Yoga

The age-old set of exercises known in the west as "yoga" offers a significant variety of proven health benefits. It increases the efficiency of the heart and slows the respiratory rate, improves fitness, lowers blood pressure, promotes relaxation, reduces stress and allays anxiety. It also serves to improve coordination, posture, flexibility, range of motion, concentration, sleep and digestion. It can also be used as supplementary therapy for conditions as diverse as cancer, diabetes, arthritis, asthma, migraine etc., and help to combat addictions such as smoking. It is not, in itself, a cure for any medical ailment.

Although the yoga we know today is practiced mainly for its health benefits, it is rooted in Hindu religious principles some 5,000 years old. Derived from the Sanskrit word for "union", the term yoga refers to far more than exercise. In fact, it encompasses a variety of disciplines designed to ultimately bring its practitioners closer to God. Dynana yoga for instance, seeks reunion through meditation, while Jnana yoga entails the study of scriptures and Karma yoga calls for selfless service to God and mankind.

The exercises we now call simply "yoga" are actually Hatha yoga, a discipline intended to prepare the body for the pursuit of union with the divine while raising the practitioners awareness of creation to a higher, keener state. Through controlled breathing, prescribed postures (called asanas), and meditation, hatha yoga seeks to enhance prana, or life force, that resides in the body and achieve a state of balance and harmony between body and mind. Each of these three disciplines contributes to the search for union in its own way.

Breathing: The life force prana is believed to enter the body through the breath, and much of hatha yoga is concerned with helping you to control your breathing properly. Shallow, hurried breathing is believed to inhibit the life force, and affect mind and body adversely. Deep, slow breathing is encouraged.

Postures: Some yoga postures are intended to stretch and strengthen muscles, other to improve posture and work the skeletal system, while others aim to compress and relax the organs and nerves. The underlying purpose is to perfect the body, making it a worthy host for the soul.

Meditation: Meditation supplements and reinforces the disciplines of hatha yoga, focusing the mind and relaxing the body. Closely linked with focused breathing, it aims to produce a quiet, calm frame of mind. Many people find that it reduces stress and increases energy. The interplay of this and other two facets of hatha yoga, and the quiet, considered repetition of each, is considered key to achieving yoga's benefits.

Despite its use of physical exercises, yoga is perhaps most closely related to the mind-body family of therapies, which includes meditation and biofeedback. Research shows that, like other mind-body practice, yoga produces measurable physiological changes in the body, including a decrease in the respiratory rate and blood pressure, and an alteration in brain-wave activity reflecting increased relaxation. Yoga has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety, both immediately and over time, and is often recommended to relieve the pain and anxiety of chronic illness. When practiced regularly, it promotes relaxation and enhances the sense of well-being. It also improves physical fitness and circulation and some advocates say it improves memory. When combined with a low-fat diet and moderate aerobic exercise, it has been found to reverse the build-up of plague in the coronary arteries - and the most practiced, the greater the improvement.

Although yoga's effects are unquestionable, scientists still don't know exactly how it produces them. Some speculate that, like other mind-body therapies, it works largely by relieving stress. Others suggest that it promotes the release of endorphins, the brain's natural pain killers. The office of alternative medicine at the National Institutes of Health has several studies underway to clarify this matter. In the meantime, yoga continues to be practiced by some millions of people around the world.

Tai Chi

Tai Chi means “the supreme ultimate” and Chuan means, “fist” so Tai Chi Chuan is in fact a martial art despite it’s reputation for just being a gentle meditative exercise. When practiced as a martial art Tai Chi is both effective and powerful (but this takes a lot of practise to even glimpse especially when you learn that in Tai Chi, the main focus is to use the power of the mind in unison with the energy and power of the body to release force in whatever direction you want).

The benefits of Tai Chi are immense and include improved co-ordination, circulation, posture, balance and well-being. Because tai chi is practised slowly and with a relaxed focus the nervous system becomes calmer and so do you. This meditative effect gives you a clearer perspective mentally and in today’s fast and hectic world this can only be a huge resource. In fact the stress relieving attributes are one of the main reasons why people start Tai Chi as it gives them a calm mind and real sense of physical emotional and spiritual health.

Tai Chi started a long time ago so it’s had time to develop and evolve into what we see today. This slow process of change which has happened to tai chi over the centuries is mirrored in the way tai chi is practised i.e. at a meditative pace with no rush to complete it’s intricate and engrossing movements. The softness and flow of tai chi make you relax (you just can’t help it!) but it’s a rejuvenating kind of relaxation. At the end of a Tai Chi class people are buzzing with Qi (life-force), as the practice encourages your energy to flow and tension and blockages just seem to dissolve away. It all sounds very blissful and beautiful, which it is but you do have to put a little effort in to get the results. It’s hard to get your head around that something so graceful and elegant can be used for self defence too, but then again there is an old Chinese saying that ‘the best fighters never fight’ i.e. if you have no enemies internally or externally then there is no need for conflict. The philosophy behind Tai Chi (Taoism) is really useful too and includes the theory that if you fight force with force any conflict will get worse. It teaches yielding and flexibility to overcome any situation. This can diffuse a situation leaving room for negotiation and dialogue. When you take something like that into your daily life then you have gained a distinct advantage. Yielding encourages listening and when you listen you gain more information and it is easier to see where someone is coming from. In the workplace such a strategy would create less stress for everyone!

Part of the physiological aspect of tai chi includes the effect it has on our brain, our lymphatic system and our joints. Recent neurological research has found that tai chi practice encourages the brain to perform more effectively. This is partly due to the brain receiving more oxygenated blood (as the breathing technique in tai chi improves lung capacity and elasticity) but also because the meditative, calming effect of tai chi changes the brains frequency from beta (active normal waking waves) to alpha (receptive between sleep and awake waves which are related to improved ability to learn and remember). The lymphatic system is partly responsible for detoxifying the blood and is stimulated by the gentle muscular work in tai chi. The soft relaxed movements of Tai Chi massage the lymph nodes improving their function and boosting the immune system. The joints of the body are often where aches and pains first creep in so maintaining healthy active joints is important at any age. Because the load bearing joints of the body are kept in strong alignment throughout Tai Chi and are never abused nor greatly impacted upon, their health and function is protected whilst the circulation of blood in and around the joints is increased. Cellular zeolite | BPO India | Order Taking Services | Rajasthan Travel Operators | Gemstone Beads Traders

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