10 Benefits of Yoga

Over the last three to four decades a great deal of research has been done by the medical community and they now, more and more, recognize the health benefits of Yoga. Below, I will highlight the top 10 health benefits that Yoga bestows and I hope it will inspire all of you to take up this wonderful practice is some capacity and reap the rich rewards as well.

The health benefits have been divided into 3 categories. The Physical Health Benefits of Yoga, Emotional Health Benefits of Yoga and the Mental Health Benefits of Yoga. A short explanation is given along with each benefit to help you understand better the mechanisms that Yoga employs to bestow it.

Yoga is currently taking its final exam. Even though this science dates back many thousands of years, it has only recently come to the West. This is where Yoga is being empirically tested. The Western mind demands results and evidence, if none are produced, the system does not survive. This is a valuable approach and Yoga is currently being put though the rigors of this process. So far Yoga is passing with flying colors. Don’t get me wrong, its not that the East did not expect that, its just that this approach filters out the fraudulent and frivolous methodologies, which might otherwise survive simply because of superstition and fear, and the East is just as happy that this is being done as the West. This scrutinizing process results in separating the stones from the diamonds and the diamond that is Yoga is starting to shine though bright and clear.

Physical Health Benefits of Yoga:

1. Energy: Yoga exercises, breath control training (pranayama) and use of yoga body locks (bandhas) all work to activate and balance your energy pathways, giving you the vitality and power you need to maximize your potential.

2. Strength: By strength here we don’t just mean physical muscular strength, although that will benefit greatly as well due to the steady holding of yoga poses and the exercises that yoga incorporates, but also the strength of your internal physiological systems. Strength of your immune system, nervous system, digestive system, respiratory system, circulatory system, reproductive system, etc.

3. Healing: The power of Yoga to heal ailments and cure diseases is becoming more and more an integral part of mainstream medical practice and treatment methods. This ability of Yoga to heal also promotes longevity.

4. Flexibility: Yoga postures (asanas) are perhaps the best type of exercises you can do to improve flexibility. Flexibility is essential for avoiding injuries as well as for the health of the joints, tendons and muscles.

Emotional Health Benefits of Yoga:

5. Peace: Yoga meditations and practice methodology promotes a greater awareness and appreciation of the present moment, which calms the mind and allows the peace deep within to surface.

6. Joy: With the maturing of a Yoga practice, the beauty and depth of life become more apparent and the spontaneous joy of existence emerges.

7. Compassion: Yoga values and philosophy, along with the practice of yoga meditations, dissolves one’s ego-centric reality, thus developing other mindedness, thoughtfulness, generosity and compassion.

Mental Health Benefits of Yoga:

8. Brain Development: Yoga breathing exercises and yoga meditations develop parts of the brain that are normally dormant. Once these parts are activated the power of intuition, as well as other latent powers are unleashed. In addition as the brain develops so does your intelligence and clarity of thoughts.

9. Concentration: The requirement of many Yoga meditations to keep the mind focused on a single object or mantra (sound vibrations), helps to dramatically increase your power of concentration and focused attention.

10. Awareness: Yoga can simply be called the Science of Awareness. This is its primary purpose. To refine and increase awareness so that you can penetrate the veil of the ordinary dualistic mind and encounter your Divine Nature within.

Posted in Yoga, Personal Development, Health and Wellbeing by Anmol Mehta

http://www.anmolmehta.com/blog/2007/05/06/top-10-health-benefits-of-yoga/

Hello PAL Trainers!

We hold yoga sessions in PAL Learning Center every Saturdays. If you are interested to join, kindly e-mail Al_Licarte@pal.com.ph to check for the schedule and availability of classes. We want you to join us in rejuvenating our mind, body, and soul. You may also bring a friend or two along. The more the merrier. See you there!

Office Chair Exercises

Yes, there is such a thing as exercise for the office! With office chair exercise you can stretch out and boost your energy, without losing productive work time.

The primary reasons office workers begin to lose mobility and experience back and shoulder pain, sore hips and stiff necks, are:

1. poor sitting posture
2. improper typing ergonomics and desk ergonomics
3. lack of intermittent exercise

This shouldn't be the case. Sitting posture is easy to correct, and even though you are probably busy there are many quick, easy exercises that can be done within seconds.

In addition to the exercises listed below you may want to add yoga or Pilates stretches, or a self neck massage. And, if you sit most of the day, improve the blood flow to your hip joints with hip exercises that can be done right at your desk. Or...

Have you heard about laughter therapy? Believe it or not, laughter is also is considered a form of exercise and can be a great way to relieve office stress.

This blog is written by a patient NOT a practitioner. Exercises and techniques discussed here were provided to me - for my specific needs. To avoid risk of serious injury they should not be used by others without being discussed with a qualified health care provider.

Wrists

1.Extend your arm in front of you placing your palms up.

2.With your other hand, grab your fingers.

3.Gently stretch your hand down, bending your wrist backwards. Feel the stretch in your forearm?

4.Repeat with the other arm.

Wrists and Forearms

1.Press hands together in front of chest. Keep elbows bent and parallel to the floor.

2.Gently bend wrists to the right and left.

3.Repeat several times.

Back

1.Sit straight in your chair and place your right arm behind your right hip.

2.Twist to the right and hold for a few seconds.

3.Switch to your left arm on your left hip and repeat.

Calves

1.While sitting, lift up your legs onto the balls of your feet and then release.

2.Continue until your legs and calves are tired.

3.Repeat every 10-15 minutes for an hour.

Leg

1.Holding abdominal muscles in, extend leg until it is level with hip.

2.Hold for a few seconds and then repeat with other leg.

Hips

1.While seated, lift one leg off the floor a few inches with knee bent.

2.Hold for a few seconds and then repeat with the other leg.

Arms, Shoulders, Back

This is my absolute favorite office chair exercise and stress relief activity. One that you can only appreciate after trying.

1.Find a small hand size ball, or even improvise with a rolled up piece of paper.

2.Throw it up in the air and try catching it.

It's amazing how well your arms, shoulders and back muscles loosen up after doing this only a few times. The missed catch is the best, because it stretches your whole back when you bend to pick it up!

Office chair exercises are often the quickest way to get instant relief for muscles that inevitably tighten up after sitting for long periods of time.

http://www.back-exercise-and-pain-relief.com/office-chair-exercise.html

Why Sleep Is So Important

by Anne Field

Many hard-charging managers pride themselves on their ability to work long hours and get by on 5 or 6 hours of sleep. But the truth is that they're shortchanging themselves -- and their companies.

"Sleep is not a luxury," says Dr. James O'Brien, medical director of the Boston SleepCare Center in Waltham, Mass. "It's a necessity for optimal functioning."

When you sleep, your brain catalogues the previous day's experiences, primes your memory, and triggers the release of hormones regulating energy, mood, and mental acuity. To complete its work, the brain needs 7 to 8 hours of sleep. When it gets less, your concentration, creativity, mood regulation, and productivity all take a hit.

How sleep works

To understand why the right amount of shut-eye is so important to performance, it helps to know how sleep works.

Healthy sleep is divided into four-stage cycles. As we progress through stages 1 and 2, we become increasingly unplugged from the world until we reach the deep sleep that happens in stage 3. In deep sleep, both brain and body activity drop to their lowest point during the cycle, and blood is redirected from the brain to muscles.

The fourth and final stage is named for the rapid eye movement -- REM -- that is its defining characteristic. Our brains become busily active in REM sleep, too, even more so than when we are awake. Dreaming happens during this stage.

In a full night's sleep, we experience three or four such cycles, each lasting 60 to 90 minutes.

The work sleep does

Different yet equally important restorative work happens during deep sleep (stage 3) and REM sleep (stage 4).

Deep sleep is crucial for physical renewal, hormonal regulation, and growth. Without deep sleep, you're more likely to get sick, feel depressed, and gain an unhealthy amount of weight. According to the National Sleep Foundation's 2008 Sleep in America poll, those who sleep less than 6 hours per night on workdays are significantly more likely to be obese than those who sleep 8 hours or more (41% vs. 28%).

In REM sleep -- stage 4 in the sleep cycle -- the brain processes and synthesizes memories and emotions, activity that is crucial for learning and higher-level thought. A lack of REM sleep results in slower cognitive and social processing, problems with memory, and difficulty concentrating. The same 2008 sleep poll found that people who sleep less than 6 hours per night during the workweek are twice as likely as their better-rested colleagues to report difficulty in concentrating.

A deficit in sleep leads to deficits in work performance

Performing complex tasks and navigating complicated relationships -- the heart and soul of a manager's work -- both become much harder to do when REM sleep suffers. And when you cut back on sleep, your REM sleep suffers the most.

There are two reasons for this:
Your brain, when confronted with sleep deprivation, opts for lighter sleep and hence less REM sleep.

Later sleep cycles tend to have longer REM periods than cycles earlier in the night. When you sleep through only one or two cycles instead of three or four, your REM sleep is disproportionately affected.

When your brain is starved of REM sleep, concentrating on a single activity is challenging. Multitasking -- an inescapable bane of managerial work -- becomes exponentially more so.

A deficit of REM sleep also makes it tougher to pick up on nuances in discussions or negotiations.

"When you're trying to understand the subtext of what someone is saying, your brain needs to use a bunch of programs at the same time," says Dr. Gandis Mazeika, head of Sleep Medicine Northwest in Seattle. "If you're sleep deprived, that's hard to do."

In addition, recent research shows that sleep deprivation takes a toll on decision-making ability.

Getting more from the sleep you get

Given the demands facing managers today -- working in a 24/7, always-on environment is a big one -- a full night's sleep is sometimes an impossible dream. Fortunately, there are ways to get more out of the time you do manage to spend in sleep:

Avoid caffeine. Cut out caffeinated coffee, tea, and soda ideally 10 hours before bedtime -- and chocolate, too. When you sleep, make it a commitment.

Try to nod off quickly. To fall asleep fast, you can occasionally use a sleeping supplement. But be careful. For example, the much-prescribed Ambien is specifically for sleeping seven to eight hours. If you don't have that much time, don't use it. Although some antidepressants can help you feel drowsy enough to fall asleep, they also tend to compromise REM, says Dr. O'Brien. A more healthful approach for some is to meditate a half-hour before hitting the bed.

Darken the room completely. Your brain creates a hormone called melatonin that senses when it's dark out and primes you for sleep. If you try to sleep amid too much light, your brain may decide you're not ready for bedtime after all. So turn off the TV, shut down the computer, turn the clock to the wall, and close the blinds tightly. Use an eye mask if you're sleeping during the daytime.

Sleep in a restful environment. Make sure the room is quiet and your BlackBerry is out of hearing range. Sleep on a comfortable mattress; Dr. Mazeika advises you get a new one every five to 10 years.

Exploit the power of power naps

Don't forget that brief day-time naps can be helpful. If at all possible, close your office door (if you have one) and try to doze for 10 to 20 minutes.

"Power naps are real and help you feel refreshed," says Dr. O'Brien.

But keep the naps short, he warns. With a longer nap, you're likely to wake up while in deep sleep and feel worse than before. It can take up to 30 minutes to feel fully alert after awakening from deep sleep.

By keeping your nap to 10-20 minutes, you should be able to achieve stage 2 in the sleep cycle and wake up energized rather than groggy. A short power nap should provide enough of a boost to keep your performance going strong the rest of the day -- and is more effective (as well as healthier) than a cup of coffee.

From: Harvard Business Publishing
http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/hmu/2009/01/why-sleep-is-so-important.html

Contributed by Cheq C. Navarro

As a Matter of FAT

TEN TIPS to Lose that FAT!

1. Go for GREEN!
Drink Green tea. It helps you burn additional 70 calories because of metabolism-enhancing antioxidants.

2. Eat your fruits!
· The body does not register liquid calories the same way it does solid calories.
· Liquid won't make you feel satisfied the way eating solid food will.

3. Need a lift?
· Get a set of 3-5 pound weights
· Strength training builds lean muscle tissue, which burns more calories – at work or at rest –24 hours, a day, 7 days a week. Do it 3-4 times per week.

4.Go slow on salt!
· Salt contributes to water retention, making you look and feel bloated.
· Daily value suggests no more than 2,400 mg a day(about 1 tsp)

5.Spice it up!
· Eating hot peppers –chili and jalapeno – can boost one's basal metabolism (the total calories the body burns at rest).
· Capsaicin, a compound found in jalapeno and cayenne pepper may increase the body's release of adrenaline to speed up metabolism. It also helps curb your cravings.
· Try low-calorie chili or salsa on salads.

6.Sleep on it!
· Sleep deprivation can make you susceptible to late night munching, and it slows down your metabolism.
· Enough sleep is relative--- for some people, 4 hours is enough while others would need 6-8 hours to recharge.

7. Take a walk
· Go for an evening walk
· evening may be beneficial because many people's metabolism slows down toward the end of the day.
· 30 minutes of aerobic exercise before dinner increases your metabolic rate and may keep it elevated for another 2-3 hours, even while you are at rest.

8. “Thou shall not skip!”
· Skipping a meal backfires because your body thinks food is in short supply, so it slows down your metabolism in order to conserve energy.
· When you do eat, even if you consume the same food as always, your body will go slow in using these calories as fuel, thus creating a backlog of unwanted pounds

9. You’ve gotta move it, move it!
· Add 20 minutes of exercise each day
· Aside from working out 3 times a week, add something extra each day. Take the stairs, walk to the bus stop, etc.

10. At least eight a day…
· Drinking 64 oz of water daily is one of the easiest ways to speed up weight loss.
· Water efficiently metabolizes stored fat
· Short-changing your supply slows down calorie-burning process
· At least 8 glasses of water a day will keep your system running smoothly

by Bing Bercades
condensed from Prevention Magazine