Useful Tips for Yoga

How to Practice Yoga Poses or Asanas

Yoga helps us to remove the garbage out of our mind and body and works to heal the mind and the body, helps to concentrate better so that you can easily practice pranayama and meditation without distraction. Among plenty of health benefits some are:

• Improved flexibility, enhanced stamina, better mind and body coordination.
• Enhanced efficiency of your nervous and endocrine systems and internal organ.
• Control of your breathing and improved breathe quality.

Tips to follow when practicing yoga poses:

• Though most of the yoga poses are designed for each and everyone but it is recommended to select poses according to your body endurance, mood and energy level.
• Start with easy to handle poses and work up to stronger ones.
• Breathe evenly through the nose throughout the postures.
• Get relaxed before and after yoga to avoid immediate rush into and out of a pose.
• Carefully notice if you feel any strain in a pose and stop immediately if it hurts.
• It is not recommended to practice in front of a mirror. Rather concentrate on how the pose feels, not what it looks like.
• The postures should be focused on getting relaxed without any strain to body.

How to Practice Yoga Breathing or Pranayama
Yoga assumes breath as a connecting link between the physical body and the mind. Controlled breathing practice has tremendous effect on state of mind and changes it positively. A breathing practice can last anything from two minutes to half an hour or more.

Tips to follow when practicing Breathing or Pranayama:

• The place selected for yoga must be free from distractions. While practicing yoga indoors, keep the windows open to allow plenty of fresh air into the room.
• Begin with trying pranayama lying down and then slowly concentrate to sit upright with your spine straight.
• Breathe evenly through the nose throughout the postures.
• Breathing must be free and in natural rhythm without any strain while doing pranayama.
• Take deep breathes gradually.
• Control breathing slowly and carefully.
• If you feel dizzy or light-headed, return to normal breathing.
• Make sure someone is near you when experimenting a new technique.
• Keep patience and do not expect immediate results and practice all exercises as slowly as you can.

How to Practice Mudras
Mudras are positions (mostly of the hands) channelize the body's energetic system and synchronize the flow of prana (life energy) within it. Mudras are easy and generally do not have any ill effects when used. The best time to practise Mudras is during the sitting phase after a posture and breathing session.

Tips to follow when practicing Mudras:

• Don't try hard – gently let your fingers to touch as guided.
• Get relaxed and let your mind and body to be in peace.

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Yoga Poses & Yoga Exercises

In Sanskrit, the word “pose” is “asana” (pronounced as “ah-sah-nah”).

Ancient yogis studied human body and then developed various yoga asanas so that each and every part of our body gets benefits from yoga poses. The yoga poses not only give us health benefits but also make us more aware of our body, mind, and environment.

It is however advised that while beginning yoga exercises, one must have a cool mind and experiment with the poses as per one’s comfort and convenience. The benefits of yoga exercises will be noticed faster if one has a playful mind and also the feeling of frustration and competitiveness will not enter the mind. The word of caution one must keep in mind while practicing yoga exercises, is that there must not be any feeling of discomfort or pain.

Important things to keep in mind during yoga practice:

• Never hold your breathe during a pose.
  
  
• Do not force or strain your breath.
  
  
• Whenever you notice Labored breathing, come out of the pose slightly as it is an indication that you’re working too hard.
  
  
• The rule of thumb is that, one can hold for three full breaths through most yoga poses. You must hold it longer only if your body says that you are comfortable in the pose, and if the body shows symptoms that you are uncomfortable, you should come out of the pose immediately.

Types of Yoga Poses

Seated poses

• Seated yoga poses are especially beneficial if practiced for breathing exercises and relaxation or meditation techniques.
  
  
• Seated poses generally advised to be used as a warm up or as a starting point for other poses.
  
  
• Performing seated poses can help improve your posture and open your hips.

Standing poses

• Standing yoga poses are often used as warm up or as a starting point for other poses.
  
  
• Standing poses are beneficial for strengthening your legs, opening your hips and improving your sense of balance.

Inversions

• Yoga experts advice Inversion yoga poses because it helps to improve your blood circulation quiet your mind and improve your overall health.
  
  
• Inversions are also believed to reverse the ageing process and reduce the effect of the gravity on your body.

Relaxation and restorative poses

• Relaxation or restorative yoga poses are more beneficial if performed at the end of each yoga practice.
  
  
• The body and mind get more relaxed at this time and the energy released by the poses in your practice is moved freely throughout your body.

Counter poses

• A counter pose is a yoga pose that stretches your spine in the opposite direction from a previous pose or returns your spine to a neutral position.

Twists

• Twists are generally advised to stretch and strengthen your back and abdominal muscles, increase the flexibility of your spine and improve your circulation.
  
  
• As the body is twisted and released, a fresh flow of blood moves in the body thereby improving the functioning of your internal organs.

Balancing poses

• Balancing yoga poses are great for improving your balance and coordination as well as developing your ability to remain grounded in a pose.
  
  
• Keeping your body balanced encourages you to focus, quiet and balance your mind.

Forward bends

• Forward bends stretch the entire back of your body, especially your hamstrings.
  
  
• Forward bends especially beneficial to release tension, calm your mind and soothe your nervous system.
  
  
• Similar to back bends, forward bends help keep your spine strong and supple.

Back bends

• A great challenge for any yoga performer is to perform back bends successfully.
  
  
• Bending backward helps strength your back and keep your spine strong and supple.
  
  
• Back bends also open the front of your body, especially your chest.

Look younger with Yoga!

There is only one science in the whole world that can actually make you look younger with time – Yoga. The ancient mystics developed this science using secrets the common people had no idea about. They meditated for long periods of time and understood the physical and psychological aspects of man long before modern medicine and psychology even came into existence.

The Yogis – mystics practicing Yoga – were unique in that they were more interested in finding solutions to a problem than trying to analyze it too much. They understood that if the same amount of energy was spent on the solution, rather than the analysis of the problem, then man would benefit from it much more.

This is why the science of Yoga emphasizes practice and not theory. It focuses on doing rather than thinking. Yogis had understood that the human mind is the greatest trickster and that it always prefers to think about problems rather than actually move towards solutions. Hence, the techniques of Yoga don’t use the mind at all. They bypass the mind and offer simple solutions to the most complex of problems like stress, depression, boredom, lack of energy and all forms of physical disease.

There are three reasons why a body ages – the effect of mental stress, the growing inefficiency of various internal organs with time, and finally the build-up of toxins (impurities) due to these two above factors making your whole system sluggish and diseased as time goes by.

Yoga has developed many techniques by which stress is reduced immediately. There are also other techniques that apply pressure on the internal organs, literally giving them a ‘massage’. This stimulates the organs and keeps them rejuvenated and young. Practically every technique of Yoga is nothing but a detoxification process – a method to smoothly remove impurities through natural means. So start with a few simple but powerful methods which, if practiced regularly, will make your friends and family wonder how your face has suddenly begun to glow, and how your figure is looking younger day by day. Make sure you practice these on an empty stomach, preferably in the mornings. All the best!

First Aasana

• Sit with your back straight, legs stretched out. Bend right knee.
• Place the right palm slightly behind the level of the hips.
• Bring left hand to the outer side of the right leg and place beside right ankle. Look over shoulder.
• Hold for 10-30 seconds, breathing normal.
• Repeat on the other side.

Second Aasana

• Lie flat on back, arms beside you.
• Bend your right knee to chest, foot pointing forward.
• Interlock the fingers below the knee and bring the knee close to the chest.
• Hold the position for a few seconds and relax the back.
• Go back to start position
• Repeat with left leg, then go back to start position.
• Now draw both your knees to your chest.
• Hold the position, breathing normally. Try and relax the back.
• Come back to start position.

Third Aasana

• Lie flat on your back.
• Bend your knees and place your feet near your hips.
• Place your palms underneath your shoulders with your fingers pointing towards your feet.
• Raise your hips.
• Arch your back, shifting your weight onto your hands.
• Pushing up, raise your head and upper body as far as you can.
• Hold for 10-30 seconds breathing normally.

Fourth Aasana

(A)
(B)
(C)

• Lie flat on your back.
• Bend your knees and place your feet near your hips.
• Place your palms underneath your shoulders with your fingers pointing towards your feet.(See A)
• Raise your hips. (See B)
• Arch your back, shifting your weight onto your hands.
• Pushing up, raise your head and upper body as far as you can.
• Hold for 10-30 seconds breathing normally. (See C)
  

Fifth Aasana

• Sit back on your heels as shown, place palms on knees as shown, keep back straight, close your eyes.
• Exhale forcefully and rapidly through the nose in quick succession, pulling the stomach in towards the spine as you exhale. Inhalation will be automatic and passive between every two exhalations.
• Practise 50 exhalations at a stretch.
• Repeat 3 times

Sixth Aasana

• Add two teaspoons of salt to 2 liters lukewarm water and drink at least 6 glasses at one stretch.
• Make sure your hands and nails are clean. Stand near a sink with your legs apart, back bent forward. Place index and middle fingers in the mouth and rub the back of the tongue. This will induce the vomiting process and the water will gush out of your mouth. Ensure that all the water comes out.
• Relax, you can lie down if you want, and practice deep breathing for a while.

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