Unwinding with some rejuvenating supported postures for an hour and a half sounds perfect. But moments after you close your eyes and immerse yourself in the first pose. The pose feels as though it’s going on forever, and although your body isn’t moving, your mind won’t stop racing. You feel restless, agitated, and out of control. This is supposed to be “restorative” yoga. What happened?

Restorative yoga is a passive practice

Poses like Reclining Bound Angle Pose or Legs-up-the-Wall Pose are held for several minutes at a time, propped with blankets, blocks, and bolsters to minimize the amount of work that the muscles are doing in the pose. A restorative practice can rest your body, stretch your muscles, lower your heart rate and blood pressure, and calm your nervous system, moving you into a peaceful state of deep relaxation. But while the practice of restorative yoga comes easily to some people, it can present real challenges for others.

The practice of being still and restful provokes anxiety for many people. And during times of extreme stress, such as illness, a difficult transition, or grief, releasing control of the body can overwhelm the nervous system. Passive postures can evoke feelings of discomfort for myriad reasons. On a physical level, Pransky says, the body is in a vulnerable state: You are releasing control of all your muscles, lying with your eyes closed and your chest and abdomen—the location of your vital organs—exposed. In many restorative poses, the body is also splayed out, and often the bones are not resting in their sockets, which can leave you feeling physically unstable or insecure.

On an emotional level, restorative poses can be challenging because, when the body is in a passive posture, the mind has fewer physical tasks and sensations to focus on than it does in more active poses, making your attention more likely to turn inward. Any emotions you might have been suppressing throughout the day—fear, frustration, sadness, anxiety—are likely to come to the forefront of your mind once your body begins to relax.

Finally, if you go very deep into the meditation of the pose, says Pransky, you can lose a sense of your physical shape. If you are in a content and secure frame of mind, this can deepen your experience and provide a sense of bliss.

Is restorative yoga for you?

But just because restorative yoga can trigger anxious or uncomfortable feelings doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. In fact, times of high anxiety or stress are the times you can most benefit from the healing aspects of a restorative practice. The solution is to support passive postures with props in such a way that the body and mind feel grounded, safe, and integrated. That way, you can still experience the benefits of restorative yoga, and can eventually learn to use the practice as a tool for being with all those feelings.

Meditation is a practice of mind. During the meditation process practitioners learn to transcend the mind with the help
of mind. As you progress in meditation process, the more calmer and happier you become. Meditation has numerous
benefits, both at the level of mind and the physical body.

Though the actual objective of the meditation practice was different, however, it can be effectively practiced as an
anti-aging remedy in today’s fast changing stressful world.There are different techniques of meditation and all start with withdrawing the attention from the outside world and work on concentration before finally entering the meditative state.

In addition to anti-aging, some additional benefits of meditation are:

* Meditation is good for the brain

* Meditation can help you deal with stress

* Meditation can help maintain calmness.

* Meditation develops intuition.

* Regular practice of meditation will certainly make the will power of the practitioner stronger. When the mind is stronger you can be more peaceful and happier.

So set aside 5 minutes in your day and start your meditation today.

The gesture Namaste represents the belief that there is a goodness within each of us. The gesture is an acknowledgment of the soul in one by the soul in another. “Nama” means bow, “as” means I, and “te” means you. To put it simply Namaste means “I bow to you.”

How to perform Namaste

To perform Namaste, we place the hands together at the heart charka, close the eyes, and bow the head. It can also be done by placing the hands together in front of the third eye, bowing the head, and then bringing the hands down to the heart. This is an especially deep form of respect. Although in the West the word “Namaste” is usually spoken in conjunction with the gesture, in India, it is understood that the gesture itself signifies Namaste, and therefore, it is unnecessary to say the word while bowing.

Why do we perform Namaste?

For a teacher and student, Namaste allows two individuals to come together energetically to a place of connection and timelessness, free from the bonds of ego-connection. If it is done with deep feeling in the heart and with the mind surrendered, a deep union of spirits can blossom.

Ideally, Namaste should be done at the beginning and at the end of class. Usually, it is done at the end of class because the mind is less active and the energy in the room is more peaceful. The teacher initiates Namaste as a symbol of gratitude and respect.

Western scientists are proving that meditation helps combat stress and benefits immunity, as well as the soul. MRI scans show that meditation can physically change the brain’s neuron system and stimulate the areas associated with compassion and empathy, showing that certain human qualities can be cultivated through mental training.

A meditation teacher could be essential to our overall wellbeing

Meditation is a way to train our brains. We spend years learning to read and write or professional skills beacuse we feel they will benefit us in the long run. Working with the mind follows the same logic.

It can improve your quality of life

We spend alot of time trying to improve the external conditions of our lives, but in the end it’s the mind that creates our experience of the world and translates it into wellbeing or suffering. If we transform our way of perceiving things(via meditation) we can transform the quality of our lives.

Twenty minutes a day can change your life

Meditating first thing in the morning has been shown to reduce stress, anxiety, anger, and risk depression. It can also improve your ability to focus, lower blood pressure and strengthen the immune system.

You can get it on the NHS

If you’ve had depression, the eight week course can reduce the likelihood of you developing the condition again by 30 per cent.

The mind is like a unruly monkey

It ties itself into knots the more it jumps around. People think that to control the mind is to put it in shackles, but it’s the ultimate freedom.

We love it when we hear more schools are introducing yoga to their cirriculum. We have just recently started teaching a lovely bunch of kids at Southfields Primary School. It’s a great experience to be able to teach a wide range of kids the physical side of yoga and a little bit of relaxation too. In addition to this we are really excited to be starting up with The Sports Academy next week to take kids through a couple of yoga adventures on their Easter holidays. We feel through yoga we are giving children the tools to deal with future stresses, and showing them that there is more to relaxation than playing computer games.

Barbara Herts, the chief executive of the young people’s mental health charity Young-Minds, says: “Today’s fast pace and often confusing world can have a real and lasting effect on the emotional wellbeing of children and young people. With increases in stressful events such as exam pressure, family breakdown and bullying, we are experiencing more triggers to stress and anxiety in young people.”

Visualisations

Visualisations are about setting kids up for when they are older, and it’s great for emotional literacy and helps overstimulated kids, through yoga postures and meditations. Connecting the quiet space inside you which we all have; you can’t relax and focus your mind until you relax your body.

The younger children do a version of yoga postures and breathing exercises as the teacher coordinates the movements to an adventure story. The older children do a more grown-up version of yoga. Many of our classes are incorporated into the school day or after-school programmes. Teachers give us lots of positive feedback saying that they are more focused and able to listen better. Starting the day with a little bit of yoga can make a huge difference to the kids productivity for the rest of the day.

If you have any questions about our Yoga Wellbeing’s programmes in schools then we would love to hear from you.

Ramdev, whose real name is Ramkishan Yadav, was born in 1953 into a farming family in the northern state of Haryana and studied yoga with a local guru after leaving school.

He began his career offering free yoga classes around Haryana and established the Divya Yog Mandir Trust to promote pranayama the art of breath control. Today he is onne of India’s most successful yogi, attracting an estimated 40 million viewers to his daily television shows on the Aastha channel.

Now Ramdev, one of India’s most popular Hindu yogi’s is on a mission to wipe out corruption by forming his own party to contest the next elections in 2014.  Part of his yogic manifesto is to establish a new World Health Organisation through research work on the knowledge base of yogic sages. To establish pranayam (breath control) as a free medicine for the treatment of all diseases. To make the world a peaceful and tranquil place by using yogic techniques. In addition to this he would like to bring yoga to schools to improve concentration and relaxation.

What do you think of Ramdev and his yogic manifesto?

I remember my all the way back to my first class stretched out during a 45-minute Yoga Nidra class, body in full supported Savasana (Relaxation Pose), limbs limp, breath quiet, thoughts drifting by. In the distance, the teacher’s voice blends with the sound of Tibetan bells. All traces of the day fade away, time stops, and stillness washes over me. So this is Yoga Nidra!

Also known as yogic sleep or sleep with awareness, Yoga Nidra is an ancient practice that is rapidly gaining popularity in the West. It is intended to induce full-body relaxation and a deep meditative state of consciousness. "We live in a chronically exhausted, over stimulated world," says Los Angeles yoga teacher Rod Stryker. "Yoga Nidra is a systematic method of complete relaxation, holistically addressing our physiological, neurological, and subconscious needs."

During a typical class, teachers use a variety of techniques—including guided imagery and body scanning—to aid relaxation. And unlike a quick Savasana at the end of asana practice, Yoga Nidra allows enough time for practitioners to physiologically and psychologically sink into it—at least 20 to 45 minutes, says San Francisco Bay Area yoga teacher Jennifer Morrice.

The ancient yoga text the Mandukya Upanishads refers to four different stages of Yoga Nidra. The practitioner begins by quieting the overactive conscious mind, then moves into a meditative state, gradually finding a state of "ultimate harmony," in which the brain waves slow down and a subtle euphoria emerges. Though most practitioners don’t slip easily into the more advanced stages, they still tend to emerge feeling rejuvenated. "Yoga Nidra uniquely unwinds the nervous system," Stryker says, "which is the foundation of the body’s well-being."

Yoga Nidra is best done guided by a trained teacher. We are thinking about offering some restorative yoga classes in the New Year, let us know if you would be like to come along to a class it would be great to hear from you.

The Yoga Wellbeing team feel that music is an important element to setting the right atmosphere for a yoga session. So many people who practice yoga daily have asked me about what type of music I listen to. Mr Brian Eno is one of our favourites at the moment.

Eno is an English musician, composer, record produce who is best known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.

He studied at art school, taking inspiration from minimalist painting, but he had little musical education or playing experience when he joined the band Roxy Music as their keyboards and synthesisers player in the 1970s. Roxy Music’s success in the glam rock scene came quickly, but Eno decided to leave the group beginning his solo career.

He started to extend his reach into more experimental musical styles with pioneering ambient efforts at “sonic landscapes” began to consume more of his time beginning with Ambient 1/Music for Airports (1978) and later Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks (1983) which was composed for the documentary film For All Mankind.

His solo work has been extremely influential, pioneering ambient and generative music, innovating production techniques, and emphasizing “theory over practice.” He also introduced the concept of chance music to popular audiences partly through collaborations with other musicians. By the end of the 1970s, Eno had worked with David Bowie on the avant-garde “Berlin Trilogy,” helped popularise and the punk-influenced “No Wave” genre. More recently he has worked with David Byrne, and produced three albums by Talking Heads, seven albums for U2, including The Joshua Tree (1987), and worked on records by James, Laurie Anderson, Coldplay, Paul Simon, and Slowdive, among others.

As an artist, Brian Eno pursues ventures in aside from his music career: art installations, a newspaper column in The Observer, and “Oblique Strategies”, a deck of cards where each card has a cryptic remark or random insight meant to resolve a dilemma. He continues to collaborate with other musicians, produce records, release his own music, and write. A true talent, you wonder how he finds time to fit it all in.

It’s about that time again, that we consider which Asana of the Week is right for the pages of the Yoga Wellbeing. Salamba Sarvangasana (Supported Shoulderstand) is this weeks top pick, we have even included the counter pose. Seen as the leaves are soon going to be changing a rusty colour and we are going to be reaching for those extra layers before going into savasana the relaxation pose. We thought an asana that helps to relieve chest colds and sore throats would be a bright idea.

Wellbeing benefits –

• It stimulates the thyroid gland
• Helps swollen sinuses, chest colds, sore throat
• Improves eye sight and memory
• Tones the entire body and gives a youthful glow

Be careful if –

• You have a slipped cervical vertebrae
• Have high blood pressure
• Heart disease
• You have just started to visit Aunt Flow (ahem menstruation, I am still not sure about that word)

The Asana -

• Lay down on your back. Raise legs, keeping seat on the floor, legs bent.
• Raise legs and pelvis so that it is perpendicular to the floor and pelvis is slightly pushed forward and higher than shoulder.
• Keep palms on the seat to support yourself in the pose, upper arms on the floor, elbows and shoulder blades moving inwards towards each other.
• Now that you are in the pose, relax and feel the stretch.
• Keep awareness on the breath (breathe normally) and on the stretch.
• When you are ready to let go of the pose, exhale and lower the body one vertebrae at a time.
• Bring the body completely down.
• Relax.
• Prepare for counter pose.

The counter pose – Matsyasana (Fish pose)

For every forward bend, there is one backward bend to balance off the body’s energies.

Wellbeing benefits –

• It activates the pituitary and pineal glands
• Improves eyesight
• Improves rheumatoid arthritis of the back and lethargy
• Tones the entire body and gives a youthful glow

Be careful if –

• You have pinched nerves of the cervical vertebrae
• You have heart disease
• You have a hernia
• Have high blood pressure

The Asana -

• Bend backwards, put elbows on the floor, palms on the pelvis, crown of the head on the ground.
• Stay in the pose for a few seconds, keep your awareness on your breath.
• Keep palms on the seat to support yourself in the pose, upper arms on the floor, elbows and shoulder blades moving inwards towards each other.
• When you are ready to let go, come back to padmasana by pushing your body up with the help of your elbows first and then palms.
• Relax.
• Lie down in the relaxation pose savasana and stay here for a couple of breaths.

Feeling the inner peace and overall Wellbeing that this combined practice has created.