Using Yoga to Connect Your Mind, Body and Spirit

It seems that yoga is everywhere lately. Celebrities are expounding on the virtues of yoga in interviews, and your gym offers six different kinds of yoga classes, including one combining aerobics with traditional yoga and one performed in a room heated to 100 degrees!

Yoga has become a hot trend. People claim it has drastically changed their bodies (have you seen Madonna’s arms lately?) and helped ease their minds and nourish their spirits. But before you write off yoga as just the latest fad, you should know that this type of exercise may well be your best defense against the stressful and often overwhelming world we live in.

Picture this scenario: You oversleep for work then sit in traffic with your inner thoughts giving new meaning to the phrase “road rage.” You have a confrontation with your boss and then have to stay late. You arrive home exhausted with a headache and residual rage with no outlet. You sit on the couch and zone out watching TV, while half-heartedly consuming a half-gallon of rocky road ice cream.

What if, instead of obsessing on your miserable day, you could stretch into a yoga pose and instantly clear your mind of all worry. Sounds impossible, doesn’t it? Sounds almost creepy in a new-age, hippie sort of way.

But yoga is all about opening your mind – as well as freeing it. And people have been using yoga for thousands of years to do just that.

History of yoga
Yoga originated in India several thousand years ago. The practitioners of yoga were searching for serenity and closeness with divine power. There are many different branches of yoga, but the goal of all kinds is the same: to achieve harmony within oneself.

Yoga poses are one way to help bring mind and body into union. Many basic poses, called asanas, have intriguing and inspiring names such as warrior pose, eagle pose, and sun salutation. The poses emphasize breathing first – the essential tool for clearing the mind of the clutter of the day.

After learning how to breathe into a pose, the student must then learn to align themselves in the pose. For beginners, this can be a strange process - contorting your body into unnatural positions can feel uncomfortable. But the second a pose is mastered, the achievement can be thrilling, and the pose suddenly becomes “right.”

When you are learning a yoga pose, all of your attention is centered on the task at hand and your breathing. You’ve been told to take a deep breath before in stressful situations – breathing is key to relaxation. It is hard to still be mad at your boss when you are breathing deeply and exercising muscles that you may not know you even had! The poses as exercise help improve balance and strengthen muscles. The poses as mediation help improve breathing and relieve stress.

Balance as key to serenity
Yoga as a practice emphasizes balance. This includes balance of all aspects of life. Many people who practice yoga begin to become averse to discord in their lives. Many people report abandoning unhealthy lifestyles after practicing yoga because of the need for balance that yoga brings to them.

Even more commonly people report feeling taller and stronger after practicing yoga only a handful of times. Posture is improved, and sleep and memory are better. Practitioners of yoga believe that making the mind, body and spiritual connection makes people more aware of themselves and where they fit into the world. A calmer, more grounded person is a healthier one.

Health practitioners often advise patients with anxiety or panic disorders or depression to try yoga as part of their therapy. Practicing yoga, like all exercise, elevates mood by releasing hormones. But yoga has the added benefit of meditation to soothe and calm. Most of us who deal with the usual daily stress of life could benefit from the calming powers of yoga.

Yoga is like music. The rhythm of the body, the melody of the mind, and the harmony of the soul create the symphony of life - B.K.S. Iyengar

There are several different types of yoga commonly practiced. They almost all originate from hatha yoga, which emphasizes balancing opposing forces in life.

Iyengar yoga uses props such as chairs and blocks to help students achieve alignment in their poses and become more aware of their bodies. This is a good one for beginners because it is not physically demanding, and focuses on relaxation.

On the other hand, there are plenty of kinds of yoga that concentrate more on fitness than stress management. Ashtanga yoga is the kind that many celebrities have been swearing by recently. If you thought that yoga was a sweat-free practice, take a class in this physically demanding type of yoga. Ashtanga is known also as “power yoga” and it involves moving from one pose to another in quick motions. This is the yoga that helps you build muscle while you relax your mind.

Bikram yoga is the one that causes the most confusion to newcomers to yoga. It is performed in a room heated to up to 100 degrees. Why?? Students of this practice believe the heat helps to cleanse the body as they move through their poses. It is a challenging type of yoga that is generally left to the experts.

Yoga for everyone!
The best part of yoga is that everyone can do it. There are yoga classes and videos for everyone from kids to senior citizens. The kids’ videos concentrate on helping build balance and teach the fundamentals of yoga, and the videos for older folks help them regain lost flexibility and muscle tone.

No matter who you are or what your physical limitations are, there is a type of yoga that is right for you. Pick up a video or look for resources online. Read about how yoga changed peoples’ lives. It is a powerful practice, and it can help bring you into a better balance with yourself and the world.

About the Author:
Karleen Kozaczka is a freelance writer who has a deep interest in yoga for its healing properties. She also uses a wide variety of fitness equipment and keeps fit by taking part in many sporting goods activities.