Inversion Therapy through Yoga

Usually, this therapy is used to treatment of back pain as Inversion therapy reduces the compression of your vertebrae and discs thus allowing the ligaments and muscles that enclose the spine to calm down. We all are well aware of the universal truth that gravity affects our body and whole universe in general. Gravity keeps us grounded to the earth. In fact, gravity is what holds everything on earth together in its form and shape. It is such so simple and ordinary that most of us take it for granted.

In our daily routine approximately 16 hrs out of daily 24 hrs are spent in a way that our bodies remain perpendicular. Then again we spend around eight hours horizontal while sleeping. Without really knowing it, the vertical human frame is continuously influenced by gravitational stress.

The direction of the gravitational field can not be changed but it is possible for us to alter the direction in which our body is exposed to gravity so that our body is benefited by gravity in greater sense. The various Yoga poses (asanas), in particular the inverted ones, let gravity to flow through your body in a variety of angles and directions. Inversion lets all organs to shift back to their proper positions. This, in particular, is in the prolapsed organs. It stimulates the flow of blood to the head and brain area.

Emerged as an innovative approach to yoga, Inversion therapy is extremely versatile and adjustable. Yoga Inversion therapy is done with a sling-swing made of colorful and durable parachute fabric, a soft cushion insert and six handles located at three different levels (overhead, waist and foot levels), and two extension springs. Put together, this exceptional piece of equipment allows you to reach almost any imaginable pose, angle, movement, stretch or exercise you can think of. It doesn’t matter, whether it is vertical, horizontal inverted, or any position in between. You are able to achieve an unlimited variety of positions & options you can’t achieve with any other device whether you are playing on the swing airborne or grounded. Nor whether you are working high or low to the floor; nor whether you are sitting upright, hanging inverted, or lying prone, supine or lying on your side.

Inversion therapy began it’s development in the second half of 1993. What is it that attracts people from all ages and states of health and mobility to give up their physical body to be balanced in the air on the hands and feet of a total stranger

Why inversion therapy should be used?

• This technique of yoga increases your mental alertness. Performing any upside down task improves the oxygen supply to your brain thus helping you to maintain mental sharpness.
  
  
• This yoga therapy improves your posture. The stretch that appears with reverse pose and gravity helps you to sit, stand and move about with more ease and refinement.
  
  
• This yoga therapy helps to maintain your height. Inverting regularly will greatly help you to avoid the shrinkage.
  
  
• With inversion yoga therapy, the gravity aids your lymphatic system clear more rapidly and also this eases the pains and aches of stiff muscles.
  
  
• Inversion yoga therapy relieves you from stress. The full body stretch makes you to feel more energized.

• Inversion increases your flexibility and also range of motion. Inversion keeps your joints healthy and supple. With this, you can easily stay as active as you were in your younger age.
  
  
• Inversion greatly improves your circulation. Whenever you attain inverted position, your body can circulate the blood supported by gravity instead of having to work against it.
  
  
• Inversion realigns your spine after the workout. Aerobic activities and running unavoidably compresses your spine. Also, one-sided activities like tennis or golf pull your spine out of alignment. But, the inversion therapy makes these minor misalignment correct themselves naturally.

Caution

• If you feel uncomfortable during inversion, then it is better to invert at a smaller angle or invert for a short time i.e. until your whole body gets adapted for inversion.
  
  
• Before considering the inversion therapy, once consult your doctor if you have any conditions like high blood pressure, any eye conditions or heart disease.

What is Yoga Therapy?

Yoga-chikitsa (Sanskrit) or Yoga Therapy has never been very easy to define, largely owing to the depth and breadth of the subject.

Yoga therapy is of modern coinage and represents a first effort to integrate traditional yogic concepts and techniques with Western medical and psychological knowledge. Whereas traditional Yoga is primarily concerned with personal transcendence on the part of a "normal" or healthy individual, Yoga therapy aims at the holistic treatment of various kinds of psychological or somatic dysfunctions ranging from back problems to emotional distress.

By combining different techniques such as massage, stretching or alterations of the circulatory patterns, yoga promotes specific changes in muscles, joints and organs altering the vital functions of the body. A good example would be the way Yoga Therapy can help overcome panic attacks. By practicing a balancing breathing technique, a sense of control is gained, combating the fear and anxiety produced by its loss.

More than following just one style or one branch of yoga, Yoga Therapy feeds from virtually all styles and branches, combining the tools that each one of them bring in the design of a yoga sadhana, or a routine that addresses the given condition. Even though different Yoga Therapists follow different procedures to establish the sadhana, a pretty general scheme would first determine the condition to be treated, and then an evaluation of person's general abilities. Then the appropriate techniques can be chosen from the various disciplines which best serve the therapeutic process.

What is the principle of Yogic Therapy?
As medical practitioners say that most of the problems in our health come from a state of ignorance of whom and what we are. Yoga provides an opportunity to become acquainted with our essence, in tune with the Oracle at Delphi's command:"Know thyself." From a psychological standpoint, therapy is defined as the possibility of accessing self-knowledge that will enable us to change that what we consider dysfunctional. A number of research studies have proven the effectiveness of Yoga Therapy as developing exactly that type of awareness.

Rather than prescribe treatments, yoga therapy encourages awareness. Through age-old yogic techniques, we get to know ourselves better.

By acting upon the chakras, yoga brings light to any psychic blockages, making them available to the conscious mind. The modern western correlate of this scheme is in the core of psycho-neuroimmunology, a branch of psychology that studies the interaction between the nervous, endocrine and immune systems, explaining some of the subtle mechanisms of psychosomatic medicine.

Who can get benefits from yoga therapy?

• People, who want to acquire tools specific to their condition to improve wellness. Yoga has proven helpful in the management of back pain, arthritis, depression, anxiety and stress, back and neck pain, fibromyalgia, PMS, headaches, insomnia, menopause, and weight concerns.
  
  
• People who are looking for a fulfilling way to exercise. When done correctly, yoga is a rewarding and intrinsically motivating way to stay or become fit. Individual sessions are an important adjunct to regular yoga classes to ensure you gain the most from the postures.
  
  
• People who wish to slow aging and improve their health. Yoga therapy can give you the tools to deepen body awareness and increase the health of your body from its most subtle level of functioning.

How is yoga therapy done?
The six steps of Yoga for overall well being:

1. Right Posture – Asanas
   A set of postures that tone up the muscles and internal organs, revitalize the system, create overall awareness of the body and its function and help tranquilize the mind. they also energizes and stimulates the body’s major endocrine glands. And by toning up the internal organs, they also prevent and cure many an illness.
   
   
2. Right Breathing – Pranayama
   A set of simple breathing techniques that slowdown and normalize breathing while simultaneously exercising subtle influences on the entire system.
   
   
3. Right Cleansing – Kriyas
   A set of easy and effortless hygienic procedures that draw the attention to the affected areas and buttress the body’s own cleansing mechanisms.
   
   
4. Right Diet – Balanced Yogic Diet
   Most, of not all, illnesses are in some way linked to wrong food habits. A slight modification in dietary habits can rehabilitate the entire system.
   
   
5. Right Relaxation – Shavasana
   A relaxing asana done several times as part of the Yoga program. A process designed to soothe both mind and body. Yoga holds that tension is dis-ease (i.e a state if unease) and relaxation is health. To this end the whole eightfold path of Yoga is to purify the body mind complex.
   
   
6. Right Mindset – Meditation
   Meditation is a technique used to stabilize the mind, increase concentration and will power, balance cellular and chakra energy and develop one-pointedness.

All these, if performed together and consistently, help rid oneself of a variety of psychosomatic disorders. Which is why, every yoga therapy session should include all these practices. They help eliminate the aggravated toxins from the system, balance the tri-doshas and stimulate the essential biochemical substances in the affected organs.

In Conclusion
If yoga could be found as a pill, it surely would be the bestselling drug of all times. Like exercise, yoga improves well-being and alleviates many health issues. It goes one step further: Yoga restores wholeness to mind, body, and spirit, making the effects of yoga far-reaching and truly remarkable.

Regularity and punctuality are the keys to get success in yoga. Over a period of time, it helps reduce illnesses, increase vitality and vigor, restore balance, and enhance attitude to life. Yoga therapy has been proved helpful in healing psychosomatic and stress-related conditions. Because yoga therapy bridges the gap between body and mind, ranging across the entire spectrum from physical to emotional to mental.

For optimum benefits, yoga therapy should be coupled with a balanced diet, Naturopathy, Ayurveda and Aromatherapy.

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Integrative Yoga Therapy

Integrative Yoga Therapy is a holistic, mind-body approach to health and healing which combines the ancient wisdom of yoga with the latest advances in body/mind medicine.

Popularly known as a combination of speech-language pathology, behavioral and mental health counseling, and Yoga, Integrative Yoga Therapy has emerged as a boon to help children with a number of disabilities like Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Learning Disabilities, Pervasive Developmental Delay, Sensory Integration Dysfunction, Dyspraxia.

Qualified therapists, who also happen to be certified Yoga instructors, are available world wide to teach and practice Integrative Yoga Therapy. In addition Integrative Yoga therapy helps treat other specific motor-based disorders. Further, it has had especially consistent and remarkable results with children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Principles of Integrative Yoga Therapy

1. Integrative Yoga therapy should provide an integrated program of yoga practice based on an in-depth understanding of a particular health condition and the specific needs of the individual.
2. Integrative Yoga therapy is based firmly in the psychology and philosophy of Yoga as it pertains to health, based on an in-depth understanding of traditional Yoga texts, including the Yoga Sutras.
3. Integrative Yoga therapy should embrace all aspects of Yoga, including breathing (pranayama), mudra, guided imagery and meditation. Poses (asana) is an important aspect within the context of an integrated practice.
4. Integrative Yoga therapy is based in creative, student-centered education where teachers are facilitators, not gurus; facilitating the awakening of the student’s connection to his or her own true source of wellness where healing can occur.

But before we look at Integrative Yoga therapy, let’s again reread at the definition of Yoga. Yoga is an age-old science of self-knowledge. It was developed in India over 5000 years ago.

Contrary to the popular myth that Yoga is a religion or a set of exercises to be mastered, it is a many faceted gem with many different practices. Though importance of yoga has always been understood by people of all generation but for today’s generation yoga is specially more important thousand times.

Yoga therapy has been developed not only to benefit the physical body but also to sooth the psychological and spiritual part of body. It focuses on health and wellness at all levels of the individual. Yoga therapy does not give time bound benefits but it works as a healing journey, exclusively and exceptionally for each and everyone to establish a balance between practitioner’s body and mind.

Mind-body medicinal research has also shown a collection of immune power traits. These health habits have lived up to the examination and analysis of researchers. In fact, we can develop them to serve as shock absorbers against immune system breakdown and progress of disease. Coming back to Integrative Yoga therapy, these include being aware of the mind body feedback, learning how to view life with a sense of commitment. It also includes being able to control and challenge yourself. Further it is a tool in developing strengths to fall back on in the wake of loss, and a capacity to confide traumas and feelings to ourselves and others. Immune power is proven in people who can discover true bliss and meaning, including good health, when life offers up its most difficult challenges. Integrative Yoga therapy, in short, can help deal with and heal any condition in totality.

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Control Your Mood Wings with Yoga

In the ancient times, yogis have researched and studied a lot on the human body and it’s functioning by observing and analyzing the animal body postures and movements in different situations. They also studied how different postures help animals to move and attack fastly on the prey. For example, a tiger will shift its weight onto its hind legs before attacking its prey. Not only does this posture keep the required muscles active and powerful, it also presses on the adrenal glands, increasing the level of adrenaline in its body so that it moves at the highest speed possible.

They concluded that if similar postures and movements are developed for human being to practice in the form of yoga, then humans can get their hormonal balance and other benefits of health.

When they further studied the mental and emotional state of human brains, they found that If we can balance or stimulate the production of hormones, we can drastically alter our moods and their fluctuations. This is possible only with the help of yoga. Endocrine glands that control the Courage, fear, love and creativity and other human mood swings are activated when we practice yoga. The ultimate goal of yoga is to stimulate the pineal gland which is known as the ‘Agnya chakra’ in yogic terminology and helps us to live in a blissfully high state 24 hours a day when stimulated. However before this can occur, the blockages present in the lower level chakras (which correspond to our endocrine glands) must be cleared first, or else a man might go crazy with an energy level too high to be handled by the physical body. In simple words, you cannot pass a very high electric current through a very thin wire.

We are describing here some simple exercises to control our anger, frustrations and restlessness so that we can achieve a calm and undisturbed emotional and mental state. These yogas are helpful to bring about a change in your state of mind so that we can live in a state of acceptance towards life.

Exercise 1

• Kneel on the floor, knees together.
• Sit back on your heels, keeping back straight.
• Inhale and raise your arms above your head.
• Exhale slowly and bend the body forward so that forehead rests on floor, palms face downward.
• Hold position breathing normally.
• Inhale, come up. Exhale and resume start position.

Exercise 2

• Lie flat on back, arms by side
• Slowly raise legs to 90 degree position.
• Lift hips and support them with hands as shown.
• Hold 10-30 seconds.
• Breathing normal.
• Slowly come back to start position.

Exercise 3 Jalandhar Bandha

• Sit with legs stretched out, back straight.
• Bend one leg, place ankle on opposite thigh close to groin. Bend other leg and place ankle on thigh of bent leg, close to groin. Place your hands on your knees.
• Inhale deeply. Keeping chest high, hold your breath and lock chin against chest.
• Hold for as long as comfortable.
• Release chin, look up and exhale.
• Repeat only 3 times.

Exercise 4

• Sit as above.
• Exhale completely, pull up the genital space and close the anal space. Keep abdominal muscles tight.
• Relax the lock and inhale.
• Repeat 3 times only.

Exercise 5

• Sit as above. Rest your arms on the thighs.
• Lean forward slightly and exhale forcefully.
• Suck in your stomach to create a hollow space.
• Hold as long as you can hold your breath comfortable.
• Release contraction and breathe in.
• Repeat only 3 times.

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