Yoga Meditation Benefits Many Olympic Athletes

There are many ways in which yoga meditation benefits the 2012 Olympic athletes. Whether it's to enhance their performance, recover from injury more quickly, or even to mentally prepare themselves, yoga and meditation are some of the best ways for all athletes to operate at their peak performance level. Here is an article by Emily Haglund-McMillan writing for OrcaHealth.Com that helps to illustrate how useful yoga and meditation together can be for this or any athlete.

Yoga Meditation Benefits Many Olympic Athletes

Yoga meditation benefits many Olympians. Photo by OSTILL c/o Photos.Com.

Olympic athletes often seek ways to give their aching bodies and tired minds relief from their rigorous training efforts. Yoga gives them exactly what they are looking for and more.
Yoga has innumerable benefits for all types of bodies and activity levels. For Olympians, the benefits not only help them recover from their sport, but will also enhance their athletic performance.

Read about all the ways athletes benefit here at healthdecide.orcahealth.com:

There are many yoga meditation benefits for world class athletes, so why not for you too? If the power of yoga and meditation can help to make someone who is at the world class level of athletics even better, imagine what it can help you accomplish.

Please leave a comment below if you have something you'd like to share with us about this topic.

Basketball is an endurance sport, and you have to learn to control your breath; that's the essence of yoga, too. So, I consciously began using yoga techniques in my practice and playing. I think yoga helped reduce the number and severity of injuries I suffered. As preventative medicine, it's unequaled.                                                          --  Kareem Abdul Jabbar

Laughter Yoga Meditation Techniques

There are so many different yoga meditation techniques, but you might be surprised to learn that there's also such a thing as laughter yoga! I find that laughter yoga is a phenomenal way to practice and to really have a lot of fun! What's truly amazing is that laughter yoga benefits our health in many different ways. Since Norman Cousins' famous recovery from several very debilitating illnesses by watching Marx Brothers films for weeks on end, continued scientific research has demonstrated the health benefits of regular and robust laughter. Writer Barbara Grijalva for the online Tucson News Now describes the emerging phenomenon of laughter yoga and how it affects those who practice it.

Laughter Yoga Meditation Techniques

Laughter yoga meditation techniques. Photo by Sergey Furtaev c/o Photos.Com.

There are plenty of things that make us laugh, but some people think we can't wait for those magical moments. We have to make them ourselves.
Laughter Yoga does just that.
Watching a Laughter Yoga Club in action, you might think you would never do this, but wait until you hear what it might do for you.
Welcome to Laughter Yoga with Gita.
"Welcome, everybody. Thanks for coming," Gita Fendelman greets Laughter Yoga Club members.
She a former lawyer, former Hatha Yoga instructor, and...
"About 8 year ago, I got diagnosed with Parkinson's disease," Gita tells the group.
"And now I teach Laughter Yoga. Hahaha."
The club laughs.  Gita laughs in the face of Parkinson's disease.
Gita was searching for help for her condition.
Laughter Yoga was relatively new.
"The study that attracted me was one out of Stanford that said laughter stimulates the part of the brain that uses dopamine.  And because Parkinson's is characterized by low dopamine, I thought I'm going to use that for my medicine," Gita says. "It's a great pain reliever because it naturally lifts the body's endorphins."
"There's actually scientific studies nowadays that are proving that it strengthens the immune system, it's a cardiovascular workout. It's great if people are suffering from depression," says Gita.

For the rest of the article, go to tucsonnewsnow.com:

Laughter yoga meditation techniques are very beneficial to our health and well being.

What do you think? have you tried it or know someone who has? Please share a comment and let us know what you think.

Yoga is about clearing away whatever is in us that prevents our living in the most full and whole way. With yoga, we become aware of how and where we are restricted -- in body, mind, and heart -- and how gradually to open and release these blockages. As these blockages are cleared, our energy is freed. We start to feel more harmonious, more at one with ourselves. Our lives begin to flow -- or we begin to flow more in our lives.                                                        --  Cybele Tomlinson

Reach Out With Kundalini Yoga Meditation Techniques

One of many well known yoga meditation techniques is Kundalini yoga. One particular emphasis in this style of yoga kriyas and meditations is their focus on the arms. By using the arms to form certain angles there is an enhancement and re-focusing of the body's electromagnetic fields and a channeling of energy through various organs and glands. Here, Liz McCollum writes for online newsletter Spirit Voyage.com.

Reach Out With Kundalini Yoga Meditation Techniques

Kundalini yoga meditation techniques. Photo by Hemera Technologies c/o Photos.Com.

For one thing, Kundalini yogis often talk about “angles and triangles.” We can use our limbs as a sort of antenna to adjust our electromagnetic fields. Also, by holding our bodies in specific positions, we are exerting pressure on our glands and energetically affecting various organ systems. An added bonus, when we practice meditations with challenging arm positions, we have a fantastic opportunity to work with our minds. Even in short periods of time, say 3-5 minutes, the mind can come up with countless reasons why we should be doing something else. When we can learn to breathe through our anxiety and discomfort, the mind will become quiet and we strengthen our neutral minds.

For the rest of this article, go to spiritvoyage.com:

Kundalini yoga meditation techniques can teach us to overcome obstacles in our lives and to help and guide our mental and spiritual development. Have you tried Kundalini yoga yourself? Let us know by leaving a comment below and sharing your own experiences with us.

 For me, yoga is not just a workout - it's about working on yourself.
                                                                                                           --  Mary Glover

Yoga Meditation Benefits Brain Wiring

Research scientists are continuing to discover important yoga meditation benefits. As researchers have found out only within the last ten to fifteen years, our brains are continually de-wiring and re-wiring themselves on a daily basis. This is how new memories and behavior patterns are laid down and hard-wired in. It stands to reason that encouraging the formation of the best wiring patterns, a.k.a. neuron connections, will give us an optimally functional brain. A recent study reported in the Business Standard from an original article by the Press Trust of India relates just how powerful and rapid certain yoga meditation techniques can be with regard to rewiring our brains.

Yoga Meditation Benefits Brain Wiring

Saints and yoga gurus have been saying this since ages, now a new study has reinforced their claim that meditation can alter your brain wiring within a month, a finding they say could lead to the development new treatments for several mental disorders.

Yoga meditation benefits brain wiring. Photo Nicolas Tacchi c/o WiKiMedia Commons.

Scientists in the US looked at the effects of integrative body-mind training (IBMT) on two groups of university students and found significant physical changes in their brains after just four weeks, or as less as 11 hours, of training.
Nerve fibres, known as "white matter", became denser, providing greater numbers of brain-signalling connections. At the same time there was an expansion of myelin, the protective fatty insulation surrounding nerve fibres, the team found.

Read the original article here at business-standard.com: 

Yoga meditation benefits anyone who practices on a regular basis. Clearly, this research illustrates just how quickly these neuronal changes can take place. It also supports the idea that you don't have to practice yoga meditation techniques for years in order to achieve noticeable improvements in your mental state and in how you interact with the world around you.

What do you think? Do you believe these research findings? Do your own experiences with yoga meditation techniques support their observations?

Why not leave a comment and let me know what you think? Go ahead and click the like button and you can share this great info with a friend or someone close to you.

Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.            --  Unknown

Yoga Meditation Benefits Calm Beginners Hearts

There are many yoga meditation benefits that come to us from gradually developing a central point of calm within our hearts. One specific meditation, rightly named the Meditation for a Calm Heart, can help us to develop and maintain a calm and non-judgmental place within ourselves. This can be especially handy if we're going through some emotionally rough times, as more and more of us seem to be doing these days. Cate Baily writes about this specific meditation technique and describes exactly how to do it here at Spirit Voyage.Com.

Yoga Meditation Benefits Calm Beginners Hearts

Yoga meditation benefits our hearts.

If you’re experiencing stress or volatility in a relationship, the Meditation for a Calm Heart can be extremely helpful. With consistent practice, you can come into a neutral, non-reactive place and feel steady and graceful amidst the turbulence that our nearest and dearest can sometimes create. It’s a beautiful practice for beginners because it involves an easy mudra and a simple breath pattern, but it’s fully engaging for any level yogi. I highly recommend that you give it a try.

Read the original article here at spiritvoyage.com:

While there are many yoga meditation benefits available to the beginner practicing yoga and meditation together, some yoga and meditation techniques can prove most beneficial. With steady practice and dedication, these skills will reshape and strengthen our body, reform our way of thinking and how we see the world, and gently touch our spirit.

Have you recently begun yoga meditation? Even if you've been at it awhile, what experiences have you had doing it? Let's start a discussion going. Please leave me a comment below.

Yoga is a way to freedom. By its constant practice, we can free ourselves from fear, anguish and loneliness.                                                                                                  --  Indra Devi

Yoga Meditation Moves Outside

It seems there's been a relocation as yoga meditation moves to the great outdoors. Not just for the fresh air or the view, mind you, but there's something more to doing yoga and meditation outside. A local instructor in Fort Wayne, Indiana has practiced yoga and meditation in many different locales, but even the most mundane outdoor venue she finds much more interesting than the predictability of an indoor studio. Writer Cathie Rowand at the The Journal Gazette describes what it seems to be all about.

Yoga Meditation Moves Outside

“Practicing yoga in a studio can be great most of the time,” local yoga instructor Lanah Hake says. “But, for me, I’ve done yoga in so many beautiful places outdoors – on the beach, near the mountains. There is such a different element to doing yoga outdoors. It really connects you to the Earth. There is nothing like it.”

Yoga meditation benefits are enhanced if done outdoors.

Two years ago, Hake, who received her yoga certification through the national Yoga Alliance in 2011, began offering outdoor yoga once a week at a park two blocks from her house. This summer, her classes have expanded to include four classes a week in three picturesque locations around the city – Lakeside Park Rose Gardens, Foellinger-Freimann Botanical Conservatory and Salomon Farm Park.

“I didn’t expect to continue offering this,” Hake says. “But people really respond well to it. It’s grown, and I’m growing with it.”

You can read the original article in its entirety here at journalgazette.net:

One of the most interesting aspects to yoga meditation done outdoors is the level of unpredictability that it introduces into the experience. It's easy to tune out stray but familiar noises in a studio, but what about all those sounds that you might get outside. Keeps things interesting.

Let me know what you think and leave a comment below.

You are never alone or helpless. The force that guides the stars guides you too.
                                                                                         --  Shrii Shrii Anandamurti