Back pain can be caused by any number of things, including stress, muscle tension, poor posture and poor muscle tone of the core.  Yoga breath exercises can relieve stress and tension and encourage good posture.  Those good habits can relieve back pain. 

Practicing yoga postures can relieve tension and stress and can strengthen abdominal and back muscles.  A stronger core leads to better posture.  So practicing yoga can be a good remedy for your aching back.  It can do for you what medical science cannot do.

Of course, some back pain is attributable to an underlying medical cause, such as a herniated disc.  Yoga cannot remedy that type of back pain and can, in fact, aggravate it.  So if you have chronic back pain, you should check with a doctor before you start a yoga practice.

If your doctor finds no underlying medical cause, however, consider starting a yoga practice.  Go slowly at first, taking care not to overdo so that you avoid further harm to your back.  Yoga postures can strengthen your core muscles which will improve your posture and reduce the incidence of back pain with practice and time.  You can relieve stress and tension and bring a sense of well-being which can remove some of the soreness by practicing yoga breath exercises.

Technorati Tags: pranayama yoga, yoga breath

Part of the practice of yoga breath includes physical exercises to strengthen the body so that you can engage in pranayama yoga and meditation without fatigue.  The Sun Salutation  is a classic physical exercise of yoga. It is a great way to start the day.  I do the Sun Salutation three or four times when I wake up, then I sit down and do a few minutes of a yoga breath exercise.  

Here are the 12 steps of the Sun Salutation:

1. Stand facing the east with your feet slightly apart.  Bend your elbows and bring your hands together in a prayer position.  Bring your hands in front of your chest and touch your breast bone with your thumbs.
2. Inhale deeply while slowly raising your hands over your head, bend backwards as far as you can without straining.  Hold for a few seconds.
3. Exhale slowly as you fold forward from the hips.  Keep your knees straight as you bend to place your fingers on the floor.  If you can’t touch the floor, bring your hands to your shins.  Continuing the exhale, bring your forehead in toward your knees.
4. Slowly inhale, bend your knees, then place the palms of your hands on the floor beside your feet.  Step back into a lunge position by sliding your right foot behind you as far as you can go.  Arch your back and raise your face to the ceiling.
5. Bring your left foot back and place it beside the right foot and straighten both legs.  You will be supporting your weight on the palms of your hands and your toes.  Your back and legs should be in a straight line, like a flat plane.  Avoid hiking the hips up or letting them droop.
6. Bend both knees to the floor as you exhale.  Bend at the hips to lower your chest and forehead to the floor.  Your forehead, chest, hands, knees and toes will be on the floor and your hips will be in the air.
7. Inhale slowly, look up and let your head pull the rest of your body into a backbend.  So your head is bent back, your gaze is to the ceiling and your chest is bending back and off the floor.  Your palms are on the floor and your elbows are slightly bent.  From the navel down, your body should be on the floor.  Hold this position for a few seconds.
8. Exhale slowly and raise your hips until your body forms and inverted “V”.  Your feet and palms should be flat on the floor.  That’s not easy to do.  You may have to adjust by bending your knees.
9. Inhale slowly and step forward with your right foot, bringing it in between your hands.  You should be in a similar position to Step 4, but with the right foot forward and the left foot back.  Your left leg should be straight behind you.  Raise your face to the ceiling and arch your back.
10. Exhale slowly and bring your left foot forward next to your right one.  Straighten your legs, raising your hips to the ceiling and keeping your fingertips on the floor.  Bring your head toward the knees.
11. Slowing inhale, raise your arms up and stretch back as in Step 2.  Hold for a few seconds.
12. Slowly exhale, lowering your arms to your sides.  Relax. 
    

Technorati Tags: pranayama yoga, yoga breath

Before I practiced pranayama yoga, I would often feel stressed or anxious.  Sometimes (but only sometimes) it would occur to me to stop and take a few deep breaths.  A sense of centered calmness would start to embrace me almost immediately.  I think now that I was so detached from my breath that even the mere act of thinking about it was healing to me.

The paradox about the yoga breath is that it is both calming and energizing.  You are energized, not with a frantic energy, but with a slow and steady energy. 

There are many ways to approach the yoga breath.  Many teachers will tell you not to do anything at first other than observe your breath.  I happen to enjoy the following exercise and I’d like to share it with you.  Read through the steps several times so that you don’t have to interrupt your breathing to go back and refer to them.

Try this:

1. Whether you sit on the floor or in a chair, be sure your spine is straight.  If you are in a chair, keep your torso free from the back or sides.  Place your feet flat on the floor with your knees directly over your feet.  Place your hands on the tops of your legs.  If you are on the floor, sit with your legs crossed.
2. Close your eyes and, beyond that, rest your eyeballs.  Sometimes your eyes want to continue to look for something even if your lids are closed.
3. Remind yourself that your lungs are inside your ribs.
4. Feel the air entering your lungs and your ribs expand.  Allow your lungs to empty and feel your ribs come back in. 
   
5. While you are doing this, don’t push the breath.  Let the breath flow as it will.
6. Let yourself breathe, and observe your breath, for 2 or 3 minutes.  As you get more used to it, practice it for up to 10 minutes. 
   

When I was a lawyer, I used to have a computerized calendar that would sound a little chime at the time that an appointment was to start.  I took to scheduling a five-minute breathing session daily and putting it on my calendar.  When the chime sounded, I would stop what I was doing and practice this breathing exercise.  Then I would give thanks, for particular things that I was thankful for, or just because. 

As I got more used to my scheduled yoga breath breaks, I often would do them over the course of the day when I needed to relax or gain clarity or perspective.

I hope you try this exercise and I hope you enjoy it.

Are you looking for an online yoga course?  I use the Yoga Tutor and I highly recommend it.

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I don’t play music when I practice yoga, but if you do, you may want to take a look at these blog posts:

• Vivekanand Needam: Yoga Music – The Real Celebration of Body And Mind! – Yoga meditation music or yoga relaxation music gives a soothing feeling if used as background music for yoga. It helps the mind to concentrate better and avoids distraction of mind. Yoga meditation music gives mental, spiritual benefits …

• Embrace The Moment – World Yoga Relaxation Music – Slideshow – AstronomyRecords asked: astronomyrecords.com The music in this video is all 6 songs from the album “Embrace The Moment – Music to enhance your yoga practice” mixed together. The songs in order are: 1. Preparing The Way 2. …

Have you ever heard of pranayama yoga, or the yoga breath, and wondered what it was?

Pranayama yoga, or the yoga breath, is the type of yoga that is dedicated to breath control.  The word “pranayama” is a compound word consisting of two Sanskrit words, “prana” and “yama.”  “Yama” means “control.”  So, “prana” must mean “breath,” right?  Well, no.  Not exactly.

Translating the word “prana” from the Sanskrit into Standard American English as spoken in the twenty-first century is not an easy job.  Although that word is sometimes translated as “universal energy,” I like to think of it as the “life force.”  It is that which a living body has and a corpse does not.  It is the shared interaction between the individual and the cosmos; shared, because an individual breathes the force in and exhales it back out. 

Be careful not to reduce “prana” to “air.”  It isn’t.  And it isn’t simply any of the other interchanges that an individual has with the cosmos, either.  It isn’t water, food or sunshine.

But prana is carried in air, food, water and sunshine.  I like to think about what I learned in Sunday school.  How did Adam change from a pile of dust to a man?  God breathed life into his lungs.  And the word “spirit,” meaning the “animating or vital principle in man or animals” is related to the Latin word for “breath.”

Prana is not merely air.  Rather, it is air entering our lungs and permitting us to live and breathe.

Pranayama yoga, or the yoga breath, is the yoga practice that works on breath control through exercises and attention.  The purpose of this practice is to cleanse and purify the body and to strengthen and purify the mind.  But it won’t just happen by inhaling and exhaling.  The single most important thing to bring to pranayama yoga is your full attention and mental focus.  Pramayama, or yoga breath, supports your practice of yoga asanas to make a richer, more vital yoga practice.  And pranayama and the asanas together prepare you for meditation.

Oddly, as naturally as breathing comes to the youngest of us, most of us do it wrong.  We don’t inhale deeply enough.  We let breath race in and out of our bodies without giving it time to let the oxygen nourish our blood.  We breathe without honoring the prana, the life force.  The result is fatigue, mental sluggishness, sleep disorders and even heart disease.

So you are well advised to honor the prana and to breathe with deliberation and care.  Learn pranayama yoga, or yoga breath, and practice it daily to enhance your practice of yoga asanas and to fortify your mental and physical health.

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Read on to learn a little about chakras:

• Top 7 Chakras – Listverse – In many religions and practices, there is a belief that there are many energy centers in the body that are tuned to an aspect of life. The energy centers, charkas, are represented with colors and are believed that the person has the …