When yoga instructors tell you to take a healing breath, they arent just using a metaphor. Recent studies show that practicing yoga may actually have a significant effect on a persons physiological well-being.

Researchers have studied the effects of yoga on fitness for years. (Yoga) engages a lot of muscles at one time said Andrea Soberaij, physiology courses manager. It does a lot of lengthening. Thats one thing conventional workouts like doing the machines at the gym dont do. They just shorten the muscle.

The effects of yoga on hypertension, or high blood pressure, are currently being studied by Debbie Cohen-Stein, associate professor of medicine at Penn.

A lot of people are interested in an alternative to medication, especially with mild hypertension, she said. The preliminary data does appear to show that yoga has a modest effect on lowering blood pressure.

According to Cohen-Stein, most forms of yoga can contribute to lowering blood pressure.

Any type of yoga that incorporates breathing and movement and a component of meditation will do, she said.

MRIs taken of participants in her current blood pressure study suggest yoga activates the same part of the brain responsible for impulse control, Cohen-Stein said. She said she hopes to study next the effects of yoga on people attempting to quit smoking.

Patricia Gerbarg 71 has spent years studying the effects of yoga on different disorders and afflictions of the body.

We have found that the most effective practices are certain breathing practices, Gerbarg said.

She and her husband, Richard Brown, developed these practices using breathing techniques that were safe and easy for almost everyone. They use these breathing practices to work with several different groups of people including victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and recently-liberated slaves in South Sudan, Gerbarg said.

Original post:
Yoga may offer physical benefits, studies find

Topics: editors picks, stand up board yoga, yoga

STAND Up Paddle Board Yoga has been recognised as the "coolest new yoga trend" by Women's Health Magazine for 2013

Over the past 10 years, stand-up paddle boarding has spread from an ocean sport to every water body.

Stand-up paddle boarding or Hoe he'e nalu, is Hawaiian in origin.

YOU might not associate poses like the cat, cobra, dolphin or pigeon with stand-up paddle boarding, until now that is.

Tweed Heads' Sara Rice has been doing yoga for eight years and been teaching it for three; now she is taking her classes to the water.

The classes will be held at Jack Evans Boat Harbour in a combined effort with Big Trev's Water Sports.

"I have been a surfer since I was about 12 years old but never done stand-up paddling until now," Mrs Rice said.

"SUP yoga takes more core stability than normal yoga but the basics are fun and easy, only the advanced stuff is difficult."

Mrs Rice teaches land-based yoga at Vinyasa Yoga in Tweed and says she has already got class members keen on the concept.

See more here:
Stand up paddle board yoga is the coolest new thing

From Mother Nature Network's Lauren Walker:

You look at all the yoga magazines and all the women are skinny. Not just thin but skinny. There are lots of women who are naturally thin, who are healthy and strong and eat real food. But if those magazines are the guidelines for doing yoga, women who are not naturally thin feel a stab of insecurity and the thought of entering a yoga studio seems an insurmountable challenge. So whats a woman to do, a woman with breasts, a belly, thighs made for climbing mountains, hips made for birthing babies, arms made for carrying the weight of a family?

Many of the women I know have these kind of curvy bodies. And most of the women I know, even the slim ones, suffer from some sort of body dysmorphia, which is preoccupation or excessive worry about a minor or imagined physical imperfection.

It is nearly impossible to be unaffected by the culture in which we live. Even if youre a forward-thinking free spirit, free in your mind, you are steeped in the culture around you. Like a teabag in a cup of hot water, you cant stop your environment from seeping in. But the truth is, you can start to free yourself a little from the insanity. This is where yoga comes in. Yoga is about many things, and one of them is separating your mind from clinging to what it perceives as reality.

In olden days being thin was a sign of poverty, and the painters (the old-fashioned media) depicted women of girth and curve as our cultural beauty figures.

Today, we get so many negative messages about a bit of extra flesh that some people wont even enter a yoga studio, let alone commit to a serious practice, because they think they are "too big."

But yoga is far bigger than any plus-sized negative view of yourself. Yoga can hold us all, and can hold all of us.

What's more important: What your body looks like, or what it can do? As an average-sized woman, I suffered for years from body dysmorphia. I tried every diet on the market, I wore overlarge clothes to try to hide myself, I teetered on the edge of an eating disorder. It took moving out to a mountain town and learning how to snowboard for me to overcome my insecurities. I finally moved into a world of what my body could do versus what my body looked like. It was a powerful transformation and I swore Id never look back. But inevitably, my culture would seep back in (usually after spending some time with a fashion magazine!) and I would have to remove myself from those undue pressures. The points of study for me were this: What can your body do for you? How much does your body support everything you do? How strong are you? How capable? How sexy or beautiful do you feel from the inside?

As soon as I turned my focus from how my body looked to what my body did, I immediately became happy. My body learned how to snowboard at 23, learned how to play ice hockey at 35. Over 40 and Im climbing mountains with ease, and jumping into a sea kayak for a day on the ocean. And practicing yoga has been my biggest teacher. Once you see how much you can do in your practice, how strong you are, and how powerful you become, you start to have a deeper appreciation for your true self. This is at the core of the practice. Not how you look, but how you feel.

Yoga is a practice of bending. And fleshy women think they cant bend. Its also a practice where many of us have been put off and intimidated by the "model-perfect" yogi on the next mat pushing up into handstand or backbend with dancer ease. But the benefits of yoga can be accessed by anyone. A wonderful online resource is curvyyoga.com (that's founder Anna Guest-Jelley at right); theres a book called MegaYoga which offers many modifications; theres a website with classes and calendars at yogaforthelargerwoman.com. My only beef with that one is that the women are dressed in black against a black background. I say, dont hide the flesh in artsy shots. Celebrate the strength and beauty of your yoga body.

Read more here:
Is There A 'Best' Body Type For Yoga?