Get Your OM On!
Just another WordPress.com weblogBalasana Benefits: Chillin’ Out in Child’s Pose
Simple forward bends as Balasana are among the most effective ways for closing the body down. Allowing the spine to decompress and the sacrum to rest, we soothe the body by bending in half. Such postures tell our parasympathetic nervous system to kick in to rest and repair our body. To read more about child’s pose, please visit the Innerspace Yoga Virtual studio by clicking here.
Balasana Benefits: Take Child’s Pose for Easy Relaxation
The single most popular pose in a yoga class is, in my experience, Child’s Pose (Balasana). A favorite of pregnant women and surgical nurses alike, Child’s Pose is the ultimate resting posture because it’s passive and soothing, yet very effective in bringing the body into an immediate state of relaxation. Here’s why: all sorts of daily activities wreak havoc on our musculature. Repetitive motions, such as driving, heavy machine work on a factory line or long periods of standing can wear out the body quickly.
Coming down to the floor takes the weight off your sacrum, knees, and ankles. Reaching forward frees the shoulders, keeping the chest and upper back supple enough to support open airways and full breathing. The tops of the feet have a chance to rest and lengthen, counteracting standing and bearing weight all day. The quadriceps are stretched as the spine elongates. As the spine elongates, we get a very gentle traction-like effect, as we would in Downward Dog. Child’s Pose achieves similar full-body inclusion in an easier way. Experiment with different levels for your forehead: try yoga blocks, stacked blankets or the bare floor. Wedge props in wherever you need extra support so you can hold this posture as long as possible. Child’s Pose can be adapted for someone sitting in a chair.
For example, my grandma can’t get down on the floor right now. To give her this posture, I would seat her in a chair slightly higher than a table, and just have her lean onto the tabletop edge with her forehead down and her arms outreaching. Such simple forward bends as Balasana are among the most effective ways for closing the body down. Allowing the spine to decompress and the sacrum to rest, we soothe the body by bending in half. Such postures tell our parasympathetic nervous system to kick in to rest and repair the body.
Want more yoga content including photos of balasana? Visit www.innerspaceyogas.com Namaste!
Bee-friend the Kids in Your Life With Yoga!
Having trouble finding time for your own yoga practice while your kids are home this summer? Rather than missing out on your OM time, why not include them in what you are doing? Serious yoginis know yoga builds flexibility in our bodies and in our lives, so deviating from what you may normally do in a formal class shouldn’t interfere with the results you get from doing your practice. You probably won’t do 45 minutes of sweat-inducing, heart-pounding vinyasa while a couple of toddlers are in the mix, but the benefits you bring to your family are priceless. A willingness to be open to a new sort of yoga experience may be the start of a whole new paradigm for you and the children in your life.
Although I had been doing yoga for many years before my son came along, it wasn’t until I started practicing with him and my nephew (and eventually the whole Montessori school) that I actually began being a yogini. Practicing with kids demands your presence in a much more dynamic way than when you practice alone, or in a class setting. You are required to demonstrate the pose, teach the pose and keep an eye on the children for safety, but it must be done from the perspective of a child. Doing yoga with children enhances your own learning curve within the sphere of yoga, and also brings a whole new dimension of creativity to your asana (postures). There is no longer a sense of rules for sequences or duration. It doesn’t matter which comes first: inversions or balances, twists or backbends. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know bhujangasana is cobra; the kids will just call it “snake.” Vrkasana is quite simply tree. Dhanurasana, or upward bow gathers momentum and … please click here to read the rest of this post! Namaste!
Observing Yamas & Niyamas Creates Self-Awareness
Ever feel like you’re falling down the rabbit hole, out of control and a victim of the universe as it spins around you? It’s a mad tea party of a world out there! Adopting the yoga lifestyle can help you manage your stress physically, intellectually and emotionally if you’re willing to expand your awareness on and off the mat. The Yamas and Niyamas can become touchstones and gentle reminders for which action to take. The goal of yoga is self-awareness and self-actualization. Practice these gently at first, just as you would build awareness in a yoga posture on the mat.
Yamas: Guidelines for interacting with the outer world (others)
- Ahimsa: non-violence toward self and others
- Satya: truth and honesty
- Asteya: not stealing or coveting that which is not offered to you
- Brahmacharya: moderation
- Aparigraha: greedlessness
Niyamas: Guidelines for interacting with the inner world (self)
- Saucha: cleanliness or purity internally as well as externally
- Santosha: contentment
- Tapas: discipline, inner fire
- Svadhyaya: self-observation
- Ishwara-Pranidhana: surrender to something bigger than yourself
Read more about the yoga lifestyle at www.innerspaceyogas.com
Regarding the Question: “how do you get the parasympathetic nervous system to kick in”
I noticed a reader had searched the question, “How do you get the parasympathetic nervous system to kick in?” My answer, of course, is do more yoga! Here are some things you can do if you’re trying to activate your parasympathetic nervous system:
1. First, and foremost, become aware of your breathing. You must breathe through your nose. Nasal breathing cools the breath, filters and moisturizes the air before it hits your lungs. It forces you to breathe more slowly, deeply and evenly than you would if you were panting out of your mouth. When we breathe rapidly, shallowly, in the uppermost chest and through the mouth, our bodies shift into “fight or flight mode.” Our nervous system thinks it needs the strength to outrun a tiger.
2. Once you have control of your breath, you’ll pretty much be good to go. Whether this takes 10 seconds, ten minutes or an hour will of course, depend upon your individual circumstances.
3. Remember your yoga. You’ve practiced how to relax your body on the mat, so you have plenty of experience with the process. If it’s possible to get yourself to a quiet space, you should practice such simple inversions as are appropriate for you. Just lay down on your back and do some simple twists and curl up into a ball. Move into restorative postures like Child’s Pose or Savasana.
4. Work with practices like Yoga Nidra to increase your own awareness and self-controlling, and self-soothing skills.
Hope this helps! Namaste!
Make the Anjali Mudra & Activate Your Brain!
Mudras are simple hand gestures that can have profound effects on both the subconscious mind and overarching spiritual consciousness. Bringing the palms together in “prayer hands” or the Anjali Mudra unites both hemispheres of the brain. Think of the important milestone for infants on the day they begin to clap! Being able to coordinate this movement activates a flurry of neurological functions throughout the body. Making this gesture of so-called prayer hands effectively turns our bodies and brains to the same channel. You can now associate a certain phrase or thought with this movement and vice versa.
The Innerspace method of yoga makes frequent use of the Anjali Mudra as a means for cueing the practitioner’s “sankalpa,” or decision. We form the sankalpa at the very beginning of our yoga practice so we are aware of our own intentions. In yoga, intention is everything. If it is your intention to become more peaceful with your kids, your intention to heal your body, or your intention to manifest what have you, then we believe we can move those intentions into being (wishes, dreams, dedications, prayers…. however you language it) by first stating what you want to accomplish, then taking steps to bring that idea to life beginning right there on your yoga mat!
Whenever the opportunity presents itself during asana practice, we bring our hands to the Anjali Mudra and recite our sankalpa(s). Hatha yoga becomes a moving meditation. We become more attuned to our own needs as we build awareness and begin to make choices off the mat that are congruent with our sankalpas.
For example, I like to use the phrase… to read the rest of the post, please click here and leave your comments there. Namaste!
Octogenarian Yoga Teacher Bette Calman Advises, “Forget Age”
In today’s Mail Online, I stumbled upon an article about Australian yoga legend, Bette Calman. Mrs. Calman is 83 years old, and performs arm balances and and inversions I still can’t achieve after over 20 years of practice! Click here to read the full post.
Saucha, Dharma & Earth Day: Sensible, Easy Changes Toward Sustainability
A big part of adopting the yoga lifestyle is recognizing the interdependence of all life on Earth. Since today is Earth Day, I thought it apropos to address the way we affect our outer space with the choices we make in our homes.
Saucha means cleanliness, or purity in Sanskrit. A major tenet of yogic, conscious living, saucha means keeping things organized and sanitary for the benefit of all beings. (Saucha is actually one of the observances of yoga as detailed by Patanjali.)
There seems to be a lot of pressure in today’s world not to guzzle down too much gas, not to use the wrong light bulbs, not to wash chemicals down the drain, and to eat organic foods. We all want to do the right thing and help the environment and our own health, but we are American consumers who still have to get to work and school, who can’t always afford produce and eco-friendly products that are three times as expensive as what may be stocked at the discount store.
Adopting a greener lifestyle is a noble cause we can all embrace if we approach these cultural changes the same way we approach yoga: we can start where we are and do what we can when we can. Here are a couple of painless things to get you going:
1. Bring your own bags to the store. Quit wasting plastic bags already! I particularly like schlepping in old fancy shopping bags. They’re sturdier!
2. You consider fuel alternatives for your car, but have you thought about all the nasty petrochemicals you use around the house? Petrochemicals are common chemicals in things like laundry detergent. When we use them, we expose ourselves to all sorts of toxicity, and then do it again when we rinse them down the drain and into the water table. Even the local grocery store carries eco-friendly brands now, so green housekeeping is more feasible now than it was even just a few years ago.
3. We‘ve begun using dryer balls instead of dryer sheets. These are nubby rubber balls that bounce around and fluff the clothes in less time with less heat. Laundry doesn’t smell like flowery meadows and babies’ heads around here anymore, but I haven’t had a migraine in months since I stopped layering too many artificial fragrances in our home. *Yes, you’re right, Muffy, perfumes are indeed nasty…you knew all along!
4. Put everything in your office and media center on a power strip and shut that mug down when you aren’t computing. Unplug the coffee maker, too. Watch your utility bill go down as you stop siphoning “phantom power” throughout the house.
Jane Goodall is a tireless crusader and pioneer for environmentalism and my personal heroine. She speaks of the affliction of “justmeism,” the excuse we all fall back on when we want to minimize and deny our own responsibility in the very real problems we face as a species. We all think, “It’s just me; I’m just one person, so what can I do to make a difference?” Or, worse yet, “It’s just me, what’s the harm?”
This spring, why not clean things up around the house while you bring the spirit of saucha to your practice, gently and naturally? In yoga, intention is everything and you’ll be amazed at the results yielded by even the slightest effort in the right direction.
Messed Up-Dog: The perils of poor alignment in Urdhva Mukha Svanasana
Messed Up Dog: Wrong Elbow Alignment in Yoga Postures Can Really Strain your joints!
What’s wrong with these Up Dog postures? All three yoginis above are doing one of yoga’s most recognizable postures in ways that will not only negate the benefits of the pose, but may in fact harm the practitioners.
“Up Dog”, or Urdhva Mukha Svanasana, is a backbend that can be modified for difficulty and incorporated into standing posture practice as well as flowing yoga styles. As such, Up Dog stretches and tones the spine and the front of the body. The chest muscles and upper torso are given the opportunity to open and elongate in ways we aren’t normally able to move in everyday life.
The heart chakra is unblocked as it is liberated from the tightness of rounded shoulders. As the chest expands and lifts, even the thymus gland gets attention, being stimulated to work harder for the immune system as fresh, unrestricted breath moves through the upper torso.
All of these movements become possible as the shoulder blades move backward and down. This isn’t a safe transition if the elbows aren’t properly aligned. Look at the models above. Their inner elbows are facing forward, most noticeably in the case of the middle model. You have to watch the rotation of your elbows when you come into a posture that is weight-bearing on the arms.
Always remember to build every pose from the ground; your foundation is whatever is touching the mat. In the case of Up Dog, start with hands and wrists. Stack your bones up appropriately, always trying to find Mountain Pose. Your shoulders should be aligned evenly over your wrists, and weight should be evenly distributed in the heels and palms of your hands.
If you have a lot of natural flexibility, you may notice your elbows hyperextending this way. When you turn the insides of your elbows toward your body rather than frontward, you’ll really feel different in postures such as Up Dog. You’ll begin to use your upper arms much differently as you take the stress off your elbows and allow your triceps to do the work!
Need more yoga content? Would you like to watch a short clip of properly executed Up-Dog? Just head over to the Innerspace Virtual Yoga studio by clicking on the photo at the top of this post! Namaste!
What is OM?
Sooner or later in your experience with yoga, you will see or hear OM, which is essentially the universal vibration, a sacred syllable said to permeate everyone and everything. The sound of OM is so important to Hindus and Buddhists that many mantras begin and/or end with the syllable.
Sometimes, you might see OM written as AUM, which is a more phonetic spelling because the syllable is actually three audible parts: A-U-M.
One need not be Hindu, Buddhist, or any permutation thereof in order to realize the benefits of chanting the sound of OM because in and of itself, OM is not a “religious” word. In fact, it’s useful if a person doesn’t have any preconceived notions about the etymology of the sound. Here in Indiana, OM isn’t a usual part of speech, so if one were to choose it as a personal mantra, repeating it wouldn’t trigger thoughts as words in English might.
I present yoga as the art and science of self-regulation. Therefore, I won’t ramble on about my personal metaphysical experiences with mantra practice. I won’t even go into the bliss and the insight gained through chanting the mantra OM.
What I will say is that chanting helps to induce a peaceful, calm state because it involves breath work (pranayama) and vibration in the body. By chanting, or singing or whatever you want to do, you have to focus on the mechanics of the exhalation.
As you control the speed and depth of your exhalation, you elongate the breath going out. As your vocal cords vibrate and you exhale as you sing/say/chant “OM,” you stimulate the Vagus Nerve in a way which signals the Parasympathetic nervous system to kick on. In other words, the stress response is turned off and the body is able to relax, heal and metabolize.
Want to learn more about expanding your yoga practice by learning more Sanskrit? Check out Colleen Saidman’s blog entry. If you want to hear the sound of OM, click here.
