Friday, September 24, 2010

Yoga postures and breathing- A necessary foot step in modern lifestyle

What a person wants in his life? For what a person does a hard work? He always strives for health and happiness. But sometimes he gets settled with temporary pleasures in life and during the course of time; he realize that permanent satisfaction is lacking some where. According to yoga philosophy, a person is healthy only when his body, mind and spirit are in perfect harmony. And this is what the science of yoga does.


The applied science of yoga does not make a person healthy but creates an environment where body’s all systems work in a well-coordinated way. This is done through proper exercise, meditation, breathing activity, proper natural diet, and tension free mind. Yoga considers that body gets infected to diseases only when it looses its power to fight with diseases. When immunity decreases body get susceptible to every other infection. To overcome this, yoga has gifted us with various exercise and breathing postures.


Breathing is a very essential part of yoga exercise. One should take a stress free breath during every pose of yoga. Yoga posture includes various seating and standing poses that are used as warm up. They are basically for relaxing and meditating. It develops a sense of balance in your body.


A very important and must do asana is sun salutation or surya namaskar. It should be practiced by each individual daily in his life. It is a series of 12 poses including 5 deep breaths. According to Hindu mythology, Sun is god of health. Through this asana we pay deep sense of respect to the creative life force of universe.

Basically the most popular forms of yoga include Karma yoga. Bhakti yoga, Hath Yoga, Raja Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Mantra Yoga, Kundalini Yoga and Purna Yoga. Patanjali gives a different system of yoga called as ashtanga yoga or eight limbed yoga. This eight fold paths consists of Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama Pratyahara, Dhrana, Dhyan and Samadhi.

All postures of yoga include different movements like inversions which improve our blood circulation and reduce gravity effect. Relaxation process is to release body and mind from stress. This is done usually at the end of any asana. Twist is another kind of yoga exercise which is very helpful in stretching muscles and increases the blood circulation in the internal organs. Forward and back bends are among the tough postures of yoga. It’s a good exercise for our nervous system and spine. It keeps nerves strong and maintains circulation of blood.


Some of the asana or postures during yoga are named as Shirsasana, Sarvangasana, Halasana, Matsyasana, Uddyiana bandha. In breathing exercise, Prayanama is the complete breathing process that includes slow and fast breathing movements. It’s made of prana means energy and ayama means stretch or extension. It is an auto energizing force which stabilizes energy and consciousness.


During practicing all the above poses, some safety should be considered. People with asthma or any other respiratory disorder should do breathing exercises with great caution. It can cause them dizziness or unconsciousness. Heart patients and blood pressure patients should not do stressful yoga movements. In this modern fast life, yoga can take you to the world oh happiness and relaxation.

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