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Yoga: An Ancient Practice to Relieve Contemporary Stress

By: Kim Archer Many of us in modern life today are under stress all time. However, we still have to stay in control. If this goes on for a long time, we can react to stress with poor eating habits, release of more stress hormones, and even by manifesting cardiac risk factors. However, there is a way to reduce these risk factors and even reverse them without turning to prescription drugs. All it takes is some discipline and to develop some habits over your lifetime that will work in tandem with your ordinary diet and exercise programs. Yoga is one of these; it can help you relearn the state of peace and harmony that you want your mind and body to be in. It will help you relax.

Yoga is one of the most prominent forms of meditative exercise within the growing mind-body health movement. Other forms include qigong, tai chi, and other exercise techniques that include meditation. Mind-body fitness comes from Eastern philosophies and religions. These practices improve both your emotional and physical well being.

The overall benefits of mind-body exercise are documented in an increasing number of scientific studies. They include everything from reducing cardiac risk factors to enhancing mood.

The kinder, gentler movements typical of yoga improve flexibility, strength and muscle tone and can be more youth-promoting than the wear-and-tear of daily aerobics, weights and running alone.

In fact, practicing yoga can impact every part of your existence. Most modern Western practitioners, for example, focus on the physical asanas, or positions. However, many others utilize yoga as a path to bliss and live their lives in its all-encompassing embrace.

Considering yoga's lofty goals, it's delightfully simple and can be done anywhere, anytime. Taken to its extreme, yoga encompasses everything from a moral code and dietary practices to deep meditation. Most commonly, though, it's a combination of asanas, meditation and pranayama (breathing exercises).

Entire books have been written on yoga breathing. Deep breathing is both calming and energizing. The energy you feel from a few minutes of careful breathing is not nervous or hyper, but that calm, steady energy we all need.

Try this 5-minute Breath Break to release your stress and pump up your energy. (Read through the instructions several times before you try the practice.)

1. Sit with your spine as straight as possible. Use a chair if necessary but don't slump into it. Feet flat on the floor with knees directly over the center of your feet. Use a book or cushion under your feet if they do not rest comfortably on the floor. Hands are on the tops of your legs.

2. Close your eyes gently and simply rest them, lids closed.

3. Think about your ribs, at the front, back, and at the sides of your body. Your lungs are behind those ribs.

4. Feel your lungs filling up, your ribs expanding out and up. Feel your lungs emptying, your ribs coming back down and in. Don't push the breath.

5. When you first do this, do it for two or three minutes. As you become more practiced, do it for 5 or 10 minutes. When you first begin, set aside a time once per day to do this. As you become more accustomed to it and realize how good it makes you feel, you'll want to practice it throughout your day at various times.

Article Source: http://www.lifeweightloss.com

Kim Archer writes about women's wellness. She is publisher of The Internet Spa, where you'll find up-to-date information to rejuvenate your mind, body and spirit.

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