be very beneficial for sufferers of arthritis.

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In today’s society carrying excess weight is becoming the norm rather than the exception. Lifestyles are increasingly sedentary, peoples diet is becoming increasingly processed and fatty and food contains more and more calories, additives and preservatives. Children prefer television over playing with their friends, which is perhaps a direct reflection on parents who prefer television over socializing or even making time for their children. This only scratches the surface of the social move towards a sedentary and unhealthy society which is making more and more people fat.

Yoga is a discipline designed to make the body strong and flexible and enhance the overall health of the digestive system as well as the hormonal and circulatory systems. It also assists us in controlling mental stress and achieving peace and clarity of mind. Yoga also has strong spiritual benefits which will see you becoming more content with yourself and more comfortable with who you are, all aspects which will lead to emotional stability. This mental component is often neglected in a physical approach to weight loss, but it is critical and should not be overlooked. So called “Comfort food” is a frequent problem for people who yo-yo diet(rapidly lose and gain weight) and the ability to be happy with your health and who you are reduces the need for this.

Yoga is based on deep and controlled breathing which is a method for enhancing our oxygen intake. This allows oxygen to travel to the fat cells in our body and assist in their processing. One has to ask given the benefits why more people don’t practice Yoga?

Many people think of Yoga as a passive or mystical discipline – something for hippies – not them. This is a shame as Yoga improves the physical body as well as our mental health. While it is practiced by a great many people in Eastern Populations only about 2% of the population in the United States has clicked on to the many benefits.

Yoga considers all the aspects that contribute to obesity – not just the physical but also the mental and spiritual reasons behind them. regular Yoga is not only relaxing but it does bring the body back towards it’s ideal weight and at the same time enhance strength, flexibility and stamina. Yoga nuts tend to end up slim, agile and efficient in everything they do and what’s more it is suitable for people of all ages.

A more active form of Yoga, Kundalini, was introduced to America in 1969 by Yogi Bhajan. It is a more active form of Yoga combining different methods of breathing, meditation and movement to compensate for the fact the American population has been conditioned to see exercise as requiring sweating.

Yoga can also be used to resist the temptation of snacking between meals. techniques learned from yoga can be used to suppress impulses such as that we think of as hunger between meals(if you eat proper meals you cannot be hungry between them – merely bored or restless).

Yoga is not just a method of losing weight, it is actually a method which restores a natural balance to our body and moves us towards our natural state. This has an interesting consequence with weight. It we are overweight then yes, regular Yoga will cause us to lose weight. However if we are at our ideal weight we will not drop weight, and if we weight too little we will gain weight until we are at our biologically natural size.

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Yoga is different things to different people, so what it means to you will depend greatly on how you were introduced to it and how you enjoyed your initial experiences with it. For some people Yoga is simply a method of exercising that ensures they have a healthy supple body. For other people Yoga transcends a method of exercise and is a spiritual experience that allows them to find the balance and centring their lives need. This type of Yoga comes closer to a life philosophy than any other.

Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga is often placed in this final type when assessing it’s place as a Yoga discipline. It descends from a document known as Korunta Yoga which deals with the 8 spiritual movements which are described by Patanjali in Sutra Yoga. Today most Yoga disciplines are directly descended from the descriptions of Yoga exercises in these documents, and so most forms of Yoga are variations of Ashtanga Vinyasi.

Getting a complete understanding of Ashtanga Yoga is important as it’s proponents treat it as more that a form of exercise. While it’s base is in physical movement it is suggested that it’s power in fact comes from the strength of spirit that is developed from regular and disciplined practice of the 8 stages of Yoga. Through the eight stages of Yoga the body and mind become pure, and so they are seen as a purifying discipline.

Furthermore the discipline of Ashtanga Vinyasa deals with a profound and deep way of relating to others. The closest word to describe this aspect of the Yoga discipline is manners, but it really does go beyond that. Yoga is a discipline of balance, and the physical balance required to complete many of the exercises should be mirrored by an internal balance or harmony of the soul. It is said that a hyperactive person canot be successful with Yoga and this is true on several levels. Firstly they lack the discipline to sit calmly through the exercises, but they also lack the mental calm to focus wholly and completely on a single task. Yoga requires deep concentrating on the simple act of breathing and feeling the breath bring life to different areas of your body.

The power of Yoga is found in it’s combination of the physical strength and flexibility needed to complete movements and the mental discipline that is required to maintain them. Yoga is not just a form of exercise but most often it is thought of as a form of meditation. Meditating successfully with Yoga requires a pureness of thought and singularity of focus that is not found in most modern exercise programs. It seeks to bring the body back into balance and focus on maintaining that balance.

This aspect of Yoga is often misunderstood, but balance plays a huge role in Eastern Medicine and the purpose of Yoga and similar meditative techniques is often no more than to achieve and maintain the level of balance that keeps our bodies healthy. Yoga teachers will often talk about one-ness and inner harmony, and this can be mis-interpreted by people who lack a holistic understanding of what Yoga seeks to achieve. Simple the harmony that is achieved through Meditation and Yoga is a self-contentment or acceptance of oneself. This shows that the first step to becoming completely happy and healthy is to be content with yourself and your life.

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For a lot of people the first image that will pop into their head when they think of Yoga is a little old man in a loincloth sitting on top of a stone pillar with his legs crossed and his arms on his knees. He’s probably chanting, humming or got a look of relaxation and serenity on his face. I’m not a person who likes to sit still and I hate any minute that I feel is wasted so this idea of sitting around doing nothing all day was not something that appealed to me. I’ve changed that initial perception quite a lot and in this article I want to tell you about the personal journey that taught me about the benefits of yoga for a very non-spiritual person.

The first yoga class I ever went to I spend a lot of time sitting in silence with a bored expression on my face and thinking, “This is so dumb”. I listened to the instructor drone on about inner peace and harmony and balance and energy flowing through my body and I was pretty close to never going back again. Then I got lucky.

One of the guys in the class was a professor at the local university and it struck me as a little strange that a professor of biology would be doing this spiritual Yoga thing. I got an opportunity and speak to him briefly. Actually he singled me out and observed I looked bored. He explained he had felt the same way when he began and then he translated the instructors talk into biology terms and it was all very sound.

That hit me like a ton of bricks. As I thought on it more and more I could see this from a purely scientific point of view. For instance take the ‘energy’ that flows through our body. A lot of people are turned off when they start to hear talk like that, but it’s a very core component of Yoga. I substituted ‘blood’ for energy and looked at this thought process again.

I know that blood carries nutrients and oxygen around our body. I know that if our cells don’t receive these nutrients and supplements they become weak and we can become ill. I know that people can become sick if they have high or low blood pressure. The regular healthy flow of blood is clearly a very important factor in us staying healthy. Of course, Yoga was first used many hundreds of years ago and while it would be arrogant to assume that we know everything about circulation and blood flow, we certainly know more than the average Chinese peasant from that time. “Energy” is just a nice word that anyone can understand for blood flow.

Yoga stretches out certain muscle areas and allows our blood to flow more freely and bring the nutrients to all parts of the body which need them. That is a nice scientific explanation I am quite happy to accept. You can do the same with the other ‘alternative’ terminology you don’t relate to when you hear the instructor talking about it. Inner peace, oneness, emotional calm – it’s all just a very dressed up way of saying concentrate on one thing – your blood flow and the health it is bringing you, or your breathing and the supply of life giving oxygen it brings you. Concentrate on that just for this one small part of the day and make being alive and healthy your only goal. Forget about what’s happening at the office because you cannot do it from here. Forget about what your husband or wife is doing or whether the kids are being bullied at school and just concentrate on being you, being alive and being healthy.

Now stress has been attributed as a major factor in over 40% of all medical issues. Stress, in a nutshell is caused by thinking too much. This practice shows us how to let all those worries be something we can think about later and leaves the brain free to concentrate on doing all it’s vital health giving functions.

It’s strange that as I’ve done more and more Yoga I have developed a spiritual side that I never had before. It’s not a religious thing but more a case of recognizing that my own health and wellbeing are important and worthy of being made a priority. Whether the same happens for you is yet to be seen, but if you’ve been putting off learning Yoga or giving it a try because of all the spiritual talk I can assure you there are scientific reasons behind it and that if you give it a chance you may just be surprised.

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