How Does Yoga Practice Help in Day to Day Life? By Namit Kathoria

Yoga as a regular practice helps in daily life as it brings balance, relaxation, discipline, health, happiness and a sense of peace to our lives. The understanding of yoga philosophy also helps in making relationships stronger as the philosophy talks a lot about union and connecting with people. It talks about humility and letting go of the ego.This paves the way for the forging of strong relationships.

Practising yoga brings balance into our lives. Yoga helps us to bring balance between ida and pingala nadis which are energy channels that run through the left and right sides of the body symmetrically.This sense of balance is brought about through balancing postures, pranayama or breathing techniques (specifically a technique called anuloma viloma breathing which encourages equal balance between ida and pingala nadis) and meditation. Balancing postures such as garudasana or bakasana help you focus on ajna chakra (an energy point located at the forehead specific to balance between our left and right sides) and hence bring balance into your everyday life.

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Yoga brings relaxation into our lives. Yoga helps us work the parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nervous system slows down your heart rate, reduces the force with which your heart beats at and reduces the force of contraction of your heart. All of this helps to relax you. Yoga also helps by relaxing muscles especially is asana (physical) practice. When we are tense in our minds then we also tense muscles in our bodies. However, in yoga we stretch muscles and hence relax them. This sends a signal to the brain that the muscles are being relaxed and this causes the mind to relax. Yoga helps as well through silencing the mind in meditation and through slowing down the breath and heart rate through pranayama (breath control) techniques.

Yoga gives you discipline as it requires you to practice regularly in terms of physical practice, meditation and breathing techniques. Through regular practice, benefit is achieved and this encourages you to use discipline in other areas of your life. Another aspect of discipline in yoga is that the philosophy of yoga teaches one to regularly check the mind for 'citta vriddhis' or waste thoughts so that you regularly make sure your thoughts are positive and calm. This is the true practice of yoga and also the important discipline of being a yogi (a practitioner of yoga).

Yoga helps you remain healthy. Yoga practice helps lower blood pressure, improves blood circulation, strengthens muscles and it helps with insomnia (through relaxation). Learning yoga philosophy teaches you about good diet, especially in terms of the sattvic diet. You learn to eat food which is better for you when you practice yoga. For example you naturally drift towards more organic, wholemeal and less fatty food as part of a more healthy lifestyle. You also eat more fruit and vegetables and so allow more vitamins and minerals to enter into your body.

Yoga helps you to feel happier. This is partly as yoga practice involves exercise. The practice of vinyasas (movement from one posture to another) like other forms of cardiovascular exercise helps the body to release endorphins which are chemicals that work to make one happy. But it is not just the physical practice of yoga that helps you feel happy, the philosophy of yoga teaches one to control the mind so that thoughts are purer, more benevolent, directed towards a better karma and ultimately to bring one to one's natural state of bliss.

Yoga helps bring a sense of peace to your inner self. Meditation as part of yoga practice brings you peace. The sense of balance you achieve from yoga brings you peace. Focusing on the breath during physical asana practice brings clarity to the mind and hence brings you peace too. Contemplation on the philosophical ideal in yoga that your natural state is peace brings you closer to your true self.

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Yoga helps you in your relationships as well. Yoga teaches you to let go of ahamkara or the individual ego. This allows you to connect better with others, to relate better to others and to form 'yoga' or union with the world around you.

A chakra is an energy point within the body in yoga. Working on the throat chakra (vishuddhi chakra is sanskrit) with yoga postures related to this chakra such as shoulder stand (sarvangasana), plough (halasana) or bridge pose (setu bandhasana) allow you to communicate better with others and hence also help you develop your relationships. Meditation or contemplation on vishuddhi chakra also helps you to do this.

Opening up manipura chakra (which means gem city and is located at your solar plexus) in postures such as virabhadrasana (warrior pose) allows courage to develop.

Inversions such as downward dog (adho mukha svanasana) or headstand (sirsasana) help you to develop your sahasrara (your seventh chakra) and hence develop your higher self. This helps you develop peace within and hence live life in a more peaceful way.

It can hence be seen that yoga helps in many areas in everyday life leading to more happiness, health and inner peace.

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Home Yoga Workouts Help Reduce A Mom's Stress By Pascale Vandenbroucke

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If you are like many moms, your day never seems to be over. When your stress levels are climbing and you just can't seem to catch a break, try turning to a few calming exercise videos. Exercise gets your blood pumping and puts your muscles to good use, allowing your body and mind to focus on something other than the stressful situations that are getting you down.

Yoga is ideal for exercising at home because it requires little to no specialized equipment, there are plenty of online exercise videos with dozens of different moves to try, and can be done in almost any room. The beauty of yoga routines is that they can be as long or as short as you need them to be, and many exercise videos feature combinations of moves that work specific areas of the body which is something many women appreciate. By combining any of the following moves you can easily devise your own home yoga workouts! Simply select a move / pose, hold it for about 10 seconds, and release. You can then begin your next move or end your workout, it's entirely up to you!

Five yoga poses to help reduce a mom's stress

1) The Arms Overhead Position - Sit or kneel on the floor. Next, slowly lift your arms over your head and lace your fingers together once your arms are fully extended. For maximum benefit, try to keep your spine as straight as possible.

2) The Arms in Front Position - Similar to the Arms Overhead position, make sure that you are seated or kneeling with your arms fully extended and your fingers laced together. Instead of having your arms extended above your head however, in this position you should lean forward, gently rounding your spine. You should feel the muscles between your shoulder blades working with this one!

3) The Reclining Cobbler Position - Find a small cushion or roll up a throw blanket for use with this position. Lay back with your cushion / blanket positioned vertically, supporting your head and shoulders. Put your feet together with the soles touching and try to touch the floor with your knees.

4) The Child's Position - Kneel down and rest with your bottom against your heels. Slowly lean forward until your forearms are resting on the floor. Elongate your neck, take a deep breath, and exhale. You can use your cushion / blanket roll to support your upper body during this exercise if needed.

5) The Supported Bridge Position - Place your cushion / blanket on the floor and lay down on top of it with it supporting your hips. Arch your back gently, feeling the muscles in your hips and abdomen engage. Hold this position as long as you can, and then relax.

You can find moves like these and many more in the wide variety of exercise videos that are available online! Even the busiest of moms will be able to appreciate the stress-reducing properties of a relaxing yoga workout at home.

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