As per one report nearly 14 percent of British youngsters are clinically obese. The cost of Obesity to the NHS is about £ 1 billion a year. By 2010 the number of overweight and obese youngsters in the European Union nations is expected to hit 26 million. An estimated 20,000 obese youngsters will have type 2 diabetes as per another report.

Obesity put strain on heart, respiratory and eliminatory system. It also increases the chances of diabetes, hypertension and heart diseases. In stressful people who eat very fast and in excess and secondly in household person who eat from boredom. As the people put on weight they tend to become less happy because of their appearance and become more frustrated. Some people think by taking insufficient food can help in reducing weight. But when they start dieting, body starts to slow down in order to conserve energy and boost its chances of survival. This is why weight loss tends to slow down as we continue to diet. So in a way dieting is not the good method for reducing weight.

Some of the schools in the UK are planning to introduce yoga for thousands of young students. This is an excellent step in the direction of fighting the obesity problem of UK. Yoga practice provides an excellent means for maintaining balanced weight and overcoming obesity problem, provided a daily yoga program is followed with regular routine.

Along with Yoga, healthy diet at proper time and practice of relaxation technique is very helpful for overcoming obesity and maintaining balanced weight. Click here if you would like to know more about our one to one sessions or kids classes.

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.

December involves shopping, decorating, traveling, and other high-energy activity. Yet instead of having fun, we often end up feeling ill or even anxious. The reason, according to Taoist philosophy and traditional Chinese medicine, is that the action-packed schedules we keep at this time of year fall out of sync with the earth’s natural cycles.

We naturally have less energy to burn during the winter. So when we engage in behaviors more appropriate for summer—staying up late and dashing around town—it’s no wonder that the forced cheer of the holiday season can wear a bit thin.

Taoist philosophy conceptualizes universal balance in terms of yin and yang, complementary forces that govern the universe. Yin characteristics are cool, wet, slow, feminine, and quiet, whereas yang is the opposite: warm, dry, fast, masculine, extroverted. Winter, the yin season, is a time for storing and conserving energy in the way a bear retains fat by hibernating, or a farmer stores food for the cold months ahead.

In agrarian cultures, people spend the shortest, darkest days indoors by the fire, eating warm, slow-cooked, nourishing food and sharing stories with their families. The incongruity between winter’s restful, introspective, yin nature and the frenetic way many people spend their Christmas can contribute to seasonal affective disorder.

To stay balanced during winter be good to yourself. Try some restorative yoga, meditation and walking are best suited for yin season, as they safeguard your energy reserves.

Eating cooked, spicy yang foods provides another good way to replenish energy. Prepare yang-strengthening soups, slow-simmered stews, beans, roasted root vegetables, and warm drinks. Add yang spices such as garlic, ginger, black pepper, cloves, and basil to increase the warming effect.

Bring balance and you will have more energy to spend with close friends and family. The important part of Christmas.

Yoga Wellbeing classes are filling up with yogis who are using their regular yoga practice to work against all the colds and flus going around. You can’t always keep the colds of winter from stuffing up your head and slowing down your body. Before you know it, you may be wondering if you should attempt your yoga practice or retreat to bed. Here’s a little bit of  Yoga Wellbeing inspiration;

TREAT YOURSELF If you feel you need to take something for your symptoms, try to avoid antibiotics, and even over-the-counter cold remedies aren’t very practical, since many contain five drugs when all you need is one or two. Perhaps you could try individual remedies, like lozenges for a sore throat. 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 and could be the remedy you need.

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. Take it easy and be kind to yourself.

TRY OUT SOME POSITIVE VIBRATIONS Vibrations from humming have been shown to open the sinuses and help get rid of phelgm, which can relieve pressure and may even help stave off a bacterial infection of the sinuses. Try chanting Om, or, for nasal congestion, experiment with the pranayama practice of Bhramari: Press your lips together and make the sound of a buzzing bee.

STAY UPRIGHT If your head is stuffed up or you’re feeling tired, avoid inversions like Headstand and Handstand. Even Shoulderstand can worsen nasal congestion and head pressure.

SUPPORT YOURSELF Even restful poses like Savasana (Corpse Pose) aren’t easy when you’re congested, so instead of lying flat, support your back on a bolster running lengthwise from your lower spine to your head, with a folded blanket under the head and neck if needed. This makes breathing easier, and it’s more energizing.

In Eat Pray Love, Julia Roberts plays Liz Gilbert, a woman who travels around the world for a year to find herself, having realising that the life she had been living was not the one she had planned. Her emotional and spiritual breakdown is convincingly played by Roberts. In reality Liz Gilbert was an accomplished journalist and published author, living what many would consider to be an enviable life in New York. I did wonder how sympathetic I would be towards the main character’s crisis, particularly when played by somebody as beautiful and successful as Julia Roberts. To her immense credit, I was convinced by her portrayal of Liz’s inner turmoil, although I’m not sure that I totally warmed towards the film character. Maybe this was because her personality had become fractured and fragile as a result of her depression and summoning up the energy to simply function was all she could muster.

Eat Pray Love is charming and inspiring. The performances are great and the cinematography is lovely. The fact that Liz is now a practicing yoga teacher and is living the life she wants to lead is great. I enjoyed following her on her journey to find balance and peace. Namaste.

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.

One of Yoga Wellbeing’s  yogis was commenting on the Yoga for Scoliosis workshops and how she learned how to use yoga to work with the reverse-S curve of her spine. For thelast month she has took time off to devote herself to healing. In addition to her morning practice, she began to hone moment-to-moment awareness of how she was holding herself throughout the day. “About 8 to 12 times a day I would make adjustments to the way I sit, stand, sweep the floor, brush my teeth, you name it.” Her work paid off. “Within four weeks I was sleeping without pain, and the daily pain wasn’t as dominant. About a month after that, the daily pain ended.” Not only that, she believes that the curve in her lower back is lessening. These days if the pain returns, she knows that yoga can bring her body back into balance.

She was willing to do anything but have surgery. I sought a second opinion from a well-known orthopedist who specialized in scoliosis. Thankfully, he felt surgery was necessary only if the curvature continued to increase. He recommended swimming and mentioned that he had just heard that yoga could be helpful too. I took his advice and joined the swim team during college, but it wasn’t until my 20s that I took up yoga.

Now, after more than 30 years of working with my own scoliosis, my curve has decreased significantly and is barely noticeable. The key is to be consistent and patient.

Yoga for Children Antidote to Stressed Families

Yoga for Children is a wonderful antidote to the hectic lives that our children lead. Yoga can be relaxing, stimulating, and promotes well being. It provides closely controlled exercise and is enormous fun for children at the same time.

A number of Yoga for Children programmes have been created by Yoga teachers to introduce the benefits of yoga and relaxation at an early age in a playful, simple and fun way. The combination of special yoga moves, breathing exercises and relaxations will energize, strengthen, loosen and balance little bodies, while helping to calm and control and relax little minds.

Kids yoga is a wonderful opportunity for the child to learn life skills that can be implemented into their daily routine. Whether it’s breathing and relaxation techniques that will help them, focus, concentrate or be calm; or postures that will help their endurance, flexibility, balance and coordination these are all very naturally a strong part of yoga.

Yoga for children is most successful if the children are encouraged to use their imagination. A dynamic, creative and stimulating approach grabs the children\’s attention.

Yoga for children is practiced in the United Kingdom. It is not new to Britain, with after-school clubs and classes gaining popularity in recent years as parents realize its wide-ranging benefits. What is new to the UK, however, is the method of Research on Yoga in Education (RYE), an international non-profit making organization which blends the standard school curriculum with exercises on concentration, attention and relaxation, drawn mainly from traditional yoga.