Many of those who attend my morning yoga class in Bandra West report how after starting to attend class regularly, the quality of their sleep has improved. The positive impact of yoga on sleep is not just anecdotal, by the way. Several studies have demonstrated how to improve sleep with yoga. People with stress or sleep disturbances, and even those with insomnia have been seen...
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yoga benefits
What Are Heart Opening Yoga Poses? What Are Their Benefits?
We have all heard about the importance of ‘core fitness’, and about strengthening the body’s core. We know that this helps prevent pain and injuries and enhances endurance. Heart opening yoga poses or asanas can similarly help the body increase strength in the back, shoulders, and stabilising muscles. Let us look at the importance of this facet of yoga, as well as the yoga pos...
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Yoga for Bloating – Causes & How to Get Relief
Bloating literally means a feeling of being overly full or stretched. It is that feeling of pressure or tightness of the abdomen, sometimes a visibly swollen tummy. Bloating can be very uncomfortable, even painful. So why does bloating happen and what can you do about it? Can yoga help to reduce bloating and to prevent it?
Why does bloating happen?
There could be var...
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Benefits of Viparita Karani or Legs-Up-The-Wall Pose
We think of yoga as something active, where the body is in motion and we position the body and limbs in various different ways. While movement is a major part of yoga, there are certain positions that do not really need us to do anything active or move much. For instance, shavasana or the corpse pose requires no movements to be made, however, it has a host of benefits. Similar...
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How to Manage Stress Effectively with Yoga
Did you know stress produces mental as well as physical symptoms? Apart from the fact that stress makes us short tempered and irritable, it also causes muscle pain and tension, headaches, tiredness, indigestion and loss of libido. So, there are very good reasons for all of us to find ways to lower and remove stress from our lives. As a mind-body system of wellness, yoga is one...
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The Benefits of Utkatasan or Chair Pose
This is one of the deceptively simple poses of yoga – utkatasan or the chair pose. It looks simple to do but is much less so than it looks – it requires strength, stability and practice to do properly. It is also known to have a number of benefits. Let’s find out today how to perform this yoga pose and why:
How to perform Utkatasan
This pose belongs to the hatha yoga tra...
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Forward Bend Yoga Poses and Their Many Benefits
Today I would like to speak about forward bend yoga poses in general and one specific yoga pose – the uttanasana or the standing forward bend pose. This is a seemingly simple and very widely used pose; one that is routinely performed in numerous yoga classes around the world. However, the forward bend has many positive impacts – for the body as well as for the mind. So what is...
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Backbend Yoga Poses – Physical and Emotional Benefits
Yoga is something that one does with one’s body as well as one's mind. There is an emotional and spiritual component to the practice that some mistakenly think of as just a series of exercises. So, for instance, the shavasana or corpse pose is about relaxing completely physically and letting go, and surrendering in the emotional sense as well. The backbend yoga poses also have...
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What Is Fascia & What Does It Have To Do With Yoga?
Have you ever wondered why stretching one part of your body makes another part of the body feel better or experience relief? There is an entire branch of complementary medicine devoted to the way that some parts of the body correspond to others. Reflexology, for instance, applies pressure to specific points on the hands, feet and ears to relieve pain in other parts of the body...
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How Yoga Helps You ‘Lift Weights’
I sometimes hear people say that they go to the gym even though they have been practicing yoga. They believe that going to the gym where they can lift weights is necessary for resistance training. It may be news to some, but it is possible to perform yoga poses that effectively have the same impact on the body as weight training --- using little except the body’s own weight. Y...
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