Shape your body with Yoga & Breathing
Index
PremiseRight hemisphere: our irrational partOsho: the first chakra and our need for loveEmotional hunger and breathingIntroduction to the exercises for the colonOvercoming fears and neuroses with meditationRecommendations for practicing yogaLong and deep breathingBreathing through the left nostril1° Exercise: lose weight and tone waist and legs2° Exercise: lose weight and tone waist and legs3° Exercise: lose weight and tone waist and legsSeries to lose weight and tone your thighs1° Exercise: slimming belly area2° Exercise: slimming belly area3° Exercise: slimming belly area1° Exercise: lose weight and tone your hips2° Exercise: lose weight and tone your hips3° Exercise: lose weight and tone your hips1° Exercise: reduce hips and buttocks2° Exercise: reduce hips and buttocks3° Exercise: reduce hips and buttocksDiagonal stretch1° Exercise: slim down the entire body2° Exercise: slim down the entire body3° Exercise: slim down the entire body1° Exercise for the colon: twist left right2° Exercise for the colon: twist left right3° Exercise to clean the colon: arms in a circle4° Exercise to clean the colon: shaking arms5° Exercise to clean the colon: the pendulum6° Exercise for the colon: lifting forearms7° Exercise for the colon: swinging arms8° Exercise for the colon: arms crossed9° Exercise for the colon: pumping the navel10° Exercise for the colon: child’s poseMeditation that heals neuroses and addictionsFirst Chakra: variation of the position of crowFirst Chakra: stretching forwardFirst Chakra: variation of the position of the chairFirst Chakra: variation of the position of the camelFirst Chakra: variation of the position of the cobraFirst Chakra: position of the frogFirst Chakra: the dropFourth Chakra: beat of wingsFourth Chakra: heartbeatFourth Chakra: meditation in prayer poseFourth Chakra: meditation on the beatFourth Chakra: talk to your heartAuthor’s Note
Shape your body with Yoga & Breathing
RobertaGrova
Translators: : Mike Guerrieri & Annalisa Grova
Copyright © 2015 M.T. Publisher
All Rights Reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
© English Edition: M.T. Publisher 2015
This book is not intended as a substitute for the medical advice of physicians. The reader should regularly consult a physician in matters relating to his/her health and particularly with respect to any symptoms that may require diagnosis or medical attention.
Youcanprint Self-Publishing
ISBN: 9788891191915
1
Premise
“Does Yoga make you lose weight?” During our first meeting my students frequently ask me this question.
In reference to Kundalini Yoga, this question is answered in many kriya proposed by the Master of Kundalini Yoga, Yogi Bhajan; such as those you can find in the manual of Kundalini Yoga “Slim & Trim Yoga Exercises For Women And Meditations”. He taught these kriyas to the participants of the Women’s Training Course in the summer of 1977.
If you read this text, you would be fascinated by the depth with which Yogi Bhajan talks about being ‘overweight’.
In other words, as explained by Yogi Bhajan, nervous hunger and compulsive and irrational eating have to do with psychological factors such as stress, discomfort, worry, low levels of energy and a lack of physical and emotional balance. The various kriyas proposed by Yogi Bhajan are useful for stimulating the nervous, glandular, digestive, and circulatory systems; thanks to the stimulation they provide, balance is restored to our body. This allows us to acquire a calm and deep awareness of ourselves; and due to our heightened understanding of what our body needs, our relationship with food changes. As a result we follow a more healthy and balanced lifestyle.
When speaking broadly about yoga, there have been many studies done on the topic. They confirm that practicing yoga can help with weight loss and prevent the typical weight gain common in middle age men and women.
I want to point to some interesting research conducted in 2005, published in the journal of “Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine”, referenced by the site: http://www.fhcrc.org.
The researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, with the collaboration of the National Cancer Institute, analyzed 15,500 healthy men and women of middle age. These men and women were asked to answer a questionnaire about their physical activity between the ages of 45 and 55.
The purpose of this study was to measure the impact that yoga has on weight, independently from other factors such as diet and other types of physical activity.
The researchers found that most people gain about a pound a year between the ages of 45 and 55. This is a common pattern as people age but do not adjust their calorific intake in proportion to their declining energy needs.
“However, men and women who were of normal weight at age 45 and regularly practiced yoga gained about 3 fewer pounds during that 10-year period than those who didn’t practice yoga,” said Alan R. Kristal, Dr.P.H., the study’s lead author.
But the researchers noticed the greatest effect of regular yoga practice was among people who were overweight. “Men and women who were overweight and practiced yoga lost about 5 pounds, while those who did not practice yoga gained about 14 pounds in that 10-year period,” said Kristal, a member of the Hutchinson Center’s Public Health Sciences Division and a professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine.
What accounts for yoga’s apparent fat-fighting potential? The researchers suspect that it has more to do with increased body awareness than the physical activity itself.
“During a very vigorous yoga practice you can burn enough calories to lose weight, but most people don’t practice that kind of yoga,” Kristal says. “From my experience, I think it has to do with the way that yoga makes you more aware of your body. So when you’ve eaten enough food, you’re sensitive to the feeling of being full, and this makes it much easier to stop eating before you’ve eaten too much.”
Study co-author Denise Benitez, owner of Seattle Yoga Arts, agrees.
“Most people practice yoga in a way that’s not aerobic enough to burn a lot of calories, so it has to be some other reason”. The team at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center now suggests switching to rigorous clinical studies to see if adding yoga to a standard weight-loss program can help people lose more weight or keep it off longer.
2
Right hemisphere: our irrational part
“Women who cannot control their eating have no control over their metabolism. It is a problem of the right hemisphere of the brain, it is lack of self-respect, perseverance, affirmation. To correct this imbalance take a long and deep breath through the left nostril for 31 minutes a day, for 90 days. Once you can control this you can control everything”.
When I read about this meditation, proposed by Yogi Bhajan, I was fascinated. Not only because it was coming from a great teacher, who has the merit of spreading the knowledge of kundalini yoga to the Western world, but also because I needed ‘something’ that would help me to get out from the labyrinth I found myself trapped in.
I was facing a period of my life which presented several challenges.
I had some trouble with my family and my job and I had also stopped smoking; because of this I was feeling nervous throughout the day, not getting enough sleep at night and - on top of all of this - dealing with extra weight that I had never had before.
I had tried everything, but I just simply could not get out of the situation I found myself in.
This type of breathing, through the left nostril (described in Chapter 9), was an extraordinary discovery for me, because through it, not only did I become calmer, but I also stopped eating compulsively.
The irrational and compulsive eating has to do with an imbalance of “factors of self-deprivation” in the right hemisphere of the brain.
This can be corrected by activating the left hemisphere of the brain, fighting in this way the impulse of overeating, which originates in the right hemisphere.
At that time I gained even more awareness of the meaning of meditation and of the importance of the emotional part of the brain associated with the right hemisphere.
RIGHT HEMISPHERE - Irrational and compulsive eating has to do with an imbalance of the factors of self-deprivation in the right hemisphere of the brain. This can be corrected by activating the left hemisphere of the brain, which can then fight the impulse of overeating that originates in the right hemisphere.
DISCOVERIES IN MEDICINE - The right hemisphere is, in fact, the part of the brain which contains emotions and follows totally irrational rules. Thanks to the progress in the medical and psychological fields, we now know that individuals with bulimia, have higher functionality in the right hemisphere of their brains.
BALANCE BETWEEN RIGHT AND LEFT - A solution can therefore be found in the balance between the synthetic, concrete, spatial, rational aspect of the left hemisphere, and the intuitive, irrational, emotional right hemisphere. This allows for greater synergy between the two cerebral hemispheres.
PROPER BREATHING - Few of us are aware that proper breathing can change our relationship to life and can affect our mental and physical wellbeing. Breathing is a purely physical process, so nothing else is needed.
Over time, as you manage to slow down your breathing to a frequency of 3-4 breaths per minute, rather than 13-20 breaths per minute, which is considered normal, you will find enormous benefits.
I want to emphasize the importance of proper breathing. Many of us are actually not breathing properly. We are either doing ‘opposite or inverted breathing’ or what is known as ‘paradoxical breathing’.
In the ‘opposite or inverted breathing’, while we inhale, our diaphragm rises and during expiration it falls. It’s supposed to be the opposite!
In ‘paradoxical breathing’, the secondary muscles of respiration (scalene, sternocleidomastoid, trapezius, pectoralis minor muscles) replace the functions of the primary ones. In this case, the breath becomes short and superficial.
The use of secondary muscles leads to chronic tension, anxiety, fear, lack of esteem. It is important to understand how the type of breathing we do can affect our lives!
As a yoga teacher I dedicate a lot of time to studying breathing. I’m sure people would overcome many of their problems if they learned how to breathe correctly.
Yet another type of incorrect breathing is what’s known as ‘collapsed breathing’. That’s when we make a short inhalation followed by a very short exhalation (like a puff), that doesn’t pull out any air, but makes the abdominals collapse forward.
The areas of the sacrum and lower back also collapse forward, the muscles of the rectum become soft and the rest of the back compensates, bending forward. This type of breathing can lead to depression.
