What could be more stressful than shopping for a bathing suit or meeting
your significant other's parents? Preparing for finals!
If you've been cramped up at that computer for hours studying and feeling like all the pressures of the world -- parents, school, friends -- are pushing in on you, then yoga could be the release valve you're looking for!
Yoga? Maybe you think yoga means bending yourself into a pretzel till your face turns blue, but it's actually a great way to relax your body, shrug off stress, and get healthy at the same time. Plus, yoga is cool. Julia Roberts, Sting, Madonna, Woody Harrelson, Robin Williams, and Donna Karan all practice the ancient postures.
Yoga began roughly five millennia ago in India, where mystics, deeply religious people looking for a direct connection with a greater power, sitting in deep meditation, would experience spontaneous movements. These movements were collected, and a system was born. One of the best things about yoga is that you don't have to believe any claims from anyone else. In fact, the more you practice, the more individual your practice becomes.
Try it out for your self and draw your own conclusions. Take a class or read a book to make sure you're practicing it properly.
Start your practice right now with some basic yoga postures!
Close your eyes, sit comfortably either in a chair or on the floor with your back straight, relax your arms, and exhale all the air from your lungs. Keep your mouth closed and use your nostrils to take in the air.
Exhale. Try to push in on your tummy muscles at the end of the exhalation so that you push the last little bit of air out of your lungs.
Still using your nostrils only, take as deep and full a breath as possible into your lungs, trying to fill all the nooks and crannies of your chest cavity with air. At the peak of the inhalation, hold the breath in for about five seconds, and during those five seconds consciously relax your whole body in the stillness between breaths.
Slowly exhale through your nostrils. As you exhale, visualize a wave of relaxation moving through your body from the top of your head down to the bottom of your feet.
There! You've just practiced one of the first steps of yoga, taking a
full deep breath. Feel more relxed? Did you know that the breath is closely
tied to our moods and emotions? When you get stressed, you feel all tight
inside, and your breath becomes shallow and constricted. When you take a
conscious deep breath, you automatically move a little more into the relaxed
state your body associates with deep breathing.
Deep breathing does more than just relax your body. Practice five
minutes a day, and you'll notice that you think more clearly, digest your
food better, and eat less. You also might notice that your skin takes on a
glow--get ready for some compliments--just because you're filling your
body with oxygen. Many people find they can manage their weight better because they don't eat as much. No more study-break snacking!
Now, try the second step in the practice of yoga, combining stretching
with breathing.
Take a deep breath in (remember, always through the nose)
and stretch your hands up over your head, and clasp the palms together,
making a steeple with your index fingers. Reach up as high as you can and
push your pubic bone forward, with your leg muscles firm.
Exhale and lean over to your right, stretching all up and down on the left side of your body.
Inhale and come back up and exhale over to the left side.
Inhale up and bend as far back as you can (be careful you don't fall over!).
Exhale and lean all the way forward, bending at the waist and trying to touch your forehead to your knees. Don't worry if you can't go all the way; hardly anyone can.
Inhale and stand back up straight, stretching to the
sky.
Exhale and let your arms come down to your sides.
You've just done your first yoga posture! It's called the half-moon
series, and you can do it whenever you feel stressed.
Neck sore from hours of reading? Try the neck roll.
Start by sitting in a chair or on the floor with your back straight.
Exhale and let your chin float down until it rests on your chest.
As you start inhaling, roll your head around toward the back, moving slowly so that when you reach a full breath in, your head is tilted back and you are looking toward the ceiling.
Exhale and continue rolling your head over to the left and foward until it comes back to rest on your chest. Imagine you are drawing big circles on the ceiling with the top of your head, rolling your head 360 degrees around the axis of your neck.
Do two rotations in each direction, making sure to coordinate the movement with deep breathing; feel the tension drain away from your head, neck, and shoulders. If you stop and do a couple of neck rolls every hour, you'll probably find that you remember more of what you are reading, because you'll be less tense all the way through.
Yoga postures work on the same principle as the breath. When you're
stressed, your muscles contract, your blood vessels constrict, your immune
system weakens, and your digestion is thrown out of whack. As a result, you
feel anxious and depressed, in other words, just plain bad. When you move
in yoga postures, all the systems of your body are stimulated. Your
circulatory system brings more nutrients to your cells and removes more waste,
your lymph system fights infections better, your muscles are lengthened and
relaxed, and your metabolism is given a boost. You wind up feeling
healthier, less stressed, and more connected to yourself.
Practice the breath, the half-moon series, and some neck rolls for 10 minutes in the morning for six days, and you'll be surprised at how good you feel and how much easier it is to take on those finals and anything else that comes your way!
"Adolescence is the time to develop good habits--physically and spiritually--in every way, such as good posture, yogic breathing, consciousness, and emotional balance," says Robyn Ross, a certified kripalu yoga instructor.
Here are some postures that are great for focus, concentration, and physical and emotional balance of the body, bones, and nervous system--a little help to get you through those tough teen years.
Robyn Ross is a certified kripalu yoga teacher and Holistic Health educator with an advanced certification in integrative yoga therapy, in private practice in NYC. She was on staff at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, and her work has been featured in major magazines and on network television.
