Yoga For Beginners – How to Do the Sun Salutation in 12 Easy-To-Follow Steps

The Sun Salutation, also known in Sanskrit as Surya Namaskra, offers you a wonderful opportunity to warm -up and gently stretch your back and improve flexibility of your spine.

Most yoga classes will start with the Sun Salutation. The Sun Salutation, forms part of the warm-up in most yoga classes.

It consists of 12 flowing positions that allow the body to stretch forwards and backwards. Different schools of yoga will have their own particular variation of the Sun Salutation.

The following 12 steps offer you a simple guide to the Sun Salutation traditionally practiced in a Sivananda Hatha Yoga Class. For the first few times you practice the Sun Salutation, it is easier to just focus on the postures. As you get used to the routine, try and co-ordinate the movement with the breath.

Starting Position: Stand erect with the head and body straight but relaxed. The feet are together, the knees are straight, and the arms are relaxed at the sides. Inhale deeply.

Position 1: Exhale and bring the palms together in the prayer position in front of the heart centre.

Position 2: Inhale. Stretch the arms out from the heart centre and stretch your arms up over your head. Arch your body backwards, keep your arms up alongside the ears. Try and keep your knees straight. Keep looking up at your hands; give yourself a full body stretch as you stretch up all the way from the feet to the tips of your fingers.

Position 3: Exhale. Bend forwards and bring the hands down to the floor next to the feet. If your hands do not touch the floor with the knees straight, then slightly bend the knees. Allow the head to relax toward the floor.

Position 4: Inhale and without moving the hands, stretch the right leg back as far as possible. Drop the right knee to the floor. Leave the left knee on the floor between the hands and the left knee close to the chest. Stretch the head up and back (you may feel a slight stretch in the throat and right groin).

Position 5: Retain your breath. Bring your left leg back and place the left foot next to the right, with the toes pointing forwards. Your body should be in a straight line – similar to the push-up or plank position. Keep your head in a straight line with your body (if this position is too strong, then does this instead: – then keep both hands flat on the floor and have both knees on the floor, look up and back)

Position 6: Exhaling, drop the knees straight down to the floor. Keep the hips up. Bring the chest straight down to the floor between the hands. Bring the forehead to the floor. Again, if this is to strong, just lower your body flat to the floor.

Position 7: Inhale as you slide the body forwards until the hips are on the ground. Legs straight out behind you. Have the palms on the floor beneath the shoulders, elbows close to the body and pointing upwards. Gently stretch upward with the head, neck and chest. (cobra pose) Keep the elbows slightly bent and tucked in toward the body. The shoulders are down and relaxed, so there is no tension in the neck or shoulder area.

You now repeat the poses going back in the opposite direction.

Position 8: Exhale as you tuck the toes under. Keep the hands and feet in the same place, bring the hips up and form an inverted V/downward dog pose. Push the heels towards the floor and keep the knees straight.

Position 9: inhale and bring the right foot forwards between the hands so that the fingers and toes form a straight line. Drop the left knee to the floor and stretch the head up. (Alternatively lower the knees to the floor – all fours). This is the same position as in Position 4.

Position 10: Exhale and without moving the hands bring the left foot forwards next to the right foot. The forehead is down towards the knees. Make sure the fingers and toes are in a straight line. This is the same as Position 3

Position 11: Inhale – as you slowly reach the arms forwards and then stretch them up over your head. With your arms alongside your ears and the weight cantered on the balls of the feet. Give a complete backward bend to the body. This is the same position as Position 2.

Position 12: Exhale as you stands upright and brings your arms down alongside your body, returning to the starting position. Stand still and observe the breath.

When you have regained your breath, repeat this sequence, this time leading with the left leg.

So, there you have it. Your complete guide to the Sun Salutation. As you become more comfortable with this sequence, try and do at least 3 – 5 cycles every day. You will soon notice your back feeling looser, more supply and flexible.

Ntathu Allen, Yoga and Meditation Teacher works with women who want a richer, more fulfilling life for themselves and their families. She teaches you easy yoga postures, meditation practices and relaxation techniques to help you live a healthier, wealthier and happier stress-free life. To find out more go to: http://www.yogainspires.co.uk and sign up for your copy of Ntathu’s free monthly yoga Inspires enewsletter. The newsletter contains a goldmine of tips, techniques and strategies you can use to become healthier, wealthier and happier.

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Email:> [mailto:ntathu@yogainspires.co.uk]ntathu@yogainspires.co.uk http://www.yogainspires.co.uk

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Yoga For Beginners – Five Mental Benefits of Yoga to Improve Your Mood

Have you ever experienced an emotional upset, such as bereavement, the break-down of a close relationship, or even redundancy? Maybe you are currently going through a painful divorce and feel vulnerable, low and sad.

When you feel emotionally low, what do you do to pick yourself up and feel better again? Do you reach for the cake and biscuit tin and comfort eat, slouch in front of the TV, mindlessly flicking between channels or phone a friend and spend hours reliving your pain and sadness.

Have you noticed that these strategies don’t really work? You still feel sad, miserable and unhappy and; if you gorged on cakes and biscuits you probably now feel bloated and guilty for over eating.

When you feel like this what else can you do, to boost your energy and lift your spirits?

From personal experience and conversations with my yoga students, yoga is the ideal antidote to lighten your mood and boost your morale when low.

Five Mental Health Reasons Yoga Improves Your Mood

1. Yoga energies your body
When you practice yoga, you stretch your body which helps to release tension and blockages in your body. As you release physical tension, your emotional wellbeing automatically improves.

2. Yoga helps you cope better with emotional stress.
Sadness, pain and emotional turmoil zap your energy. You feel drained, stressed and tired. Yoga exercises help to address this imbalance. As you practice yoga you instantly feel energised and revitalised.

3. Yoga opens your heart
When you are sad, unhappy and feel alone, your heart centre shuts down. Yoga exercises, particular backbend posture, for example, the cobra, camel, the fish, awakens and strengthens the heart chakra. Over time, as you heal, regular yoga practice makes it easier for you to transform negative emotional thoughts into positive, loving energy.

4. Yoga stimulates your throat centre.
Blocked emotions make it difficult for you to communicate your sense of loss and sadness. Yoga poses, such as the shoulder stand, the plough and the breathing practice – the lion roar, help to stimulate your throat chakra which means you are able to express your pain, voice your differences and ask for help.

5. Yoga brings intuitive knowledge
When your energy is low, it is hard for you to see beyond your immediate pain and discomfort. You feel disconnected and alone, which increases your sense of loss. Yoga exercises and philosophy gives you a deeper meaning and connection to life. Over time, you gain a sense of the harmony and balance that exist within and around you.

In summary, as you can see, yoga exercises help to easily improve your mood, so you feel better, lighter and happier.

“And now I would like to invite you to claim your Free Instant Access to my Special Report “Yoga Exercises and Breathing Exercises to Ease You Into Your Day” when you visit http://www.yogainspires.co.uk/pages/ntathusfreeyogaandmeditationtips.php – Use these easy yoga exercise to gently stretch your body awake and start your day with a smile and a peaceful mind.”

From Ntathu Allen – Sivananda Yoga Teacher and Registered Polarity Therapist.

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Yoga – Weight Loss Made Easy With Yoga Stretches

Are you tired of weight loss programs which just don’t work? It’s time for a change: try something different. Yoga can help you to lose weight because it helps you to change your lifestyle. Forget about dieting, just do some simple yoga stretches every day.

1. Find a Beginner’s Yoga Class

You don’t have to be an expert yogi to lose weight with yoga. You can be a complete beginner. What matters is that yoga will change you, and the weight will vanish over time. It’s not a process you can force, you simply allow it to happen.

Start the process by finding a beginners yoga class in your area, and make a commitment to go to class at least once a week.

2. Spend Ten Minutes Morning and Evening on Your Favorite Poses

In yoga there around 10 primary poses with endless variations. Pick your favorite two poses, and do them morning and evening. This should take you around 10 minutes.

For example, let’s say you picked downward dog and the cobra as the poses you’ll practice outside class this week. Start your 10 minute session in mountain pose, paying particular attention to your alignment, and relaxing as you stand in the pose. Then do cobra pose. Perform the pose four times. Completely relax between each pose.

Complete your session by performing downward dog pose, increasing the length of time you spend in the pose gradually, until you’re spending around 90 seconds in the pose.

3. Allow Yourself to Lose Weight: Forget Dieting

You gained weight gradually. You didn’t have to think about gaining weight, it just happened, because of the habits you created. Changing habits is very difficult, especially if you try to impose change from the outside. Yoga helps you to change from the inside.

Within a few days of starting your yoga exercises, you’ll find that you no longer crave fast food. However, buying fast food is a habit. You may still find yourself buying fast food even though your craving for it is gone. Don’t try to force yourself to stop. One day you would just drive right past your favorite fast food eatery. You won’t have to think about it.

Is it really that simple? Can you really lose weight with just a few yoga stretches each day? Yes, you can. The key is to enjoy your yoga, and to forget about dieting. Weight loss will happen, and more quickly than you can imagine.

Discover yourself with yoga, a gentle form of stretching. Yoga strengthens both your body and mind, and is suitable for anyone, from children to seniors. Visit Easy Fab Yoga Blog at http://www.easyfabyoga.com/blog/ for daily yoga information, tips, and inspiration.

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Using Yoga For Weight Loss

If you are like a lot of people, you have potentially considered beginning an exercise program to help lose weight. Many of us claim that yoga will help with weight reduction, and while many have shed pounds thanks to yoga, others do not believe that such a serene form of exercise will help them to reach their weight reduction goals.

It is widely recognized that yoga helps to develop flexibility by stretching muscles and promotes a more balanced approach to life that will also help with stress reduction, but in the area of weight reduction yoga’s benefits aren’t as clear.

The reality is that yoga students do lose weight from practicing yoga, but that weight reduction is not a consequence of strenuous exercise as yoga is a particularly gentle way to tone your body. The weight loss from doing yoga is a consequence of welcoming the principals of yoga that work to reduce stress and balance your mind, body, and soul.

A lifestyle that is freed from stress and is balanced is conducive to weight reduction as you can easily manage a healthful diet and lifestyle decisions. Stress has been evidently proven as a reason for weight gain, so an exercise that aims to alleviate stress will eliminate this weight gain risk factor from your life.
Although the physical facet of yoga is not strenuous, it does keep your body healthy, flexible, and in shape. Though we may not know precisely how yoga causes weight reduction, you may use yoga to lose weight.

In order to shed pounds, you must eat healthily and burn energy by doing exercises that raises your heart rate on a consistent basis. Some kinds of yoga, like Iyengar, in which yoga poses are held for a bit with a resting period between each pose, will build muscles and enhance your posture, but will not give you the heart workout that you need in order to shed the additional pounds.

Ashtanga yoga is a very powerful style of practice with some distinct benefits for those who desire to shed pounds. Ashtanga practitioners are among the most dedicated of yoga learners, and amateurs are commonly inspired to sign in for a chain of classes that may give incentive to losing weight. Another advantage is that upon learning the poses, Ashtanga yoga is perfect for home practitioners.

Another form of yoga that can help lose weight is Power Yoga. This type of yoga is extremely preferred, as it offers an extraordinarily powerful cardio workout. Yet another from of yoga that can help in shedding pounds is Vinyasa Yoga. This is done in a hot room and ups the ante by guaranteeing that you will sweat buckets.

If you intend to make yoga your first form of exercise, you may do a powerful 90-minute yoga class at least three times a week. Many people also decide to mix yoga with running, walking or other aerobic exercise to reach their weight reduction goals.

Yoga would possibly not be the quickest way to shed weight but you can notice plenty of benefits after you start a yoga program. The advantages of yoga will definitely have an affect on your whole life and help you to find balance between your body, mind and soul. No other exercise program encompasses so many facets of life and serves to create balance that may help you to live a healthful way of life conducive of weight reduction.

Are you desperate to lose weight without having to perform strenuous exercise everyday? Have you heard of using yoga as a way to shed pounds? Do you want to learn how to lose weight by practicing yoga, and at the same time gain other benefits such as a peaceful mind and soul? The complete guide to using [http://www.free-online-yoga.com/yoga-for-weight-loss.html]yoga for weight loss can be found here! Discover a slimmer and healthier you by visiting http://www.free-online-yoga.com now!

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Learning Yoga – Are You the Right Candidate?

Yoga has become a respected alternative therapy throughout the world today. Are you also motivated to learn yoga? But, Learning Yoga is not for everyone. Many people join a yoga class because of the recommendation and advice from their family, friends or their family physicians. Unfortunately all of them may not complete their course and practise it in their life. Why? They will have their own reasons to say. Some of them may feel that Yoga Asanas are too difficult to learn.

How do you know you are the right candidate to become a Yoga student? Ask these questions to yourself.

1. Do you have your own desire to learn the blissful Yoga and make it a part of your life?
2. Why do you want to learn yoga? Do you have any special reasons?
3. How did you get motivated to learn yoga?
4. Are you a positive minded person?
5. Have you taken efforts in gathering some amount of knowledge about Yoga and its wonderful benefits from others or from books or from the internet?
6. Do you have a strong desire to devote the required time (approximately 30 minutes to 1 hour) to attend the Yoga class daily?
7. Are you willing to take some efforts in trying to do those exercises, as per your teacher’s instructions?
8. Are you serious in finding a yoga teacher in your area, or online?

If your answers are “Yes” to all these above questions, you can be the right candidate to learn Yoga,and experience the blissful world of yoga. Yoga is more than just a form of exercise; it is a way of life.

Lakshmi Menon writes articles on various topics, including South India tourism. Please visit http://www.enchanting-south-india-vacations.com/what-is-yoga.html to know more about yoga.

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Laughing Yoga For Better Sexual Health

How do sex and energy co-exist and blend with yoga? They are a twin-ship, even if we don’t see them that way. Let’s begin with the ancient practice of yoga. Yoga means to yoke – to blend mind, body and spirit. And now – sex. Think of it – when the mind is busy, busy, busy, we stay unaware of our sensations, our perceptions, the smells, sounds, and tastes all around us. Good sex is letting go of the mind and getting into, really into, the sensations/pleasures/feeling of the experience. People are born with an innate awareness of these senses – but as we get older, we lose that primitive, wonderful sense of our internal self. And so basically, for the sexual experience to be a high, we need to forgo all thought and get into the energy of the experience, feel it in all of you.

“Chi” energy contains two polar forces: yin and yang. In everyday terms, yin is often connected with female energy, yang with the male. But each of us, male and female, contain both. As such, what is needed, for both is balance. Unbalanced, you are in a state of dis-ease. Too much yang is the overly-active person, always on the move, can’t stay still; too much yin, the opposite.

The formation of all sexual energy is Prana – the driving force of sensuality, vital energy, and passion. Prana means breath and is an innermost belief in Yoga offering enriching, escalating sexual activity. So- look at your Prana and Chi. Are you out of balance – too much of one thing – too little of another? Too little laughter, too much work?

Yoga combined with laughter creates an increased energy body response by enhancing circulation, increasing the heart rate, and exercising muscles of the face and stomach. Laughing is jogging for the heart, mind, body and spirit.

1. Laughing tones your abdominals, (making it easier to perform intercourse),
2. Increases your circulation (which makes it easier for your man to get an erection)
3. Enhances your immune system increasing your opportunities to enjoy sex with your partner because you’ll both be healthy. ”

Laughter is much more effective when you have someone to laugh with. Try this laughter exercise from the bonus section of the yoga DVD, Yoga Chi for Energy with your partner.

Caution: Side effects include:

* Increases production of love – happy hormone dopamine
*Boosts immune system
*Enhances circulation
*Strengthens abdominals
*Ventilates Lungs

The laughing hyena

1. Stand facing each other and look into each others eyes

2. Loosen up your mind, body and spirit by gently shaking your arms, legs, wiggle your hips and bend & straighten your legs.

3. Keep looking at each other and begin to make a laughing sound. Soon genuine laughter will bestow you both and you will produce the same hormone that raged in your bodies when you both fell in love.

4. Laugh for at least 2 full minutes and end by giving each other a hug. Make the change and live the richness of life as it was intended: one of balance, joy, pleasure and the new exquisite awareness of who you truly are.

Suzanne Andrews, host of Yoga Chi for Energy DVD, and Host of PBS TV Functional Fitness is giving away a FREE Stress Release and Weight Loss meditation CD valued at $19.95 to the first 200 orders of Yoga Chi for Energy DVD from August 11 – September 11, 2008. Offer available at http://healthwiseexercise.com/shop/cart.php?target=product&product_id=16134&category_id=106
This article may be reprinted and published when accompanied by the above information and website link.

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Which Type of Yoga is Best For You?

Yoga can offer plenty of health benefits and is a good way for the general public to develop flexibility, reduce stress, and live a fitter way of life. There are various sorts that you can take part in, and the type that is best for you depend on your personal well-being and fitness goals. Some are concentrating more on the physical toning of your muscles and on weight loss, whilst others focus more on meditation and spirituality.

Whichever kind you decide to learn, you should expect to get results like stress reduction, increased flexibility, and a rise in your overall well-being. Before you pick the sort you wish to study, you must decide what you would like to gain out of your experience: whether or not you are looking to get fit, or perhaps to raise your flexibility, or gain a higher spiritual awareness.

The preferred kind is Hatha yoga. This involves the kinds of movements that the majority associate with it. Hatha yoga is excellent for folks who need to increase their flexibility and stay trim and fit, as this uses controlled stretching to exercise and tone your body.

Though Hatha yoga is suitable for almost all levels of students, Vini yoga is another sort that promotes suppleness but is gentler and involves easier poses and movements. There are yet some other kinds, and some are well suited for people who need a more intense and physical workout that still includes the advantages. Ashtanga yoga is the most physically demanding form and is rightly called “power yoga” by many of us. This kind mixes plenty of the standard principals with a more intense workout.

If you have an interest in the spiritual aspect, there are some types for you too. Royal yoga is a kind that concentrates on the mind and connecting with your inner being.

If you would really desire to have a spiritual experience, then Jnana yoga is the best kind for you. Jnana yoga is focused on yoga’s spiritual and philosophical aspects and permits learners to each enter a deeper spiritual existence in their life.

Do you wonder which type of yoga is best suited for you? Have you attended yoga classes, only to find out that they do not suit your expectations and needs? Do you want to know which type of yoga will reap you the benefits that you want? If you are looking for the most popular type of yoga, this is the place that will give you a complete guide to [http://www.free-online-yoga.com/hatha-yoga.html]Hatha Yoga! Discover the different types of yoga right here at http://www.free-online-yoga.com!

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