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Tag: yoga

  • The Benefits of Yoga

    Yoga can be key to helping you recover from an injury, undo years of bad postural habits, or relieve your stress.

    Like few other exercises, yoga has the ability to get you focussing on breath, willing chronically tight muscles to loosen.  It creates a mind body awareness of how you are positioned and starts a dialogue between you and your body that will help you find physical cues of rising stress levels and enact change simply by thinking about it.

    This enhanced state relaxation is key to getting muscles to release.  One reason tight muscles stay tight is because of the pain-tension cycle.  Often there is nothing wrong with the muscle.  There is no damage, but the muscle simply won’t release because it is painful which is causing tightness, which causes more pain, which causes more tightness.  By destressing the person, focussing on the breathing, and entering certain positions, the pain-tension cycle can be broken and the muscle may find it easier to release.

    The positioning in yoga is unique and shows an ancient understanding of modern concepts such as anatomy trains.  Anatomy trains was pioneered by Tom Myers.  It shows that there are chains of fascial connections that link many muscles from the feet all the way to the head.  Basically, the fascia fascia on the soles of the feet is connected to the fascia of your calf muscles, which is connected to the fascia of your hamstrings, which is connected to the fascia of your glutes, which is connected to the fascia of the back’s erector muscles, which is connected to the fascia of the neck and head.  The advantage of yoga over traditional stretching is that traditional stretching focusses on stretching the fascia of one muscle at a time, while yoga stretches all the fascia of all the muscles in a given anatomy train at once.  This means that if a fascial restriction in your foot is leading to tightness in your lower back, yoga helps to address it.

    The yoga poses are also helpful because they are the opposite of the harmful postures we assume most of the day.  Daily work in front of your computer may cause you to slouch.  Yoga asks you to assume the opposite posture: chest open, shoulders back, head tall.  Daily work may have you sticking your gut out, while yoga asks you to suck in your belly and elongate your lower back while you tuck in your glutes.  By reversing the postures you can change what your body sees as normal and give your body time to repair itself.

    Yoga works.  Why not give it a try?

  • Yoga For Better Posture

    Even if you have had horrible posture for most of your life, you can still change it by taking the right steps today.  Yoga can be a valuable tool in correcting a long career of bad posture.  The following video shows a simple exercise that strengthens all of your erector muscles (the muscles that run beside your spine), interscapular muscles (the muscles that pull your shoulder blades together), and your lower trapezius muscles.  Strengthening these muscles can result in a straighter, stronger back, and a reduced slouch.

  • Change Your Life

    Arthur Boorman was a disabled veteran of the Gulf War for 15 years, and was told by his doctors that he would never be able to walk on his own, ever again.  Through persistence and hard work he achieved some remarkable results.  In less than a year, he lost 140 lbs.  He is now able to walk, run, do pushups, handstands and just about anything.

    Enjoy the video

     

  • Yoga Philosophy: Non-attachment, or ‘vairagya’.

    This guest post was written by Valerie Holland, a yoga teacher in Toronto.

    This column is to familiarize people with yoga philosophy translated into everyday language that can be applied to daily life.

    Today’s topic: Non-attachment, or ‘vairagya’.

    These days, in terms of the home, we hear a lot about de-cluttering, organizing, and minimizing. How does yogic thought look at this issue?
    Yoga advises that we should be satisfied with less material objects: to practice non-attachment or ‘vairagya’. This doesn’t mean that you don’t need to have some possessions. It means that you should be detached from them, that they mean less to you. It is the constant craving for possessions that feeds the ego, which can never be satisfied.

    To illustrate, if you have 20 t-shirts, you should narrow it down to 10, or even 15 to start. Why? Why do you need 20 t-shirts? Do you wear all of them? If you had less, you wouldn’t need to wash, dry, fold and organize them. Think of the time and space you could save. Now, the question arises: how do you dispose of them in a sattvic (pure, respectful) way? My suggestion is to lay all your t-shirts out and pick your favorite one. Keep it! Choose your next 5 favorites, and put them away. Now you have 6 t-shirts that you love, that fit you and that you feel good in and 14 t-shirts left on the bed. Some you like, some you know are not that great. Why are you keeping them? You are not responsible for those objects. You don’t need to take care of them anymore. Liberate yourself from them. Give some of them away to Goodwill or one of the many other charities, such as a group home for teenagers, or abused women’s shelter.

    What have you accomplished? Besides giving yourself more space (so chi can circulate) you have lessened your dependence on material objects that only serve to boost your ego. Happiness is never achieved through consumerism; it lies within. You have given generously to others who need it more and have begun to open the heart (Anahata) chakra.

    Think of the heart chakra as a many petalled lotus. When you give generously to others, without thought of reward, the petals begin to open and eventually all the petals open and the lotus turns upward. To have an open heart is key to happiness. While we are on this topic, how is your heart chakra? Close your eyes and focus on your heart. You know where it is. Take a deep breath. Think of a time when you were happy and carefree. (Notice that you will not visualize yourself surrounded by material goods such as cars, jewelry or furniture you will most likely be outside, on a beach, or in a garden.) Exhale. Charity is the perfect way to open your heart.

    It’s okay to enjoy material objects, but remain detached from them. Do not place too much importance on them. Do not depend on them for your happiness or self-worth. Happiness is inside of you. Think of other ways to spend money instead of shopping. Like paying off debt or even saving. Anybody maxed-out? Does the thought of owning your own home one day even seem possible? Do not despair. Take control. Exercise non-attachment. Stop buying and start letting go of your dependence on material objects. If you find you need some more t-shirts, there are some great ones at Goodwill!

    Guest Author Bio:

    Yogi Kamala has been teaching yoga at the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre at 77 Harbord St. in Toronto for ten years. She also does private lessons and teaches in schools and chiropractic centres. She is a yoga Acharya, which means Master of Yoga. Her studies include Vedanta, Raja yoga, meditation and chanting. She also dances and performs in community theatre.

    Namaste.

  • Laughter Yoga in Toronto

    What a great way to say good morning!!!   Imagine starting your day with 45 minutes of laughter in the glorious outdoors.  I just did, and I gotta say….. I feel fantastic.  The class was led by Lynn who has been teaching laughter yoga for years on the Danforth.  I have to admit, I was a bit apprehensive at first.  Enjoying a good laugh is one thing, but laughing for 45 minutes straight?  Sounds like too much of a good thing.  Also, we were smack dab in the middle of the park…. out in the open… for all to see.  A bit intimidating.  Luckily for me Lynn really knew what she was doing.  She led me through a few different exercises, role plays, and games that would bring about a whole new batch of laughter.  I was amazed when the class had ended because it felt like we were just beginning.  Each new round of laughter had me feeling lighter, invigorated, less stressed and freer.  It felt as if those mean tight muscles were letting go one by one.  At the end I noticed I felt perfectly comfortable sitting cross legged on the floor, which for me is really good.  Normally that position takes a lot of effort and concentration to maintain. 

    The laughter yoga class took place in Withrow Park at Danforth and Carlaw.  There are only 2 more classes left for the summer: Tuesday August 25 at 5:30pm and Friday August 28 at 8:30am.  This is your last chance of the year to get in on it.  The cost is free but donations are accepted.  If you miss your chance for the open air classes, you might want to check out her indoor classes which start in September.  For more information visit Lynn’s website at http://www.lynn.sites.toronto.com/.

  • Yoga for Pain Reduction

    Since becoming a massage therapist, I have quickly found the limits my body can go before it needs help. The work is tiring and physically demanding and burns out many RMT’s by the 5 year mark. This is why I religiously follow a program of postural awareness, stretching exercises, epsom salt baths, weight training and most important of all: yoga. Yoga has done wonders for helping me maintain my core strength and flexibility and decreasing lower back pain. I plan on writing more on these topics in the near future, but for now I’d like to give props to my yoga teacher, Julia. She can be found on her website: http://www.yoga-vibe.com/