Laugh Yoga, Laugh Yourself Healthy...
Laughing Yoga, is a form of yoga that combines breathing exercises with laughter. A physician by the name of Madan Kataria developed the technique simply known as "laughter yoga in the mid-1990s." And recently this unusual form of yoga has become very popular. With Laughter Clubs popping up all over the place! There are over 5000 Laughter Clubs in 40 countries. With multitudes of members that are reaping the benefit of laughter combined with simple yoga breathing exercise.
If you have a good sense of humor, and can sustain a hardy laughter for 15 to 20 minutes without depending upon humorous stimuli, you may be a good candidate for a Laugh Club?
Is there any better feeling than that wonderful feeling you gets after you have laughed so hard you almost cried? It a feeling hard to described. It feels like a ton has been lifted off your shoulders, a feeling of total relaxation, and total well-being.
Plus Research studies have shown that when you laugh you use your stomach muscles along with chest , neck, and facial muscles. The muscles that are involved in laughing are tense while aiding you to produce that laugher. After you are spent, and you are all laughed out, not only the muscles that aided in the production of the laugh, but all the surrounding muscles relax. Leaving you feeling physically relaxed.
The results of the studies also support the theory that laughter can produce feelings of well being. These good feelings are due to a decrease in stress hormones that come with the action of laughing. For example, levels of harmful stress hormones such as, epinephrine, cortisol, dopac, and growth hormone were shown to be much lower in a group that were exposed to humor that resulted in laughter, then the group that was left without the stimulation of humor.
Laughter also appears to have a positive effect on the immune system. Along with other health benefits such as, lowering blood pressure, killing some forms of viral cells that cause various types of cancer, and in some cases even been known to reduce different forms of body pain. So what could it hurt, get laughing and laugh yourself healthy...
Mountain Pose-Tadasana
Take mountain pose, which may look like just standing around. In a yoga context, however, there is a lot going on in this position. The heels root down, the muscles of the legs are engaged, the bones are stacked with the shoulders directly over the hips, the shoulder blades slide down the back, and the crown of the head rises. Don't forget to breath!
Raised Arms Pose-Urdhva Hastansana
Inhale and bring your arms up and over your head. This is your basic morning stretch, but you are focusing on keeping the good alignment you established in mountain pose, particularly staying grounded in the heels and keeping your shoulders moving away from your ears at the same time that you reach up through your fingertips. Your gaze can come up to the hands, which can be shoulder's width apart or palms touching.
Standing Forward Bend-Uttanasana
Exhale and fold over your legs into a forward bend. If the hamstrings feel a little tight at first, bend the knees so that you can release your spine. Let the head hang heavy. Slowly straighten the legs if you like but keep the head hanging. The feet can be touching or hip's distance apart, whichever feels better.
Garland Pose-Malasana
Move your feet out to the edges of your mat and bend your knees, coming into a squat. The toes may turn out if necessary. If your heels do not reach the floor, take a rolled up blanket under them. This is a position that is quite natural for children but we lose the knack for it as adults. It's great for the hips and to counteract the effects of too much sitting in chairs and riding in cars. It's also a very useful pose.
Lunge Pose
Straighten your legs and move your feet back under your hip before stepping your left leg to the back of your mat and bending your right knee for a deep lunge. Try to bring your bent knee directly over your ankle so your right thigh is parallel to the floor. Keep the left leg straight and strong with your heel reaching back. If this is too intense, you can drop your left knee to the mat instead. Stay five breaths before returning the left foot to the front of your mat next to the right one. Then repeat the lunge with the left foot forward and the right leg back.
Plank Pose
After your second lunge, step the left foot back so that it is next to the right foot at the back of your mat. This is the classic preparation for a push-up. Stay five breaths here while making sure that your hips do not drop too low or rise too high. If your elbows tend to hyper extend, micro bend them. Bring your knees down if necessary. After five breaths, release your knees to the mat and come back to sit on your heels, resting for a moment.
Staff Pose
After catching your breath, swing your legs around so that they are outstretched in front of you. This is the seated equivalent of mountain pose, in that it seems very simple but has a lot going on. The legs stay strong with the feet flexed. The shoulders stack over the hips so that the spine is long and straight. The arms may be straight or slightly bent.
Seated Forward Bend-Paschimottanasana
On an exhalation, bring your torso over your legs in a forward bend. Your hamstrings should be warmer now than when you did your standing forward bend earlier. Work with your breath, lengthening the spine on each inhale and deepening your forward fold on each exhale. Stay for five breaths, keeping the feet flexed.
Head to knee pose-Janu Sirsasana
Come back up to sit and bend your left leg, bringing the sole of the left foot inside your right thigh. Use the same technique described above to deepen the pose using your breath. After five breaths, sit up and switch legs.
Happy Baby Pose-Ananda Balasana
Lie down on your back and hug your knees into your chest. Then separate your knees and bring each ankle directly over its knee so that the shins are perpendicular to the floor. Flex your feet and hold onto them from the outside as your draw your knees downward. Roll side to side a bit on your sacrum if it feels good. This is a position that is familiar to anyone with children. Resist the urge to put your toes in your mouth. After five breaths, stretch your legs out on the floor and rest.
Yoga for relaxation
You're never too young or too old to reap the health benefits of yoga.
Basic yoga positions for beginners, required for beginners are classified into different groups for the convenience of learners. For your yoga practice follow the sequence of yoga stretches, standing poses, supine poses, prone poses, sitting positions, pranayama and meditation.
Over the past several years, yoga has experienced an upsurge in popularity in the western world among medical professionals and celebrities alike. While many associate yoga with new age mysticism or the latest fad at the gym, yoga is actually an ancient practice that connects the mind, body, and spirit through body poses, controlled breathing, and meditation. The practice of yoga has many health benefits associated with it.
Yoga Postures For Relaxation
Shava asana or Corpse pose: A pose for relaxation of mind and body.
Bal Asana: A pose for relaxation of mind and body.
Sitting pose for relaxation: Resting pose while sitting, used for taking rest while doing sitting yoga exercises.
Yoga Nidra :A wonderful experience, most people go into sound sleep.
Yoga Postures For Meditation/ Pranayama
Padam Asana :(Lotus pose) Ideal asana for meditation/ pranayama, but a difficult one for inflexible people
Vajra Asana (Diamond pose): If you cannot do padma asana you can do pranayama in vajra asana.
Sukh Asana (Easy pose):If your body is not flexible to do either of two asanas, carry out pranayama in sukh asana.
Yoga stretch for fitness Standing Pose
Kona Asana: Provides cure for arthritis and joint inflammation.
Trikonasana :For joint problems and back ache.
Tada Asana: For stretching and increasing height.
Supine Yoga Poses
Markat Asana: For flexible back.
Pawanmukta Asana: Asana for relief from gas, wind formation.
Uttanpada Asana: Asana for wind troubles, indigestion and intestinal problems.
Padotanasana Asana: for proper metabolism and large intestine.
Leg rolling/ rotation asanas: Ideal asanas for permanent weight loss. Free yoga videos will help you to start.
Prone Yoga Poses
Bhujanga Asana/ Cobra Pose: For flexible spine, enhances facial beauty
Shalabha Asana: For abdomen troubles and flexible spine
Sarp Asana: Reduces body fat, massages abdominal organs
Dhanur Asana: Exercises abdomen, spine and endocrine glands
Sitting Yoga Poses
Kamarchakrasana: Ideal for flexibility of Lower Back and weight loss from abdomen area and hips.
Janushirasana (Head to Knee pose): Beneficial for back bone flexibility and exercise of back muscles.
Yoga Mudra: Ideal asana for ladies who want to retain their beauty and youthfulness. Mandukasana: Ideal asana for curing diabetes.
Ushtra Asana (Camel Pose): Cures many disorders of neck, shoulders and spine.
Yoga stretches not only your muscles but all of the soft tissues of your body. That includes ligaments, tendons, and the fascia sheath that surrounds your muscles. And no matter what your level of yoga, you are likely to see benefits in a very short period of time. In one study, participants had up to 35% improvement in flexibility after only eight weeks of yoga. The greatest gains were in shoulder and trunk flexibility.
The Basic Yoga exercises are Surya Namaskar, spot jogging, rapid forward and backward bends, sideward bends, sideward twists, neck exercises, shoulder rotations, hip / waist twists and knee rotations. Then there are hundreds of Yoga poses called Asanas, a term that literally means steady pose. This is due to the fact that the Yoga Asana (or pose) is supposed to be held for a while. Then again this is a rather advanced practice; to start with, the concern is just to enhance body flexibility.
Benefits of Yoga
Stress relief: The practice of yoga is well-demonstrated to reduce the physical effects of stress on the body. The body responds to stress through a fight-or-flight response, which is a combination of the sympathetic nervous system and hormonal pathways activating, releasing cortisol – the stress hormone – from the adrenal glands. Cortisol is often used to measure the stress response. Yoga practice has been demonstrated to reduce the levels of cortisol. Most yoga classes end with savasana, a relaxation pose, which further reduces the experience of stress.
Pain relief: Yoga can ease pain. Studies have shown that practicing yoga asanas (postures), meditation or a combination of the two, reduced pain for people with conditions such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, auto-immune diseases and hypertension as well as arthritis, back and neck pain and other chronic conditions.
Better breathing: Yoga includes breathing practices known as pranayama, which can be effective for reducing our stress response, improving lung function and encouraging relaxation. Many pranayamas emphasize slowing down and deepening the breath, which activates the body’s parasympathetic system, or relaxation response. By changing our pattern of breathing, we can significantly affect our body’s experience of and response to stress. This may be one of the most profound lessons we can learn from our yoga practice.
Flexibility: Yoga can improve flexibility and mobility and increase range of motion. Over time, the ligaments, tendons and muscles lengthen, increasing elasticity.
Increased strength: Yoga asanas use every muscle in the body, increasing strength literally from head to toe. A regular yoga practice can also relieve muscular tension throughout the whole body.
Weight management: While most of the evidence for the effects of yoga on weight loss is anecdotal or experiential, yoga teachers, students and practitioners across the country find that yoga helps to support weight loss. Many teachers specialize in yoga programs to promote weight management and find that even gentle yoga practices help support weight loss. People do not have to practice the most vigorous forms of yoga to lose weight. Yoga encourages development of a positive self-image, as more attention is paid to nutrition and the body as a whole. A study from the Journal of Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine found that regular yoga practice was associated with less age-related weight gain. The lifestyle study of 15,500 adults in their 50’s covered 10 years of participants’ weight history, physical activity, medical history and diet.
Improved circulation: Yoga helps to improve circulation by efficiently moving oxygenated blood to the body’s cells.
Cardiovascular conditioning: Even a gentle yoga practice can provide cardiovascular benefits by lowering resting heart rate, increasing endurance and improving oxygen uptake during exercise.
Presence: Yoga connects us with the present moment. The more we practice, the more aware we become of our surroundings and the world around us. It opens the way to improved concentration, coordination, reaction time and memory.
Inner peace: The meditative effects of a consistent yoga practice help many cultivate inner peace and calm.
You're never too young or too old to reap the health benefits of yoga.
Basic yoga positions for beginners, required for beginners are classified into different groups for the convenience of learners. For your yoga practice follow the sequence of yoga stretches, standing poses, supine poses, prone poses, sitting positions, pranayama and meditation.
Over the past several years, yoga has experienced an upsurge in popularity in the western world among medical professionals and celebrities alike. While many associate yoga with new age mysticism or the latest fad at the gym, yoga is actually an ancient practice that connects the mind, body, and spirit through body poses, controlled breathing, and meditation. The practice of yoga has many health benefits associated with it.
Yoga Postures For Relaxation
Shava asana or Corpse pose: A pose for relaxation of mind and body.
Bal Asana: A pose for relaxation of mind and body.
Sitting pose for relaxation: Resting pose while sitting, used for taking rest while doing sitting yoga exercises.
Yoga Nidra :A wonderful experience, most people go into sound sleep.
Yoga Postures For Meditation/ Pranayama
Padam Asana :(Lotus pose) Ideal asana for meditation/ pranayama, but a difficult one for inflexible people
Vajra Asana (Diamond pose): If you cannot do padma asana you can do pranayama in vajra asana.
Sukh Asana (Easy pose):If your body is not flexible to do either of two asanas, carry out pranayama in sukh asana.
Yoga stretch for fitness Standing Pose
Kona Asana: Provides cure for arthritis and joint inflammation.
Trikonasana :For joint problems and back ache.
Tada Asana: For stretching and increasing height.
Supine Yoga Poses
Markat Asana: For flexible back.
Pawanmukta Asana: Asana for relief from gas, wind formation.
Uttanpada Asana: Asana for wind troubles, indigestion and intestinal problems.
Padotanasana Asana: for proper metabolism and large intestine.
Leg rolling/ rotation asanas: Ideal asanas for permanent weight loss. Free yoga videos will help you to start.
Prone Yoga Poses
Bhujanga Asana/ Cobra Pose: For flexible spine, enhances facial beauty
Shalabha Asana: For abdomen troubles and flexible spine
Sarp Asana: Reduces body fat, massages abdominal organs
Dhanur Asana: Exercises abdomen, spine and endocrine glands
Sitting Yoga Poses
Kamarchakrasana: Ideal for flexibility of Lower Back and weight loss from abdomen area and hips.
Janushirasana (Head to Knee pose): Beneficial for back bone flexibility and exercise of back muscles.
Yoga Mudra: Ideal asana for ladies who want to retain their beauty and youthfulness. Mandukasana: Ideal asana for curing diabetes.
Ushtra Asana (Camel Pose): Cures many disorders of neck, shoulders and spine.
Yoga stretches not only your muscles but all of the soft tissues of your body. That includes ligaments, tendons, and the fascia sheath that surrounds your muscles. And no matter what your level of yoga, you are likely to see benefits in a very short period of time. In one study, participants had up to 35% improvement in flexibility after only eight weeks of yoga. The greatest gains were in shoulder and trunk flexibility.
The Basic Yoga exercises are Surya Namaskar, spot jogging, rapid forward and backward bends, sideward bends, sideward twists, neck exercises, shoulder rotations, hip / waist twists and knee rotations. Then there are hundreds of Yoga poses called Asanas, a term that literally means steady pose. This is due to the fact that the Yoga Asana (or pose) is supposed to be held for a while. Then again this is a rather advanced practice; to start with, the concern is just to enhance body flexibility.
Benefits of Yoga
Stress relief: The practice of yoga is well-demonstrated to reduce the physical effects of stress on the body. The body responds to stress through a fight-or-flight response, which is a combination of the sympathetic nervous system and hormonal pathways activating, releasing cortisol – the stress hormone – from the adrenal glands. Cortisol is often used to measure the stress response. Yoga practice has been demonstrated to reduce the levels of cortisol. Most yoga classes end with savasana, a relaxation pose, which further reduces the experience of stress.
Pain relief: Yoga can ease pain. Studies have shown that practicing yoga asanas (postures), meditation or a combination of the two, reduced pain for people with conditions such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, auto-immune diseases and hypertension as well as arthritis, back and neck pain and other chronic conditions.
Better breathing: Yoga includes breathing practices known as pranayama, which can be effective for reducing our stress response, improving lung function and encouraging relaxation. Many pranayamas emphasize slowing down and deepening the breath, which activates the body’s parasympathetic system, or relaxation response. By changing our pattern of breathing, we can significantly affect our body’s experience of and response to stress. This may be one of the most profound lessons we can learn from our yoga practice.
Flexibility: Yoga can improve flexibility and mobility and increase range of motion. Over time, the ligaments, tendons and muscles lengthen, increasing elasticity.
Increased strength: Yoga asanas use every muscle in the body, increasing strength literally from head to toe. A regular yoga practice can also relieve muscular tension throughout the whole body.
Weight management: While most of the evidence for the effects of yoga on weight loss is anecdotal or experiential, yoga teachers, students and practitioners across the country find that yoga helps to support weight loss. Many teachers specialize in yoga programs to promote weight management and find that even gentle yoga practices help support weight loss. People do not have to practice the most vigorous forms of yoga to lose weight. Yoga encourages development of a positive self-image, as more attention is paid to nutrition and the body as a whole. A study from the Journal of Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine found that regular yoga practice was associated with less age-related weight gain. The lifestyle study of 15,500 adults in their 50’s covered 10 years of participants’ weight history, physical activity, medical history and diet.
Improved circulation: Yoga helps to improve circulation by efficiently moving oxygenated blood to the body’s cells.
Cardiovascular conditioning: Even a gentle yoga practice can provide cardiovascular benefits by lowering resting heart rate, increasing endurance and improving oxygen uptake during exercise.
Presence: Yoga connects us with the present moment. The more we practice, the more aware we become of our surroundings and the world around us. It opens the way to improved concentration, coordination, reaction time and memory.
Inner peace: The meditative effects of a consistent yoga practice help many cultivate inner peace and calm.