Why and How to Activate Your Muscles in Yoga Poses

by Nina 

Bicep Muscle

Tricep Muscle

For some time now we’ve been suggesting that you add “isometric muscle contraction” to your poses to enhance both strength building and stretching. I, myself, have been experimenting with it quite a bit in my practice, and have noticed some dramatic results. But since we’ve never really explained much about what we meant by that or how to put it into practice, I’ve decided that today I’m going to go into detail about both the benefits of this technique and the best ways to practice it so you, too, can give it a try. 

Why Do It 

Stretching. When you are stretching a particular muscle, consciously activating the agonist muscle (the opposite muscle to the one you’re stretching) will cause the muscle you are stretching to release (though reciprocal inhibition). For example, if you are stretching the your back thigh muscles (hamstrings), activating your front thigh muscles (quadriceps) will release your back thigh muscles, allowing you to increase the hamstring stretch. 

Bone Strengthening. Although a weight-bearing pose on its own will strengthen bones, if you consciously contract the muscles holding you up by firming them toward the bones, you will enhance the bone strengthening effects of the pose. For example, if you’re standing in Tree pose (Vrksasana), firming your leg muscles will enhance bone building in the standing leg. 

Muscle Strengthening. As you work in strength building poses, you can strengthen more than just the obviously active muscles by consciously contracting other muscles as you work in the pose. For example, as you hold you arms out to the sides in Warrior 2 (Virabradrasana 2), you can activate your triceps as well as your biceps to increase all-around arm strength. 

Joint Safety. For people with joint problems, such as arthritis, consciously firming the muscles that support a joint will help protect the joint from strain or wear and tear. For example, if you have knee arthritis, firming the muscles on all sides of your thighs in Extended Side Angle pose (Utthita Parsvakonasana) will help support your knees. And for people who are overly flexible and can bend easily into deep forward bends and backbends, consciously activating the muscles that are supporting you in the pose will prevent you from hanging from your joints, which can cause injury. For example, instead of passively dropping into pose where you bend backward or forward from the hips, such as Camel pose (Ustrasana) and Standing Forward Bend, (Uttanasana) you can protect your hip joints by activating your upper thigh and lower buttock muscles. 

How to Do It 

To achieve the benefits I’ve described, you should contract your muscles gently rather than strongly. Strongly contracting a muscle shortens the muscle, which seems to prevent you from moving as freely in the pose. On the other hand, gently firming a muscle toward the bone provides muscular support without interfering with movement. If you’re not used to working this way, it may take some practice. Take it in two steps (thank you, Donald!): 

1. Consciously relax the muscle, allowing it to lengthen. 
2. Gently firm the muscle toward the bone. 

Stretching. When you are stretching a particular muscle, bring your awareness to the agonist muscle (it is already contracting), which is the opposite muscle to the one you are stretching. Gently relax and then firm the agonist muscle toward the bone, and feel whether the opposite muscle stretches a bit more. For example, if you are stretching your tricep muscles (underarm muscles) with arms overhead, try gently firming your biceps toward to the bone. (I realize that which muscle is the “opposite” to the one you are stretching is not always obvious but that is an anatomy lesson for another day.)

Another technique I just learned about is that if you are targeting a particular muscle, you can contract the muscle you want to stretch BEFORE you go into the pose. For example, if you want to stretch tight hamstring muscles, you could practice Locust pose (Salabasana) to contract the muscles just before practicing Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana).

Strength Building. If you are practicing a strength-building pose, rather than contracting only the most obviously active muscle, firm all the surrounding muscles around the bone as well. For example, in Downward-Facing Dog pose (Adho Mukha Svanasana), firm all your arm muscles and shoulder muscles toward the bone. When you want to strengthen your hip area, in a standing pose, for example, you can slowly engage the muscles all around your hip joints, ensuring that this action does not pull you out of good alignment. 

Joint Safety. For joint safety, you want to emphasize strength and stability rather than promoting more flexibility. So practice as you would for increasing bone or muscle strength by firming the muscles that support your joints. For example, to protect your front knee in Warrior 2 pose, you might shorten the distance between your feet so you are not bending your front knee through such a deep range of motion, and then, when your knee is positioned over your ankle joint, focus on firming the muscles on all sides of the knee joint toward the bone. 

If you decide to experiment with any of these techniques, either in your home practice or in a class you're teaching, please let me know how it goes!

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Healing Your Body Through Natural Resources

By Rick Giantie

Aroma therapy has been utilized for many, many years in the treatment of ailments and promoting psychological health. Its global recognition has been heightened during the last five decades mainly due to the recent boost in the demand for natural and organic foods and medications. Aroma therapy has shown so frequently that it's good for the human body and can cure illnesses. Aroma therapy is likewise recognized to boost a person's physical and psychological health. The advantages of aroma therapy include increased health, decreased illness, and an overall feeling of psychological wellness.

Picture yourself dwelling in a place where one can treat almost any medical condition using all-natural, organic approaches rather than chemical antibiotics and medications. There's no longer a necessity to wait in line for the physician's consultation. You could implement aroma therapy to yourself in the convenience of your home. You could make this happen by having the supplies needed in aroma therapy treatments.

The procedure requires essential oils that come from the extracts of several plants. Cold distillation, cold expression, and fixed oil and alcohol extraction are the techniques of getting extracts from plants. To help make the oils more potent, they could be joined together. Aroma therapy oils permit you to benefit from the benefits of aromatherapy. The best part about the utilization of aromatherapy oils is that they don't have any identified bad side effects. They are all natural and help individuals recover from different ailments.

Now you will be available in all the vital activities in your daily life. Aromatherapy helps to keep your body's defense mechanisms healthy. There are likewise lots of people who are worn out due to work and all of life's demands. Fortunately, aroma therapy allows people to lessen stress and even have a very good disposition. It's such a pleasure to remain healthy all of the time. You could also take pleasure in this with the help of aromatherapy!

By following these methods, you are able to bring your essential oils everywhere. I hope that you have found this info valuable and that you have discovered new methods to make your travels smoother.

If you're enthusiastic about aroma therapy and its oils, go to a store that offers organic materials and check out their supplies. You can purchase oils along with other materials for a very affordable price. This is the time to see what aroma therapy can do to your body. Discover what the world has known for millions of years and begin spreading the benefits of aromatherapy for yourself!

About the Author:

If you want to learn about aromatherapy, then visit this video about body butter for you and it can help you.

Discover How To Feel Your Best With Laguna Hills Chiropractic Office Complete Wellness Program

By Cynthia Thompson

Most people nowadays regard regard low-level depression or a few minor pains as a normal state of health. Your nearby Laguna Hills chiropractic office can show what a difference a state of true vibrant health can make to your life. Your current state of semi-health is holding you back from displaying your true abilities.

People are conditioned to wait for a medical crisis before taking action, in line with modern health care systems. By being proactive and working towards a high state of health, you can experience renewed joy in life. Make your chiropractor in helping you return to a child-like state of health and vibrant well-being.

The marvels of modern technology and pressured lifestyles have had a sad effect on our health, with raised stress levels and a multitude of dietary deficiencies being accepted as normal. Many chronic diseases of aging are simply due to a lifetime of poor nutrition. Unfortunately, it can take as long to reverse the symptoms as to develop them.

The natural approach to healing used by chiropractors makes them more aware of what true health looks like. They know what your body requires to be able to perform as intended. To establish what level you are currently at may require intensive investigations, including blood work and a full evaluation of your muscles and skeleton.

True wellness demands that the long-term as well as short-term impact of modern diets and lifestyles are taken into account. Sufficient exercise to stimulate organ health is essential to a wellness plan. Modern farming methods also mean that judicious supplementation may be required to prevent long-term deficiency symptoms.

While you might feel reasonably okay, this is a long way from being fully fit and healthy. You can trust your nearby Laguna Hills chiropractor to help you reach a level of wellness you might last have known as a child. Once you start seeing the results, you will know you have made a very wise move.

About the Author:

Learn more here about the benefits of consulting a Laguna Hills chiropractic physician, now. You can also get more info about a well-respected chiropractor at http://www.claytonthomasnoel.com today.

Discover How To Look And Feel Your Best With Bioidentical HRT For Wellness

By Ma Lillibeth Coper Incipido

HRT, hormone replacement therapy is typically associated with women. Most consumers are unaware of the difference between bioidentical and synthetic hormones. This proves that some patient education is needed. Consumers would benefit from the knowledge that bioidentical HRT improves the wellness of men and women. Then they can make informed decisions about their health. Philadelphia customized wellness programs uses bioidentical HRT to improve the health of their patients.

Beginning with the onset of menstruation, women are subject to life events that disrupt hormonal balance. Women have to cope with this on a monthly basis during their child bearing years. When pregnancy occurs, it completely alters the hormonal balance. After the child bearing years, they begin to experience the symptoms of perimenopause and then menopause. This explains why women generally have a stronger interest in BHRT.

It is commonly accepted by traditional medicine that men also experience menopause. The term used for men is andropause. The testosterone levels decrease and men often complain of a decreased libido. Some men experience erectile dysfunction, mood swings and weight gain. The understanding that these symptoms are related to andropause, has peaked the interest of men in BHRT.

Hormonal imbalance also affects your overall health and wellness. Both men and women may suffer a loss of bone density and may develop osteoporosis. This is a very serious condition that tends to worsen as people age and is more prevalent in women.

With all the benefits of BHRT, it is a wonder that more people are not on the program. The most important organ in the body, the heart, will stay strong and healthy longer with BHRT. Patients show increased energy, more muscle mass and lower blood pressure. BHRT actually slows down aging, and therefore keeps the body healthy.

To say that bioidentical hormones are natural is a misstatement. Both the so called synthetic hormones and bioidentical hormones are synthetic. Bioidentical hormones are superior due to their molecular structure. They metabolize in the body just like the truly natural hormones produced by the human body. BHRT is very effective for wellness and a better quality of life as people age.

About the Author:

Find a summary of the advantages you get when you consult an integrative medicine practitioner and more info about Philadelphia customized wellness programs at http://worldwellnesshealth.com now.

Making Room for Your Life TEDx Lincoln Talk with Khara Plicanic

I came across Kara Plicanic on Instagram.  She is a wedding photographer with a creative eye, and I was intrigued that she had done a TEDx talk called Anything is Possible ~ and That's the Problem.  Or is it? about her experience with OCD.

She recommends reading Jeff Bell, and I concur that he is an eloquent writer and speaker about facing OCD and making a life.

It helps to find kindred spirits who are artists as I am, and who have made room for their creative spirit amidst the crowding of OCD thoughts.

Increase Your Fat Loss Possible With This Extensive Prepare

By Daniel Will

Because of the contradicting details available, you may be easily perplexed. Start easy and slow don't attempt to drop a lot of weight simultaneously. This article is full of straightforward tips it is simple to adapt to your lifestyle.

If you would like lose weight, go on a hike. It is possible to take a family member or friend with you to talk to, or spend some time checking wild birds or vegetation existence in the area in your walk. The greater intensely you hike, the more quickly you will burn fat.

Hypnotizing on your own might help your unwanted weight damage goals. Even though many scoff at hypnotherapy, when done by a professional specialist, the results are very therapeutic and may allow you to alter your lifestyle inside the techniques you have wanted.

It may seem as though going on a trend diet plan is a perfect way to get a hop-begin slimming down. When you are truly seriously interested in shedding weight, however, you ought to prevent all dietary fads. A trend diet program, like residing on nothing but pineapple, cabbage soup, cottage cheese or bananas, could have novelty choosing it at first, and can quickly become tiresome. And even more serious, you will have learned nothing about nourishment with your projects. An outstanding diet provides you with the equipment you should eat healthy into old age.

Every single profitable diet plan need to provide for an intermittent incentive for your effort you set into the diet plan. Go shopping, view a motion picture or obtain a massage therapy to relax. You could decide to buy garments that can showcase your physique, and that is a double prize, which provides you with the optimistic experiencing your perseverance has repaid, so you view it inside the looking glass.

Low fat yogurt is an ideal weight-loss friend. Eat plain or reduced fat yogurts. Fat free yogurt could be put into a greens through the use of cucumbers and salt and pepper for the scrumptious snack. Fruit is wonderful on natural yogurt and is also reduced on highly processed sweets. Yogurt is a good source of calcium supplement if you choose the best items.

Should you do cardiovascular you can expect to lose fat very easily. This sort of workout is typically called "cardio exercise," and includes exercise routines which get your pulse rate up like bicycling, operating and step aerobics. Increase your heart's is better than each and every minute is the way to get rid of extra fat. Do cardio exercise no less than half an hour, 3 to 4 occasions a week.

A good way to help shed weight is to lessen the dimensions of the dish you use. When you use over-size meal plates, you are able to accidentally eat way too much as a result of dishing up larger sized parts. Don't utilize a dish which is bigger than 9 inches in diameter. Any larger along with your plate holds far too much food items.

Avoid consuming before going to bed. In case your bed time is 10pm, don't try to eat any later than 8pm. If you are sensing an desire to consume one thing, take in some veggies that are suprisingly low in calorie consumption, or you might attempt consuming some water. Try your greatest to resist the fabulous appeal of the evening snack food. Your whole body will not burn numerous calorie consumption while you sleep, as an alternative, these unhealthy calories are kept.

Consuming not more than 20g of glucose after having a workout could possibly be very good for your body. Eating sweets with proteins immediately after a good work out allows your system to easily consume the health proteins and spurs recovery.

For those who carry careers, usually consider treats that happen to be healthier along with you to operate. This is very crucial especially when operating long shift, when you would not want to excessive whenever you eventually return home. This may cause you to reach for poor junk.

Use the following tips to create on your own an exercise routine it is possible to adhere to every single day. By developing a typical routine, you can expect to soon create very good routines that may help you shed weight. Produce a determination to shed weight, and as you get heading it can become much easier.

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Stop by this blog where you can find out all about zdrava prehrana.

How Your Breath Affects Your Nervous System

by Baxter

Cloud Study by John Constable

When I read the posts of my fellow YFHA bloggers, I often learn new perspectives that might differ from my own as well as new information that I was previously unaware of. Reading the posts also highlights occasions where I could have been clearer or given better information on a particular topic. As an example, I have written about breath techniques and their effect on the autonomic nervous system, as did Timothy in his awesome follow-up post on the buzzing bee breath, Bhramari Pranayama with Mudras. And we often mention that extending or lengthening the exhalation triggers the parasympathetic nervous system, the Rest and Digest part of our nervous system’s balancing program. This made me realize that I could add a bit more detail to explain how that actually happens.

It turns out the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) that connects brain to body is a two-way street. If I am anxious and nervous or stressed out by events in my life or simply the thoughts about those events, my brain, via the nerves of the ANS, will likely turn on the Sympathetic part of that system (the Fight or Flight response), which could result in faster heart and breathing rates, and increases in blood pressure, to mention just two of the most obvious physiological changes.

But the cool thing is that the lungs and heart can feed back to the brain and essentially convince the brain that things are calm and peaceful, even when there are still stressful circumstances. One neat way this happens involves the relationship of the heart and lungs and the nerves between them. In each round of breath, during your inhalation, your heart gets stimulated to beat a little faster. Then during the exhalation that follows, your heart gets told to slow down a tad. The overall effect is very little change in the heart rate from minute to minute. But when you make one part of the breath cycle, either the inhale or the exhale, longer than the other, and you do this for several minutes, the accumulated effect is that you will either slow the heart rate down or speed it up from where you started. When you make the inhales longer than the exhales, for example, by using a two-second inhale and a one-second exhale, and you keep this up for several minutes, the heart rate will go a bit faster. This will send a feedback message to the brain that things need to activate more in the brain and body for whatever work there is to be done, stimulating the Sympathetic portion of the ANS.

With the very useful Bhramari breath Timothy expanded on Bhramari Breath with Mudras, we do the opposite. As we hum during the exhalation, the exhales get longer relative to the inhales, as when we do a 1:2 ratio breath practice without the humming. This new respiratory cycle begins to slow down the heart rate, sending a message to the brain that everything is more peaceful and calm than five minutes ago, allowing the brain to support this shift further by activating the Parasympathetic portion of the ANS (the Rest and Digest or Relaxation response) that goes back from brain to body.

Research has shown that the vagus nerve as well as certain chemical neurotransmitters account for these effects of breath patterns on heart rate and subsequently on shifting the balance between the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic parts of the ANS. Keep in mind that the ANS is trying to keep all background systems in balance and responding appropriately to ever-changing circumstances of our day.

I’m providing this information for those of you who want to go a bit deeper in your understanding of how breath patterns affect the nervous system balance and either excite the system or quiet it. Our conscious choice of breathing differently can shift us to a more desirable part of the ANS, either by stimulating the active Sympathetic branch or the quieting Parasympathetic branch.  Most of us need more of the latter, but not always!

For a little more background on how the Respiratory system influences the Cardiac system, which in turn influences the Autonomic Nervous System, see The human respiratory gate as well as Effects of yoga on the autonomic nervous system, gamma-aminobutyric-acid, and allostasis in epilepsy, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

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The Benefits Colloidal Silver Supplement Has For Your Health

By Lelia Hall

One essential metal that is largely ignored by the mainstream medical community is silver that they claim has no essential role in the body. However, it also has no serious negative effect. For many centuries, it was used to tackle very serious disease, and it still commonly used to make supplements that play numerous roles in promoting healthy living. In fact, the true health benefits colloidal silver has cannot be enumerated in totality. It is perhaps the only preventing and curative element that cuts across almost all areas of life.

Before the antibacterial soaps and detergents were invented, it had been used for centuries as the primary disinfectant. To date, it is still commonly used as the primary solution to kill bacteria. Unknown to many though, it can kill any unwanted living and semi-living cells like a virus. As the innovations in the area of the medical field advanced few decades ago, it seemed to have lost favor; this has however changed in the recent past as more people are going for organic foods and supplements.

Through research findings, it has been shown that bacteria, virus, and fungi all die within minutes after getting into contact with the colloidal silver. In order for the cell to replicate, there are enzymes within the cell body that are responsible for this action. By deactivating this enzyme, it essentially stops cells from replicating. This is done without getting consumed, and it is therefore, available to do the same thing again in the future. Together with this, it is completely safe for body cells.

In short, it prevents the pathogens from using body cells to replicate. The pathogens cannot survive in an environment with this colloidal. Its use as a preventive measure is largely due to the fact that it does not target any specific pathogens, but instead works against the nature of life cycles. With this quality, even mutation cannot escape it.

The most common infections were it can be so useful include influenza, colds, and parasitic infections. It has shown promise as a possible treatment of HIV and AIDS due to its antiviral properties. Patients who use it tend to live for longer. Cancer is known to result from the cell's inability to regulate the rate of division, thereby outstripping the body demand. This supplement has properties that enable it restores the normal cell division rate.

The use is not restricted to the prevention and treatment of viral and bacterial infections only. When used in a broad-spectrum, it tends to treat several other conditions. After suffering a burn, it can be useful in promoting healthy growth of cells and fend off the opportunistic infections.

In the area of digestion where colloidal silver is widely used, it helps maintain an optimal environment for the functioning of digestive juices. In addition to this, it promotes maximum absorption of the necessary nutrients required by the body. By prohibiting action of bacteria and other pathogens, it prevents fermentation of food in the stomach and thus saves you from indigestion, stomach pains, and gases.

The silver colloidal is also used as a remedy for other things like waterborne diseases, and for managing conjunctivitis where it is directly dropped into the eyes. Since it does not interact with other drugs and chemical, it has no major side effects, other than avoiding over-consumption to prevent body from metal build-up.

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Read more about The Health Benefits Colloidal Silver Contains.

Chronic Stress Can Damage Your Brain

by Nina 

Opening Peas by Melina Meza

"Stress can damage the brain. The hormones it releases can change the way nerves fire, and send circuits into a dangerous feedback loop, leaving us vulnerable to anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.” — Geoffrey Mohan, LA Times

One of my new areas of interest is brain health. Yes, not too surprisingly, I’d like to keep my brain—along with my body—healthy as I age (as I’m sure you all do, too). And one thing I’ve been noticing lately in my research is that chronic stress is as bad for the brain as it is for the body. In a way, that makes sense because really your brain is just another organ in your body, and we all know that chronic stress takes a toll on other organs, such as your heart and your digestive system. But I was fascinated to read recently in Stress matters to brain's white matter that neuroscientists at the University of California found evidence that one of our stress hormones, cortisol, actually causes the brain's stem cells to produce white matter that can change the way the brain's circuits are connected!

In a study published in Nature, Stress and glucocorticoids promote oligodendrogenesis in the adult hippocampus, researchers studied stem cells in the hippocampus. (The hippocampus is a very important part of that brain because it responsible for long-term memory and spatial navigation.)  Normally, the stems cells in the hippocampus produce new neurons or glia. But when the researchers examined the brains of mice that were chronically stressed out (yes, they’re stressing out those poor mice again), they discovered that the stress hormone corticosterone (the rodent equivalent of human cortisol) caused the stem cells produce an "abundance of oligodendrocytes." The LA Times quoted Daniela Kaufer, lead investigator of the study:

“Usually the brain doesn’t make much oligodendrocytes in adulthood from those neural stem cells. But under stress, all of a sudden, you discover they are making those cells.” 

Dr. Kaufer said that moderate stress, such as that caused by studying for an exam or competing in the Olympics, can build a more resilient brain with stronger circuitry, but that acute, prolonged stress can "wreak havoc."

So scientists are now actually finding specific evidence of how chronic stress can actually damage brain. We’d all like to avoid that, I’m sure. Of course, chronic stress can also cause high blood pressure, which leads to strokes, also damaging—sometimes very seriously—the brain. In fact, my father suffered in the later part of his life from stroke-related dementia, so I’ve seen it up close.

If you haven’t already incorporated some yoga stress management techniques into your daily life, take a look at one of my early posts The Relaxation Response and Yoga, which gives an overview of the many options that yoga provides. There are so many choices you’re sure to find something you enjoy and that you can practice on a regular basis.

P.S. After my post on Of Mice and Men, are you wondering how the scientists stressed out their test subjects? According to the LA Times, the researchers stressed out the mice by either immobilizing them in a straitjacket for three hours a day, seven days a week, or injecting them with corticosterone. Tiny straightjackets for mice? I’m not so sure what I think of that.

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How To Feel Your Best With A Lakeland FL Chiropractic Office Services

By Dona Banegas

There are a numerous fields in health care that strive to provide patients with health and wellness solutions. Many people believe that those who are well are able to live fulfilling and long lives. Health is becoming more of a priority for people in the modern day, especially with the rise in diseases and cancers. Chiropractic medicine is a form of alternative care that is mostly centered on matters relates to the nervous and musculoskeletal systems. Still, Lakeland FL chiropractor professionals are able to provide clients with the solutions and support they need to feel their best.

Drug-free and hands-on practices are often done in this field. A primary goal is to promote the natural healing ability of the body. This is done through application of natural and non-invasive techniques.

Patient assessments are integral to the care process and often the first step. Doctors will conduct tests to determine the status of a patient. The information they collect can help them determine possible care solutions. If patients are suffering with a lot of symptoms, these will be managed. However, it is often a priority for these doctors to identify the underlying cause and address this promptly.

Different practices may be performed to help patients feel better. Sometimes these doctors will recommend alterations be made to the lifestyle and diet of patients. This could help relieve certain symptoms and benefit overall wellness. Natural supplementation might also be suggested. Chiropractic doctors have been known to do spinal manipulations and other physical adjustments as well.

Patients should be vocal about their questions and concerns regarding care. They must also research to find the best professionals operating in the area. Consider services, fees, insurances accepted, and reviews and ratings. Not all insurance providers or plans offer coverage for this type of alternative care. This is important to understand when searching for a chiropractic provider.

The results of care will vary based on a number of factors. Patients should follow all orders given by their practitioner to help promote the best results. It might take time for changes to be noticed so patients and consistency is important. Usually more than one session or appointment with these doctors is necessary.

About the Author:

Lakeland FL Chiropractor for a review of the benefits and advantages of consulting a knowledgeable chiropractic doctor, today. You can also get more information about an experienced Lakeland FL chiropractor at http://www.floridaspineandinjury.com right now.