avid Duchovny practices Kundalini yoga; Julia Louis-Dreyfuss prefers Ashtanga. Sabrina the Teenage Witch stars Melissa Joan Hart and Soleil Moon Frye throw yoga parties. Jane Fonda cut out aerobics for it; Angelina Jolie buffed up for Tomb Raider with it. The newly clean Charlie Sheen used yoga and dieting to shed 30 lbs. Add at least two Sex in the City vamps, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kristin Davis. All three Dixie Chicks. Sports stars from basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Yankee pitcher Orlando (El Duque) Hernandez are devotees. And speaking of athletes, who showed up the other day at Turlington’s lower Manhattan haunt, the Jivamukti Yoga Center? Monica Lewinsky. Where there’s a yoga blitz, there must be yoga biz. To dress for a class, you need only some old, loose-fitting clothes — and since you perform barefoot, no fancy footwear. Yet Nike and J.Crew have developed exercise apparel, as has Turlington. For those who prefer stay-at-home yoga, the video-store racks groan with hot, moving tapes. The Living Yoga series of instructional videos taught by Yee and Patricia Walden occupies five of the top eight slots on Amazon’s vhs best-seller list. “Vogue and Self are putting out the message of yoginis as buff and perfect,” says Walden. “If you start doing yoga for those reasons, fine. Most people get beyond that and see that it’s much, much more.” By embodying the grace and strength of their system, Yee and Walden are its most charismatic proselytizers — new luminaries in the yoga firmament. “Madonna found it first, and I’m following in the footsteps of the stars,” groans Minneapolis attorney Patricia Bloodgood. “But I don’t think you should reject something just because it’s trendy.” Bloodgood had the bright idea to commandeer part of the lobby in the office building where she works for a Monday-evening yoga class. Yoginis can spend a weekend at (or devote their lives to) such retreats as Kripalu, where each year 20,000 visitors take part in programs ranging from “The Science of Pranayama and Bandha” to African-drum workshops and singles weekends. In L.A. they can mingle with the glamourati at Maha Yoga (where students bend to the strains of the Beatles’ Baby You’re a Rich Man) or Golden Bridge (where celebrity moms take prenatal yoga classes). Yoga is where you find it and how you want it, from Big Time to small town. In the Texas town of Odessa, Therese Archer’s Body & Soul Center for Well-Being has 15 dedicated students, including an 18-wheeler diesel mechanic who drives 50 miles from Andrews, Texas, to attend classes. “He is very West Texas,” Archer says, “and I thought he would flip when he saw what we did.” Yet in eight months the mechanic has sweated his way up from beginning to advanced work. At the 8 Count exercise studio in Monticello, Ga., Suzanne McGinnis runs a “yoga cardio class” that mixes postures with push-ups, all to the disco beat of tunes like Leo Sayer’s You Make Me Feel Like Dancin’. As yoga classes go, this is not an arduous one, but the students don’t know that. They grunt and groan exultantly with each stretch, and are happy to relax when McGinnis stops to check her teaching aids: torn-out magazine pages and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Yoga. So yoga can be fun or be made fun of; it can help you look marvelous or feel marvelous. These aspects are not insignificant. They demonstrate the roots yoga has dug into America’s cultural soil — deep enough for open-minded researchers to consider how it might bloom into a therapy to treat or prevent disease. The sensible practice of yoga does more than slap a Happy Face on your cerebrum. It can also massage the lymph system, says Dr. Mehmet Oz, a cardiac surgeon at New York Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. Lymph is the body’s dirty dishwater; a network of lymphatic vessels and storage sacs crisscross over the entire body, in parallel with the blood supply, carrying a fluid composed of infection-fighting white blood cells and the waste products of cellular activity. Exercise in general activates the flow of lymph through the body, speeding up the filtering process; but yoga in particular promotes the draining of the lymph. Certain yoga poses stretch muscles that from animal studies are known to stimulate the lymph system. Researchers have documented the increased lymph flow when dogs’ paws are stretched in a position similar to the yoga “downward-facing dog.” Yoga relaxes you and, by relaxing, heals. At least that’s the theory. “The autonomic nervous system,” explains Kripalu’s Faulds, “is divided into the sympathetic system, which is often identified with the fight-or-flight response, and the parasympathetic, which is identified with what’s been called the Relaxation Response. When you do yoga — the deep breathing, the stretching, the movements that release muscle tension, the relaxed focus on being present in your body — you initiate a process that turns the fight-or-flight system off and the Relaxation Response on. That has a dramatic effect on the body. The heartbeat slows, respiration decreases, blood pressure decreases. The body seizes this chance to turn on the healing mechanisms.” But the process isn’t automatic. Especially in their first sessions, yoga students may have trouble suppressing those competitive beta waves. We want to better ourselves, but also to do better than others; we force ourselves into the gym-rat race. “Genuine Hatha yoga is a balance of trying and relaxing,” says Dr. Timothy McCall, an internist and the author of Examining Your Doctor: A Patient’s Guide to Avoiding Harmful Medical Care. “But a lot of gym yoga is about who can do this really difficult contortion to display to everyone else in the class.” The workout warriors have to realize that yoga is more an Athenian endeavor than a Spartan one. You don’t win by punishing your body. You convince it, seduce it, talk it down from the ledge of ambition and anxiety. Yoga is not a struggle but a surrender. It may take a while for the enlightenment bulb to switch on — for you to get the truth of the yoga maxim that what you can do is what you should do. But when it happens, it’s an epiphany, like suddenly knowing, in your bones and your dreams, the foreign language you’ve been studying for months. In yoga, this is your mind-body language. In daily life, that gym-rat pressure is even more intense: our jobs, our marriages, our lives are at stake. Says McCall: “We know that a high percentage of the maladies that people suffer from have at least some component of stress in them, if they’re not overtly caused by stress. Stress causes a rise of blood pressure, the release of catecholamines (neurotransmitters and hormones that regulate many of the body’s metabolic processes). We know that when catecholamine levels are high, there tends to be more platelet aggregation, which makes a heart attack more likely.” So instead of a drug, say devotees, prescribe yoga. “All the drugs we give people have side effects,” McCall says. “Well, yoga has side effects too: better strength, better balance, peace of mind, stronger bones, cardiovascular conditioning, lots of stuff. Here is a natural health system that, once you learn the basics, you can do at home for free with very little equipment and that could help you avoid expensive, invasive surgical and pharmacological interventions. I think this is going to be a big thing.” McCall, it should be said, is a true believer who teaches at the B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga Center in Boston. But more mainstream physicians seem ready to agree. At New York Presbyterian, all heart patients undergoing cardiac procedures are offered massages and yoga during recovery. At Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, cardiac doctors suggest that their patients enroll in the hospital’s Preventive and Rehabilitative Cardiac Center, which offers yoga, among other therapies. “While we haven’t tested yoga as a stand-alone therapy,” says Dr. Noel Bairey Merz, the center’s director, patients opting for yoga do show “tremendous benefits.” These include lower cholesterol levels and blood pressure, increased cardiovascular circulation and, as the Ornish study showed, reversal of artery blockage in some cases. Yoga may help post-menopausal women. Practitioners at Boston’s Mind-Body Institute have incorporated forward-bending poses that massage the organs in the neuroendocrine axis (the line of glands that include the pituitary, hypothalamus, thyroid and adrenals) to bring into balance whatever hormones are askew, thus alleviating the insomnia and mood swings that often accompany menopause. The program is not recommended as a substitute for hormone-replacement therapy, only as an adjunct. Some physicians wonder why it would be tried at all. “Theoretically, if you pressed hard enough on the thyroid, you possibly could affect secretion,” says Dr. Yank Coble, an endocrinologist at the University of Florida. “But it’s pretty rare. And the adrenal glands are carefully protected above the kidneys deep inside the body. To my knowledge, there is no evidence that you can manipulate the adrenals with body positions. That’d be a new one.”

       

The practice of yoga was developed by an Indian Hindu by the name of Patanjali way back in the year 300. The word itself means discipline and the whole purpose of yoga is to stretch the muscles, increase the levels of concentration and to strengthen the body in general. It is also a great way to relax and de-stress your body.

There is little wonder that such an ancient form of discipline has turned out to be so popular amongst athletes and modern day entertainers. However, yoga can be practiced by anyone as an occasional simple exercise routine or on a regular basis as a total way of life.

The people who take part in yoga are known as yogis and many of them use this form of discipline to reach a high level of consciousness. They respect the fact that there are certain things they should not be or do such as being greedy, hurting others, lying and stealing and they adhere to things they should do like being clean, feeling content each day, having self control, and leading a studious and devoted lifestyle.

Yogis train themselves how to have physical control over their bodies by taking full and deep breaths. This is considered by them to be a life force and they count their lifespan in the amount of breaths taken and not in the years of their age.

Yoga is different from other exercises as it assists the body to become more flexible as well as improving ones strength. Due to this, some of the yoga exercises and positions known as asanas can look a little strange. You may feel at first that you need to be some kind of contortionist to perform the exercises, but this is not case - you just need to completely relax. Yoga allows you to ease into the stretches gently and you are not required to force yourself into any position. The regularly used expression no pain no gain simply does not apply when practicing yoga. You simply do the best you can at the time and at some point in the future you will find yourself doing more.

Balance is demanded by all yoga positions and as you are unlikely to be able to get this right when thinking about whatever it was you watched on TV last night, you need to learn how to concentrate on what you are doing. Once you have perfected this art, you will discover that you can concentrate on other things much better too.

You will find yoga exercises copy nature and many yoga poses outline the shape of creatures such as the cat, cobra, crab, dog, eagle and tortoise.

For instance, in the cobra pose, you would ask yourself just what it would feel like to actually be a cobra. You lie on flat on your stomach with your forehead resting on the floor and as you breathe in, slowly roll your head backwards whilst supporting your body with your hands. Keep that position and then come back down slowly, all the time moving as a snake would do.

All yoga exercises have been carefully thought out to encourage serenity and strength and every move affects a gland, a muscle or a nerve center.

With yoga you can choose to perform particular exercises to get rid of certain types of back pain or leg pain experienced from jogging. You can also use yoga as preparation for a skiing trip or even to help you overcome your feelings of fear or depression.

The many asanas of yoga, how to do them and the way in which they can work for you can be found in any good yoga book. Do you remember doing handstands and cartwheels in the past? There you go - you may well have already done some yoga without ever even knowing it!
Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of  My-Personal-Growth.com, a site that provides information and articles for self improvement and personal growth and development.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kevin_Sinclair

       

Yoga for Stress Relief:

Dating back over 5000 years, yoga is the oldest defined practice of self development. The methods of classical yoga include ethical disciplines, physical postures, breathing control and meditation. Traditionally an Eastern practice, it’s now becoming popular in the West. In fact, many companies, especially in Britain, are seeing the benefit of yoga, recognizing that relaxed workers are healthier and more creative, and are sponsoring yoga fitness programs.

Overview of Yoga:

Many of the popular techniques found to reduce stress derive from yoga:

• controlled breathing
• meditation
• physical movement
• mental imagery
• stretching

Yoga, which derives its name from the word, “yoke”—to bring together—does just that, bringing together the mind, body and spirit. But whether you use yoga for spiritual transformation or for stress management and physical well-being, the benefits are numerous.

Yoga’s Effects On the Body:

The following is only a partial list of yoga’s benefits:

• reduced stress
• sound sleep
• reduced cortisol levels
• improvement of many medical conditions
• allergy and asthma symptom relief
• lower blood pressure
• smoking cessation help
• lower heart rate
• spiritual growth
• sense of well-being
• reduced anxiety and muscle tension
• increased strength and flexibility
• slowed aging process

Yoga’s benefits are so numerous, it gives a high payoff for the amount of effort involved.

What’s Involved With Yoga?:

The practice of yoga involves stretching the body and forming different poses, while keeping breathing slow and controlled. The body becomes relaxed and energized at the same time. There are various styles of yoga, some moving through the poses more quickly, almost like an aerobic workout, and other styles relaxing deeply into each pose. Some have a more spiritual angle, while others are used purely as a form of exercise.

What Are The Benefits Of Yoga?:

Virtually everyone can see physical benefits from yoga, and its practice can also give psychological benefits, such as stress reduction and a sense of well-being, and spiritual benefits, such as a feeling of connectedness with God or Spirit, or a feeling of transcendence. Certain poses can be done just about anywhere and a yoga program can go for hours or minutes, depending on one’s schedule.

What Are the Drawbacks of Yoga?:

Yoga does require some commitment of time and is more difficult for people with certain physical limitations. Some people feel self-conscious doing some of the poses. Also, yoga classes can be expensive, although it is possible, albeit perhaps more challenging, to learn from a book or video.

How Does It Compare To Other Stress Reduction Methods?:

As yoga combines several techniques used for stress reduction, it can be said to provide the combined benefits of breathing exercises, stretching exercises, fitness programs, meditation practice, and guided imagery, in one technique. However, for those with great physical limitations, simple breathing exercises, meditation or guided imagery might be a preferable option and provide similar benefits. Yoga also requires more effort and commitment than taking pills or herbs for stress reduction