Yoga for beginners: 7 poses even newbies can do

Image: Yoga for beginners: 7 poses even newbies can do
Source: NaturalNews.com
Frances Bloomfield
April 17, 2017

The idea of doing those complicated yoga poses during a class can be a scary thought. If you’ve witnessed seasoned yoga practitioners effortlessly pull off the elephant’s trunk or the scorpion, then you might even reconsider a new exercise regiment. Push those niggling doubts aside and just set down your yoga mat. Everyone has to start from somewhere, and you can start off with these beginner yoga poses recommended by the DailyBurn.com.

Before attempting any of these poses, remember to do some stretches first. Preparing your muscles for what’s coming ahead will keep them in good shape during your entire yoga workout. Don’t risk pulling a hamstring by accident. Stretch beforehand.

Tadasana (Mountain Pose)

Stand tall with your feet together and arms at your sides. Ground your feet, straighten your legs, and tuck in your tailbone. Take a deep breath, elongate your torso, and raise your arms, reaching for the ceiling with your fingertips. Straighten your arms as your palms face each other. Exhale and gently lower your arms back to your sides.

Balasana (Child’s Pose)

Assume a kneeling position, tucking your toes under you and sitting on your heels. Exhale and bring down your upper body, extending and stretching your arms forward. Your forehead should be resting on the mat and your stomach should be settled on your thighs. To come back up, lengthen your torso, then inhale and lift from your tailbone.

Marjaryasana to Bitilasana (Cat/Cow Pose)

Place your hands and knees on the floor, making sure that your spine is neutral, and that your abs are engaged. Inhale and, as you exhale, round up your spine and tuck your chin. As you inhale once again, relax your abs and arch your back, lifting your head and tailbone upwards.

Adho Mukha Svanansana (Downward Facing Dog)

Begin on all fours with your hands directly under your shoulders and knees under your hips. Spread your fingers and press your palms into the mat as you move your hands forward. Press your hips towards the ceiling and move your chest towards your legs, turning your body into an inverted V-shape. Remember to keep your feet hip-width apart

Virabhadrasana I (Warrior I)

From the mountain pose, exhale, and step your left foot back four feet so that you’re in a lunging position. Raise your arms until they’re aligned with your ears and then turn your left foot 90 degrees towards the left wall. Breathe deeply and then slide down, keeping your hips square as you do so.

Virabhadrasana II (Warrior II)

Again, begin in the mountain pose and then move your left foot back as you exhale. Turn your back foot 90 degrees. Lift up both of your arms until they’re at the same height as your shoulders, keeping them parallel to the floor. Bend your front knee over your ankle and sink your hips. Line up your eyes with your front-facing arm and look forward.

Shavsana (Corpse Pose)

Lie down, bring legs apart and your arms to your sides while keeping your palms facing upwards. Relax your entire body, including your face. Breathe slowly and gently.

If you’re looking for an exercise that can help you shed pounds and relax you, then you can’t go wrong with yoga. ArtofLiving.org says that doing yoga will allow you to enjoy a number of perks. From giving you a decent workout to boosting your metabolism to rejuvenating your mind, there’s so much this exercise can do for you. All you need is some loose, comfortable clothing, a great yoga mat, and determination to make the most of yoga.

Follow more news on the healing arts at HealingArts.news.

Sources:

DailyBurn.com

ArtofLiving.org

Read More At: NaturalNews.com

iHealth News: Pet Studies & Child Health | Yoga | Nutrition & More

Source: iHealthTube.com
April 14, 2017

Can you eat your way to a healthy blood pressure? Find out what foods can help. Also learn about the benefits of having a pet for your infant and what benefits yoga is now showing for a certain group of men!

New Study Shows Yoga Has Healing Powers

Student Nicola Protetch ( 17) does the bow posture with a smile as she takes part in a yoga class.
Source: Nationalgeographic.com
Susan Brink
February 8, 2014

The more we learn about yoga, the more we realize the benefits aren’t all in the minds of the 20 million or so devotees in the U.S. Yoga helps people to relax, making the heart rate go down, which is great for those with high blood pressure. The poses help increase flexibility and strength, bringing relief to back pain sufferers.

Now, in the largest study of yoga that used biological measures to assess results, it seems that those meditative sun salutations and downward dog poses can reduce inflammation, the body’s way of reacting to injury or irritation.

That’s important because inflammation is associated with chronic diseases including heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis. It’s also one of the reasons that cancer survivors commonly feel fatigue for months, even years, following treatment.

Researchers looked at 200 breast cancer survivors who had not practiced yoga before. Half the group continued to ignore yoga, while the other half received twice-weekly, 90-minute classes for 12 weeks, with take-home DVDs and encouragement to practice at home.

According to the study, which was led by Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, professor of psychiatry and psychology at Ohio State University, and published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the group that had practiced yoga reported less fatigue and higher levels of vitality three months after treatment had ended.

Laboratory Proof

But the study didn’t rely only on self-reports. Kiecolt-Glaser’s husband and research partner, Ronald Glaser of the university’s department of molecular virology, immunology, and medical genetics, went for stronger, laboratory proof. He examined three cytokines, proteins in the blood that are markers for inflammation.

Blood tests before and after the trial showed that, after three months of yoga practice, all three markers for inflammation were lower by 10 to 15 percent. That part of the study offered some rare biological evidence of the benefits of yoga in a large trial that went beyond people’s own reports of how they feel.

No one knows exactly how yoga might reduce inflammation in breast cancer survivors, but Kiecolt-Glaser lays out some research-based suggestions. Cancer treatment often leaves patients with high levels of stress and fatigue, and an inability to sleep well. “Poor sleep fuels fatigue, and fatigue fuels inflammation,” she says. Yoga has been shown to reduce stress and help people sleep better.

Other smaller studies have shown, by measuring biological markers, that expert yoga practitioners had lower inflammatory responses to stress than novice yoga practitioners did; that yoga reduces inflammation in heart failure patients; and that yoga can improve crucial levels of glucose and insulin in patients with diabetes.

Yoga for Other Stresses

Cancer is an obvious cause of stress, but recent research has pointed to another contributing factor: living in poverty. Maryanna Klatt, an associate professor of clinical family medicine at Ohio State University, has taken yoga into the classrooms of disadvantaged children. In research that has not yet been published, she found that 160 third graders in low-income areas who practiced yoga with their teacher had self-reported improvements in attention.

“Their teachers liked doing it right before math, because then the kids focused better on the math work,” she says. “Telling a kid to sit down and be quiet doesn’t make sense. Have them get up and move.”

While it would be too complicated and intrusive to measure biological responses to yoga in schoolchildren, Klatt has done similar research on surgical nurses, who are under the daily stress of watching suffering and death. She said she found a 40 percent reduction in their salivary alpha amylase, a measure of the fight-or-flight response to stress.

And she’s about to begin teaching yoga to garbage collectors in the city of Columbus before they head out on their morning shift. At the moment, her arrangement with the city is not part of a study. She just hopes to make their lives less stressful. And she does not plan to check their inflammatory response, though she admits she’d love to.

Read More At: NationalGeographic.com

15 minute Beginner Yoga Workout Routine

Source: SarahBethYoga
March 17, 2017

Get on your mat for this simple beginner yoga routine to build core & upper body strength while gaining familiarity with basic Power Yoga poses. Practice 3x/week until you feel comfortable in the sequence then move on to a video in the Power Yoga Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…