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"Things that normally bother you don't when practicing yoga faithfully." - Karen |
The Physical Benefits: The Mental Benefits: The Emotional Benefits: The Spiritual Benefits: from the August 5th edition of the Marshfield News Herald I'm writing with a smile on my face. I've just read that a daily yoga practice can provide complete physical fitness. It's great to have my intuition confirmed by scientific study. I'm gleefully donating my 20 lb. ankle weights to the nearest garage sale. The American College of Sport Medicine defines fitness as both related to your ability to maintain physical activity and your overall health. There are 4 types of fitness that affect your health and yoga affects each of them. The first type is cardio respiratory fitness. This includes your heart, lungs and blood vessels. Students of yoga with high blood pressure and eleveated glucose find that regular practice improves these conditions. As one of my students remarked, "My doctor told me to keep doing whatever I've been doing." Muscle fitness includes both strength and endurance. In a study at the University of California at Davis after 8 weeks of intense yoga of four 90 minute sessions weekly, students' muscular strength increased by 31% and their muscle endurance by 57%. Yoga is well known for increasing flexibility, another measure of fitness. In this study the students' flexibility increased threefold. Loss of flexibility restricts range of motion as we age and may be associated with an increased risk of pain and injury. Yoga also increases lung capacity. Yogic breathing activates parts of the lung little used. Breathing is the favorite of my beginning students and they feel its calming effects almost immediately particularly when they practice at home. In the University of California study, students showed improvement in their maximal oxygen intake by 7%, a surprising increase after only 8 weeks. Author Birkel suspects that yoga poses also increase lung capacity by improving the flexibility of the rib area, shoulders and back allowing the lungs to expand more fully. I came to yoga with rounded shoulders, a condition known as kyphosis and I practice specific postures to help open the chest and strengthen the overly stretched muscles in my back. There are different types of hatha yoga. Kripalu yoga which I teach begins slowly, conditioning the body to change without force or injury. At the studio we encourage the use of props to allow students to enter the postures safely. There are other types of yoga grouped under the category of flow yoga that link postures together for an aerobic workout. Gentle or restorative yoga is ideal when recovering from injury or illness. You may need to try several classes before you find the correct fit for you. Yoga makes you more aware of your body's needs and accepting of its day to day variation. You carry this awareness into all aspets of your life resulting in not only improved physical wellness, but in emotional and psychological wellness as well. Dr. Holly, one of the California researchers adds, "Beyond fitness, yoga also offers many other gifts. It improves your health, reduces stress, improves sleep, and... boosts your overall outlook on life." Karuna's Counsel, Susan Twiggs August 2005 by Minday Gribble, RN It's been almost two years since the Parish Nurse Advisory Counsil suggested sharing our new building with the community by offering Yoga classes... Sue Twiggs opened the doors to her Yoga sutio in September, 2003. Since that time 300 members of the community have benefited from this welness program. Your Parish Nurse team encourages you to consider nurturing time for self care in your life. Here are a few questions and answers that may make you consider doing so with yoga at FPC. Why Yoga? Yoga is an excellent muscle toner that balances all parts of the body including your internal organs - heart, lungs, glands, nerves and more. It increases flexibility (and is a good practice for anyone with chronic back pain). Yoga is beneficial for the nervous system, promoting deep relaxation and reduction of stress and blood chemicals associated with depression. No special outfit or gear is required... just loose-fitting, comfortable clothes, and an area of floor space. Children who take it up easily become as skillful as adults. For older people, it is a great nonaerobic conditioner. For athletes, it can provide flexibility and centering. Can claims of yoga's health benefits stand up to scientific scrutiny? The impulse to legitimize alternative medicine comes not only from some yogis, but from the U.S. government. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), under the National Health umbrella, wields a $78 million budget to promote rigorous scientific research that will bridge the gap between the broad use of complementary and alternative practices and the paucity of data demonstrating their safety and efficiency. Researchers pursuing the health benefits of yogic practices must compete not only for funding, but also to get their work published in reputable journals. You can be sure that the words "yoga" and "meditation" don't appear often in the pages of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Allery and Asthma Proceedings, or Stroke (a journal of the American Heart Association) -- but it does happen! Asthma. At the Northern Colorado Allergy Asthma Clinic in Fort Collins, a controlled clinical study of university students (19 to 52 years old) with asthma concluded that yoga techniques seem beneficial as an adjunct to the medical management of asthma, according to the 1998 published abstract. Cardiovascular Risk Factors. A three-month residential study trating patients with yoga, meditation and a vegetarian diet at Hanover Medical University in Germany found a substantial reduction in risk factors for heart disease (including blood pressure and cholesterol) in participants, according to an abstract published in Acta physiologica Scandinavica Supplementum in 1997. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. A randomized, single-blind, controlled clinical trial at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia concluded, "In this preliminary study, a yoga-based regimen was more effective than wrist splintering or no treatment in relieving some symptoms and signs of carpal tunnel syndrome." The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1998, also noted that "Subjects in the yoga groups had significant improvement in grip strength and pain reduction, but changes in grip strength and pain were not significant for control subjects." Arthritis. Also at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, a yoga-treated group with osteoarthritis of the hands improved significantly more than the control group in "pain during activity, tenderness, and finger range of motion." The randomized controlled clinical trial, published in the Journal of Rheumatology in 1994, concluded, "This yoga-derived program was effective in providing relief in hand osteoarthritis..." Source: Dr. Timothy McCall - Yoga Journal's medical editor A study from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center released promising results in 2005 regarding the ability of yoga to aid overweight subjects in losing weight. 15,500 men and women between the ages of 53 and 57 were queried regarding their weight and diet histories and physical activity from the ages of 45 to 55. It turned out that study subjects who were overweight and did yoga at least once a week had lost five pounds over the 10 year period, while their non-yoga counterparts had gained weight. (Yoga practitioners of normal weight did tend to gain weight over the yeras, but people who didn't practice gained more.) The reason? Lead researcher, Alan Kristal, a yogi who is also a professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington School of Public Health, says it is because yoga builds mindfulness. "You learn to feel when you're full, and you don't like the feeling of overeating. You recognize anxiety and stress for what they are instead of trying to mask them with food." Findings published in 8/05 issue of Alternative Therapies in Helath and Medicine. |
I am at times my own worst enemy at times, and found peace from my self during class. I am learning to be more "gentle" with myself. Lisa, Beginner |