The System of Yoga is neither complex or mysterious. Below we have tried to give you a comprehensive overview of the system of Yoga. The interconnection between Yoga Exercise, Breathing and Meditation is the key to the system.

One basic assumption of the Yoga Sutras is that the body and the mind are part of one continuum of existence, the mind being more subtle than the body. This is the foundation of the yogic view of health. The interaction of body and mind is the central concern of the entire science. It is believed that as the body and mind are brought into balance and health, the individual will be able to perceive his true nature; this will allow life to be lived through him more freely and spontaneously.

Yoga first attempts to reach the mind, where health begins, for mental choices strongly affect the health of the body. Choices of food, types of exercise, which thoughts to think, etc. all affect the body. As practiced traditionally in India, Yoga includes a set of ethical imperatives and moral precepts, including diet, exercise, and meditative aspects. In the West, Yoga focuses primarily on postures (gentle stretching exercises), breathing exercises, and meditation. Yoga is frequently used in Western medicine to enhance health and treat chronic disease as well as stress.

 Yoga Therapy begins with relaxation. Living in an age of anxiety, we are often unconscious of our tensions. We are often depressed, tired, and an easy victim of diseases. There are a number of reasons for our stressful life. Often it is lack of rest, anxiety, tension and fatigue. These are constantly draining our health energies continuously. Thus, the first priority is to get us into a relaxed state. Yoga employs asanas, pranayama (breathing exercises) and meditation and/or visualization.

Yoga Postures or Asanas

Postures are gentle stretching movements designed to help balance the mind and body. The Yoga Postures are designed to rejuvenate the brain, spine, glands and internal organs. They work by increasing the blood and prana supply to these areas and by stimulating them with a gentle squeezing action. The asanas were designed with economy of time and effort in mind. Most of them work on more than one aspect of the body at the same time. For example, the twist asana benefits the spine, adrenal glands, liver, pancreas and kidneys. The Yoga Asanas produce their beneficial effect on the organs and glands in three ways:

• The position of the asana causes an increase in blood circulation to the specific target organ or gland.
• The position of the asana often produces a slight squeezing of the organ or gland. This has the effect of massaging the organ or gland and stimulating it.
• Deep breathing and visualizing the target area sends an extra supply of prana to the area.

Yoga’s effect on the spine is to increase its flexibility. This ensures a good nerve supply to all parts of the body, since the nerves from the spine go to all the organs and glands.

Pranayama: Breathing Techniques

Pranayamas are specially developed breathing techniques. Yoga Breathing produces a huge storage of energy in the solar plexus area. This will cause the body to radiate vitality and, if any sickness is developing, the body can call upon some of this energy reserve to combat the disease. Yoga breathing also improves brain function (intelligence and memory), as well as increasing the elimination of toxins from the system. The total effect of Yoga asanas and breathing is to produce a state of high vitality and rejuvenation.

Meditation and Positive Thinking

The benefits of the postures are greater if you concentrate the healing action where it is needed. You can incorporate a variety of affirmations, meditation/concentration practices and visualization. Meditation and concentration is covered in detail elsewhere. Many times focusing on an object or sound (like clicking of a clock) can help us concentrate and leave our distracting thoughts away. An affirmation is a declaratory statement of yourself. They are inner-self conditioners. Our inner mind will believe everything we say with conviction and emotional force. It take some persistent repetitions to get the desired result. Typical affirmations that can be used are:

• I am at my desired weight (for dieters)
• My lungs are pure and clean (for smokers who want to get out of the habit)
• I feel continuously alert, vital and useful (general), etc.

Even more powerful technique than affirmation is visualization. Here, we show our subconscious mind a picture of what we are talking about. Forming such picture inside your mind is called visualization. To be effective, visualization should involve all senses, not just sight. Imagine the state or thing we want. How does it feel when we have it? What will you be with it? What does it feel? What does it look like? How does it sound? How does it taste? How does it smell? For healing therapy, visualize the state without the condition. For example, for those trying to lose weight, visualize yourself in the desired weight and physical condition and imagine the life in the new state. In other words, you should mentally see the affected area as it receives fresh blood circulation, oxygen and physical massage. A diabetic should visualize the healing energies flowing into the pancreas, near the stomach. A rheumatic can concentrate on the release of synovial fluid. Synovial fluid is a lubricant and also disperses waste matter which can cause stiffness at joints.

Thus, most effective Yoga therapy involves a three-pronged attack. When you practice postures, you are strengthening the body. When you control your breathing, you are creating a chemical and emotional balance. And when you concentrate your mind on affirmations, you are practicing the power of prayer. But when all three approaches are synthesized, you are entering the most powerful mystery of healing: the basic harmony of life.

       

Purpose of Spinal Warmup Kundalini Yoga Exercises:

This kundalini yoga kriya is a very good set for doing as a warm-up before doing more advanced kriyas or doing independently if one is starting to put together their yoga practice.  It very effectively warms up the most important part of the physiology, which is the entire back and especially the spinal cord region.   Through the spinal cord runs the main subtle energy channel (shushumna nadi), which is considered the most important conduit for the movement of kundalini energy throughout the body.  Also, along the spine lie the primary energy centers (chakras) and as kundalini energy moves up and down the spine it activates and balances the chakras and the associated organs and glands of that region.

Description of Spinal Warmup Kundalini Yoga Exercises:

1. Yoga Stomach Grind:

a. Guided Instructions for Yoga Stomach Grind:

• Sit up with your legs crossed.
• Hold onto your on your knees.
• Grind your stomach in a big circle counter clockwise for half the time of the exercise.  Visualize drawing a big circle with your naval.
• Switch after half the time and grind your stomach clockwise.

b. Duration for Yoga Stomach Grind: 1-3 minutes

c. Benefits of Yoga Stomach Grind:

• Excellent yoga exercise for your digestive system as it gives all your important digestive organs a massage, forcing out toxins and waste into the elimination systems of the body.
  
• Works on the ileocecal valve insuring the proper direction for the flow of nutrients and waste.
  
• Warms up and loosens the lumbar area of the back.
  

d. Practice Tips for Yoga Stomach Grind: Make sure you are not leaning forward and back from the waist, this is the most common mistake people make.  You have to arch your lower back as you move forward and arch back as you move in that direction.

2. Spine Flex Yoga Exercise: (also called Yoga Camel Ride)

a. Guided Instructions for Spine Flex Yoga Exercise:

• Sit up on your heels and rest your hands on your knees (rock pose).
• Inhale and arch your back forward pushing your sternum out.  Exhale and bring your sternum in, arching your back out.
• Continue at a comfortable pace and rhythm.

b. Duration for Spine Flex Yoga Exercise: 1-3 minutes

c. Benefits of Spine Flex Yoga Exercise:

• Stretches the middle back and spine.
• Opens up the solar plexus promoting better flow of energy between the lower and higher centers of the body.
• Improved emotional balance.

d. Practice Tips for Spine Flex Yoga Exercise: If you have hard time sitting on your heels you can place a small cushion under your feet/ankles for added comfort.

3. Cat-Cow Yoga Exercise:

a. Guided Instructions for Cat-Cow Yoga Exercise:

• Come onto your hands and knees, placing your hands shoulder width apart and knees hip distance apart.
• Inhale as you arch your back by pushing your stomach down and bringing your head up.  Open your eyes and look upward. This is cow pose.
• Now, while exhaling, arch your back up by pushing your stomach up and bringing your head down (like a cat).
  
• Continue at a comfortable pace and rhythm going between the 2 poses.

b. Duration for Cat-Cow Yoga Exercise: 1-3 minutes.

c. Benefits of Cat-Cow Yoga Exercise:

• Works on stretching your entire spine and strengthens all the nerve junctions that lie along the spinal cord.
• Give your entire system a glandular tune-up.
• Improves your eyesight and works on the optical nerve.

d. Practice Tips for Cat-Cow Yoga Exercise: Make sure you are not rocking back and forth, but, that just your spine (and head) are moving.

4. Yoga Twist:

a. Guided Instructions for Yoga Twist:

• Sit up with your legs crossed.
• Hold your shoulders with your fingers in front and thumb in back.
• Your elbows should be parallel to the ground and at shoulder level.
  
• Inhale as you twist to the left, exhale as you twist to right.  Your head goes with your torso.

b. Duration for Yoga Twist: 1-3 minutes.

c. Benefits of Yoga Twist:

• Promotes flexibility in the entire back.
• Massages the inner organs.

d. Practice for Yoga twist: The motion should be continuous and keep the pace at a level you are comfortable with.  Slow down if you start to feel dizzy.

5. Yoga Neck Rolls:

a. Guided Instructions for Yoga Neck Rolls:

• Sit up with your legs crossed.
• Open your mouth as if in a half yawn.
• Roll your neck in a big circle going in one direction for half the time and then switch directions for the rest of the time.

b. Duration for Yoga Neck Rolls: 1-3 minutes.

c. Benefits of Yoga Neck Rolls:

• Releases tension in the neck and shoulders.
• Promotes better blood flow to the brain and higher centers.

d. Practice Tips for Yoga Neck Rolls: Spend additional time working on areas which feel particularly tight or knotted.

That concludes the Spinal Warm-up Kundalini Yoga Exercises.

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Want to lose weight? It’s all in your mind by Vedaprajinananda. 

There are numbers of individuals all across the world that are usually concerned about losing their weight since several years and try to come up with new weight losing ideas with the intention of making some positive changes in their lifestyles but unfortunately, they often fail to attain their desired goal. Generally, the sources to access information regarding weight loss are unlimited and perhaps you find it hard to choose something of your kind. However, in my opinion, it’d be great if you get started with your own mind when it comes to weight loss. 

Weight loss is not a gigantic treaty in science; it’s not calculus as well, but it actually is nothing more than a mere deal of mathematics. If you don’t prefer consuming excess calories-containing food, and do exercise in a regular basis, you’ll no doubt be able to experience weight loss to a great extent.  If you’re participating in exercising activities regularly and decreasing your daily calories intake level as well, you can reduce your weight in no time. The strategies to loss weight are not as simple as they seem to be, so you better start it all the way from your mind.

 

Many thoughts usually arrive in your mind which is something like “I just don’t acquire any willpower” and you start to convince yourself that no one is born in presence of willpower. You just need to concentrate in strengthen of your mind before enrolling yourself in exercising activities to make your muscles strong. This is the main reason why I actually wrote a book on lose weight that is totally based on the concept of Yoga and meditation. 

Burning excessive calories is not the only feature of Yoga practices, but they are highly responsible in managing your glands in such a manner that an ideal level of balance will be maintained in your mind. Actually, meditation is a type of exercise which can assist you to enhance your concentrating power as well as it enables you to attain internal peace and balance. Yoga exercises accompanied with medication are no doubt an outstanding way to develop your mind’s muscle and motivate you to move out to yoga practice and give your best as possible.

 

I actually prefer to do mantra medication in a regular basis and strongly recommend others to prefer the same one as well. In fact, the book I recently published also includes the same subject matter. When it comes to teaching meditation to the young children I’ve often noticed that visualization exercises help them a lot to learn meditation rather than usual exercises. A couple of days earlier, I consult to some popular psychologists who have already implemented the visualization power with the intention of helping people to lose their weight. 

Below is a visualization-based practice that could help you a lot.

 

Imagine that you’re in a state where your weight has reached exactly where you always want it to be, 140 pounds, for instance. It really affects you a lot from all the ways including physically, socially, mentally, and emotionally to name a few. Just keep your imagination in your consciousness whenever you wish to eat. In mean time, you’ll ultimately find yourself in a weight you always with to be. 

No matter it’s a mediation or visualization, you’ll be applying effort at your mental area in both the ways in order to make some positive changes externally.