Yoga For Pregnant Women

Many pregnant women are suffering from symptoms like fatigue, weight gain, cramps, headaches, swelling, mood swings, cravings, and constipation. Pregnancy symptoms can really get you down. Many women are now turning to yoga to alleviate many of these annoying symptoms during their pregnancies. Yoga is also considered as a great exercise for the moms-to-be and provide their babies with the healthiest start.

For instance, yoga practice teaches techniques that will be helpful during labor, such as breathing and relieving tension around the cervix and birth canal. Additionally, prenatal physicians recommend combining a light cardiovascular exercise (like walking) with a relaxing, muscle-toning exercise (like yoga) to maintain your physique. Many physical benefits can be realized from practicing yoga during pregnancy.

Besides physical benefits, pregnant women can also have mental benefits by practicing yoga. For example, it can be a great support to meet other women who going through the same thing you are. Also, there is much emphasis on focusing on the moment and deriving happiness from each and every day, which can be vital when your hormones are not regulating properly. Yoga has been known to stimulate beta-endorphins, which can brings comfort and a sense of relief.

During the first trimester, standing poses help circulation, strengthen legs and increase energy. Avoid bikram yoga classes that use room that is heated for high temperature or any kind of back/belly/inverted positions. In the second and third trimesters, yoga for your pregnancy will include more sitting positions and breathing techniques.

Pregnancy Without Pounds

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Yoga and Meditation For Better Health

Many researchers now have a high interest in studying the healing effects of endorphins released during meditation and yoga. Endorphin is a natural painkiller, a substance in the brain that attaches to the same cell receptors that morphine does. This substance is believed to be able to cure many diseases such as asthma, ADHD, high blood pressure, diabetes, multiple sclerosis and cancer. "Ayudervedic healing," as it's called, has been in practice for over 5,000 years but didn't arrive in the United States until the 1970s. The healing is based on three areas - diet, herbs and meditation yoga - particularly "Sahaja Yoga."

Students who practice Sahaja Yoga will study the three vertical energy channels within the human body:

• the sun channel (governing our thought processes),
• the parasympathetic / nervous system channel (governing our body processes),
• the moon channel (governing our emotions).

In addition to these three channels, millions of chakras (translated from Sanskrit to mean "wheels" or energy centers) are swirling around us, keeping the channels in motion. Chakras can vary from religion to religion, but Sahaja Yoga focuses on several in its yoga and meditation: the crown chakra (pituitary gland / consciousness), the third eye chakra (pineal gland / sleep and awakening), the throat chakra (thyroid / growth and maturity), the heart chakra (thymus / stress and wellbeing), the solar plexus chakra (pancreas / digestion and energy), the sacral chakra (groin / sexuality and reproduction) and the root chakra (adrenal gland / basic fight or flight instincts and kundalini awakening).

Sahaja yoga and meditation has been taught worldwide since 1970. It's well known for treating ailments and diseases. To translate from Sanskrit, "Saha" means "spontaneous" and "ja" means "born within." Yoga, of course, means "union." The end goal is kundalini (or spiritual awakening), as well as a unity and collective awakening among people.

Yoga and meditation have been practiced for thousands of years. Today, there are many people can benefit from the healing effects and energy restoration of yoga and meditation. For the mother of three, an hour of tranquillity has calmed her nerves and boosted her spirits. For the man with intermittent explosive anger disorder, his emotions are now subdued and connected with something larger than himself. For the cancer patient and the arthritic elderly, yoga and meditation has relieved pain that hundreds of harmful prescription medications could not. The miracles of yoga and meditation are happening everywhere around the world.

Practice Yoga to Develop Patience

When you look at the list of virtues that Yoga embraces - patience is one of many. Yet, the development of patience, through the practice of Yoga, could change the quality of your life right away. Traffic jams, delays, extra paperwork, and last-second changes, cause many of us to be irritable - but just how important are they?

Here is an example: You have an appointment with your doctor, but you are running a few minutes late. You fight through traffic, avoiding drivers and pedestrians, while breaking the speed limit. Then you run into office to sit in the "waiting room." After 15 minutes of waiting, you are admitted to an exam room to wait for another 20 minutes.

The end result is that you put your life at risk to wait 35 minutes. If the doctor you went to visit was a surgeon, you might have waited hours - if he or she was called into the hospital for an emergency. So, you have accomplished nothing by raising your blood pressure, putting your life at risk, and driving to endanger others.

Yoga teaches us to enjoy the present moment - regardless of the situation. Plan and prepare for delays by starting earlier or by making good use of time you spend waiting.

An experienced Yoga practitioner would practice Pranayama (Yogic breathing techniques) or mentally perform mantra anywhere. These Yogic methods do not require you to carry anything with you.

Yet, you could also practice Jnana Yoga (Union though knowledge) by carrying audio books, a lap top computer, or a book. Any of these methods would make delays much more bearable, and you would learn to practice or cultivate patience, while you wait.

© Copyright 2007 - Paul Jerard / Aura Publications

Paul Jerard, E-RYT 500, has written many books on the subject of Yoga. He is a co-owner and the Director of Yoga Teacher Training at: Aura Wellness Center, in Attleboro, MA. http://www.riyoga.com He has been a certified Master Yoga Teacher since 1995. To receive a Free Yoga e-Book: "Yoga in Practice," and a Free Yoga Newsletter, please visit: http://www.yoga-teacher-training.org/index.html

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Paul_Jerard

Healthy Benefits Of Having Yoga As A Hobby

In today's fast-paced stressed life, even children need to take a little time off with some form of relaxation. However, instead of raising a couch potato who listens to MP3s, plays video games, surfs the Internet or just watches TV, encouraging a child to take up a constructive alternative, such as, a hobby could open a whole new dimension to his life. Parents should support their child in discovering the rewards of having a hobby.

What is a Hobby?

A hobby is a pastime or activity that a child does in his spare time for individual accomplishment. It is something they have an interest in and that they enjoy. It differs from an activity that is forced on them. For instance, a parent may think that her son needs some exercise and signs him up for soccer. While her son may not mind playing soccer, he is not especially enthusiastic about it either. This is not a hobby for him; whereas, a daughter begs to take up ballet. Here she is not only getting exercise, but she lives and breathes ballet. That then makes it her hobby.

What kinds of Hobbies are there?

1. One type of hobby is collecting, such as, key chain, lunchbox, autograph, stamp, trading card, comic book, postcard, doll, spoon, patch or coin collecting.

2. There are educational hobbies. A few of them would be amateur radio, bird watching, genealogy, chemistry or astronomy.

3. Then there are creative hobbies. They could be painting, photography, playing a musical instrument, cooking, scrap booking, building models, HO gauge trains, kite building, wood carving, needlepoint, knitting, sewing and crocheting.

4. Also there are physical hobbies, for example, playing sports, yoga, bicycling, running or hiking.

5. Next there are the games. Many of which can be played in competition. Several are chess, checkers, bridge, gin rummy, backgammon and scrabble.

6. Some are then a combination of hobby types. For instance, hobbies that are a blend of the collecting and educational varieties are rock and mineral, fossil, butterfly, feather, shell and arrowhead collecting. Gardening could be considered both physical and educational; whereas, the art of dance is creative and physical.

What are the Rewards of Having a Hobby?

1. It can promote relaxation.

2. It can encourage physical exercise.

3. The hobby may further advance creativity.

4. Through the process of self-discovery, a child may realize a talent they did not know existed.

5. A hobby can teach. A child may learn about the particular subject they are engaged in and perhaps become an expert. They can learn organizational skills through setting up a collection or planning the next phase of their hobby's development.

6. It may aid a child in increasing the drive and persistence to attain their goals.

7. Due to self-achievement, the hobby can help in building confidence. For example, when a budding gardener takes some seeds, cultivates the soil, adds the right amount of water and proper sunlight and wins first prize for growing the largest tomato at the fair.

8. It can also aid in developing social skills like how to handle competition with learning to win politely or lose gracefully.

9. The hobby could result into a lifetime passion or eventually turn into a career.

There are very few downsides to having a hobby. Unless, of course, the child becomes obsessed to the point where everything else in their life falls to the wayside. It is the duty of a parent to keep their child on track with what is appropriate and not to allow them to become too fixated on their hobby.

To further the desire to take up a hobby in a child, it is important that the parents have a hobby themselves. They also should attempt to expose their child to various experiences so that possibly their child may form an interest in some area. When an interest seems to develop, parents should support it wholeheartedly. Perhaps take a trip to a museum, show, or exhibit that features the hobby.

However, parents should not demand absolute perfection from the child. They should allow the child to try, fail, and learn from their mistakes. After all, it is their hobby and they should be allowed to explore it their own way. A child who discovers his own personal pursuit will surely reap many rewards from his hobby that he otherwise would not have experienced.

About the Author:

S.E. Odom is an independent publisher and co-founder of The Samadhi Group, Inc. Stop by The Samadhi Group Inc. today for abundant living tips and resources.

Bikram Hot Yoga

What Is Bikram Hot Yoga?

As yoga grows in popularity through the world and becomes more recognizable, yoga classes themselves are starting to specialize into different kinds of yoga. Of the different ways of performing yoga, Bikram Yoga is one that was invented in the United States, rather than in India, where yoga originated. Let’s look at what makes Bikram Yoga different from traditional yoga.

A Hot Environment

One of the key features of Bikram Yoga is the environment that it’s practiced in: a room that is heated to about 105 degrees Fahrenheit and with air that’s about at 50% humidity. This is key to the philosophy of this form of yoga, which not only will improve the body’s breathing and flexibility, but the body’s circulation as well, according to Bikram Choudhury, the creator of Bikram Hot Yoga. The higher temperature helps to get the blood flowing in our body.

The Poses

Though there are many different poses in yoga, Bikram Yoga is concerned with a series of 26 poses as well as two specific breathing exercises. These poses are so key to this particular form of yoga that the creator has copyrighted the specific order of these poses. This has become an important issue, as Bikram has had his copyright for these poses challenged in court, due to claims that you can’t copyright a series of poses that comes from traditional yoga poses.

Finding An Instructor

As the creator of Bikram Yoga recommends, your best bet is to find someone that has been certified as a Bikram Yoga instructor. In order to control the quality of Bikram Yoga instruction, Bikram Choudhury does not allow this form of yoga to be taught without a license from his company, he attempts to enforce this standard through his copyrights.

Beyond legal reasoning, it makes sense to find someone certified in Bikram Yoga to teach you since they have been through the training for teaching this form of yoga. This means that they can adequately explain safety concerns when practicing Bikram Yoga and are well-versed in the 26 poses and the correct way to perform them. The health benefits you’ll get from this form of yoga are greater flexibility, a strong circulatory system, and more controlled breathing. Given that, if you’re willing to brave the heat, then trying Bikram Hot Yoga might be a good idea for you.

Advanced Yoga

What You Need To Know About Advanced Yoga

The purpose of advanced yoga is not to be better or strike cooler poses than anyone else. One of the traits of an advanced yoga student is humility, and so they should not seek to be better doing advanced yoga poses than anyone else. Yoga seeks to the practitioner to find the balance between mind, body and soul. Advanced yoga poses are not party tricks.

Do not try advanced yoga poses unless you’ve been training in yoga for months or years. Even continually doing Pilates will help let your body know what it’s in for. (Pilates and yoga are very similar, although Pilates concentrates entirely on the body and ignores the mind and soul).

You need to gradually build up to the advanced yoga poses by learning easy yoga poses. In yoga, there should be no pressure to be the best in class – you just do what you are comfortable with. If at any time, the yoga poses starts to hurt – STOP.



There’s more to advanced yoga than just striking a series of poses that make onlookers twinge. There are many spectacular things advanced yoga followers can do. They can lie on a bed of broken glass and not get cut, walk through fire and not get burned, not eat, not even breathe for hours, read minds, communicate to friends and disciples in dreams or even levitate. But doing cool stuff is not the point of advanced yoga. The point is to become one with the universe, which can be your point in life and in advanced yoga, if you so choose.

Yoga Training Certification

How to get your Yoga Teacher Training Certification

Once you have your yoga teacher certification you are able to teach others how to practice the wonderful and beneficial exercise of yoga. If this is your passion, it is definitely something worth working for. There are only a few steps involved in getting your yoga teacher training certification, but you do need to have a strong motivation in order to make it through.

Getting Your Yoga Certification

The first step to getting your yoga teacher certification is to take your yoga certification courses, and for this you can either go directly into a fitness or health center that offers this option, or you can get it all done online, if you have access to a computer and the Internet.

You just want to make sure, whatever method that you choose, the course and the instructors who teach the course are legit, so that you know it’s worth your money and that you will be getting the proper education.



Getting the Most out of Your Training

Yoga training for interns and teachers can differ greatly, but so can the overall mindset of the participants who are involved. In other words, there are some people who simply get more out of the certification courses than others, some who take it more seriously. If you are really interested in the yoga exercise and want to know how you can make the most of your training, then there are a few things you will want to know.

For one, you want to be sure that you set realistic goals and deadlines for yourself. Remember that you do have other things to take care of on a daily basis and so you will not want to overload yourself when you don’t have to.

Figure out how much time you really have to spare, considering everything that you need to such as family obligations, your job, housework, so that you will not be rundown by adding on even more to your schedule.

You also want to make sure that you constantly keep yourself up to date on the exercise of yoga, because it is constantly evolving and you want to make sure that your education is up to date as well.

Once you have received your certification, you are able to find students to teach, and the best way to start off is to work in someone else’s studio rather than start your own right off the bat, as this way you will be able to get to know people who are already customers there and show them what a great yogi you are, so that they will always follow you if and when you do start your own yoga studio.

Yoga Meditation : Find Your Life Purpose

Many people would argue that you should not spend your yoga meditation time focusing upon words such as abundance, success and achievement. However, you most definitely do not want to focus on the opposites of these words. After all, any sequence of thoughts, regardless as to whether they are positive or negative, can become your reality whenever you focus upon them. For this reason you really should spend your yoga meditation time on things that will bring you success or otherwise have a positive impact upon your life.

Yoga Meditation As Taught By The Professionals

Whenever you are being taught how to do yoga meditation you will be taught a variety of methods. One of these yoga meditation methods is visualization. This is because visualization can help you to create inner stability, which in turn will lead to positive personality development. As such, your end result will be increased self-confidence, improved self-image, better self-esteem and a successful life.

Of course, “success” can mean different things to different people. For instance, some people believe that they are successful if they have a good marriage, strong family ties and good friends. While this is not material riches, it does give this person a deep purpose in their lives.

If you are wondering what your purpose in life is, there is a good reason for you to visualize success that is most important to you during your yoga meditation session. Do it in a noble way and hopefully you may be able to find your life's purpose during the process. This is important because if you do not know what your life's purpose is, you can wind up wasting a lot of your time and energy.



Opposing Views To This Form Of Yoga Meditation

Some yoga teachers will not agree with this use of yoga meditation. Their reasoning behind this is that the mind is very powerful, so whenever it gets out of control it can be a very destructive weapon. For this reason, your mind should be positive and your heart should be true, kind and noble. All of this must occur before you consider visualizing success during yoga meditation.

Learn some great Yoga for relaxation routine with Tara Stiles:

Yoga Poses For Kids

It is normal to assume that kids have no stress in life. However, many kids nowadays are very much consumed by school works and exams. You might begin to wonder whether they are really as stress-free as you might have imagined.

Yoga for kids is something that parents can consider doing to help ease their kids from the pressures of school, and will also teach them to learn methods that can equip them well to face life’s challenges in the future. The advantage of yoga for kids is that they will be able to learn techniques how best to relax, concentrate better and gain inner peace as well as stay healthy in their early life. It will also make them realize the benefits of being more compassionate and less aggressive.

Yoga for kids means having to learn different yoga poses, some of which owe their inspiration to animals and plants, and when children mimic such movements and sounds of nature, they will not only gain a lot of enjoyment, but will also experience things such as the strength of a lion and the grace of a swan, amongst other things. The true essence of yoga is the union, expression as well as learning how to honor the self and also others.



When yoga for kids is taught, instructors realize the importance of an interactive as well as multi-disciplinary approach. Many of the yoga asanas may require expansion such as playing and also imitating various plants and animals. All in all, such yoga classes for kids are an excellent opportunity to teach the young children to explore their innate abilities and encourage creativities.

The main challenge facing teachers of yoga for kids is to be able to hold their attention. But since yoga promotes motion, which most children will like, it will not be too difficult to get their attention. Children will love playing just like some animals and also imitate the motion of trees and flowers, and letting them roar like lions, bark when in a dog pose or hiss like cobras will certainly get their attention.

Partner Yoga Poses

Partner Yoga is fun. This video will demonstrate some partner yoga poses. So grab your partner and a mat and follow along with the video.

Yoga has many benefits. Some people use yoga for meditation and therapy. Some use it to stay limber and in shape. In this video, you will learn some partner yoga poses, positions, techniques and postures adapted for you and your partner. Start improving your overall health and fitness together with your partner. You now have the techniques, go and get your partner and encourage each other to get fit. Enjoy it.

Yoga Pilates

In the 20th century Joseph Pilate invented yoga pilates. These can be very helpful, as long as you are properly following the rules of Pilates exercises.

What Yoga Pilates Are?

Yoga pilates are a regimen of exercises that can be both beneficial and enjoyable. Simply stated, these are the contemporary part of the older yoga movements. There are actually 500 exercises that can be performed using only 5 main instruments. The basics here that you must master are movement to and from the center of your body and revolving around this area.

Maintaining a good health and well-being are the main reasons why people would want to do yoga pilates. Regular exercise will leave a positive impact on both your physical and your mental life. After you start doing yoga pilates for a while you will notice that you are actually more flexible. This is because there is a lot of stretching involved in yoga pilates and this stretching will lessen the threat of injuries.

• Here is a video showing you a 10 minutes pilates routine to trim and slim your waist line...

The Benefits Of Yoga Pilates

The biggest benefits of this type of yoga is that your body’s balance will be greatly improved. Over time you will also find that your aches will also greatly reduce. As you probably already know, regular exercise will strengthen your muscles and thus you will have more stamina and energy. You will also discover that your body and mind will be a lot more relaxed. This is because you will be practicing specific breathing patterns.

For these various reasons many specialists suggest that their patients engage in this form of yoga. Those who teach yoga pilates agree that this is a good exercise for many people, regardless of their body shapes. In fact, yoga pilates teachers tend to consider this to be yoga with the use of machines or with strength conditioning.

Conclusion

Yoga and pilates tend to compliment each other as both will help you with your mobility. Pilates simply takes this a step further and helps you to strengthen your body. So, if your job requires you sitting at a desk most of the time, you will greatly benefit from yoga pilates. This is because you will learn ways to support your backbone. It is also a great form of exercise for dancers and professional athletes as it will help them to become more flexible while also growing stronger. Many celebrities also like to take up this form of exercise, which can help them to keep in shape and relax.

Yoga Exercise Routine For The Core

In this video, Tara Stiles will teach you an exercise routine that combines yoga, dance and pilates techniques.

A Guide to Namaste Yoga

Yoga is a spiritual practice or discipline that helps to unify the body, mind and heart. Although there are various different styles of yoga that you can choose from to practice, Namaste yoga is one of the most beneficial and easiest to learn, so it is perfect for yoga beginners.

Namaste yoga is based on the Hatha Vinyasa style of yoga, with this type of yoga, the breath is the guide for the body. It is a form of yoga that really works in unison with the heart and focuses largely on breathing exercises, postures and poses.

Click the image below to watch a 5 minutes video previewing Namaste Yoga.



The Advantages of Namaste Yoga:

There are many advantages that can be gained from practicing of Namaste yoga. In fact, the healing benefits of yoga are so great that you will feel revitalized at the end of every yoga session. Yoga is an exercise which is able to greatly enhance your understanding of life, and it can change an individual’s entire perspective about life.

The positive effects of yoga begin to show almost immediately, as the sense of feeling good starts to envelope around you. Yoga can help to clarify your deepest desire in life, your motivations and aspirations, thereby helping you to restore confidence, self-awareness, and self-esteem.

The driving force behind yoga is aimed at the more monumental and life-changing discovery that helps you discover who you really are and what it is that you are looking to get out of life in general. Therefore yoga can help you with issues that you never even knew existed – it can help you to find out who you are and live the life that you always dreamed.

Whether you practice Namaste or another form of yoga, you will reap such benefits, and there is no other type of exercise that comes even close to this when it comes to advantages for your mind, body and soul. If you haven’t tried yoga before, it will truly be a life changing experience when you finally do, and it is definitely something that you will never regret trying.

Weight Loss Through Yoga

Without any doubt, yoga can help to stretch the muscles and increase flexibility and nimbleness. But now there are many people practicing yoga to lose weight. Although there is no hard and fast scientific data to support this fact, there have been many success stories about weight loss through yoga.

As most yoga exercises are not strenuous, weight loss through yoga is probably not the result of burning calories through strenuous exercises. It's believed that the weight loss is a result of reducing stress and having a heathy lifestyle. Also, by helping you to reduce stress, yoga can help to eliminate the bad habits of overeating, which in turn helps you lose weight.

Weight loss through yoga techniques such as the bending, inversions, twisting, and others promote stimulation of body's endocrine system. This will help raise the metabolism which will help you to burn more calories.

The Right Diet and Lifestyle

Of course weight loss through yoga exercises will not be effective if you don't change to a healthy diet and lifestyle. A healthy diet will incorporate high amounts of fiber, whole grains, and vegetables. Alcohol, cigarettes or anything that is not healthy for your body MUST be stopped.

If you are trying to lose weight through yoga exercises, you must remember that yoga won't give you immediate result. Your weight loss through yoga program must be combined with healthy diets. This weight loss process would last from two weeks to six months. Start with easy postures first. And once you get your comfort level, you can opt for more rigorous yoga exercises.

Hatha Yoga exercises are exceptionally good to serve the weight loss purpose. You can also try hot yoga exercise, it's also very effective for weight loss. If you could make yoga and its practices part of your life, you would be able to solve your weight loss problem forever.

If you want more information about weight loss through yoga, check out this great book: "YOGA WEIGHT LOSS SECRETS".

Hatha Yoga Exercises

Hatha Yoga exercises are the most common practice of yoga in the Western countries. Unlike the original version of yoga, hatha yoga exercises focus more on the physical regimen that aims to give mental, emotional, and physical well-being.

The History

The history of hatha yoga exercises dates back in the 15th century India when Yogi Swatmarama, a sage during those times, introduced it as a form of “a stairway to the heights” of Raja Yoga which is the preparatory stage of physical purification that makes the body fit for the practice of higher form of meditation.

Hatha yoga is also known to be called as “hatha vidya” and the word “hatha” is a combination of the words, “ha” which means sun and “tha” that means moon. They are said to refer to the prinicipal “nadis” or the energy channels of the body and must be fully operational to attain the state of “dhyana” or a certain state of meditation.

The Concept

The whole concept of the hatha yoga is a holistic yogic path that includes moral discipilines, physical exercises, breath control, and meditation. The hatha yoga exercises that are mostly practiced and popular in the western countries mainly composed of the “asanas” or postures.

Hatha yoga is only one of the two concepts of yoga exercises that focus on the physical culture and the other yoga is the Raja yoga but both of these are referred to as Ashtanga yoga. The main difference is that the Raja yoga focuses more on the “asanas” or postures to get the body ready for a prolonged meditation. The hatha yoga on the other hand focuses on balancing the mind and body through physical exercises, controlled breathing, and calming the mind through meditation and sheer relaxation.

Different positions or postures are recommended by practitioners to help alleviate or avoid health problems ranging from constipation through cancer. Doing Hatha Yoga exercises on a regular basis can help to reduce stress, pressure, and other mental worries that many of us are exposed to these days.

If you are interested to learn more about Hatha Yoga exercises, check out this book: BANDHAYOGA. Just click the image to see more information.

Names of Different Types of Yoga

Yoga is one of the most popular exercises exists today, but not many people are actually aware of the names of different types of yoga out there. Each has its own features, qualities and advantages, and so in order to be able to determine which is going to work best for you, you need to learn the basics about each of the most major types of yoga.

Here are some of the names of different types of Yoga:

Hatha Yoga:

Hatha Yoga is what most people in the West associate with the word "Yoga" and is practiced for mental and physical health. It was introduced by Yogi Swatmarama, a sage of 15th century India, and compiler of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. In this treatise Swatmarama introduces Hatha Yoga as 'a stairway to the heights of Raja Yoga', hence a preparatory stage of physical purification that renders the body fit for the practise of higher meditation.

The Raja Yoga were what the Hindu Yogis used to physically train their body for long periods of meditation. The word Hatha is a compound of the words Ha and Tha meaning sun and moon and refers to the principal nadis (energy channels) of the subtle body that must be fully operational to attain a state of dhyana or samadhi. Hatha yoga follows the same principles as the Raja Yoga of Patanjali including moral restraint yama and spiritual observances niyama.

Iyengar Yoga:

Iyengar Yoga, a form of Hatha Yoga, focuses on the structural alignment of the physical body through the development of asanas (postures). Through the practice of a system of asanas, it aims to unite the body, mind and spirit for health and well being. Iyengar Yoga is considered a powerful tool to relieve the stresses of modern-day life which in turn can help promote total physical and spiritual well being.

With Iyengar yoga, there is an emphasis on holding each pose for a long period of time, rather than moving constantly from one pose to the next, as you do with Ashtanga yoga. Iyengar yoga also uses various props such as blocks and straps in its practice, in order to help align the body into the different poses.

Bikram Yoga:

This is another popular types of yoga and is also known as ‘Hot yoga’, because it is practiced in a room that is heated to 105 degrees, with a humidity of around 40%. Bikram Yoga was developed by Bikram Choudhury and a Los Angeles, California based company, it is now practiced all over the world.

There are many names of different types of yoga, however the ones mentioned here are the most major types. So if you are just getting into yoga you will want to make sure that you get yourself started with one of these types of yoga, then you can try out the others once you have got the basic idea of how it all works. Of all the types of yoga, Ashtanga yoga is the best to start off with, because it allows you to learn all of the different aspects of yoga in general.

Want to learn more about the names of different types of Yoga? Check out the following great resources that will teach you how to do Yoga exercises at home. Just click the images below for more info.

Health Benefits Of Yoga

What are the Health Benefits of Yoga?

Yoga is known for being one of the most beneficial and fun exercises in the world, and it can be practiced by people of all ages. It is good if you can understand the health benefits of yoga before you start practicing it, so that you can have a better appreciation for it.

While each different type of yoga will have its own health benefits and results, there are some basic benefits that you will receive, regardless of which specific type of yoga you practice.

Yoga, at the physical level, has been proven as being extremely effective not only for your health in general but also for various types of disorder. Yoga is extremely effective in increasing flexibility, as it has positions that act upon the various joints of your body, even including those which have never really worked out with other forms of exercise.

It also works to massage all of the organs in your body, and in fact it is considered as being the only activity that is able to massage all the internal glands and organs of the body in a thorough manner. It really is able to act in a wholesome manner on the various body parts, and this stimulation results in keeping away disease and notifying the body earlier when there is something wrong.

Other health benefits of yoga involves relaxation, as this is actually one of its main purposes. Yoga promotes meditation and relaxation, particularly through its breathing exercises, thus yoga is great for dealing with stress and depression.

Another health benefits of yoga include total body detoxification. By gently exercising and stretching the muscles and joints, your body’s blood supply begins to work better and smoother, this helps in the flushing out of toxins as well as providing nourishment to the body.

As your muscles are toned gradually from practicing yoga, they will become fit and stronger. Weak or flaccid muscles are stimulated repeatedly to get rid of fat and flaccidity. Hence, another health benefits of yoga is to help you to lose weight. Your body will feel great not only spiritually and emotionally, but physically as well.

As you can see there are many health benefits of yoga, and so it is really no wonder as to why it is considered as being one of the best exercises in the world that you can do. Because of the health benefits, Yoga is widely practiced worldwide, particularly in the West and the East, where it first actually originated.