Yoga for Weight loss & toned body

Yoga for trim, fit and healthy body
by
Kamini Bobde

Staying trim and fit is not only for aesthetic reasons but also for being able to live a full life.

Yoga is effective in reducing excess weight because any sincere and consistent practice of Yoga brings about balance of body and mind. Therefore, if there is excess weight then it will help reduce it so that a balanced weight is achieved. It also helps balance the mental and emotional urge to indulge in excessive, unhealthy eating.

There is no need to go on a drastic diet control regime or sudden change in life-style. If you are given to some indulgences like partying, eating out, drinking, erratic life style, or these are part of your profession, then no need to stress or feel trapped or guilty. Just do your yoga practice regularly and it will bring about attitude changes from within you. Also, the general feeling of wellness will make it easier to not resort to other things to generate feel good factor.

However, it is good to alter your eating habits by consulting a good dietician. A combination of yoga with healthy diet will help you achieve weight loss and fitness easier, faster.

Hari Om!

Yogic management of PCOD, Conception & related problems

                    Yoga practice for  PCOD, Conception...
                     by
                     Kamini Bobde

                                     Yoga practice Part I for PCOD, conception issues, etc. 

                                    Yoga practice Part II for PCOD, Conception issues, Menstrual problems.


Menstruation, an inevitable natural occurrence in any girl’s life, can be wrought with physical, mental and emotional problems. In ancient India, the coming of age of a young girl was propitiated with puja (Kumari puja) and sometimes celebrations were also held. But, over the years due to some historical reasons, girls were made to feel unclean and inauspicious at the time of menstruation adding to the emotional problems that girls anyway go through at this time.

Now, however, many misconceptions, have been put aside and menstruation as a subject is out in the open with advertisements for sanitary napkins on TV etc.

Most menstrual patterns in a girl are governed by genes. Irrespective of this, it is a trying time for the most healthy and robust girls because of the tremendous hormonal changes that a girl's body goes through at the onset of periods which may continue for quite sometime depending on how it is tackled at the physical and emotional level of the girl.

The greatest relief at such a time for a girl is to have an honest, open and understanding relation with the mother. In rural India, a mother and daughter may shy away from discussing such matters.

However, one must bear in mind that at the onset of this period girls may put on weight, their complexion may change, they may become hyper active, tense and irritable or given to fighting or anger.

Also, irregularities of menstrual cycle are common. These may be caused because of stress, anxiety, emotional shock, bio-rhythm changes, emotional imbalance, bad life style, wrong diet or hormonal deficiency.

Some of the common menstrual problems are :

Amenorrhea: It represents total absence of menstrual cycle. As a natural phenomenon it occurs when women lactate, get pregnant or have menopause. But Primary Amenorrhea is characterized by girls not getting their cycle when they are past sixteen years of age.

The causes for this are many. But very significant factors could be poor diet, lack of fresh air and sunshine, poor physical, mental and emotional state or hormonal imbalance. Such a problem can be managed through specific yoga programme or packages. It is advisable to try yogic remedies with a good teacher before more drastic measure like external manipulation or hormonal drugs are tried to induce menstruation.

Secondary Amenorrhea: This happens when normal menstrual cycle pauses and a girl may not have periods for more than six months for reasons other than pregnancy. Reasons for this maybe:

• low levels of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH), which controls ovulation and the menstrual cycle 
• stress 
• significant weight loss or gain 
• anorexia (In fact, amenorrhea can be an initial sign that a teen is losing too much weight and may have anorexia.) 
• stopping birth control pills 
• thyroid conditions 
• ovarian cysts 
• other conditions that can affect hormone levels 

 Excessive exercising be it some sport or gym  combined with a poor diet may also disrupt normal cycles. For example, there was this girl who practiced football in the morning with her college team, went home and did yoga exercises, hardly ate anything before she rushed off to college. Then in the evening she went for an hour of rigorous swimming. She did not realise she was overdoing it until her period stopped completely. It took a year of reversing her life style for the periods to start normally again.

Dysmenorrhoea and Menorrhagia is a condition of painful, irregular and excessive heavy menstruation.

Spasmodic Dysmenorrhoea: Identified with cramps and pain in lover abdomen, sometimes accompanied by nausea and shakiness.

Congestive Dysmenorrhoea : Sometimes called Pre menstrual syndrome (PMS), in this heavy dull aching in the abdomen and lower back along with high level of tension, three to four days before the onset of the periods. Other symptoms are swelling and tenderness in the breast, swollen abdomen, blotted feeling, water retention, constipation, stiffness in body lethargy, irritability may be other symptoms.

Yoga offers natural and highly successful way of managing menstrual problems. The two videos are illustrative of the practice for all menstruation and cenception related problems. 

How Yoga can transform upto DNA level

Dharana: The key to altering Genetic coding

 by

Kamini Bobde

Yoga has emerged from the shroud of secrecy and has now adorned the cloak of scientific, rational thinking of how and why it works wonders.

And among its many wonderful effects are its capacity to change even our genetic coding.  Science refutes that such a thing is possible. Be that as it may, let us here examine how and why Yoga can affect change and transformation even at the DNA level.

Firstly, let us understand the practice and technique which can affect such a fantastic transformation. The practice is Dharana in yogic parlance and concentration in everyday language.

I will try my best here to explain how this works.

Firstly we will have to distinguish how yoga defines or looks at concentration and how it is generally understood.

The dictionary meaning of concentration is, “close attention, close thought, attentiveness, application, industry, assiduousness, single mindedness, absorption, engrossment.”

In everyday life, right from school to home, concentration is taught as something for which you have to make immense effort. Children are told to concentrate on studies or whatever they are doing. And the only impetus to concentration for a child is fear of rebuke/ punishment or at the other end, a reward. Thus the foundation of  concentration that a child learns is based on fear, stress and effort. All of this we know impacts negatively on the entire personality, physical, mental, emotional which engenders a fertile substratum for disease and illness in later life.  

In contrast here is how Yoga looks at concentration/Dharana.

Full, total pin-pointed concentration happens when:

1.    Mind & body are completely relaxed.

2.    When you are present in the here and now.

3.    The subject and the object must become one.

Relaxation:

Relaxed? What’s so difficult about being relaxed? Difficult it is not. Children are naturally relaxed. Until the world around them makes them learn stress, worry, fear. Gradually being naturally relaxed is superimposed with layers of stress, tension and fears that become deeply embedded in the psyche. Therefore, Yoga lays great stress on relaxations right from the level of asana, pranayama practice. Besides, reminding the practitioner to consciously keep the body relaxed, there are also some very simple but highly enjoyable techniques like Shava asana and Yoga nidra.

Shava means dead body. So, basically the practice is like imitating a dead body. Everyday in deep sleep we die and come back. Shava asana tries to achieve that level of relaxation. However, in sleep we lose awareness. But, in both shav asana and Yoga nidra it is total relaxation like deep sleep with full awareness. So what you are experiencing is a different quality of awareness from our normal everyday experience. Only an experience of the practice will prove to the practitioner how when you enter into a state of total relaxation your awareness becomes sharpened. Much research has been done by Stanford, Harward, UCLA corroborating therapeutic benefits and changes in the mapping of brain workings in simple practice of shava asana and yoga nidra.

Presence of mind and body in the NOW:

All self help books and all philosophies tell you to live in the present. Easier said than done. Here again Yoga helps you along through various techniques which are mostly factored-in the practice of daily simple yoga. However, for those hoping to bring about change right upto genetic level, have to do some advance practices. Just as for relaxation, so also for living in the present moment, the entire practice of yoga  is geared towards it. While doing the asanas, the constant reprieve is to focus on how each movement and posture is impacting the body. For example, if you are doing bhujang asana (cobra pose), then in every round you focus on different parts of the body that the movement and posture is impacting... spine, stomach area, chest area, throat area, legs, hands, etc. And with progress your awareness of how it is impacting your body becomes subtle and more and more incisive.

What you do not realize is that in the bargain you are for that time, living completely in the present movement. Same goes with practicing pranayama. The focus is completely on observing each and every breath. With prolonged practice of yoga in this manner, it slowly becomes a part of you to stay focused in the present with whatever you are doing. The combination of relaxed body and focused awareness has profound effects on the brain. It too becomes relaxed, still, quiet. This is very difficult to achieve because the nature of mind is to jump like a monkey from one thing to another.

Now, we come to the more esoteric aspect of concentration/dharana. The subject and object becoming one or as J. Krishnamurthy is famously known to say , “the seer becomes the seen.”

This is the culmination of the earlier two techniques into dharana. So, when you’ve achieved the state of total relaxation and being in the present, then comes the third practice which culminates into dharana/concentration.

There are many techniques or practices one can adopt according to one’s personality and liking. There are many many techniques for developing concentration. In the Vigyan Bhairava Tantra, shlokas 25 to 35 are all about the various techniques for dharana.

Trataka is one such practice. After your asana and pranayama practice, you fix keep a candle flame, a Om symbol, or your favourite God, a rising sun or just about any symbol/object at eye level. Siting comfortably, if possible in padma asana, vajrasan or any of the meditation poses, you look unblinkingly at the symbol/object. When your eyes tire or tear up, you close your eyes and try to see that candle flame, Om or whatever the object you have chosen, at the eyebrow centre. At first it may be difficult but with practice it will happen. If all other yogic practices are developed culminating into this practice, then one does experience seeing your symbol with eyes closed at the eye brow centre.

It’s quite an event in one’s life when this happens. Firstly, that vision of your symbol at the eyebrow centre ( ajna chakra, bhrumadhya) is nothing like what you see in the external world. This internal manifestation is totally different and an experience which shakes up your entire being. At this point you take a quantum leap and every faculty, aspect of your being and personality undergoes transformation. The transformation happens to the cell and DNA level. This is now being established in experiments being done in many universities and medical centres around the world. 

All of this I’ve gained from my reading of books by Swami Satyananda Saraswati, Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati and Swami Satyasangananda Sarawati who are the light and force of the Bihar School of Yoga & Rikhiapeeth ashram.

If anything is not clear, or you have any doubt or misgiving, I would love to help resolve the doubt or answer your query to the best of my ability.

Hari Om!