What is Yoga: things you should know about

Yoga is a gift from India to the world. It is a fabulous kind of physical and mental exercise for complete uplift of a human being. Extraordinary mind and body coordination can be achieved with the help of regular practicing of Yoga.

What is Yoga - Yoga is gift from India

The history of Yoga is thousand years old and can be traced back to the times of dedicated Hindu saints who sacrificed their lives in search of divine redemption.

What is Yoga - The history of Yoga

Yoga seeks to unify all the visible and invisible aspects of a human being. Within the last few decades the practice of Yoga has seen a terrific advancement and publicity. Thanks to the phenomenon called globalization, now Yoga is a popular practice in the Western part of the world as well.

Things you should know about:What is Yoga

With time Yoga has undergone some modifications. But the basic methodology and the poses still exist. Just with the emergence of new age Yoga gurus and schools some fresh varieties have been added to the existing history of Yoga.

What is Yoga:Things you should know about

In the simplest terms, Yoga can be defined as the holistic process by which a human being can realize his inner self with the appropriate coordination of the body, mind and soul. The overall benefits of Yoga are really more than superb.

Choose the appropriate Yoga poses for complete peace of mind

These days Yoga is a best-selling word in all parts of the world. Irrespective of caste, creed and culture now everybody has adopted the practice of Yoga for a complete peace of mind.

Yoga poses - Tree Pose

But at the same moment as Yoga is a combination of physical and mental exercises so the quest for mental peace is helping people to achieve a well-built body too. But we have seen that not everybody adopting Yoga are getting optimum benefits.

cope stress:physical and mental exercises

There may be a lot of factors behind this kind of failure. But the most important factor behind this failure is the wrong selection of Yoga poses. As Yoga is a gift from the orient to the occident so with time a lot of modifications have got immersed with the original poses and postures. So it has become a daunting task now-a-day to choose or select the appropriate Yoga poses for oneself.

Yoga poses - cope stress

We should understand the fact that there are different Yoga poses for various age groups of people. Moreover some Yoga poses are not suitable for people with specific medical conditions. Then these poses may vary depending upon the beginner or advanced level of the Yoga practitioner.

Yoga poses - Cobra pose, Lotus pose...

So, proper and accurate knowledge and information must be sought before moving into the path of Yoga. Otherwise, it may backfire in a huge manner. The most popular Yoga poses include Awkward chair pose, Bird of Paradise pose, Boat pose, Bow pose, Bridge pose, Camel pose, Cat pose, Child’s pose, Cobra pose, Compass pose, Corpse pose, Eagle pose, Eight angle pose, Fish pose, Lotus pose and Garland pose etc.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

When you are feeling stressed out or anxious, your body will feel muscular tension.

You will then feel all those aches and pains that go with being stressed or under pressure. The best way to relieve you of all those muscular tension is through exercise.

relieve stress - Progressive Muscle Relaxation

An effective form of exercise to relieve stress is the Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR). This technique was developed by Edmund Jacobson in the early 1920’s. According to Jacobson, muscular tension accompanies anxiety. This means that in order to relieve anxiety, one has to relax the muscular tension.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR)

You can begin the Progressive Muscle Relaxation by sitting down or lying down and making yourself comfortable. Start by tensing all the muscles of your face. Inhale while holding this for the count of eight.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation - cope stress

Then, exhale and be completely relaxed. Let the tension from your facial muscles seep. Next, do the same steps on your neck and shoulders. Continue and repeat the procedure down your body.

Cope with stress:Progressive Muscle Relaxation

For a shortened version, you can repeat the procedure just on the four main muscle groups. These include the face; neck, shoulders and arms; abdomen and chest; buttocks, legs and feet. The whole PMR session will approximately take you 30 minutes finish.

Morning Breathing

Are you feeling stressed out these days? You are not alone. Nowadays, people from all walks of life feel stressed out from all the pressures hounding them everyday. People no longer have the pleasure of taking some time out and just do the things that will help them forget their deadlines and other important stuffs to do.

cope stress - Morning Breathing

One of the most simple and popular forms of relaxation is doing some physical exercise. These exercises will not only keep you healthy but it can also help you in loosening all those tense muscles and clear your minds of things that are bothering you.

cope stress - physical exercise

Doing some breathing exercise will help you relax, relieve stress, and reduce tension. It will decrease high blood pressure, fast breathing, and increased heart rate. One of its popular forms is the morning breathing.

Relive stress - morning breathing

It is best to try morning breathing when you wake up in the morning. It will clear your clogged nasal passages and relieve muscle stiffness. From a standing position, with knees bent, bend forward from the waist. Your arms hang close to the floor.

Relax - Morning breathing

Inhaling slowly and deeply, return to standing position by rolling up slowly, lifting your head last. Hold your breath for a few seconds in this position. Return to original position while exhaling slowly.

Roll Breathing

With all our daily activities, hectic schedules and mounting deadlines, getting stressed out cannot be avoided. Stress, nowadays is a part of life.

Roll Breathing - meditation

Working adults, stay-at-home moms, and even students sometimes feel the pressure and get stressed out. Being under pressure or stress can affect not only our work but also our health.

Roll breathing - practice in any position

It is best for us to take some time out and relax our minds and bodies. We can do some exercises that can rejuvenate our body and clear our minds. Breathing is one of the most practiced forms of exercise. They combine it breathing exercise when doing yoga, imagery and meditation.

Roll breathing is a form of breathing exercise that is utilized to develop the full use of the lungs and focus on the rhythm of one’s breathing. You can practice roll breathing in any position. It is advisable though that when you are just starting out, it is best to lie on your back while bending your knees.

Roll breathing - breathing exercise

Put your left hand on your belly and your right hand on your chest. Breathe in through your nose and breathe out through your mouth. Remember to make a whooshing sound when breathing out. There are some beginners who will feel dizzy the first few times.

Breathing Exercises for Relaxation

Breathing exercises is the easiest and cost-free exercise methods that we can use so that we can be relaxed. It makes us feel relaxed because our mind and body feels relaxed at the same time.

Breathing Exercises for Relaxation

It has been said that deep breathing is one of the best ways to lower if not eradicate stress in the body. It is so because when we do deep breathing, the neurotransmitters will be sending message to our brain to calm down and relax.

deep breathing - Relaxation

The message will then be sent by our brain to our body relaying the information that we should relax.We should be aware that our breathing pattern affects our body functioning. Breathing exercises is a very good way of relieving stress and reduce tension. Also, this type of exercise is very easy to learn.

Relieving stress and reduce tension

You do not have to go to a gym and enroll yourself in a program because it can be done anytime and anywhere you want it. There are no special tools or equipment that will be used in doing this kind of exercise.

breathing exercises - Relaxation

Lastly, there are different breathing exercises and all you have to do is learn how to do it and you choose which style of breathing exercises will work for you.

Pilates Yoga

People nowadays are very interested to know what is the difference between pilates and yoga. Actually, both forms of exercises have a lot in common. The six principles in pilates is centering, concentration, control, precision, breath and flow.

Pilates - Yoga - cope stress

These principles can also be used to describe yoga. But in , to these principles, pilates and yoga also have differences and through this aspect, it made the two form of exercise such a great team.

Pilates and Yoga: cope stress

Pilates is more focused on strength of the body while yoga is more focused on stretching the body to make it more flexible. Pilates also includes stretching and yoga also develops strength but the only difference is on the emphasis, on how it is being carried out.

stretching and Yoga - pilates - cope stress

These two exercises also share the same steps and techniques on how to achieve a more strong and sturdy body without losing its flexibility.

Pilates and Yoga - cope stress

Benefits of yoga and pilates are extraordinary. Different people of different ages can also try these exercises. It does not only develop a long, strong and graceful bodies but it also supports the achievement of very high levels of body, mind and spirit fitness. Both of these exercises can be used to decrease feeling of stress and increase state of well-being.

Relaxation Method

The rapid pace of life that requires to make more as soon as possible, often lead to stressful situations.

Have you ever sat at the computer continuously for several hours? Worked, studied, prepared presentation, while you were in a race against time? Thoughts began running confusingly back and forth and then you just could not do any more. You start to panic, how and when the work will be done. You have found the stress.

Relaxation method:cope stress

The rapid pace of life that requires from us to make more as soon as possible, it often lead to such situations. It is therefore good to know some simple ways of relaxation, which will help you in stressful situations.

Relax:will help you in stressful situations

1. While working, take a short rest periods. Stand up, stretch and the walk. Drink a glass of water or tea.

Cope stress - Drink a glass of water...

2. If you have the option to "disconnect yourself from the world". Sit down or lie down. The room should be quiet. Calm your mind, breathe deeply and relax your muscles.

Relax your muscles - Yoga poses - cope stress

3. Make a list of tasks you need to do. When you complete the task, erase it. This will increase your confidence.

4. Plants such as lemon balm, mint and valerian have a calming effect.

Smile more :)

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

Cameron Diaz - big smile

Many people are a little nervous about smiling because they don't think their smile looks good. No matter how professional, intelligent, or in control you think a serious face makes you appear, people almost always respond better to a smile. The easiest way to a great smile is to be happy.

Will Smith - beautiful smile

You can be happy all the time…but not everybody is; when you are not, you can think happy thoughts instead. Think about something or someone that you care about, or think about a good joke that you just find hilarious. Remarkably, when you're feeling down, smiling can help cheer you up, even if you have to coax a smile out at first.

David Beckham - happy smile

When we think of smiling, we think of the mouth, but the eyes may actually be more essential to a warm, genuine smile. When your eyes do smile, remember how it feels, which muscles are working and how…with practice, you'll be able to smile with your eyes at will.

Ashton Kutcher - honest smile

If you want to improve your smile…look at pictures of smiles that you believe are beautiful. Think good thoughts and remember that you are beautiful…inside and out.

Jennifer Aniston - great smile

Your smile is bound to look better if you feel good about yourself!

Yoga Breathing

Breathing is the first thing we do when we are born and the last thing we do when we die.

Way breath…simple answer…because, strengthens your respiratory and immune systems, promotes healing on emotional, physical and psychological levels, reduces stress, energizes greater alertness to your body and brain, supports clear, truthful thinking and actions…

strengthens your respiratory

Yoga breathing will help you to develop the maximum capacity of your lungs, activating areas that are usually inactive. Right from the beginning you should gain awareness of how restricted your breathing actually is. With a little effort and practice, you will soon notice an improvement!

Yoga breathing - cope stress

Finally, when we look at effect, Breathing Techniques have two major advantages. Not only our body and mind relax through the Meditations, but our breathing itself improves as well. It is not very surprising then that many Meditation Techniques are based on breathing!

Breathing Techniques - Yoga - cope stress

Yoga breathing techniques - conditions:

• First, make sure you are sitting in a comfortable, relaxed position before starting any yoga breathing techniques.

• Gently close your eyes and relax.

• Also try to find a quiet place, free from any distractions, and also one which is well-ventilated with fresh air.

• Sit with your spine straight, and perfectly upright.

The yoga way of breathing will come naturally to you.

Relaxed Breathing

You can use breathing to relax quickly and to get control of the situation.

Deep and regular breathing

When under heavy pressure, this will help to change your superficial, tight and often short breathing into a deep and constant breathing.Start your inhalation from your belly, to your ribs and midriff. Finally up to the upper part of your chest. For breathing out, do the same thing the other way round - from your chest - to your belly again.

Relaxed breathing - cope stress

This type of breathing makes sure that the energy that you will need to get things under control again flows into you and is a bit similar to the way you breathe during sports, for instance.

Deep and regular breathing - cope stress

Your breathing is not high, superficial, and uneven anymore. Mind you, you are still in a state of agitation but you are in control again.

Long exhalations

Often only a few long, deep exhalations are enough to relax. The exhalations must be longer than the inhalations.

Long exhalations - cope stress

Through this type of breathing, we trigger the relaxation response that should slowly take us back to the balance in which normally, we are relaxed.

Natural, relaxed breathing

Natural - relaxed breathing - cope stress

Here, we let the breathing have its way and do whatever it likes. We observe without controlling it. There should be no tension and everything goes smoothly and wonderful!

Breathing Techniques

Breathing - Meditation Techniques - cope stress

When you use the breath, you are able to harness the mind and gain control of your emotions… and it gives a lot of freedom…

Breathing - Meditation - Yoga - cope stress

Breathing is a top indicator of how body and mind are feeling at this moment. Are we stressed, upset, happy, nervous, or putting in too much effort, just look at your breath and you will know at once.

Yoga - Breathing - cope stress

This technique manipulates the flow of energy through the channels in body, bringing balance that is both stimulating and relaxing.
Moreover, we see that in western medicine, sports, and psychiatry, oriental Breathing Techniques are applied. We can change the speed or the place of our breath to relax. Our breathing is a suitable Meditation object because it is always there, anytime, anywhere, in a more or less constant and even rhythm.

Breathing Techniques - Meditation - cope stress

You can use Breathing Meditation Techniques anytime, anywhere - in the living room, at work, during a traffic jam, during moments of stress, etc.

anytime, anywhere - in the living room...

Finally, when we look at effect, Breathing Techniques have two major advantages. Not only our body and mind relax through the Meditations, but our breathing itself improves as well. It is not very surprising then that many Meditation Techniques are based on breathing!