Health

Meditation & Yoga

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Meditation and yoga go hand-in-hand. With meditation, you are able to reduce stress levels significantly while also reducing blood pressure and stabilizing the heart. In addition, meditation can boost your immune system!

When you meditate, you are able to free your mind of all the daily clutter. You’ll lower stress levels, release anxiety and reset your brain with deep breathing exercises.

The first step is learn how to pull yourself from a state of total consciousness to one of a meditative state designed to calm, restore and heal.

Here are a few tips to help you incorporate meditation into your yoga routine:

1: Set aside some quiet time each day in order to practice. The more often you meditate, the easier it will be to get yourself into a state of complete relaxation faster.

2: Make sure you are sitting in a comfortable position and focus on a fixed point, or you can close your eyes.

3: Concentrate on your breathing as well as the present moment. If you find your mind wandering, return to focusing on your breathing, inhaling and exhaling slowly and evenly.

4: Hold this concentrated state for a few minutes at a time, practicing 5-10 minutes a day.

5: Gradually integrate meditation into your yoga routine but don’t rush things along! Make sure you have meditation down and are comfortable getting into this state before you begin to include it in your yoga sessions.

Interesting Books

Fat Burning with Yoga

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When you think about weight loss, chances are yoga isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.

After all, it certainly doesn’t feel like you’re doing the same high-intensity training as you would with a cardio or weight-lifting workout, right?

But the truth is, yoga can play an integral part in your ability to shed fat a number of different ways,
including:

Boosting Metabolism, Which in turn will help you burn more calories.

Strengthen Your Core, Yoga will not only help you to strengthen your core but will help improve your posture. Both of these things will help you complete workout routines properly.

Helps You Maintain a Healthy Diet Since yoga is effective at helping you manage stress-eating, you’ll be able to stay on track with your diet. And much more.

Here’s a powerful pose to help you get started:

Upward Plank Pose

Step 1: Begin by sitting with your hands placed a few inches behind your hips with your fingers pointing forward.

Step 2: Bend your knees and place your feet flat on the floor, big toes turned inward and heels placed at least a foot away from your buttocks.

Step 3: Begin with a deep exhale, then press your inner feet and hands down against the floor.

Step 4: Lift your hips until you come into a reverse tabletop position, with your thighs and torso parallel to the floor. 


Next we’ll take a quick look at 2 other poses that you should work towards incorporating into your daily routine in order to boost energy and peace of mind.

Interesting Books

Increasing Flexibility Easily

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You might be wondering why you should even want to increase your flexibility. After all, it’s not something we typically think of in regards to our overall health and well-being.

However, your flexibility plays a major role in many aspects of living a healthy lifestyle, including your ability to complete exercise routines properly.

Increasing your flexibility will also help you avoid back and shoulder pain while improving the overall health of your joints and muscles.

In Yoga, it’s not always about doing the pose perfectly but rather feeling the stretch and your flexibility plays a huge part in that.

Here are a couple easy poses to help you get started:

Standing Forward Fold

This pose will stretch your hamstrings as well as your lower back. Try holding it for 30-50 seconds at a time.

Step 1: Begin by standing with your feet shoulder-width apart with your knees slightly bent.

Step 2: Slowly lower your upper body so that it hangs all the way forward, dropping your arms to the floor. Try to touch the floor with either your fingertips or the palms of your hands.

Step 3: Hold for 30-50 seconds and release.

You can enhance this pose by opening your shoulders.

Here’s how to do that:

Follow steps 1-3 above, but interlace your fingers together behind your lower back and bring your arms over your head
towards the floor in front of you as far as you are comfortable with. Make sure you move your shoulders away from your ears, spreading them out and stretching those muscles. 

And yet another way to increase flexibility through yoga is with the downward dog. Chances are you’ve heard of this
pose as it’s one of the most common ones done by both beginners and seasoned yoga enthusiasts.

Here’s the right way to complete the Downward Facing Dog:

Step 1:  Start with your hands and knees on the floor in a comfortable position with your buttocks pointed out and
slightly up.  

Step 2: Next, place your knees directly below your hips and your hands slightly forward (towards your shoulders). 

Spread the palms of your hands out on the floor and turn your toes under. 

Step 3: Lift your knees up by curling your toes under as you move. Straighten your knees, draw your thighs back and lift
your legs higher. Reach your heels down. 

Step 4:  Hold this position ensuring that your arms are straight and your thighs are pressed back, elongating your spine.
Breathe in deeply and smoothly.

Step 5: Lower your knees to the floor to release the position.

Next we’ll turn to a pose that will help you shed fat and tighten those abs. It’s one of my favorites.

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