Motherhood is a rite of passage and yoga is an ideal method for carrying women through that rite of passage into the fourth trimester of postpartum. Yoga can help women embrace motherhood and their new identity, as well recover after giving birth. A woman’s body undergoes miraculous and enormous changes, a complete transformation, during pregnancy … Continued
While working in a critical care unit, Russian physician Dr. Konstantin Buteyko started to notice a pattern. The people who were breathing the most heavily, quickly and erratically required much more medication and often died sooner. And the people who, in spite of their illness, had more of a quiet and steady breath seemed to fare … Continued
Yogas Citta Vrtti Nirodhah . “Yoga is the quieting of the fluctuations of the mind” ~ Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras In these days of fast-paced Vinyasa Yoga practice, we sometimes lose sight of the importance of alignment, notes master yoga teacher Natasha Rizopoulos in this free download. Most people are aware of the importance of alignment … Continued
Like the rest of our body, the brain changes in numerous ways as we get older. What happens to the brain during healthy aging? And are there ways that we can positively influence the changes in the structure and function of the brain, much as we can with muscles and bones? In this course, Dr. … Continued
Many students come to yoga with pronounced posture problems like forward head posture (or ‘text neck,’), which in turn cause alignment issues in numerous yoga postures. In this course, Julie Gudmestad focuses on one of the origins of this problem: Chronically protracted scapula positioning caused by muscle imbalances, including tight pecs, and weakness in the trapezius and rhomboids. … Continued
When we think of yoga and healthy aging, we usually think of improving mobility, or retaining joint range of motion, or developing strength. While these certainly are vital to our well-being, the holy grail of our efforts to age well really lies in slowing brain aging, notes physician and yoga therapist Baxter Bell, MD in … Continued
100% of women who give birth experience diastasis rectus abdominis, a painful tear of the abdominal wall. If not resolved on its own within eight weeks, this condition can produce numerous other problems that can last for decades, says physical therapist and yoga therapist Dr. Ginger Garner in this free download. This is just one … Continued
Informal surveys indicate that the highest percentage of yoga injuries come from forward bending postures. One likely reason is that numerous biomechanical factors impact the safety of forward bends. These include not just tight hamstrings, but many other interactive anatomical and kinesiological factors, which most yoga teachers have not been trained to observe or correct. … Continued
In recent years, new research has transformed our understanding of fascia, the connective tissue that surrounds all structures of the body, and the role that fascia plays in movement. Contrary to previous assumptions, movement is not the result of individual muscles that contract and work in isolation. Rather, muscles are part of a body-wide fascial … Continued
Osteoporosis affects an estimated 200 million women worldwide, and each year an estimated 1.5 million individuals suffer a fracture due to bone disease worldwide. The risk of a fracture increases with age and is greatest in women. Roughly 4 in 10 white women age 50 or older in the United States will experience a hip, … Continued
Join us for an exciting new course with renowned author and yoga teacher Judith Hanson Lasater in which she will share some of the most important takeaways from her more than fifty years of teaching yoga! Yoga is not a work-out, it’s a work-in, says Judith. Yoga invits us to a transformative journey into the … Continued
One of the inevitable changes of aging is a gradual loss of the ability to balance. While this may at first seem insignificant, it is a key factor in the increased risk of fractures people face as they get older. Most fractures of the hip, wrists, or ankle are preceded by a fall, and the … Continued
In this course Dr. Timothy McCall will provide an overview of the emerging field of yoga therapy: the use of yoga and its vast toolbox to help treat virtually any health condition — physical or psychological. Yoga therapy has grown enormously in the last several years, there are ever-increasing numbers of scientific studies examining its effectiveness, … Continued
The pelvic floor is literally our foundation, says yoga therapist Leslie Howard in this free download. It forms the bottom of the core musculature, and it plays an important role in our overall postural and functional health. When the pelvic floor is not working probably, our true foundation is not supporting us throughout the day. Unfortunately, … Continued
Moving from the Organs – The Many Benefits of Twisting Postures We often focus on practicing our poses from the spine, arms and legs. But the ancient teachings of yoga also dealt with opening and quieting the organs of the body, like the heart, kidneys and liver that are found in the “kunda” or vessel … Continued
Most people know the importance of core strengthening for health and long-term well-being, but the pelvic floor is an important group of core muscles, which tend to get ignored. “The torso is like a tote bag for your organs,” says Leslie Howard, a Bay area yoga teacher who conducts workshops nationally on pelvic floor strengthening to … Continued
Scoliosis affects an estimated 6 million Americans, but millions more than that have minor scoliotic curvatures of the spine, which largely goes unrecognized. Still, these can often be the source of discomfort in the spine, shoulders and SI joint. What do we know about how scoliosis develops and the factors that may help curb its … Continued
Research on yoga has proliferated over the last decade, and by now there are more than 3400 studies on the benefits of yoga. Yoga has been shown to positively affect more than 75 health benefits, ranging from back pain and high blood pressure to depression, anxiety, insomnia and numerous other conditions according to Dr. Timothy … Continued
Every pregnancy is different, even for the same the woman. The journey can be both exciting and daunting, especially when trying to safely navigate an ever-changing body through the trimesters. The key to confidence in pregnancy is learning how to utilize the gifts of yoga to better support a woman’s body, mind and heart. So … Continued
One of the most important shoulder muscles for upper body weight-bearing yoga poses is serratus anterior. It is a hard muscle to find and describe, and isn’t mentioned often in yoga classes. That is especially unfortunate, because many students come to yoga with weak serratus muscles. Serratus weakens due to lack of strengthening activities, including … Continued