Yoga Benefits Keep Workers At Work

Do you know of a multi-tasking co-worker who could use a yoga class?

Corporate Yoga, BC provides on-site yoga and corporate rates to businesses. Corporate Yoga, BC help enhance employee satisfaction by directly addressing three of the leading causes of employee absenteeism and reduced productivity; back pain, stress, and fatigue. Yoga has also been shown to improve headaches, hypertension, depression, and joint and muscle injuries.

• Enhanced memory and focus
• A stronger immune system
• Improved posture
• Immediate stress reduction

More Yoga Benefits:

• Build strength
• Improve your posture and flexibility
• Create longer, leaner muscles
• Speed up your metabolism
• Lose weight
• Enhance your balance
• Recover from injury and chronic pain
• Reduce stress
• Have more energy and passion
• Experience a new level of emotional calm and mental clarity
• Open yourself to the process of transformation
• Enjoy life more
  

Sleep Better, Look & Feel Younger With Yoga

Use Yoga to Stop the Clock, A Prevention Magazine Article

Slow the signs of aging and feel younger with a simple yoga regimen

By Marianne McGinnis

Eight years ago, when Sharon Gothard Weisman turned 40, backaches, dark undereye circles, forgetfulness, and fatigue made her feel more like 60. In the hope of finding anti-aging relief, Weisman took a yoga class. An hour later, she felt more relaxed than she had in years. She's been doing yoga three times a week since and says, "I have more energy, strength, and flexibility than most women half my age."She recently ran into an old high school friend who asked, "Don't you get older like the rest of us?"

Many women try yoga for stress reduction, but they stick with it because it makes them feel--and look--younger, says Larry Payne, PhD, a yoga director at Loyola Marymount University and coauthor of Yoga Rx. Unlike traditional exercise, yoga blends anti-aging moves that improve circulation, balance, flexibility, and strength with meditative techniques such as deep breathing. "My students call yoga a natural face-lift," he says. "It cleanses, relaxes, and restores."

The yoga advantage

Here's how yoga helps anti-aging:

Minimizes wrinkles Yoga can reduce stress by nearly a third, reports a German study of 24 women. As a result, clenched jaws and furrowed brows relax, helping to smooth away wrinkles. Yoga may also rejuvenate skin's glow by reducing oxidative stress, which breaks down skin's elasticity. In an Indian study of 104 people, oxidative stress levels dropped by 9% after just 10 days of yoga.

Slows weight gain During a 10-year University of Washington study of 15,500 men and women over age 45, those who didn't do yoga gained up to 13.5 pounds. Those who practiced regularly lost up to 5 pounds. Eases pain Yoga is twice as effective as stretching at relieving back pain, according to another University of Washington study that had 101 people with lower-back pain do either yoga or stretching once a week for 3 months.

Helps you sleep like a baby Levels of the brain's natural nighttime sedative, melatonin, decrease with age, but another Indian study found that when 15 men, ages 25 to 35, practiced yoga daily for 3 months, their melatonin levels increased.

Keeps you sharp Researchers at Jefferson Medical College discovered that just one yoga class helps keep the stress hormone cortisol in line. Elevated amounts may contribute to age-related memory problems.

Yoga for the Feet

YOGA FOR HAPPY HEALTHY FEET
By Michelle Myhre

"The true man breathes with is heels"
-Chuang Tzu.

With more than 150 ligaments and an intricate network of muscles, nerves and blood vessels, our feet are both a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art. Feet support our weight and move our bodies, enduring tight shoes and long periods of standing. Feet connect us to the earth, holding up, on a typical day, a cumulative force of several hundred pounds.

When our feet hurt, we hurt all over and in ways that might be hard to comprehend. Tight muscles in the feet can pull the muscles in your neck out, affecting bones at the apex of the spine. Sore feet can also develop bone spurs and common conditions like plantar fasciaitis.

As a yoga teacher I couldn't help but wonder why yogi's have healthy, happy feet. Yoga students do not have much of the foot pain many non-yogi's experience, such as flat feet, and pain. So I began investigating the cause and effect of yoga on the feet.

Through lengthening forward bends, and foot flexion, tendons and ligaments do not shorten Stretching and lengthening the muscles and fascia of the feet and legs keep plantar fasciaitis at bay (the cause of plantar fasciatis is shortened connective tissue). Anchoring and grounding the four corners of the feet, activates the muscles in the feet which lift the arches of the feet. Keeping this musculature integrated and strong stops foot pain before it has a chance to manifest.

Reflexology is another way of keeping the feet and body healthy. Nerve endings in the feet are connected to the spinal and organ reflexes of the entire body. By putting pressure on these nerve points, stagnant energy throughout the body is released.

More than 70% of all people in the United States will have painful foot problems during their life. In Hawaii, with miles of beach to walk and slippers encasing our tan lined feet, ours are healthier than many, but we still have our issues. Even in healthy Hawaii, people who wear closed toe shoes, and those who work standing for long periods of time, can develop sore feet.

Remember foot pain is not normal. It is not something to be passively endured until it becomes debilitating. Much foot pain is preventable and reversible.

How does yoga help feet? In a typical yoga class we are flexing and pointing the feet, standing on our tip-toes, rolling over the toes, rotating the ankles, activating the muscles of the feet by pressing firmly into the earth, "putting down roots". The joints of the feet and toes are kept open. All of these actions support, strengthen, and heal the feet.

Tips for healthy feet:

• Walk on the beach. Sand is a natural pumice stone. Each step will stretch and lengthen the muscles of the feet.
  
• Massage your feet before bed. Use coco butter and wear socks for extra soft feet.
• Get a pedicure (men too, no polish!). Pedicures feel good physically and are psychologically uplifting, especially when massage is involved.
• Practice yoga. Build good posture from the ground up.
• Learn reflexology points and self-massage techniques.
  

Michelle Myhre is certified to teach Jivamukti, Ashtanga & Bikram Yoga, owns and directs Maui Yoga Lotus Studio, is a licensed massage therapist in the state of Hawaii, #7262, and graduated from Maui author Michael Reed Gach's Acupressure Institute,Berkeley, California in 1995.