Can Kids Yoga Create World Peace?

By Azahar Aguilar 

As yoga instructors, we know yoga improves the lives of adults all over the world. Stress and body aches derived from everyday life make the practice a necessity to adults. But can it do the same for children, and in turn build a more peaceful future when they lead the next generation?

Most kids are under similar pressure as adults today, just with different titles.  To get good grades, do well at sports, and to fit in with friends.  All while under the spotlight of social media - could you imagine dealing with Facebook in middle school?. Change of life transitions such as divorce often hit them harder than adults, due to the powerlessness and position outside to the situation. The same goes for poverty, family violence and even war.

Yoga is a necessary tool to combat these issues and more.  Every child, regardless of ability can do some type of yoga. -To have fun and enjoy, to let go and relax, and to recognize and ignore the ego. While not all of this is grasped immediately (is it immediate with most adults though?), the practice matures with the children over time, and with that, more mature yogis and yoginis blossom open in the future.

Benefits of yoga for children specifically include improved coordination, body image, stability, self-esteem, concentration, awareness of the present moment, social interaction, responsibility, and increased creativity in already creative minds.

When we give our children the gift of learning these lessons early - how to reduce anxiety, connect with the inner mind and body, to slow down, to turn inward, to connect with others, we ultimately give this gift to our future. What world could we create when those kids grow up?  How would future world leaders and CEO’s make decisions if they recognized we are all the same in breath, prana, and energy?

Negative life cycles are perpetuated every day, and in every type of community around the world.  There is no unique situation - tiny humans tend to be the byproduct of adult decisions. If a good mentor is absent in a child's developmental years, it creates the possibility to begin the cycle for teen pregnancy, school dropouts, anger issues, or crime.  Society bears these costs, when really we could prevent this cycle from starting by giving children tools to deal with their emotions and the world around them.

Yoga builds an outlet for children with traumatic home or life events - Everything from poverty, hunger, sexual violence, domestic violence, or gang violence. Yoga acts as physical and mental therapy for children with limited resources.  It arms them with better sleep at night and tools to deal with these daunting life events. Children learn to value themselves, deal with their temper, recognize their own value to contribute tothe world, correct anti-social behavior, and contribute to their community at large. It breaks the cycle with positive impact from adults as mentors and good examples.

Yoga for children is slowly popping up in other war torn and violence disrupted countries and regions.  Yoga as therapy gives children a chance to heal and address inner conflict head on, and to trust other peers and mentors as time goes on. Along with positive mental and emotional help for individual children, it connects the community at large and provides them knowledge to better handle individual anger, education, mentorship, and leadership. It creates jobs and initiates positive action within the populace at large - All tools to give the community a brighter future.

           

Yoga for kids in diverse communities acts as a means to relate to one another on a human level.  So in any community, it is a keystone to connect children to other children different from them, adult mentors from many varying communities and a lifetime understanding of how the world links together.  It's a light bulb moment for any child (or adult) to realize we are all human, and really, not so different.

Children's yoga programs are life changing for the adult volunteers as well.  Those that tune into the lessons from the children learn the most. Most volunteers explain what an honor it is for the adults to serve these groups of tiny humans.  The volunteering itself acts as an addition of positive energy to the community, as the act of giving always does.

Yoga for children absolutely has the power to create world peace - it breaks down old toxic cycles, creates tools for kids to build a successful future and relate to their peers on a deeper level.  In their adult mentors it initiates a connection to the present moment as volunteer adults pass down knowledge and positive energy for these tiny humans and the community at large.  

Good energy creates more good energy.  So what are you waiting for?  Go create some world peace. Volunteer in your community with children today.

© Copyright 2014 – Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division

Discover Yoga For Skeletal Health

By Faye Martins

When we think of the benefits of yoga, we tend to think about increased flexibility and muscle tone. While those are indeed benefits of doing yoga, there is one more area you should know about. A daily routine that includes yoga for skeletal health is becoming a common prescription by yogis and physicians alike.

When we do yoga using correct form and positioning, the poses actually do promote improved posture. People with back and neck issues often think exercise is off limits; on the contrary! Yoga poses are meant to stretch and strengthen the muscles that surround the spine, therefore over time actually straightening crooked or slumped posture. Yoga poses involving stretching of the back (which includes most of them) can literally add to the space between the vertebrae, not only straightening your posture, but adding to your height as well. It is not uncommon to hear a yoga student claim to have grown an inch (or more) taller since they have started practicing yoga on a regular basis.

The same can be said for people with bulging or herniated discs in their neck and/or spine. The back stretching poses, as they create space between the vertebrae can also reduce pressure on the herniated discs. Another way yoga is good for our skeletal health is that with gentle stretching and strengthening exercises, trigger point and sciatica pain is also reduced or even eliminated. The condition called adhesive capsulitis, also known as "frozen shoulder" is a gradual stiffening of the shoulders caused by tightness around the joint capsule. Frozen shoulder immobilizes the shoulder(s), making everyday tasks such as getting dressed very painful. Any activity where the patient has to lift their arms for any reason causes intense pain which leads to a decrease in overall activities including exercise. Yoga, however, has changed all that. The gentle stretching in yoga frees up the "frozen" joint capsule, therefore curing the condition altogether.

Exercises such as aerobics or running are considered high-impact and therefore can do more harm to our skeletal systems, especially the joints. This high-impact activity usually starts to affect us when we start getting older. Studies have proven that yoga poses stimulate the release of naturally occurring lubricating fluids which reduce the effects of the damage that causes osteoarthritis.

Adding yoga to your daily routine has many health benefits, including muscle tone, bone and joint health and stress management. Managing stress is also good for our bones; during times of stress our bodies release unhealthy amounts of adrenaline, which depletes our systems of calcium meant for our bone strength. Yoga also greatly improves our balance, making us less likely to lose our balance and fall, which can result in broken or fractured hips or other bones. If we have led a very stressful life, our bones will be brittle with osteoporosis, making a fall that much more dangerous. So make a little time in your day and add some yoga to your daily routine. There is no age limit; yoga benefits everyone young and old, and it is never too late to start!

Faye Martins, is a Yoga teacher and a graduate of the Yoga teacher training program at: Aura Wellness Center in, Attleboro, MA.

All About Yoga For Heart Health

By Faye Martins

Yoga is an ancient practice that allowed its users to express and channel tranquility and spirituality. Today, yoga is being incorporated into daily lives to encourage a healthy balance in life. Although exercise and good nutrition are a prescription for quality health, yoga is a beneficial addition to a daily routine that can improve heart health and stave of heart disease.

What is Yoga?

Yoga incorporates a variety of elements that involve both the mind and body. The most common and traditional type of yoga uses a series of slow or moderate paced stretches and the holding of poses, while incorporating breathing techniques, focus, and meditation. Not only are your muscles getting a healthy workout, which builds up physical strength, these unique stretches and poses encourage an increased mental and emotional awareness.

Yoga For Heart Health

The unique design of yoga creates benefits that are favorable to prevent and reverse heart disease. Cardiac yoga can have effects such as lowered blood pressure, improved heart rates, increased lung capacity, boosted oxygen circulation, improved respiratory functions, and strengthened heart muscles and their endurance levels. Those who have suffered from some form of heart event such as a heart attack, cardiac arrest, or stroke, are extremely likely to experience a range of emotions that have an effect on the heart such as fear, anger, depression, and anxiety. These emotions cause stress which can be relieved through doing yoga. The meditating and calming effects of yoga may help to alleviate the symptoms of those with chronic heart conditions.

The 3 Best Yoga Poses For The Heart

There are several poses that are beneficial for relieving heart symptoms and for strengthening the heart muscles. In addition to the benefits for the heart, there are other things that occur such as increased overall body strength, calming of the mind, improved mental clarity, increased oxygenation, improved balance, strengthening of the core muscles, increased lung capacity, bodily relaxation, and increased flexibility.

1) Triangle Pose - This pose is designed to have a variety of benefits that include promoting cardiovascular health. It encourages you to focus on breathing adequately and strategically. When performed correctly, this certain pose forces you to open your chest and shoulders to allow maximum oxygenation while allowing blood to run through the heart quicker and more freely. This pose also benefits hip joints, neck, spinal muscles, quad muscles, and proprioception of the ankles and feet.

2) Reverse Warrior Pose - Most of the warrior poses are great for heart health. This warrior pose in particular is very beneficial for the heart because it opens the chest and shoulders to allow for maximum oxygenation and blood flow to and from the heart. It also strengthens the hips, obliques, quads, arms, groin, and neck.

3) Bridge Pose - This pose is especially beneficial to lower blood pressure. It opens the chest, calms the brain, and stimulates the lungs, thyroid, and abdominal muscles.

The Bottom Line

There is a reason why the ancient practice of yoga is still being practiced today, there is no downside. The physical, mental, and emotional benefits all contribute to a healthy and balanced life. Since the heart is a vital organ that can not only determine quality of life, but also life or death, doing simple yoga exercises can make all the difference.

Faye Martins, is a Yoga teacher and a graduate of the Yoga teacher training program at: Aura Wellness Center in, Attleboro, MA.

The Transformative Power of Shiva - Mental Clarity

By: Virginia Iversen, M.Ed

Shiva is known in Hinduism and the classical Yogic scriptures as one of the primary Gods among a pantheon of thousands of Gods and Goddesses. He is also known as the manifesting power of physical reality. His female consort, Shakti, is the creative, divine, formless energetic essence that permeates all of creation. Shiva, being her male consort, dances with her in such a way that he can manifest her divine energy on the physical plane. Shiva is also able to sustain his creation, and then destroy it in a never-ending cycle. This divine dance is referred to in Hinduism as Shiva's Tandava. 

In terms of a Yoga practice, invoking the transformative power of Shiva's energy can support you in clarifying your underlying beliefs, which are constructing your day-to-day reality. One way to fully engage with this transformative power is by holding a strong and steady drishti point during your practice of the Yoga asanas. A drishti is an intense gazing point. One of the original sources of information about the correct method of employing a drishti point during asana practice comes Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, which elucidate in detail the eight limbs of Ashtanga Yoga practice. 

Patanjali refers to the practice of holding a steady drishti in both the fifth and six limbs of his eight fold path. The fifth limb details the importance of Pratayahara or sense withdrawal. The ability to allow our senses to rest is especially important during our modern age because our senses are constantly stimulated by all of the electronic media around us. By maintaining a steady gazing point during your Yoga practice, your mind will begin to settle, and you will be able to more easily witness your own thoughts and the reality those thoughts are creating. 

In the sixth limb of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, the benefit of concentrating single pointedly on a drishti point is explained. Ultimately, the goal is to create and sustain a deep state of meditation, or dharana, both on and off the Yoga mat. Holding a steady drishti point during your Yoga practice will assist you in developing a more stable mind and a stronger ability to concentrate and focus on your daily activities, without being pulled about from one extraneous thought to another. As you hold a drishti point during your Yoga asana practice, you may notice that your mind repetitively plays the same negative thoughts over and over again. Do not view this as a failure on your part! This is the first step to becoming aware of your own mental tendencies, so that you have the opportunity to weed out the thoughts that dim your light, joy and effectiveness in the world.    

* Crescent Lunge Pose

The crescent moon is one of the most iconic symbols of Shiva's transformative energy. Crescent Lunge Pose is aptly named because when we practice the Yoga asana, we embody the form of the crescent moon. By holding a drishti point during your practice of Crescent Lunge Pose, you will help to calm and slow down the mental fluctuations of your mind. Traditionally, Hastagrahe Drishti is employed during the practice of Crescent Lunge Pose. This drishti focuses your gaze on your extended hand or fingertips while in a Yoga posture. 

To practice Crescent Lunge, you may wish to warm up first with a series of Sun Salutations. When you are ready, come to an equal standing position at the front of your Yoga mat. With your next inhale; begin to move through the initial movements of the Sun Salutation. As you release Downward Facing Dog, bring your right foot to the front of your Yoga mat with your foot parallel to the sides of your mat. Place your left foot two to three feet behind you at a comfortable distance from your right foot. For optimal alignment, keep your heels in a straight line and the toes of your left foot facing toward the side of your Yoga mat at a 45-degree angle. 

With your next inhale, raise your arms over your head and press your palms together in Prayer Position. As you exhale, bend your right knee to a 90 degree angle, or as far as you can today. Keep your knee and your ankle in a straight line. Do not extend your right knee beyond the line of your ankle. Gaze up at your outstretched hands as you hold Hastagrahe Drishti. Hold this position for three to five complete breaths, and with your next exhale, release the pose and continue through the rest of the poses of the Sun Salutation. Repeat Crescent Lunge Pose on the left side. 

© Copyright 2014 – Virginia Iversen / Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division

Pranayama for States of Inner Peace

By Gopi Rao

Creating inner peace is the beginning of spreading world peace. Many attempts have been made to describe yoga using analogies. While each of these provides some benefit in helping the curious to understand yogic philosophy and methodology, no single analogy can adequately describe the physical and spiritual aspects of this ancient art. In order for a complete understanding of what yoga is - it is necessary to experience it for oneself.

Controlled breathing is a fundamental pillar of the yogic tradition. All yoga styles and postures incorporate breathing to some degree. Additionally some of the most powerful yogic exercises consist of breathing methods alone.

Pranayama is the yogic art of breathing. Through intensive focus on the breath, students of yoga are able to attain deeper meditative and contemplative states. When practicing pranayama, yoga practitioners learn to shut out the world and all of its distractions. Essentially pranayama opens the door to a world without worries or concerns save for concentrating on what is in front of you at the moment.

Gaining a glimpse of such a world is a reward in and of itself. Of course, students of yogic science would hardly practice yoga so eagerly if the only benefits from it came during their exercises. What teaching the mind to focus intently actually does is train the mind to become a far better tool.

Beyond the yoga school, pranayama allows those who practice it to look at the world as it truly is; not how it appears to be. Recognizing that we see the world at most times through the lens of our perception, consider yogic pranayama as a way of cleaning some of the distortion off of this lens.

The human mind is at heart chaotic. The natural instinct when faced with a problem is the fight or flight response. While this split second decision-making served us well in the primitive state, it is far less effective in modern society.

In modern society, the fight or flight reaction is seldom the best way to handle things. Paradoxically, today's society bombards us with more impulses than at any time in history. Simply take a walk outside and you'll easily be able to prove this to yourself.

Yogic methodology recognizes that the human mind is prone to snap decision-making and anxiety. What it also recognizes is that the human mind is infinitely malleable. Given enough time, any mind can be trained to see things in a better way. The beginning of yogic wisdom is controlling the breath.

© Copyright 2013 – Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division

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Could Meditation for Kids Reduce Violence?

By Bhavan Kumar

Many people have begun to wonder how we can reduce violence among young people. Is there a way to teach kids, especially those who are most at-risk for developing violent tendencies, how to control their outbreaks of negative emotion? The answer is a resounding yes!

Science has long confirmed the benefits of meditation, especially in those with high blood pressure or anxiety. Over the last 10 to 20 years, research has also begun to analyze how meditation affects behavior. One study conducted by Elizabeth Monk-Turner that was published in The Social Science Journal in 2003, for example, notes that college students who meditate have lower instances of drug use and are not as sensitive to negative feedback from others. In June 2011, an article entitled "Meditation Research: The State of the Art in Correctional Settings" was published in the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology; indicating that inmates who were introduced to meditation benefited from decreased recidivism and substance abuse rates while also reporting greater psychological well-being.

As far as the practice relates to young people and violence, the research is also clear. As far back as 1997, M.W. Ashford reports in "Preventing Violence, Preventing War" that meditation programs in schools have been successful at reducing behavior problems, disciplinary infractions, and ultimately, violence. So how does it work?

Meditation and Violence

Meditation is the art of awareness. Many people relate it to some sort of religious experience akin to prayer, but advocates of meditation techniques like Transcendental Meditation liken it to a spiritual experience divorced from faith or dogma or even God. Meditation attempts to transcend or move beyond thought to a place of quiet awareness, which is restful to both body and mind. If you have ever tried to quiet your mind before, you will know how seemingly impossible it is to turn off the fountain of thoughts that seem to spout from nowhere. This is why meditation takes practice and consistency.

The practice of meditation offers benefits in itself. First, the mental struggle involved offers practitioners the discipline of both mind and emotions. Second, it teaches the mind to focus without constant external stimuli, something that this modern age makes almost impossible to do.

It may already be clear how these benefits of meditation help reduce violence in kids. First, meditation equips youth with a quiet place inside their own minds to go when problems or issues that feel overwhelming arise. Second, the practice of meditation relaxes the body while quieting the body, allowing kids to feel happier and more in control of themselves.

With high rates of juvenile violence still such a problem, engaging more kids in the practice of meditation might actually change lives by creating a positive atmosphere for youth to grow and learn and, eventually, achieve awareness.

© Copyright 2013 – Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division

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The Practice of Yoga and the Cultivation of Forgiveness

By Dr. Paul Jerard, E-RYT 500

The practice of Yoga goes far beyond simple physical exercises. The term “Yoga” is literally translated to mean union or yoke to the divine. In order to become one with the divine energy that pulsates through all of creation, we must go through a process of releasing and purifying the heavy, negative emotions that can naturally accumulate over time through difficult life experiences. As we let go of negative thought patterns and behaviors that keep us separated from the wonderment and joy of life, we will be able to embody and radiate peace, contentment and fullness to those around us. 

One of the primary stumbling blocks that prevent many of us from experiencing the love and joy of the divine presence in our own beings is an inability to forgive both ourselves and others for transgressions of many sizes and degrees. When we hold onto negative life experiences, we frequently embed these experiences somatically in our bodies. If we keep rehashing the same event over and over again in our minds, we will keep recreating the same negative emotional states, such as anxiety and anger that were the hallmark of the original experience. 

On one hand, thinking about the experience over and over again gives us the opportunity to possibly find the key error that may have created an unpleasant situation. More likely than not, repetitively analyzing the situation only keeps us in the same loop and lodges the negative emotional states associated with the event more deeply into our body and mind, creating a lot of muscular tension and stress. Yoga poses that help to release deeply held tension, reduce anger, and relieve anxiety will allow us to move out of the denseness of a painful and upsetting experience. 

Yoga poses that are particularly effective for releasing tension from unresolved emotional experiences include heart-opening backbends, twisting poses, hip opening poses and a variety of standing asanas. In addition, incorporating Bhastrika and Ujjayi Pranayama techniques into your Yoga practice will help to relieve anxiety, reduce anger and balance your parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems. These breathing exercises will also help to free you from the repetitive cycle of negative thoughts and beliefs. As you release and resolve painful issues in your life, a new found freedom and ease will allow joy to naturally arise from within, bringing you closer and closer to the experience of expansive oneness with the divine energy that pulsates in your own heart.

© Copyright 2012 – Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division

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