Hatha Yoga and Health

Hatha Yoga can yield a vast array of benefits which vary based on breath exercises along with the poses practiced and the intensity, (measured by awareness, not sweat) duration and frequency of practice. Hatha Yoga places special focus on developing strength, endurance and correct body alignment in addition to flexibility, balance and relaxation.

Yoga directly benefits physical health such as digestion, tones the muscles of the heart as well as other vital organs, improves circulation, bad posture, breathing capacity, reduces stress, prevents osteoporosis, keeps muscles flexible and joints movable, stimulates glands and functioning of the immune system, and aides in prenatal and postnatal health.

Yoga Provides the Tools for Controlling Negative Thoughts

As for the mental and spiritual aspects, yoga can regulate your emotions and instill well-being, confidence and clear thinking. When practiced regularly, you will have more pleasant thoughts and fewer negative emotions. The real inner Self can be experienced through yoga, in which a person is: more real, more creative and spontaneous, more self-determined, selfless and relatively ego-less, more innocent and honest, and in touch with Truth and Divine Grace.

In contrast to conventional sports and physical training programs, yoga is the world's oldest holistic system of self-improvement and has been developed over thousands of years as a way of teaching people how to enhance their lives through body, mind and spirit. While yoga is compatible with virtually all faiths and philosophies it is not a religion. It is a complement to any spiritual belief or practice that you may already have in your life. Yoga is the way to a healthier, more relaxed and connected way of living.

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Yoga for Stress

Reducing the Physical Effects of Stress

Stress produces many types of physical and mental illness in all walks of life. Stress is also what keeps people in illness, anxiety, frustration and unhappiness. Everyone knows stress can cause headaches, muscle tension and high blood pressure but it can also cause brain tissue damage, weakening of bones, ulcers, menstrual disorders, miscarriages, depression and addiction. Symptoms can be so gradual you may not know you suffer from it. You may experience a tired, drained feeling, feeling trapped by circumstances, you might find your mind responding to impending emergencies that create anxiety and tension.

Some can manage their stress quite effectively, others cannot. It all comes down to your perception of a conceived threat. Stress response is a matter of awareness. This is where yoga can be very effective, yoga has a profound effect on your perception, awareness, negative thinking and stress response using techniques such as postures, stretching, breathing and meditation. These practices are designed to release physical and mental tension from your body and mind while increasing intrinsic awareness. You will find that yoga is deeply calming and empowering and will give you the ability to handle stress successfully.

The Program

A personalized yoga system to achieve the following objectives

• Reduce Stress / Calm Nervous System
• Increase Coping Mechanism
• Open Subtle Energy Channels
• Deepen Awareness / Remove obstacles
• Build Creative Fiery Energy in the 2nd Major Energy System in the Body
• Open and Release the Loving and Compassionate Energy from the 4th Major Energy System
• Increase Relaxation
• Improve Circulation, Organ Suppleness and Responsiveness
• Improve Breath Depth and Control
• Activate Parasympathetic Nervous System
• Stretch and Tone Muscles
• Create a Sense of Balance and Well Being

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Yoga and Meditation

Meditation is a systematic process in which one works with the body through yoga postures and breath work, then moves the attention inward, quieting and integrating mind and body. This is a quiet devotion contributing to a heightened spiritual awareness and mindfulness.

Meditation is proven to be a very healing process for those who have certain conditions such as high blood pressure, stress, cancer, insomnia, chronic pain, and anxiety.

Meditation not only gives us greater control over our lives but also allows us a chance to practice witnessing our life as it occurs. Witnessing, which can only happen here and now, will ultimately lead to the recognition of our Real Self, which is none other than the source of all consciousness.

A class in Yoga and Meditation is designed for those who wish to learn skills necessary for inner harmony and spiritual awareness (regardless of religious beliefs). Focus is on stress management, increasing flexibility and restoring well being in a relaxed and gentle manner.

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Yoga and Fertility

Yoga is perfect for dealing with one of the most pervasive mind / body fertility challenges: stress. Stress can be one of the major causes that inhibit the ability to achieve or continue pregnancy. Women experiencing infertility are often stress-and pain-filled, saddened and angry, and full of tension blocks that create imbalances in the body. These emotions generate chemicals in the body that weaken immunity and make for a less "hospitable" environment for a new life. Yoga and the use of relaxation breathing techniques, combined with the flushing out of physical toxins, provides an antidote to the negative physical impacts of stress, anger and depression. This yoga therapy, using breath, body and thought awareness, is created to support women who choose to embark on a journey toward wholeness and balance.

Increasing circulation in the body, toning, balancing and strengthening the area where reproductive organs are located, is a main focus of this training. Also important is to identify, focus on and release ideas and emotional blockages that may prevent calming the mind, this in turn helps to ease anxiety and will support the body in becoming a receptive vessel of life.

Yoga is also an excellent way to participate in a gentle form of exercise during infertility or assisted reproductive treatment cycles. Postures can help increase flexibility in the hips and groin and stimulate the body's energy channels associated with reproduction. Yoga techniques can help regulate the body's hormone levels by toning the hypothalamus and endocrine systems. By learning to “center” and helping the body to elicit the relaxation response, we can counteract some of the emotional ups and downs that often accompany infertility. It may be said that the most powerful effect of a regular yoga practice on a person's fertility is through the calming, restorative effects on the mind and body.

What makes this yoga practice unique is the personalized approach which includes an emphasis on...

The Program

Yoga for Fertility is a 12-week program designed to help the individual or couple to create a physical yoga, breathing, and meditation practice to enhance medical fertility treatment and chances of conception. The program is unlike any other yoga class, because the postures, breath work, class exercises and discussions are all specifically designed to support fertility in both women and men.

It is recommended that you make the commitment to attend, two to three sessions per week for 12 weeks. Specific yoga postures will be used to stimulate and tone the female reproductive system, as well as breathing (pranayama), visualization and relaxation to help remove blockages and move energy throughout the body. Learn how to strengthen the mind-body connection, and to listen closely to what the body is saying.

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Strengthening Relationships

It's important that we don't forget that trying to get pregnant takes two. Yoga can also benefit couples. I have found that yoga, practiced with a partner can be a wonderful way to connect with that inner knowledge and strength that both partners require when faced with the challenge of conception.

Yoga Is Not the Cure-all

This is not to say that yoga is an instant fertility potion, or that it works for everyone. Yoga is a discipline in which you must make a commitment to yourself to look beyond the surface and reconnect with the truth of who you are.

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