Yoga Life Style

Yoga Life Style

Breathing During Yoga Poses

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Correct breathing is extremely vital for yoga poses. Synchronizing yoga movement with breath creates harmony in the body and mind. You need to develop an harmony in breathing. When you expand your body – you inflate the lungs and the diaphragm – you need to inhale and  when you contract your chest and diaphragm – you need … Read more

Six Posture Correction Yoga Poses

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How you look and feel is directly related to your posture. Despite the importance of having good posture, most of us don’t do anything to improve it. We go about our lives with forward head, curved backs and imbalanced hips, and deal with pain because we think it’s normal. If you haven’t been paying attention to … Read more

Yoga Poses to Boost Immune System

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Yoga poses work both at cellular and molecular levels to boost immunity system of our body. NF-kB system is the master regulator of our immunity. Yoga exercise inhibit NF-κB signaling at various control points to enhance immune system. Thymus gland is responsible for building strong immune system. Proper yoga exercises strengthen and stimulates the thymus activities. Dynamic yoga poses are the best way to improve immunity. Exactly how yoga poses and breathing exercises inhibit NF-KB activities and improve immunity is under scientific investigation. In this review we will focus on the yoga poses that have direct impact on immunobiology. Physical and mental stress increases the release of cortisol and adrenaline and decreases immune system’s ability to fight infection. However, moderate levels of yoga practices reduces the stress hormones and increases the immune system’s ability to fight against infections like cold and flu.Most of the decline in immune system function is a direct result of degradation of the thymus gland. The shrinking of the thymus gland with age, resulting in changes in the architecture of the thymus and a decrease in tissue mass. Thymus gland is the master of the hormones and the immunity booster. Yoga stimulates the thymus gland which builds immunity and massages the lungs, heart, bronchial tubes. Yoga practice can help our cells to fight against harmful microorganisms and viruses by boosting our immune system, reducing stress and strengthening our body functions and systems. Here are five user-friendly yoga poses to increase your immunity.

How to Increases the Volume of the Hippocampus

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Hippocampus volume loss is the most common problem among older adults. However, there are many ways that can increase the volume of the hippocampus. Scientific studies observed that yoga, aerobic exercise training is effective at reversing hippocampal volume loss in late adulthood. As we age, the ends of our chromosomes — called telomeres — become … Read more

Simple Yoga Exercises at Your Office Desk

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Human body is made to be in motion; not for seating eight hours a day. Long stretch of sitting on the computer damages the shoulder, neck and the back muscles. Yoga exercises in office improve productivity and prevent stress. Light yoga and stretching exercises are always a fun. Light yoga exercises tries to maintain our body moving while we are at our working table. It releases the tensions from the muscles and strengthens the joints.
Here I am discussing three of my most favorite stretching exercises that you can do at your office desk:
Relax your neck muscles. Join both the hands together, raise them upwards and place them behind your head. Push your head backward against your hands while pulling forward with your hands so your head does not move.

Yoga and Meditation to Improve Brain Fitness

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Brain Fitness and Yoga The more complex the yoga posture, the more complex the synaptic connections. Just as yoga postures and exercises reverse the decaying process of the muscles, almost in a similar way they slow or reverse the process of brain’s physical decay. Yoga influences the brain on numerous ways. Yoga postures releases a … Read more

Meditation and Yoga for Improving Emotional-Intelligence and Leadership Skills

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Meditation and Yoga has an important role for building emotional-intelligence and leadership skills for corporate people as well as for the individuals in every social endeavor. Meditation and yoga improves our alertness, personal values and beliefs. They help building strength, character, good relationships with others, our connection to the Nature and beyond. Emotional intelligence brings compassion, love, sharing, caring and humanity to the business and work areas. ..
Our self-control, attention, and memory are all reduced by the excessive and chronic release of adrenaline in the system. Excessive stress deprives the brain of the oxygen needed to keep our thinking calm and rational. Thus excessive stress reduces our emotional awareness. Hence, with chronic stress we can’t focus our attention and we lose our ability to identify our own emotions and those of others….

Yoga trains us to pay attention specifically to the feelings in the body during the movement. For effective emotional intelligence we need to bring our awareness first to the body and then to the mind. Yoga prepares us for building body-intelligence. Body-intelligence includes the successful processing and interpretation of information from all our senses and responses.

Meditation increases self-awareness. It helps us to breathe slowly, which keeps us relaxed and allow us to listen better. With the increase of self-awareness we manage our behavior and we don’t say things impulsively that will get us in difficulty.

Brain Fitness with Yoga and Meditation

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Yoga and meditation improves brain fitness at four levels. First, it helps to develop new stem cells in the hippocampus; second, it improves the optimal blood flow in the brain, which enhances the cerebral metabolism; third, it encourages nerve cells to bind to one another; and fourth, it enhances the production of BDNF which creates new neural pathways in the brain. It is observed that regular systematic mental challenge by novel stimuli increases production and inter-connectivity of neurons and nerve growth factor. It also prevents cell death and loss of connections between neurons. The brain is capable of producing new brain cells at any age. Hence considerable memory loss is not an obvious result of aging. But just as it is with muscle strength, you have to use it or lose it. Our lifestyle, health habits, and daily activities have a huge impact on the health of our brain. Independent of our age, there are several ways through which we can improve our cognitive skills, prevent memory loss, and protect our grey matter. Yoga influences the brain on numerous ways. Yoga postures releases a plethora of hormones, all of which participate in aiding and providing a nourishing environment for the growth of brain cells. Most yoga postures increases heart rate, which pumps more oxygen to the brain.

Your Health and Yoga Postures

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For a good health; Healthy Nervous system, Healthy Endocrine Glands and Healthy Digestive System is must. Spine and the brain is the key to health. Yoga is for developing Healthy Nervous system, Healthy Endocrine Glands and Healthy Digestive System. These three are very essential prerequisites for vitality and energy. You must follow the basic yoga guidelines.

Healthy Endocrine System

The most vital glands in the human body are the pituitary, pineal, thyroid, adrenal, pancreas and sex glands. The pituitary and pineal glands are situated in the brain, the thyroid is in the neck area, the adrenals and pancreas in the solar plexus area and the sex glands in the pelvic region. The function of these glands is to secrete powerful hormones which control your growth, weight and size. They also determine your metabolism, vitality,  and emotional stability. Since the pituitary and pineal glands are situated in the brain, the headstand has a powerful effect on them.

Thyroid gland problems are very common and often go undiagnosed until the symptoms are very obvious. The shoulder stand is specific for the thyroid gland and will prevent and help cure thyroid gland problems.

The hormones secreted by the sex glands are key for sparkling eyes, smooth skin and a warm personality. The reverse posture stimulates these glands and therefore the production of the hormones.

The adrenal glands produce a variety of hormones such as adrenaline and cortisone that are important in controlling your stress and immunity. The twist posture is a powerful stimulant to the adrenal glands, causing them to release extra energy to boost your vitality level.

The correct functioning of the pancreas is vital to our health. The pancreas, secretes two hormones, called insulin and glucogen, which help to balance the body’s sugar level. If the pancreas is not working properly, diabetes may develop. Diabetes is a serious disease, since complications such as blindness, heart attacks or strokes may occur. To help prevent diabetes, it is recommended that you follow the nutritional principles outlined here, especially by avoiding concentrated sugar foods.

Healthy Nervous System (Brain and Spine)

Nerves from the brain and spine go to every tissue in the body and therefore the health of every tissue in the body depends upon the health of the brain and spine.

Yoga poses like headstand causes an increase in circulation to the brain, which stimulates the brain’s nerve cells. This results in increased vitality and improved brain function (intelligence and memory). Since the nerves from the spine go to all the organs and glands of the body, a healthy spine obviously plays an important role in vitality and rejuvenation. In fact, the spine is more critical to our well-being than the brain, since the brain is well protected by the cranium or skull bone. Where the spinal nerves leave the spine and pass through the intervertebral foramina is a very vulnerable area. If a vertebra is slightly out of place, it may cause the nerve to be ‘pinched’ in the intervertebral foramina. The spinal nerves do not have protection against mechanical insults as the brain does.

The ancient yogis fully understood the vulnerability of the spine and the tendency for slight spinal misalignments to occur. They also knew that if the spine was kept flexible by yoga asanas there would be much less chance of spinal misalignments. Some of the asanas will even correct some minor misalignments.

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Yoga Postures Basic Rules

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The basic guidelines and the rules of yoga postures and asanas are discussed in detail. These rules are very easy to follow. These will help the beginners in doing yoga. If you have high blood pressure, dizziness, serious eye problems or other health problems take your doctor’s opinion before you start yoga practices. Specially, certain … Read more