Posts tagged yoga
“Practice, practice, practice. That is method.”
Patthabi Jois about Yoga Chitta Vritti Nirodha
How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body
Good article from the NY Times about the ramifications of yoga when it is practiced with ego and without attention and care to self.
5 Resolutions Worth Making
“1. See the beauty, health, functionality, and grace in my body as it is. So maybe my thighs would be more attractive if I lost a few pounds, but it’s pretty great that they’re healthy, support my weight, allow me to walk, let me feel strong in Mountain Pose, and have that nice muscle tone I’ve built through years of yoga.
2. Appreciate the beauty, kindness, warmth, and good intentions of people around me. People are never going to say exactly the right thing or do exactly what I’d like for them to do in the moment. But that doesn’t mean they’re not amazing people who want the best for me—and that’s pretty amazing no matter how many times they put their feet in their mouths.
3. Reflect on my accomplishments. Am I exactly where I want to be in my life/career/relationships? No way. But look at all the things I have accomplished! And look at the exciting journey I have ahead of me as I work toward the life I want to live and become the person I want to be.
4. Have more fun. Life is too short to spend it doing things you hate and hating the things you do. This year, I want to have more fun at every little task—no matter how menial or mundane.
5. Practice more yoga—especially off the mat. I’m not making any unlikely promises to myself to meditate or practice asana every day this year. I know it will never happen. But I do intend to practice yoga at every given opportunity. That might mean taking more deep, conscious breaths while I stand in line at the grocery store. Or it may mean practicing kindness toward others through my words and actions. I have no idea what lessons my practice will reveal to me this year, but I know I’m going to be open to whatever reveals itself to me along the way.”
Stop being a Zombie; do yoga! Awesome.
(via: fuckyeahyoga)
91 Year Old Yoga Teacher Keeps Teaching
Inspiration. I hope to be practicing & teaching yoga at 91.
A light post for this TGIF! 2 of my favorite things: Simpsons & Yoga.
Any reason for practicing yoga is a good reason. Enhancing flexibility and releasing stress are as noble a purpose for performing yoga as the awakening of spirituality. This is the great gift of yoga-it serves and nourishes us at every level of our being and spontaneously contributes to a greater well being in all domains of life. Yoga will help you discover gifts within yourself that have remained unopened since your childhood-gifts of peace, harmony, laughter and love.
Dr. Deepak Chopra and Dr. David Simon
(via lightspiritlove)
Yoga and Stretching Equally Effective for Back Pain
“The study is the largest and most thorough to date to look at whether yoga has an effect on chronic low back pain, a problem that affects millions and has no surefire long-term remedy. A number of earlier studies suggested that regular yoga classes might benefit back pain sufferers, though most were limited by small sample sizes, short study periods and other flaws.”
Tara Stiles on Endurance, Effort & Ease
(via: lightspiritlove:tarastileseats)
What Happens When We Stretch?
This is great!
What exactly happens when we stretch? We all know something gives. The longer we reach for our toes, the easier it is to grasp them.
What we’ve learned through science is that it isn’t just one thing. Stretching is actually pretty dang complicated.
First the Anatomy
Each muscle fiber is wrapped up in fascia, a material a little like the plastic wrap you could see surrounding a leftover chicken leg in the fridge. Each individual muscle fiber wrapped up in its fascia is then collected into a group with another coating of fascia holding the group together. Then several of those groups of muscle fibers are bundled together in one big group of muscle surrounded by a bigger, thicker layer of fascia.
As the muscle nears a bone, it thins and becomes tapered. The fascia covering each fiber as well as that surrounding the groups of fibers continues and becomes a tendon that forms the connection of muscle to bone. Scientists call this entire structure the muscle-tendon complex. It’s considered one unit because muscle and connective tissue (fascia and tendons) are so intimately connected and intertwined that studying only one or the other is difficult. Having said that, they’ve been able to tease out what is happening to each of them when we stretch.
The Muscle Component
Stretching muscle causes a reflex mechanism in the spinal cord– sort of like the reflex a doctor elicits when she taps your knee and your leg jerks. Sensitive receptors known as muscle spindles are located throughout the length of the muscle. Muscle spindles note a change in muscle length during a stretch as well as how fast the stretch has occurred. They send this information to the spine. That triggers the stretch reflex which attempts to resist the change in muscle length by causing the stretched muscle to contract. The more sudden the change in muscle length, the stronger the muscle contractions will be. (And that is one reason you want to go slowly into a stretch without any rapid sudden movement.) This reflex helps to maintain muscle tone and upright posture and to protect the body from injury. The longer you hold an asana and stretch the muscle, the less the muscle spindles can do their job. They only work for a short while. After time, their effect goes away. When that happens, you get a little more length during the stretch because the muscle stops contracting.
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