Homeopathy Remedies

For the Yoga Enthusiasts who need sleep! Here’s a great article from Mother Nature News, by Judd Handler.

Are you a busy beaver suffering from insomnia? Here, we offer a few yoga poses to help you sleep and explain why yoga is such a wonderful activity to help calm your mind and body.Yoga, or any exercise routine for that matter, doesn’t have to be a two-hour ordeal. In fact, just 10 minutes can be extremely beneficial for a variety of factors, including helping you sleep better.

With its 5,000 year-old tradition of emphasizing focusing on the breath and clearing the mind of negative thoughts, yoga is one of the best ways to help you “cool the engines” so to speak before slipping into bed.
Adding a yoga routine most days of the week will also, among other things:

• Help detoxify the organs
• Lower blood pressure
• Improve circulation
• Increase flexibility and strength
• Boost immunity

Choose the right kind of yoga for your type
There are many types of yoga styles to choose from, if you elect to attend classes or perform along with a DVD.

For those who have trouble sleeping and have hyper dispositions, it’s best to avoid a rigorous style of yoga like Ashtanga later in the day, although Type-A personalities who require a challenge and are in good physical shape might do well with Ashtanga earlier in the day.

To achieve better balance and calm the mind, however, it would be best to incorporate a mellower form of yoga. Many local gyms and YMCA’ s offer gentle yoga classes, perfect for those with little or no previous yoga experience.

Don’t worry if you have no flexibility. You don’t have to twist yourself into a pretzel to reap the benefits of yoga, including making your body more relaxed and sleeping better.

If you are interested in taking a yoga class, try to talk to the instructor and tell them that you have trouble sleeping at night and ask them if the style that they teach will help you relax at night.

Keep in mind that our body’s main stress hormone — cortisol — tends to naturally slow down production after 6 p.m. In other words, try to avoid physically-stressful activity in the evening.

3 yoga poses to help you sleep if you don’t take a class
Any pose that has your head below your heart will increase blood flow to the brain and help you achieve a more relaxed state of being.

A forward bend is perhaps one of the easiest poses to perform. You don’t have to touch your toes or be anywhere close to touching your feet for this pose to be effective. Simply inhale, bring your arms overhead, reaching for the sky and then exhale, rocking back on your heels slightly and let your arms relax and travel down the front of your legs until you feel a safe stretch in your lower back and hamstrings. Knees can be bent. Let your head and neck become totally relaxed. Inhale for 2-3 seconds. Exhale for 2-3 seconds. Repeat 5 cycles of breath. Try to increase the stretch by a half-inch on every exhale. Come back up slowly uncurling your spine one vertebra at a time until standing. Repeat forward bend twice more.

Downward dog, one of yoga’s most popular poses, also helps with calming the mind. For this pose, start on your hands and knees with hands directly under shoulders, your back flat and knees under your hips. If possible, lift your knees off the ground and lift your hips up and get your body into an upside-down “V” position. If your hamstrings are tight, bend your knees. Remember to cycle your breath 3-5 times. Repeat the pose 3 times.

And finally, a simple relaxing yoga stretch is commonly known as child’s pose. Place your knees wide (not too wide as you’ll feel this stretch in the groin) and sit back on your heels. Stretch your arms in front of you and slightly out to the sides. Inhale and reach your arms out further. You’ll feel the stretch also in your lower back. Cycle the breath 3-5 times. Repeat the stretch 3 times.

Judd Handler is a health and lifestyle coach and freelance writer in Encinitas, CA. He has been an avid yoga practitioner for 12 years and sleeps much better because of it.

Yoga is one of my favorite ways to exercise. So I’m adding a Yoga Category to my blog and we’ll explore what Yoga is all about. Following is a brief history of Yoga, that I found at Home Remedy Haven.

Yoga, in one form or another, is said to be as old as civilization.  This is a rather broad statement, but we do know that Shamanism and other ritualistic practices were prevalent dating before the stone-age.  Performing physical rituals while entering an altered mental state, in order to attain a higher level of consciousness, is a timeless part of human history.

For recognizable beginnings of the yoga that we see today, archaeologists have discovered stone seals as old as 3000 BCE, depicting multiple figures performing yoga poses.  We can then assume that yoga, as we know it today, has been around for at least 5000 years.  These seals were found in the Indus Valley, ultimately putting the origins of yoga in that region.

Vedic Period
The Vedas, a Brahman scripture, contain published yoga teachings.  These teachings are known as Vedic Yoga.  Along with the yoga teachings, these scriptures contain prayers and hymns, and the scriptures themselves eventually became the roots for Hinduism.  During the Vedic period, people believed that yogis used physical and mental discipline to perceive a higher reality – a divine reality – becoming one with spirit mind and body.  Much like the early monks, yogis were said to have lived in seclusion for most of their learning.

Upanishads (900 – 100 BCE)
The Upanishads (meaning ‘at the proper place’ or ‘sitting down’) were written between 900 BCE and 100 BCE, and contain many of the oldest teachings that evolved into modern day Hinduism.  The Upanishads are the first texts that describe yoga directly and marry the idea of poses and meditation in a definite way.

The earliest Upanishad mentions the meditation side of yoga frequently, but does not address the physical side (poses or asanas) very often.  As time continues however, the Upanishads mention yoga more often, and eventually start to describe in detail some of the fundamental poses and ideologies of yoga.  For example, in the Maitrayaniya Upanishad, written between 200 – 300 BCE, describes in detail the six disciplines (or “six limbs”) of early yoga:
•    breath control (pranayama)
•    sensory inhibition (pratyahara)
•    meditation (dhyana)
•    concentration (dharana)
•    examination (tarka)
•    ecstasy (Samadhi)

Swami Swatamarama (1400’s AD)
Swami Swatamarama, a yogi in the 1400’s AD, wrote a text called the Hatha Yoga Pradipika.  Hatha yoga is sometimes considered the yoga of the west, as Yoga practiced in Western Europe and the Americas very closely resembles the yoga described in the text.  The text studies in detail asanas (poses), pranayama (breathing control), mudra and bandha.  Hatha yoga is dedicated to Lord Shiva, who imparted Hatha Yoga to Parvati and thus to the people (Shiva is a Hindu deity).

Hatha is derived from the Sanskrit ‘sun’ (ha) and ‘moon (tha), representing opposing forces which need balance in order for someone to raise their level of consciousness.  Thus, not only were the poses, meditation and breathing of hatha yoga the foundation for today’s western yoga practice, it was also the fundamental spiritual backbone of today’s western yoga.

Contemporary Yoga
These days, many people who use yoga as a wake-up exercise and relaxation technique, simply call yoga ‘yoga’, and not necessarily ‘Hatha Yoga’.  Throughout history, many different forms of yoga have appeared and disappeared, and countless lines of yoga have joined and branched, making and exact history of yoga hard to pinpoint.

With the resurgence of yoga’s popularity in the late 20th and early 21st century, new forms of yoga are again sprouting.  Bikram Yoga, a hugely popular form of hot yoga, is now practiced worldwide.  Naked yoga is becoming so popular, that it is only a matter of time that this practice will have its own name, following and place in history.

One part of yoga will probably never change; the ability it has to calm, center and balance the individual who seriously practices it.