If you are reading this, you probably have to carry your body around with you for another 50 years more or less, what condition do you want it in: heavy and deadweight, or light and comfortable? You probably clean out your car’s engine (or pay someone to do it) more often than you clean out your body of its backlog of lifestyle choices. Keep the lifestyle choices, but add the healthy choice of yoga to your habits.
FUN, STRENGTH, AND FLEXIBILITY: In your body, and your mind: Yoga is an adventure of the body and mind and emotions. Every posture or shape is a process of possibility and a journey into how you respond to life and challenges and an invitation to have some fun in your skin, while healing your body of dis-ease and creating some space in your mind and emotions. Yoga uses the body as a tool toward overall health.
Physical health is gained through the strengthening of bones in weight bearing poses, massaging of organs which stimulates them into great operating functionality, stretching and aerating muscles, which has a positive effect on your heart, and balancing the endocrine system which helps with emotions.
Breathing properly for an hour a day helps to bring space and balance to the entire system, especially the mind, and sets up a healthy habit of full breathing which reduces symptoms of stress and aids in sleep, alleviates depression, and other nervous system struggles. Yoga will not only keep you physically strong and flexible, but also mentally focused and concentrated. Learn how your mind can really start to work for you.
This is why yoga is a tonic for improved quality of life…it addresses physical, mental and emotional needs and balances them all. Yoga is for YOUR body – never mind your size, your weight, your preference to be on the couch or at the gym…just one month of regular yoga and much of this will change. Yoga is cardio-vascular, it is excellent for cross-training as a way to prevent injury and secure peak athletic performance with quick recovery.
Sound too good to be true? The catch is that you have to show up…you have to be prepared to invest a little in attempting the poses, in understanding what is going wrong so you can learn how to get it right. You have to humble yourself to take this journey with curiosity rather than competitiveness. The fun is playing with gravity, playing with sudden moments of recognition when all the parts of the body work together to make a shape easy…yoga teaches you to work smart in your body, so that your body works like a well-oiled machine, effective and efficient in energy investment.
Imagine your body as a bank account. What do you put in by way of resources to support, to energize and to promote longevity? What do you do that makes withdrawals of energy? Flu for example is when there is a greater withdrawal than investment in health. Yoga is a way of putting greater resources of health into the body through breathing and movement that supports the body. Yoga is a way to balance your lifestyle choices so that you are healthier and happier! Literally, when the endocrine system is in balance, and the organs are clean, the mind simply thinks cleaner thoughts.
You have to experience it to believe it! Just show up!
For more information contact Kerry at the Haum of Yoga team on 0848004444
or email www.haumofyoga.co.za
