Health Care

Suresh Nigam, chairman of MetJet, one of the leading trainers of computer hardware engineers in India, not only practices yoga but preaches it at his 35 centers.

With more than 100 yoga videos on the market, you can imagine the diversity among them - everything from nude yoga to postnatal yoga.

Whether you might be staying home with a new baby or working too many hours at the office, anytime is a good time for yoga. You can do yoga stretches and postures in bed or even while driving to work.

Yoga, which means discipline, was developed in the year 300 by an Indian Hindu named Patanjali. Its purpose is to stretch the muscles, strengthen the body and increase concentration. It can also help you relax, if you have trouble doing that.

After a surge of interest during the consciousness-conscious ’60s, yoga began to fall out of favor. Exercisers apparently lost patience with the activity, which offers slow but steady results, and turned to the fast pace and quick shape-up of aerobics.

It is incredible what yoga does for skiing. People can ski all day long and much better.

Yoga exercises can increase the body’s range of motion. The lack of movement because of inflexibility binds the joints. Without the elasticity of the muscles, I think an athlete can be a prisoner within his own body.

As we enter a new millennium, more and more people are seeking lifestyle changes that foster mental and spiritual well-being as well as physical fitness.

There are many of us who feel we are not as bright as we would like to be; or that we lack the will power a friend or a colleague seems to have. What is not known widely - or taken with skepticism even when known - is that mental power can be enhanced by Yoga and meditation.

Mr. La Forge (Yoga Trainer) suspects that because the mind-body exercises typically are easier to pursue, executives have a better chance of making a lifetime habit of them.

A rising number of business people are finding the mind-body connection.

The overall benefits of mind-body exercise are documented in an increasing number of scientific studies. They include everything from reducing cardiac risk factors to enhancing mood.

For computer users.

Twenty percent of all those who undergo surgery for lower back pain will get no relief. The remaining 80 percent will have problems ranging from mild to severe. All will have trouble with spinal flexion.

Many computer users around the world face the problem of back pain. Having your back against the wall usually means you’re in trouble. But for certain yoga positions, having your back firmly against a wall will aid health.

Stand straight against the wall and stretch the feet about three to four feet apart.

Stand with your back against the wall. Place your feet two or three feet apart. Keeping feet firmly on the floor, and weight balanced on heels and toes, stretch your body up, pressing shoulders back and allowing arms to hang at your sides (Fig. 1). Inhale.

When Trace Bonner launched Holy Cow in West Ashley’s South Windermere Shopping Center last summer, she didn’t know what to expect. Now she’s teaching 16 classes a week and adding another instructor. And while she credits the center’s success in part to its cute cow logo and convenient location, there’s no question that there’s a revived interest in yoga across America.

The most widely practiced branch in the US, the one typically offered at gyms and exercise studios, is hatha yoga, which is physical yoga.

The best place to start is with a class, where a teacher can show you how to adapt poses using props and help you learn proper technique for the postures.

Yoga would be an effective and relatively cheap substitute for many anxious and stressed patients, although they would probably also need to be motivated to become physically fit.

If a woman wants a healthy way of life devoid of any strain and stress, she should start her day with yoga.

The following yoga poses can be done anytime, anywhere, or as part of another workout. Always warm up for a few minutes with some walking, marching or similar activity until your body and muscles feel loose and warm.

WARRIOR III POSE: Start in the Mountain Pose with the heels slightly apart, big toes touching, legs straight, chest lifted, pelvis in a neutral position.

So, how can yoga help reshape your waist?

The size of the waist is an indication of overall fitness for many people. Most health experts agree that a smaller waist is healthier than a big one.

You’ll find a glossily professional web page which features authoritative articles on the many different forms of yoga - and the debate about which is the best.

Yoga used to be the kind of thing someone’s eccentric aunt did - a woman with a braid wrapped around her head who entertained the children by putting her foot behind her neck.

Ina Mirx is 68, looks 35, and can do things with her body that a 16-year-old farm hand can’t do, but she wasn’t always fit-as-a-fiddle.

Yoga breathing exercises could help sufferers of mild asthma and may help reduce their use of low-dose drug inhalers in wheezing attacks.

Yoga is a 3,000-year-old, Hindu discipline of mind and body that became known in Western society with the hippie generation of the Sixties and early Seventies. Its image as a mystic practice is disappearing as fast as the stressful aspects of the Eighties are appearing.

Yoga in a popular position Yoga, one of the world’s oldest forms of exercise, is experiencing a rebirth in our stressful modern world. You wouldn’t think that a 3000-year-old exercise could increase its popularity.

Diabetes in various forms affects up to 5 percent of the world population with 12 million diabetics in Western Europe alone.

Yoga is a challenging discipline for the beginning to the advanced person. The asanas, or postures are slow and steady and are not meant to be painful, but this does not mean that they are not challenging.

Yoga exercises strengthen your body and make it more flexible. Yoga also calms your mind and gives you energy.

Most of us are familiar at least with the concepts of yoga, its slow stretching exercises and its often almost unattainable physical positions. Wellness Yoga is a nicely designed program that packages 74 asanas, or positions, into several packages such as the Quick and Easy Course, the Beauty Course and the Health Course.

The various postures of yoga have long been used as a basis for the stretching moves that are prescribed for athletes or used in other forms of exercise. It’s no surprise, then, that a flood of yoga tapes is hitting the market.

Practicing yoga and focusing your energies during different postures can help you to align your chakras and get all the wheels spinning in the same direction and speed. Understanding how to fine tune and control your chakras through yoga and meditation can help bring balance and peace to your mind, body and spirit.

For controlling your hypertension, there are two effective yoga exercises that helps lower the blood pressure.

Yoga began in India 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit language and means, to join or integrate, or simply union. Yoga started, as far as we know, as part of India’s philosophical system, but not everyone practiced yoga, and it has never been a religion.

You can get audio or video tapes that give breathing instruction and teach relaxation techniques at health food stores, bookstores, and by mail order. It’s probably fine to learn breath and relaxation from a tape or booklet, but don’t try the yoga exercises without a skilled teacher.

Infertility is defined as the inability to conceive after one year of trying, or the inability to carry pregnancies to a live birth. It affects one out of six couples of childbearing age in the United States today - at least ten million people.

Sleep is an essential part of good health. A good night’s sleep can help you feel good, look healthy, work effectively and think clearly.

Do you drag yourself out of bed on Monday mornings, exhausted before you’ve even begun the week. Or maybe you can’t enjoy your evenings, because work drains you of every ounce of energy.

The word Kundalini is a familiar one to all students of Yoga, as it is well known as the power, in the form of a coiled serpent, residing in Muladhara Chakra, the first of the seven Chakras, the other six being Svadhishthana, Manipuraka, A nahata, Visuddha, Ajna and Sahasrara, in order.

There is a growing trend to practicing Yoga for many different reasons, which include attaining the yoga body or physique, relaxation and peace of mind, or to prevent injury and ailments. Americans mainly practice Hatha Yoga, which focuses on postures and stretching the body.

First described as “shaking palsy'’ the disease that now bears his name, medical science has thus far been unable to unravel the cause or causes of most Parkinson’s cases or to devise a cure.

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras is a text that covers many aspects of life, beginning with a code of conduct and ending with the goal of yoga, a vision of one’s true Self. The Pantajali’sYoga Sutras is probably the most authoritative text on yoga.

Turbaned gurus, sing-song mantras and bodily contortions . . . the promise of true enlightenment and omphaloskepsis (contemplation of the naval) completes the cliche. But don’t knock yoga till you’ve tried it, and then only with respect.

It increases muscular strength. It reduces tension and stress. It has a low potential for injury, and it doesn’t even look like exercise.