This last week, the web has been a  buzz about an article in new York Times Magazine about “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body.” The article is well worth the read. In it, the author, William J. Broad, explores some of the recent news about serious injuries than can occur from doing yoga.

As a long-time yoga practitioner and as a person that has been injured doing yoga, I found this article welcome and extremely helpful. I admit, part of my own ego is stroked when I read others finally voicing the same “radical” opinion I’ve had for years, namely that yoga, like all exercises, is not 100% benign. Yoga can hurt you. When doing yoga, you really need to be mindful of your own body and not blindly following directions of your teacher or others.

I first tried yoga in grade school in grade school when my art teacher gave a series of extra curricular classes and told us she used yoga to help her stretch on breaks during long car rides.  Years later I turned back to yoga as an adult to help combat my muscular tension from sitting at a computer all day. It was amazing–I felt better, stronger and, since I was already flexible, doing yoga only increased my flexibility. Which was great…at first.

When I came to Chicago about 20 years ago, I was taking advanced Iyengar classes (BKS Iyengar is a yoga guru of sorts, teaching in India for years and with a  book out used by many Chicago yogis, Light on Yoga). Many of the classes I took where taught by Iyengar devotees, who tried to not only emulate Iyengar’s structural approach, but also his militant and almost fanatical demeanor. This teacher said that, according to Iyengar, “The pose is more important than the person.” I don’t know if Iyengar actually said that, but since this teacher did, I was not surprised when I soon got injured in his class. Along the way I met other experienced yoga students that told me to be careful and not overdo it as they had also experienced injuries doing yoga. Yoga, like all forms of exercise is not without some risk.

The Expert About Your Body is You

One of the biggest lessons I learned from my yoga teachers me was not so much how to do each pose perfectly. Instead, after experiencing a few injuries, I learned that I know my body better than any teacher, personal trainer or guru. And if something hurts, no matter what the teacher says, I won’t do it. In fact, I am rather picky about which yoga teachers I will take classes with. I let them know at the start of class that I do not want them to touch me or “adjust me,” a common practice in yoga classes I have taken. Adjustments are meant to be settle touches to a limb or your back to show you how to get in better posture and alignment. But many teachers I’ve taken classes with tend to push too much or too aggressively. It becomes an ego thing. “How far can I push my students?” And for students it can become, “how flexible can I be” or “I must work very hard even if it hurts just to be a good student and do it “right.” It’s yoga, not Mathelethes!

Know Your Experience Level and Don’t Over Do It

Yoga is supposed to be relaxing and allow you to really focus on your body, your breathe and connect with your body, not contort or injure your body (although injury does make you connect with your body pretty quickly!). When I do yoga now or recommend yoga to my clients, I show basic standing poses, some side bends and simple forward bends. AND to make sure they have a doctors clearance to do even those poses. I don’t advocate shoulder stand or headstands or even back bends for beginners. For some, these posts may be OK. But they are fairly advanced and, as the New York Times article shows, these poses can cause SERIOUS damage and injury, not just to your spine but to your brain. Who wants a stoke?

Yoga is Not a Rapid Fix–It’s Meant to be a Lifelong Practice

Another problem with yoga is the Western approach to it. We want to get rapid results, so we use maximal effort, as though yoga is a hammer and our body is the nail. Fitness isn’t about cramming in maximal effort into a short period of time to check that exercise off out list of goals. Fitness is an overall body balance of cardio, strength and flexibility. We can improve our cardiovascular fitness, we can improve our strength, we can improve our flexibility. But we can’t get the body we want by trying really hard. Our natural frames and muscles are made the way they are made. A man’s hips will not open as much as a woman’s because he is not made to birth babies. When men say they are not flexible, I say of course not! Stretching and yoga can help improve your flexibility, but you don’t need to be able to turn your body into a pretzel. Yoga can help increase flexibility but not beyond what is natural for your body type, frame and gender. It’s about improvement and feeling better, not about getting a gold star for most flexible!

Yoga is Meditative, A Way to Calm and Focus Your Mind

If you practice yoga, approach it as a time to relax and unwind. Treat each class as thigh you have never done yoga before (beginner’s mind). Really watch your teacher and tell him or her if you are not comfortable doing a particular pose. Modifications may be suggested or you may need to sit that pose out. That’s perfectly OK! Enjoy the rest between poses and be happy you are spending a few minutes away from your phone, email and workplace!

Practice yoga gently, not while hyped up on caffeine and adrenaline. A yoga session is meant to CALM your nervous system–it’s not Grand Theft Auto on Xbox. Some of my clients and many people I’ve spoken to don’t like yoga precisely for this reason–they can’t relax enough to benefit from gentle yoga because it makes them nervous to be that calm and focus on their breath and bodies. They need constant stimulation and the idea of “just laying around” or breathing actually stresses them out. But a really good yoga class, in my experience, is both gentle on your body (not easy or lame–yoga is a workout!) and so mentally active that you don’t have time to be bored. By mentally active I mean that during a good yoga class, teachers I’ve had are constantly calling your attention to an area of your body and having you focus on that. For example, in downward dog, a teacher may tell you to really open your fingers wide, put your pressure on the palm or heel of your hand, move your shoulders away from your head, attempt to pull your ankles away from your body towards the wall (not trying to put your heels on the floor though). Along with other directions. To avoid boredom and get a good yoga practice in, focus on these instructions, try to follow them and pay attention to your body. How does each movement feel? Are you breathing or holding your breath? All these details serve to not only make your yoga practice more physically comfortable, and give your body a good workout, but they also serve to give your active mind something to focus on beyond the next task on your  do list.

Lastly, I don’t think that yoga is evil or that you should not do yoga. But when doing yoga, use your brain! Make sure the spots are comfortable for you–not easy, just not damaging your body!) Then, you can relax and enjoy the positive benefits of yoga…without causing damage to your body or your mind!

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• How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body (nytimes.com)

Where can you get unlimited yoga and fitness classes Chicago for $49 a month and $1 down? (Discount applies until November, 2011. Then the initial processing fee goes up.)

The Lincoln Park Wellness Club at the Whole Foods Market in Lincoln Park!

Whole Foods Market Wellness Club Yoga Room Equipment Awaits You In Lincoln Park

And how many yoga studios in Chicago also offer:

• Free cooking  and nutrition classes?

• A 10% discount on over 4000 items in the grocery store?

Last time I checked, none. And yes, I am a Wellness Club member. And happy to say I have already gotten discounts on my groceries, had several discounted massages and I am a  yoga  fan!

Stop by the Wellness Club at the Lincoln park Whole Foods Market at

1550 N. Kingsbury, Chicago, IL 60642

on the Mezzanine (Balcony) over the in store restaurants. You may just run into me there!

For more info, click here to go to the Wellness Club webpage.

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State Street circa 1907-pre mass-produced cars! Image via Wikipedia

By Sue Shekut, Owner, Working Well Massage, Licensed Massage Therapist, Certified Wellness Coach, ACSM Personal Trainer

OK, so it’s just for a few hours for one day. But it sounds like fitness fun for all you urban hikers!  Check out “Open Streets on State Street.”

When: Saturday, October 1, 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Where:   State Street from Lake to Van Buren

On Saturday, October 1, State Street will be transformed into the ultimate urban playground—allowing pedestrians only to play, walk, bike and enjoy healthy recreation in a car-free environment. Open Streets on State Street is presented by Chicago Loop Alliance and Active Transportation Alliance. It will include activities such as a modular skate park, free yoga classes and breakdancing demonstrations. Plus, several Loop businesses are teaming up to offer special discounts for one day only at area restaurants, retail destinations and cultural institutions.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit OpenStreetsOnStateStreet.org or connect on Facebook or Twitter @OpenStreetsChi.

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• Are We Witnessing a Wellvoution? Workplace Wellness Programs Are Not Only Creative – They Are Neccessary! (workingwellresources.com)

To book your next relaxing, therapeutic massage with Working Well Massage, call the Wellness Club 312-202-6444.

Working Well Massage Massages in the Wellness Club
Hours: Mon-Fri, 11am- 8pm, Sat-Sun, 9am-7pm
Location: Whole Foods Market Wellness Club
Mezzanine level
1550 N. Kingsbury (between North Avenue and Division Street)
Chicago, Illinois 60642

Free parking available in the garage, enter on Kingsbury.

Prices:

Wellness Club Members: $65/hr massage
Non-Wellness Club Members: $80/hr massage

First came Ratemyprofessor for students to rate college professors.. Then there was Yelp for consumers to rate just about everything. Now there are  a number of websites offering reviews on all kinds of things. One of the latest review websites to catch my eye is the new Rate my yoga.

On this new website, you can rate your yoga teacher, rate your yoga studio or look up a variety of products offered such as yoga videos and props.

Listings for studios and teachers that want to promote themselves are on the site are FREE. (Don’t you love Free in this day and age.) And the cost to write a review: your time and effort only.

So, if you are looking for a yoga studio, or are a yoga teacher or studio owner that wants to get yourself listed, check out Rate my yoga.

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I’ve been practicing yoga on and off for about  20 years now. I’ve been appreciating art since my brother drew his first crayon drawing and my mom hung it on the fridge. With great delight I found out today that one woman is now mixing art and yoga–just a block from my office! After 22 years in the art gallery business Melanee Cooper Gallery will be transforming its space into a yoga studio at the same location. The new yoga studio, Yoga House, will offer free yoga during Art Chicago for gallerists and artists.

From Gallery Owner to Yoga Teacher

Photo: Brendan Lester

Melanee Cooper received her BA from the University of Michigan in 1984. Opening her first gallery at the age of twenty-six, she has exhibited and represented hundreds of contemporary artists, which contribute to her experience and fascination with the surface, texture and process of the artwork. After twenty years in the art business working with collectors, art professionals and artists, the gallery’s focus is to educate and provide outstanding personal client service. According to an article about Yoga House in Time Out Chicago, Melanee received her teachers training certification in yoga at the Nosara Yoga institute in Costa Rica.

Her new yoga studio offers classes in hatha yoga, vinyasa flow yoga and restorative yoga. And artwork will still be features on the walls of the studio!

PRICING

First class with YOGA HOUSE – complimentary

class: $17.00

class packages:
5x – $65 (one free class)
10x – $140 (two free classes)
20x – $285 (three free classes)

Lunchtime yoga – one hour – $12.00

Class packages are non-refundable.

Class schedule here.

Yoga House's New Home!

Melanee Cooper / Yoga House

740 N. Franklin (60654)
Tel 312-202-9305

yogahousechicago@gmail.com

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By Sue Shekut, Owner, Working Well Massage, Licensed Massage Therapist, Certified Wellness Coach, ACSM Personal Trainer

Last night I enjoyed the advantages of 2010 technology. I watched an episode of the show “30 Days”  on my television downloaded from Netflix! 30 Days is a TV show is about people spending 30 days in an environment fairly different from their own. The episode I watched was about a highly stressed man that visited a Life Coach and spent 30 days doing “New Age” therapies to  reduce his reaction to stress. While some of the “therapies” were of questionable merit, many of them helped the man and he ended up becoming a calmer, happier man and building a closer relationships with his wife!

One of the things the man enjoyed, and continued to keep up after the 30 days had ended, was yoga.  More and more research is coming out about the benefits of yoga. I don’t see yoga as a New Age therapy, but then I’ve been doing yoga for about 17 years. And yoga has been around for much longer than the U.S has been a  country (as has acupuncture). As more and more Western style scientific research is done on the benefits of yoga and more people in the U.S.  incorporate it into their daily lives, yoga has become more “mainstream.”

I came across a great article from Yoga Journal on “Banishing Burnout.” In the article, author Jennifer Pirtle shares some information about current research on yoga and stress relief.  She shares some insights into how doing yoga can help you learn to react less to stressors in the workplace. I am sharing some excerpts with you below:

More Bad News About Workplace Stress

Recently, a team of researchers at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) found that stress may even accelerate aging at the cellular level. The study found that the blood cells of women who had spent many years caring for a child with a health condition appeared to be, genetically, about 10 years older than the cells of women whose caretaking responsibilities were less prolonged.

Although the study focused on caregivers, the findings apply to overworked employees, too. “People with other sources of life stress showed similar relationships between their levels of stress and cell aging,” says Elissa Epel, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at UCSF and the study’s lead author.

Stress itself, Epel emphasizes, is neither inherently good nor bad. Instead, how you perceive and react to it determines how it will affect your health. “In the study,” she explains, “the perception of stress was more important than whether one was under the strain of caregiving or not.”

Making your work less stressful doesn’t have to mean leaving it behind for good. (And how many of us can hope to do that, anyway?) Instead, the key is to transform your relationship to the stress so that it no longer overwhelms you. More and more people are discovering that mind-body practices like yoga, qi gong, and meditation can be hugely helpful in shifting the way they react to stress.

How Does Yoga Help With Stress?

You’re likely to feel many of yoga’s benefits the first time you step onto the mat, says Timothy McCall, M.D., an internist and Yoga Journal‘s medical editor. “When you’re doing Downward-Facing Dog, your mind is saying, ‘I want to come down now; my arms are tired,’ but if your teacher tells you to hold the asana a little longer, you find the strength to do it,” he says. “At that point, you realize that you don’t have to respond to every urge you feel. At other times, when your body says it needs to come down, it really needs to. Yoga teaches you to tune in to what your body is telling you and to act accordingly.”

With practice, this awareness will spread into other areas of your life, including your work. “As you learn to separate the urge to act from the reaction, you begin to find that something like a canceled meeting or having a last-minute project handed to you may not rattle you as much as it once did,” says McCall. “You can detect stressors—what Buddhists call the spark before the flame—earlier, then pause long enough to think, ‘Well, maybe I don’t need to respond.’”

That’s what happened for David Freda, a 41-year-old software engineer in Pasadena, California. He had practiced yoga sporadically to help him deal with job-related anxiety in the past, but after he took a new position at an investment company in 1999, he decided to get serious. “I have very high standards as an engineer. As a result, I have a pattern of getting fed up with co-workers and bolting from my jobs,” he says. “When I took this job, I decided to stick it out to see what I could change in myself. I had a strong sense that yoga could help me do that.”

“When I’m doing a challenging posture such as Revolved Triangle [Parivrtta Trikonasana], I can stay in the posture, focus on my breathing, and perhaps not push quite so hard,” he says. “That approach helps me in my job. When I’m confronting someone who is making a bad technical decision, I consider what I could say that would facilitate what I want to achieve. In the past, my emotions would have gotten the best of me, but now people are more inclined to listen and to engage. Even my boss has commented on the changes.”

Read the entire article with many more great insights into how yoga can help you learn to battle workplace and life stress here.

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By Sue Shekut, Owner, Working Well Massage, Licensed Massage Therapist, Certified Wellness Coach, ACSM Personal Trainer

I started practicing yoga about 18 years ago. I was working at a computer all day and went to get my first professional massage. During the massage, my massage therapist lifted my arms over my head to  stretch and I thought, “Wow, I never move my arms anywhere but up to my keyboard and mouse. this arm stretching stuff feels great!” At that time I didn’t stretch much and if I did, it was my legs that I stretched, not my arms or back. She recommended yoga and I joined my first yoga class at the local YMCA.
Through the years, I’ve been able to attend many yoga classes, workshops and do my own home yoga practice. I find yoga not only helpful to my body, but is also very calming, relaxing and stress reducing. Now research shows that practicing yoga actually has a chemical effect on your brain in that it increases levels of a neurotransmitter, GABA, believed to calm the nervous system.

Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine found that for experienced yoga practitioners, brain GABA levels increase by 27% after a session of yoga. This suggests that the practice of yoga should be explored as a treatment for disorders with low GABA levels such as depression and anxiety disorders. Authors of the study conclude that future studies should compare yoga to other forms of exercise to help determine whether yoga or exercise alone can alter GABA levels.

The Study

The sample subjects of the study included of 8 yoga practitioners and 11 comparison subjects. The Yoga practitioners completed a 60-minute yoga session and comparison subjects completed a 60-minute reading session. According to Suite 101, “Magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging conducted before and immediately after each intervention indicated that the yoga practitioners had a 27% increase in GABA levels after the yoga session but no increase after the reading session.”

According to Barry Keate of Arches, Tinninus Formulas, this ability of yoga to increase GABA also has promising applications for sufferers of tinnitus due to its abilility to increase GABA levels. In his article, “How Yoga Increases GABA Levels And Improves Tinnitus” he quotes Dr. Chris Streeter, the lead researcher of the study and a yoga practioner herself about the implications of her study:

Dr. Chris Streeter stated in a newspaper interview “I’m quite sure this is the first study that’s shown there is measurable change in a major brain neurotransmitter with a behavioral intervention such as yoga. What’s really fabulous is this is hard science that is able to clearly document neurochemical changes in the brain.”

Dr. Streeter learned that the National Institutes of Health gave a high score to her research grant proposal for a larger yoga-GABA study and hopes to begin soon. “It will be a much bigger study,” she said. “We will use yoga-naïve people to gauge how regular practice can change GABA levels. It will also include more ability to gauge the positive effects of yoga over time.”

How Do GABA Levels Affect Anxiety and Depression?

Read the excerpt which follows from Laura Owens article in Suite 101, “GABA and Yoga: Decrease Depression and Anxiety: Yoga Boosts Essential Calming Neurotransmitter in Brain”

GABA or gamma-aminobutyric acid is an amino acid made in brain cells from glutamate. It functions as an inhibitory neurotransmitter, meaning it blocks nerve impulses. Without GABA, nerve cells fire too often and too easily. GABA is especially abundant in the cerebral cortex, where thinking occurs and sensations are interpreted, (Jacob J. Schor, N.D. and Rena A. Bloom, N.D.,“GABA: Gamma-Amino Buytric Acid,” Naturopathic Clinic News. Accessed January 14, 2009.)

As one of the primary neurotransmitters, GABA is responsible for inhibitory processes. It elevates the production of alpha waves associated with feeling relaxed (without drowsiness) while boosting mental alertness. Moreover, GABA lowers beta waves that contribute to a state of nervousness, racing thoughts and hyperactivity.

Research, including one study published in the Trends of Pharmacology Science indicate that a dysfunction in the GABA system can contribute to anxiety and depression. (Cryan JF, Kaupmann K, ” ‘B’ happy!: A role for GABA (B) receptors in anxiety and depression.” Trends Pharmacology Science, 2005 January 26 (1):36-43.

Read more at Suite101: GABA and Yoga: Decrease Depression and Anxiety: Yoga Boosts Essential Calming Neurotransmitter in Brain

For an abstract of the actual research on Yoga and GABA, click here.

How Does GABA Effect Tinnitus?

Barry Keates explores research on GABA and tinnitus. Read an excerpt from his article, “How Yoga Increases GABA Levels And Improves Tinnitus” below.

Dr. Andrew Shulman

In 2002, Drs. Abraham Shulman, Arnold Strashun and Barbara Goldstein, from the Martha Entemann Tinnitus Research Center, published a paper describing the common central pathway through the brain through which all tinnitus symptoms must travel. (Shulman A, Strashun A, Goldstein B. GABA-Benzodiazepine-Chloride Receptor-Targeted Therapy for Tinnitus Control. Int Tinnitus J. 2002;8(1):30-6.) This pathway, they determined, is the chemical receptor called gamma-aminobutyric acid-benzodiazepine-chloride receptor (GABA/BZ/Cl) in the medial temporal lobe system. The researchers stated the function of the GABA receptor is to inhibit central nervous system synapse activity.

Deficiency in the GABA receptor is directly related to the worsening of tinnitus, which is marked by increased emotional difficulty, anxiety, stress, depression and fear. Impairment of GABA function also leads to convulsions, which provides clinical support for the concept that tinnitus is an epileptic-like auditory phenomenon.

Read Barry Keates entire article here.

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Yoga Journal

I took my very first yoga class about 15 years ago at my local YMCA in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Yoga was not as popular at that time and when I moved to Chicago, I relied on fliers and word of mouth to find a yoga class I enjoyed. Now, like most things, the internet makes it so easy to find a yoga class!

If you are a yoga novice looking for your first class, or if you are new to Chicago and want to find a yoga group that fits your practice, check out Yoga Chicago. Yoga Chicago is a local magazine that has a complete directory of yoga classes in Chicago and surrounding suburbs. They also post articles and info about upcoming workshops and yoga oriented trips.

To view a list of classes in your area, click on this link here.

Read one of the interesting articles in the current issue of Yoga Journal, “Neuroscience, Hatha Yoga and Creativity: A New Paradigm for Teaching” by By Michael McColly. Click here to read his article.

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By Sue Shekut, Owner, Working Well Massage, Licensed Massage Therapist, Certified Wellness Coach, ACSM Personal Trainer

So you decided to take the plunge and try a yoga class. Then you find out that there are different kinds of yoga. How do you know what kind of yoga to take? And what if you are not flexible? Do not despair!  Yoga is really for people that are not flexible. Unfortunately, many yoga teachers or studios advertise their classes by showing a very highly trained yoga teacher doing an extremely advanced pose that few other people can do.  No worries, most beginning classes teach you simple poses to elongate your body and relax. “Pretzel” yoga is for the very very advanced, not the novice.

If you’ve tried a yoga class and found it either too difficult, too easy or too boring, it may not be yoga that’s the problem, it may  be  the type of yoga you tried or that particular teacher. (Think about it, if you get  a bad hair cut, do you think hair cuts are not for you or do you go to a different barber/hair dressor?!?)

So what type of yoga class should you attend?  Here are some tips from www.yoga.orz.nz:

Yoga Styles Overview

Iyengar – A softer -on-the-body classical style of yoga, Iyengar is perfect for beginners and those who haven’t exercised in a while. It uses props such as chairs, straps, blocks and pillows, and even sandbags, to compensate for a lack of flexibility, which is helpful for anyone with back or joint problems.

Iyengar is the most widely recognized approach to Hatha Yoga, it was created by B. K. S. Iyengar. Iyengar yoga is characterized by attention to detail within poses and the aid of the props. The props assist all sorts of people to be able to do the poses comfortably.

Each pose is held for a longer amount of time than in most other yoga styles, developing a state of focused calm. Benefits include toning muscles, eliminating tension and easing chronic pain.

Practicing Iyengar yoga will give you a good knowledge of classic yoga poses so that whatever other style you practice, you will have the basic fundamentals of how to do each posture. The teacher focuses on alignment and inner awareness.

Sue’s Note: Some Iyengar teachers tend to take a militaristic approach and may push your body beyond what you are capable of doing. Don’t let them! Many Iyengar teachers are wonderful and gentle. But if you find a teacher that is dogmatic in his/her approach or tells you to try a pose even if it hurts you, avoid this class and find someone that is more compassionate–or risk serious injury!

Ashtanga (Power Yoga) the preferred choice for athletes, Ashtanga yoga is light on meditation but heavy on developing strength and stamina. The poses are more difficult than those performed in other styles, students move quickly from one pose to another in an effort to build strength and flexibility.

This style is suitable for anyone in reasonable physical condition but should be avoided by those who are new to exercise. Even the “beginners” routines are a physically demanding workout.

Students move from one pose to another in a continual flow and combine the inhale and exhale of the breath with movements. This physically demanding yoga was developed to build strength, flexibility, and stamina.

The series of poses involves weaving in a combination of standing, seated, backbends, inversions, balancing, and twisting poses into sun salutation poses which include a standing forward bend, upward dog, downward dog, and other poses.

Sue’s Note: Ashtanga or “power” yoga is popular in the West.  Westerners tend to move at a hectic pace even in yoga. However, proper form is even more important when you move through poses quickly. Potential for injury or overstretching/tearing of ligaments is greater in the faster paced styles of yoga. Take care when you try this style of yoga and make sure your yoga teacher is aware of any injuries or limitations before the class begins.

Bikram done in a hot room that is 38C or higher (to replicate the temperature of yoga’s birthplace in India); this style of yoga focuses on 26 postures that are performed in a certain order. The exercises are very physical and the intensity is high.

The Bikram series is warm and stretches muscles, ligaments and tendons in the order in which they should be stretched. Heat and yoga makes for a tough workout. This style is recommended for yoga veterans and extremely fit individuals only.

Sue’s Note: If you have high blood pressure or tend to overheat easily, you may want to avoid Bikram yoga especially in summer heat!

Hatha: This mellow form of yoga focuses on simple poses that flow from one to the other at a very comfortable pace. Participants are encouraged to go at their own pace, taking time to focus on the breathing and meditation in their practice. This yoga is ideal for winding down at the end of a tough day.

Sue’s Note: Hatha yoga may feel too slow for you if you like fast paced moment and cardio classes. But be patient and let yourself be bored a bit sot hat you can take the time to learn the proper form for you poses. It’s also a  way to sneak a little relaxation into your hectic week.

Kundalini, which incorporates mantras (chanting), meditations, visualizations, and guided relaxation. It focuses on healing and “purifying” the mind, body, and emotions. Kundalini yoga is designed to activate the kundalini energy in the spine.

This is achieved with poses, breath control, chanting, and meditation. Kundalini yoga is beneficial in dealing with addictions, and many people find it a natural way of releasing endorphins just by breathing and doing the poses.

Kundalini yoga consists of poses combined with breath control, hand and finger gestures, body locks, chanting and meditation.

Kripalu, which is more spontaneous, flowing, and meditation orientated. Kripalu yoga starts with the first stage, postural alignment and intertwining of breath and movement, and the poses are held a short time.

The student progresses to the second stage with meditation included and poses held for longer. Finally, the practice of poses becomes a spontaneous dynamic movement. The essence of Kripalu yoga is experienced through a continuous flow of postures whilst meditating, for gentle yet dynamic yoga.

Sivananda Yoga has a series of 12 poses, with the Sun Salutation, breathing exercises, relaxation, and mantra chanting as the basis.

Viniyoga, a slower more individualized form of yoga. This form develops strength, balance and healing, make it ideal for beginners, seniors, people with chronic pain or who are in rehabilitation from injury or disease.

Read the entire article on Type of Yoga at www.yoga.org.nz here.

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