New Leaves by Melina Meza Q: Great article on essential tremors and yoga, thanks! How might an instructor differentiate between a student experiencing tremors from over exerting a pose vs. essential tremor? A: It may be a universal experience for new students to yoga, especially if you have been sedentary, are naturally stiff or weak, or if you are in a class beyond your level of ability to experience “shaky” muscles. This usually arises when holding poses statically for a while, versus moving from pose to pose with your breath.  Even experienced yogis can have this kind of muscle quivering arise if they are moving to the next level of difficulty in the physical practices, or if they have taken a break from yoga for a while and are first returning to regular practice. The key difference between this very common and normal challenge to tight or weak muscles resulting in a tremor like feeling and the essential tremors I wrote about previously in my post Yoga for Tremors is that they ...

by Ram Happy, Healthy Warrior Pose Recently William Broad, author of The Science of Yoga , wrote an article in the New York Times Wounded Warrior Pose, which claimed that yoga is “remarkably dangerous” for men. While this article is a must read for folks who practice yoga asanas (practitioners, teachers in training or students), there are several important issues mentioned in the article that needs to be properly understood and clarified. Let’s start by clarifying for the benefit of practitioners and non-practitioners: the main reference throughout the article is to yoga asanas and not yoga per se. While this seem trivial, it is very important because one can resort to other yoga activities like dharana (focus), dhyana (meditation), pranayama (regulated breathing) and sustain very minimal if no injuries. Also, yoga is not a competitive sport; for more on this kindly refer to BKS Iyengar’s book Light on Yoga . While it may seem that the practice of yoga asana is largely a feminine pursu...

by Baxter Do you like my brain? by Niki de Saint Phalle* Brain Health is a topic we here at YFHA have addressed on numerous occasions. Research clearly points out that your mind like your body needs to be exercised regularly. I recently grabbed a flyer from my family doctor’s office that caught my eye. It was titled “The Power of Brain Aerobics: Maximize Your Memory.” As I read through it, I could not help but recall (good sign, eh?) the two excellent posts Ram did a while back on brain exercise (see The Power of Mental Exercise, Part 1 and Part 2). According to the group who published my flyer, the Alzheimer’s Research & Prevention Foundation, there are three conditions your brain workout must meet in order for an activity to be considered “brain aerobics”: It needs to engage your attention It must break a routine activity in an unexpected, nontrivial way It must involve more than one of the senses You can see that attending a regular yoga class or practicing yoga at...

by Nina Patterns in the Sand 2, by Brad Gibson Okay, I admit it. It’s probably my fault. I’ve been going around saying that you can trigger the Relaxation Response (see The Relaxation Response and Yoga) using any of the following: restorative yoga, inverted poses, Savasana, pranayama, meditation, and yoga nidra, etc. as if all those practices were somehow interchangeable. This has led to questions like the following comment left on a Friday Q&A: Yoga Nidra, Restorative Yoga, Meditation and Savasana: It is very helpful to read the distinctions between these four practices as I try to practice all of them, but it's hard to find the time. I'd be really interested to get your thoughts on whether it's important to do all four? For example, if you do restorative while listening to a nidra CD, do you also need to meditate? I'm interested to know what the various benefits are of these four practices, or are the benefits all the same?  Let me start by saying that what I said...

by Nina by Van Gogh Did you know you have a your own personal box of yoga tools in your yoga room, your yoga corner, or that empty strip between the TV and the couch? And that when you’re experiencing some physical or emotional difficulty, or if you just want to work on your overall wellbeing, you can open up that toolbox, select a few tools and get to work? Yes, it’s kind of like Christmas, so let’s open up the box and see what’s inside! Ooh, it’s very well organized. We’ve got three basic types of tools: 1. Physical health tools for body and brain 2. Stress management tools 3. Equanimity tools Yes, your toolbox is very full! And before we can talk about how to use all those tools—we’ll be getting to that in future posts—it’s good idea to learn a little more about each of them. So let’s take a closer look…. Physical Health Tools Although people tend to think of yoga poses as “just stretching,” the full asana practice is much more comprehensive. Weight-bearing poses strengthen muscles ...

by Ram Alley near Pourville by Claude Monet In my earlier posts on Ashtanga Yoga, I discussed the first four angas or steps (yama, niyama, asana, and pranayama), all of which enable practitioners to become more flexible, stable, and grounded in order to move easily into a regulated breath practice and to further develop inner focus and concentration. Pratyahara is step 5 of the 8 steps. Verse 2.54 in the Yoga Sutras describes pratyahara as:  sva vishaya asamprayoge chittasya svarupe anukarah iva indriyanam pratyaharah When the mental organs of senses and actions (indriyas) cease to be engaged with the corresponding objects in their mental realm, and assimilate or turn back into the mind-field from which they arose, this is called pratyahara. —Swami Jnaneshvara   Most teachers and nearly all of the textual commentaries define pratyahara as “withdrawal of senses.” Our five senses serve as portals or gateways into our body, mind, and consciousness. We are what we taste, smell,...

by Nina I'm kind of surprised by this because even though our book won't be officially available until December 12, 2017, it is already available for pre-order on Amazon! Actually I found out about this because one of our readers in Japan shared on Facebook that the book was available for pre-order on the Japanese Amazon site! I have to admit, that blew my mind. So I thought today I'd just let you know all this and share the link to the US site where you can pre-order, which I assume gives you a nice price break: amazon.com/Yoga-Healthy-Aging-Lifelong-Well-Being. And if you do pre-order or even just visit the page, we'd really appreciate it if you put in a few good words for us in the review section.  Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect

As we announced recently, Baxter’s going to be teaching at the San Francisco Yoga Journal Conference, January 17 - 21, 2013. For the first time, Baxter will be presenting an all-day workshop on Yoga for Healthy Aging. He’ll also be teaching a two-hour class on Yoga for Arthritis. As many of you know, he was asked to teach one more class and had trouble deciding on the topic. So, because he is so inspired by you, our readers, we had a contest to see what our readers recommended. Now, the results of the contest are in: This could be yours.... Best suggestion: Joanne for "Posture." Since Joanne asked us to give her prize to someone else, we're giving it to Luscious because Luscious suggested something very similar to "Posture." Random winner: Heather Patton (who made her suggestion on Facebook). We chose her by numbering the entries and then using a random number generator. To claim your books, Luscious and Heather, please use the Contact Us tab at the top of the p...

by Nina   Gaudi Stairway by Brad Gibson “You have taught the essence of yoga is equanimity, Krishna;
 but since the mind is so restless,
 how can that be achieved?
 The mind is restless, unsteady,
 turbulent, wild, stubborn;
 truly, it seems to me as hard to master as the wind.” —The Bhagavad Gita In my post What is Healthy Aging? I added “wisdom” to the list of tools yoga provides for healthy aging. But since then, I’ve been thinking about how reading a bunch of wise words in an ancient (or modern) text is so different than actually living wisely. Haven’t you all watched someone close to you—or even yourself—be drawn irresistibly into self destructive behavior, even as they know exactly how unwise they’re being? As Arjuna says to Krishana above, the mind seems to me, too, “as hard to master as the wind.” In The Bhagavad Gita , Krishna replies to Arjuna’s question above by saying that constant practice and detachment are what allow you to move toward wisdom. "You are right, Arjuna...

by Shari With the recent passing of BKS Iyengar (the teacher of my teacher Donald Moyer) and the exponential growth of yoga inspired by Mr. Iyengar, I have been thinking a lot about health outcomes and why yoga is such a powerful self-help tool. You see, in my day job as a home health physical therapist, health outcome is measured very differently than it is in a complementary alternative health care model that yoga falls within. My patients too often don't get better. My job in aiding their recovery often feels like I am trying to put a small Band-Aid on a gaping wound. I can’t change the situations that lead to their poor health. They suffer from the chronic life challenges of poverty. Years of poor health management, from an uncaring overworked, depersonalized, underfunded health care delivery system, and the chronic stress from living marginalized lives lead to chronic health issues. To often these patients are living in polluted urban environments, where walking is not done by...

by Nina and Baxter De Jur, Age 57 “So, short of unconsciousness, I feel that there is no condition that yoga could not potentially help with!” In Baxter’s post Health Problems that Yoga Can't Help With, he made the dramatic statement that he felt there is no condition that yoga could not potentially help with. His reasoning was: “Yoga certainly can bring our minds and bodies into better balance, and seems to support many of the healing systems in our own bodies in working more efficiently. And, of course, stress management, pain management, and bolstering the immune system via yoga can always help at some level with just about any conceivable health issue we may face, even if you are dying.” Since then, the two of us have been working on identifying the basic strategies that will provide the help he was describing. These six strategies can be used on their own or in any combination as required by the condition. For example, if you are recovering from cancer, you could work on muscu...

Q: Once a substitute yoga instructor stated that she didn't do anything every day, and that yoga can be bad for backs. Could you clarify why this opinion might be so? I love doing yoga, and would really like to know what's going on here. A: Yoga isn’t "bad for backs" but not all yoga asanas are appropriate for “bad backs.” As an example, let us look at a very common group of yoga poses, forward bends, which can be thought of as both “good” and “bad” for someone with a back injury. Forward bends can be bad in the sense that if too much force is generated by trying to come into the position at the vulnerable area in the back, this will most likely cause more pain and injury. Not bending from the hips to come forward but using the arms as a lever force to pull into a position is unsafe. However, learning to move from the hip joints and keeping the spine in its neutral curves is a very different way to practice forward bends. This is safe because soft tissue restrictions ...

by Baxter A Clear Day on Mount Tamalpais by Brad Gibson If you have not had a chance to read Nina’s Monday post (see here) about the New York Times article “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body,” please do, because she articulates some very important points to consider as you digest all this hype coming from William Broad, a New York Times writer. In addition, you’ll find my take on this issue on Yoga Journal’s blog, where I am an occasional guest blogger (see here). Before getting into recommendations for modifying specific poses to reduce the risk of injury, I’d like to step back today, and look at what we know about key areas of the body that are at risk of injury from an unbalanced asana practice. What do I mean by an unbalanced practice? In my view an unbalanced practice is one where you are doing one or more of the following: Practicing at an incorrect level of difficulty for your present level of expertise  Doing the same poses over and over, increasing your risk of repetitive ...

by Baxter In the spirit of keeping up with all the new developments in the scientific study of yoga, I’d like to share some information about a new study on yoga and heart health that came out last week. Last Tuesday, the day I went live on   yogauonline.com  with my own lecture series on heart health, they ran a story about a new study that reviewed a bunch of previous studies looking at yoga’s impact on various factors related to heart disease.  Since I did not have adequate time to read over the entire study that day, I finally got to it the is week and felt it was worth letting you all know what the researchers found. First off, this is one of those studies where the researchers did not do their own new research on yoga for heart health, but instead they looked back at the work of other studies and tried to put all the data together to get a better overview of what has been studied and found so far. We call these kinds of studies “meta-analysis.” The title of the stud...