Are you stressed? Suffer from
anxiety? PMS? Constipation? Muscle stiffness?
While yoga is not a cure all, it can be a wonderful starting place to
helping your body heal. Yoga is a system of exercises that
encourages the union of mind, body, and spirit. It can prevent
memory lapses by calming you and enhancing your concentration.
It can also improve your powers of recall by increasing circulation to
your brain. The symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS),
including breast tenderness, fluid retention, irritability, and
anxiety, occur the week before your period and may be triggered by a
hormone imbalance. Yoga helps balance your hormones by soothing
your nervous system and stimulating your adrenal glands.
Hatha yoga concentrates on three areas:
pranayama (breathing), asanas (postures), and dhyana (meditation).
The controlled breathing of pranayama helps to focus the mind and is
important for relaxation and meditation. ITs deep slow breathing
patterns have a beneficial effect on the respiratory system:
Studies show that people who do yoga regularly have lowered breathing
rates and increased lung capacity.
A substantial amount of research has
been conducted on the health benefits of yoga, and further studies
are ongoing. In addition to improving the body's strength,
flexibility, coordination, and range of motion, yoga has been shown
to decrease blood pressure, slow respiratory rate, improve the
fitness of the heart and other muscles, and reduce stress and
anxiety.
Studies have shown yoga to be
particularly helpful for musculoskeletal ailments: A study
published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1998
showed that yoga reduced pain and increased grip strength in people
with carpal tunnel syndrome. Another study, published in the
Journal of Rheumatology in 1994, showed that yoga reduced pain and
increased range of motion in people with osteoarthritis of the
hands.
There are video tapes available on
yoga and even classes are available at some fitness centers.
For more information on some yoga postures, go to yogasite.com/postures.html and if you'd rather
read about it first, you can subscribe to the Yoga Journal.
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