Pranyama breathing technique – Brahmari the Bee

Pranayama cultivates a deep connection with the flow of life force (Prana) throughout your body.Brahmari means Bumble Bee and was named after the black Brahmari bee in India. This simple practice is very useful for calming the mind and releasing any tension.

Step by step guide -

1)      Sit cross-legged on the mat. If you can sit in the Padmasana Lotus Pose or Sukhasana Easy Pose that would be ideal. But if you cannot, then you may simply sit on a chair

2)     Move your arms forward and place your palms on your thighs.  Open your palms and touch the tip of your thumb to the tip of your index finger. If your mind still wanders then concentrate on your inhalation and exhalation.

3)     Raise your arms and place your palms on the sides of your head. Place your thumbs on your ears and block your ears. Place index fingers on eyelids to block put light and relax the rest of your fingers on the face. . Take a deep breath closing the mouth and make a humming sound in the back of your throat on the exhalation.

4)     Repeat for 5 rounds.

Tips

• There should be no strain involved with the humming yoga breathing exercise. Do not force your lungs to inhale or exhale any deeper or longer than is comfortable.
• Always breathe through your nose. It not only warms the air to your body temperature, but also helps promote deeper, longer breathing.

So, you’ve had enough of the overrun beaches, the tiresome tourist traps, the frazzled feeling that comes from fitting too much “fun” into your precious little time off. What you really want this year, you’ve decided, is not recreation, but re-creation—extending the peace, serenity, and sense of well-being you feel after yoga class. What better way to do this than by going on a yoga retreat?

You ask around for some leads, get on the Web and visit a few sites, make some calls, and soon you’re inundated with a stack of brochures promising unique, life-transforming yoga adventures, each one more tantalizing than the last.

But then what? Even if this is not your first yoga retreat, choosing among the vast number of offerings can be a mini challenge in itself. How do you select the experience that’s right for you?

With a bit of common sense and the right resources, it’s not as hard as it might seem. Ask yourself the right questions, and you’ll soon determine the type of yoga retreat that works for you.

You’ll want to start by looking for ways to narrow down the field of options. For instance, if you’ve already found a teacher and yoga technique you like, you’re in good shape. Even if your teacher doesn’t offer yoga vacations, she should be able to recommend retreats with other teachers of the same style.

If you don’t have a teacher or technique that you are committed to—or if you simply want to try out other styles—your range of choices is much broader. So start with location. In the United States, you’ll find yoga retreats in more than 20 states, from the serene mountains of Colorado to the woodlands of New Hampshire, from the lavish beaches of Hawaii to the mystical silence of the red rocks of Sedona, Arizona. Choose the destination, and then check out what’s available in that area.

If you have a taste for more far-reaching adventures, set your sights on India, Bali, Nepal, Peru, or New Zealand—or on vacation staples like the Caribbean Islands, Costa Rica, and Europe.

If you do decide to travel to distant shores, take special care to weigh your travel options. Some overseas yoga retreat are  packages that include everything from airline tickets to local accommodations and prearranged sightseeing trips. Others, however, leave you completely on your own.

Are you suffering from a post-lunch energy dip? Learn how to keep yourself energised throughout the day.

Research shows that the most common time for energy slumps is 2.15pm. This is when many people hit a brick wall – and wish they could hit a soft pillow. Low blood sugar and the body’s circadian rhythm hitting a natural low are the culprits. But you can take action.

Yoga is designed to help your mind and your body, and many of the new trends emerging around London some yogis are finding a little confusing. Whether you practice yoga for the physical aspect, peace of mind or just because you love it. Yoga Wellbeing has been busy putting together a list of the top ten yoga trends in London. So cast your eyes on these quirky yogic ideas and let us know your thoughts;

1. Doga: Think your dog would like to do yoga? Yeah, probably not. That hasn’t stopped pet owners from trying, however, as this dog yoga trend (or Doga) has spread from coast to coast. While it’s all well and good to get your dog a workout, it would probably much rather prefer a run in the park to trying to perfect its downward dog.
2. Yoga Dinner: Nothing goes better with working out than some hors d’oeuvres, right? This trend pairs intense yoga training with a post-workout dinner. If you’re the sweaty type or just don’t feel like eating a gourmet meal in your workout clothes, this trend is definitely not for you. While it does get away from the tradition of yoga, you won’t have to loosen your belt or unzip your trousers courtesy of your stretchy yoga attire.
3. Mobile Yoga: As if rollerblades didn’t already make you look silly enough, this yoga trend asks practitioners to strap on some skates before starting up their yoga routine. While it might be a good workout, it certainly takes away from the relaxation factor in yoga, as you’ll not only have to concentrate on performing your asanas correctly, but also not falling on your rear end.
4. Funeral Home Yoga: While the dead are pretty much as peaceful and calm as you can get, most people would balk at performing yoga in a funeral home or a cemetery. Yet both of these places are becoming common destinations for yoga studios. If you’d like to meditate on death and your own mortality while doing yoga, then it might work for you. If you prefer something more upbeat, stick with traditional yoga practice.
5. Yoga Competitions: Yoga is designed to be personal, working with your body and your mind to achieve a sort of harmony. In Western society, however, that drive to achieve balance and harmony often becomes a drive to achieve it better than everyone else in your yoga class. Competitive yoga is a growing phenomenon, taking the practice of yoga and turning into a contest.
6. Yoga Dating: This growing trend replaces the coffee or drink date with one centered around yoga. While it’s great to meet people who share your interests, it doesn’t seem conducive to conversation or improving your yoga.
7. Naked Yoga: Many people can’t go on enough about how great naked yoga is and how it gets you in touch with your real being, without all those pesky clothes to get in the way. While the shedding of the often distracting status symbols is great, the reality is that with nudity comes sex, even if instructors adamantly claim their courses are non-sexual. The fact that many of these courses require students to pair up only further reinforces that there’s an element of sexuality to them. Why is this a bad thing? Because the quality of the yoga is often diminished by the sensuality. There are already enough things to distract you when doing yoga, naked yoga just adds another.
8. Room Service Yoga: You can order up a massage, a bloody mary and get your dry cleaning done through room service, why not call up a yogi too? Many hotels, resorts and other hospitality facilities now offer yoga on-site either through classes or on-demand. While having access to yoga no matter where you go is great, why pay for something you can do on your own for free? It simply further commercializes the already over-commercialized practice of yoga.
9. Ski Yoga: You know what hurtling down the mountain at dangerous speeds around trees and rocks needs to make it better? Doing it while in tree pose! Because, of course, everything is made better by adding yoga to it, ski resorts around the nation are now offering a variety of ski yoga classes visitors can take. While stretching out before skiing is a good idea so many places are combining it with everything from skiing to kayaking that it’s hard to concentrate on just the yoga.
10. Aqua Yoga: Doing yoga outside of the water is great, why not bring it into a pool with you? Doing yoga in water can reduce some of the stress it puts on joints, but it also limits the types of movements you can do. There’s nothing really wrong with aqua yoga per se, it just doesn’t seem particularly necessary and follows a trend of bringing just about every land-based kind of working out into the water.

Yoga Wellbeing has been working with OM Magazine and The Yoga Show. We have 15 FREE tickets to give away. If you would like to know more just click here to visit Yoga Wellbeing’s Facebook page.

Here’s a little bit more information on The Yoga Show 2010. It’s being held at The London’s Olympia, now in its seventh year, is a total Yoga experience under one roof. The show is on for three days and offers endless yoga fun for everyone.

The Yoga Show also features:

Free open classes

Sample a wide range of yoga and pilates. Open sessions are for all levels of experience including beginners, and are the ideal way to try something new. Sessions are held with some of the country’s leading teachers and professional organisations.

Workshops

Take a longer class and experience the teaching styles of talented inspirational teachers. A chance to .try a different style of yoga including popular fusions influenced by yoga, pilates, dance and music.

Exhibition

Visit over 200 exhibition stands covering all aspects of Yoga, Pilates, Ayurveda and naturally healthy products. From mats to bolsters, bags & belts to holidays, teacher training and clothing.

Children’s yoga

Let the kids have some fun in the Lion pose, all sessions are free of charge.

As hard as you try, you can’t always keep the colds and flus of Autumn from stuffing up your head and slowing down your body. Before you know it, you’re wondering if you should give up and go to bed. Here’s a couple of ideas to keep the colds at bay.

LISTEN CLOSE – Check in with your body before practice. If you’re wiped out, you could make things worse by pushing through your normal routine, so try a gentle or restorative practice instead and skip strong breathing techniques. Once your energy improves, you can gradually return to a more vigorous practice even if you still have a cough or your nose is stuffy. If you feel worse after practicing, it’s a sign that you’ve probably done too much.

TREAT YOURSELF If you feel you need to take something for your symptoms, avoid antibiotics; they are worthless for colds, and even over-the-counter cold remedies aren’t very practical, since many contain five drugs when all you need is one or two. It makes more sense to take individual remedies, like slippery elm lozenges for a sore throat or acetaminophen for pain. For nasal congestion, add a few drops of eucalyptus oil to boiling water and inhale the vapors. Although it’s still not clear how effective echinacea, zinc lozenges, vitamin C, and homeopathic preparations can be, you can still try them, since they are all generally very safe.

CLEAR YOUR HEAD A stuffy nose, while not serious, can really put a crimp in your practice, especially if you do a lot of Ujjayi Pranayama (Victorious Breath). To unstuff yourself, use jala neti, a yogic nasal cleansing technique: Put a quarter teaspoon of noniodized salt and eight ounces of warm water in a neti pot. Standing over a sink, tip your head to one side and insert the spout into the upper nostril, allowing the water to flow into your nose and drain from the other nostril. Repeat on the other side. You can try this several times a day if you’ve got a cold. Jala neti can be helpful right before pranayama or meditation practice, or even asana.

SOUND OUT YOUR SINUSES Vibrations from humming have been shown to open the sinuses and let phlegm drain, which can relieve pressure and may even help stave off a bacterial infection of the sinuses.

Above all be kind to yourself.

TUNNEL VISION

Wrist problems are often caused by carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). To understand how to heal them, it helps to know a bit about the area’s anatomy. The carpal tunnel is a narrow passageway in the wrist formed by ligaments and the eight small carpal bones. These bones are arranged in two rows of four, and lie on either side of the crease between hand and forearm. CTS is caused when the median nerve to the hand gets compressed in this tunnel. It’s become near-epidemic among computer users in recent years.

The problem, however, is not always caused by repetitive motion. Anything that decreases the space in the wrist joint and compresses the median nerve can lead to CTS. Fluid retention due to pregnancy or thyroid disease, for example, can narrow the carpal tunnel, as can cysts, old fractures, or arthritic changes in the bones.

The symptoms of CTS include intermittent numbness and tingling in the hands, which often wake people at night. The sensations typically occur in the area of the palm served by the median nerve, though some people get arm or shoulder pain. Left unchecked, compression in the wrist can progress to permanent nerve damage and muscle weakness in the hands.

HOW YOGA FITS IN

During my medical training, the entire conversation about carpal tunnel syndrome focused on about one inch of anatomy, the canal in the wrist through which tendons and the median nerve pass . There is some validity to this perspective. The compression of the carpal tunnel often happens when people engage in activities like typing which require that they rotate the forearms so that the palm faces down. This can cause flattening of the normal arch made by the carpal bones. Cocking the wrists up, as many people do at the keyboard, can intensify this flattening of the carpal tunnel arch, putting further pressure on the tendons and the median nerve.

But from a yogic point of view, the failure to consider other factors beyond compression in the carpal tunnel is simply shortsighted. It is precisely this myopic approach that results in surgeries to open up that space before other options have been thoroughly explored.

Yoga in Prisons workshops throw up the philosophical questions such as Who am I? Am I separate from what I do? They investigate basic goodness, identity, and forgiveness as well as develop listening and empathy skills. Leaders also introduce simple meditations to help prisoners learn how to calmly be with whatever emotions arise in the present moment. The boys count their breaths and do body scans to get into their bodies, relax, and find freedom from reactivity.

The idea of spending less time in solitary may lure the prisoners but once he started attending the yoga meetings they start to see the benefits. Each session offered a brief respite from isolation, a glimpse of self-awareness, and a chance to connect to others who had similar lives filled with drugs and gangs.

Thinking it over and talking with others, I was able to sort out my ideas. Using a breathing technique, which he learned in group sessions, to control his temper. My anger and other people just don’t mix. Yoga breathing techniques have helped me cope with everyday life.

People tend to either love or dislike poses like Pigeon. Regardless of which camp you inhabit, keep in mind that Pigeon can help safeguard your knees and low back and make other poses infinitely more pleasant. Here’s a look at the tremendous benefits of hip openers.

Open hips can mean less back pain – Tight hip flexors pull your pelvis forward and exaggerate the curve in your lower back. Picture your entire pelvis as a bowl of water spilling toward your toes, with the back side of the bowl raised up. When your lumbar becomes shortened, you’re likely to feel compression and discomfort over time. You’ll notice it in your poses, too. If your hip flexors are short in a pose like Warrior I or Camel, your lower back will overdo the arch, and you’ll feel pain. Open hip flexors help bring the pelvis back to neutral and mitigate pain.

Hip openers help your knees – Here’s an example: When your outer hips are relatively open in a pose like Warrior II, you’ll be able to rotate your front thigh out and line up your front knee toward the pinky side of the toes. But if that area is tight, your knee will buckle in toward your big toe, which can strain the inner knee. So if you’re unable to externally rotate the femur bone in the hip socket (which is one result of tight hips), the smaller and more delicate knee joint can become overworked.

The hip is a ball-and-socket joint constructed for movement in a whole slew of directions – Including rotation (as opposed to the knee, which is a hinge joint that it is supposed to bend and extend but not rotate). The great thing about Pigeon is that if you practice it on both sides, you get flexion and extension of your knees and your hips. The added bonus is that you get external rotation of the femur in your hip socket, too. Barring injury, it’s a good idea to regularly take your joints through their full range of motion in your yoga practice—you’ll move through your daily life with more ease.

What’s your yoga intention? When I began practicing yoga I was always to have Presence of mind.

I think of that expression. No matter where I am, it brings me back to his message: Presence of mind. At first, it was helpful when my muscles shook and balance tottered in Warrior III, but now it helps me when I’m in traffic or standing in line at the newsagents.

I like to think of these ingrained reminders I’ve gathered over the years as a Yoga Intention for my practice, a spiritual twist on those advertising tunes that we can’t get our of our heads. Instead of urging me to buy some floor cleaner, however, my jingle reminds me to stay calm, stay present, and remember that everything is unfolding just as it should.

The Yoga Wellbeing team would love to know what’s your Yoga Intention? How do you use it in your everyday life?