Yoga Tips For Women
Yoga is essential for women at every stage of life. Their capability to handle challenges and stress, whether emotional or physical, highly depends on your health. Yoga makes one more aware of the strengths and weaknesses while exploring the new horizons in fast paced life.
Yoga during Menstruation.It is time for you to take it a little easier, especially the first 3 days. Do not do any strenuous practice during this period. Do the postures gently. It is recommended to avoid the inverted postures. However, experienced yoga students may feel comfortable doing their regular practice.
Give more time to your meditations. Listen to your body and practice accordingly. Some of the postures, along with deep breathing that are helpful in reducing menstrual discomfort are:
The Triangle (Trikonasana)
Benefits:
Butterfly posture
Benefits:
- Yoga is especially helpful to alleviate the lower back pain common in women before menstruation, during pregnancy and towards menopause.
- A regular yoga routine has ability to even out periods and alleviate the anxiety and depression common at ’that time’.
- Yoga asanas which strengthen the abdominal muscles are good for reducing common women’s problems related to lower abdomen.
Yoga during Menstruation.It is time for you to take it a little easier, especially the first 3 days. Do not do any strenuous practice during this period. Do the postures gently. It is recommended to avoid the inverted postures. However, experienced yoga students may feel comfortable doing their regular practice.
Give more time to your meditations. Listen to your body and practice accordingly. Some of the postures, along with deep breathing that are helpful in reducing menstrual discomfort are:
The Triangle (Trikonasana)
- Stand with your feet about 3-feet apart
- Rotate the right foot 90 degrees to the outside.yoga women
- Rotate the left foot 15 degrees to the inside
- Align your right heel with the centre of the left foot
- Stand erect, pressing the feet firmly into the ground. Balance yourself
- Breathing in, stretch the arms out to the sides, palms facing up
- Breathing out, bend to the right side. Keep the arms in a straight line, with the right arm reaching for the right foot and left arm reaching for the ceiling
- Turn your head to look up at the left palm. Rotate your torso to have the chest facing the opposite wall. (If you are bending forward toward the floor, come up a bit and focus on bending sideways.)
- Hold
- Breathing in, pull yourself up with the strength of your left arm
- Repeat steps 2-10, bending to the left side
- Breathing out, bring the arms down
- Stretches the sides of the body
- Tones the arms, legs, and abdominal organs
- Improves flexibility of the spine and hips
- Sit up with the legs stretched out straight in front of you, keeping the spine erect and toes flexed toward you
- Breathing in, raise both arms above your head and stretch up
- Breathing out, bend forward from the hip joints, chin moving toward the toes. Keep the spine erect focusing on moving forwards towards the toes, rather than down towards the knees
- Place your hands on your legs, wherever they reach, without forcing. If you can, take hold of your toes and pull on them to help you go forward
- Breathing in, lift your head slightly and lengthen your spine
- Breathing out, gently move the navel towards the knees
- Repeat this movement two or three times
- Drop your head down and breathe deeply for 20-60 seconds
- Stretch the arms out in front of you
- Breathing in, with the strength of your arms, come back to the sitting position
- Breathe out and lower the arms
Benefits:
- Stretches lower back, hamstrings and hips
- Massages and tones the abdominal and pelvic organs
- Tones the shoulders
Butterfly posture
- Begin by sitting on the floor and bring the soles of your feet together
- Clasp your feet with your hands, straightening your arms and sitting up very straight
- Close your eyes and begin raising and lowering your knees, as a butterfly would flap its wings (hence the name)
- Continue this movement for 30-60 seconds and then relax
Benefits:
- Stretches lower back, and hips
- Massages and tones the abdominal and pelvic organs
- Stretches thighs and tones the muscles
Yoga For Working Women
Yoga for working women
You may never have seen this job advertisement before but there are millions of women like you who lovingly and devotedly play this role everyday.
A tough job!
Do these sentiments surface sometimes for you?
Invest in yourself!
In the long term however, there is no other choice. You have to find ways to rejuvenate and energize yourself. Here is our recommendation for you – it is called MY REST.
Hear what other women have to say -
A few minutes of yoga can leave you energized all day long and add an extra hour to your day. "When you meditate, the same work that you normally perform in four hours, you can do in two hours. So two hours more are given to you to balance between work and family," shares Bhanumathi Narasimhan, a homemaker, mother, and a working woman with a hectic travel schedule.
"After the Sri Sri Yoga Course, I have had tremendous amount of energy. With regular practice, I have been focused at work and I'm quite relaxed. Being married, managing housework and office would make me irritable. But now I have a pleasant frame of mind, I'm more efficient, happy, relaxed!" shares Pritika Nair, online content writer.
Takeaway tips for youYou can do some of the simple yoga stretches and sukshma vyayam at your office desk. This can relax your tired muscles.
A tough job!
- Job Title: Superwoman
- Job Conditions: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
- Job responsibilities: Manage a demanding career, nurture the home, take care of the family (including in-laws and outlaws), balance budgets, handle household operations, be the perfect hostess, and be an intelligent and interesting person
- Key skills expected: Perfect execution in all spheres, management skills, conflict-resolution abilities, counseling skills, culinary skills, financial acumen, relationship management, multi-role-player abilities.
- Emotional strength: The need to achieve perfection on multiple fronts may cause pressure and turmoil. While the work environment demands equal capabilities and performance from you, there is no let-up on the expectations at home. Women need to make sure that they have the emotional energy to efficiently manage the demands of all the roles they juggle: daughter, sister, wife, daughter–in–law, mother, and the list goes on.
- Mental keenness: Each responsibility requires different kinds of capabilities; you need to be able to give the best of your intellectual abilities and adapt them to the varied situations at hand.
- Physical fitness: You need to have the stamina to fulfill commitments at so many levels with the same kind of zeal.
- And yet, persistent negligence!
Do these sentiments surface sometimes for you?
- "I'm unable to manage home and work."
- "I feel low on energy by the time I'm home."
- "I can hardly find time for myself."
- "I'm so stressed!"
- "My health problems are causing a hindrance."
Invest in yourself!
In the long term however, there is no other choice. You have to find ways to rejuvenate and energize yourself. Here is our recommendation for you – it is called MY REST.
- Meditation: it is healing and heart opening.
- Yoga: the best way to honor your body.
- Respect: yourself, what you do, your body and feminity. Value what you have been able to do, instead of regretting about what you have not been able to do.
- Express: Choose a creative hobby, learn an instrument, write an article, paint a picture, get a tattoo and make your teenage children jealous, play a game, have fun!
- Smile (a lot): it is the best makeup you can wear. It is something which brings a different charm on women's face.
- Take a break: you deserve it!
Hear what other women have to say -
A few minutes of yoga can leave you energized all day long and add an extra hour to your day. "When you meditate, the same work that you normally perform in four hours, you can do in two hours. So two hours more are given to you to balance between work and family," shares Bhanumathi Narasimhan, a homemaker, mother, and a working woman with a hectic travel schedule.
"After the Sri Sri Yoga Course, I have had tremendous amount of energy. With regular practice, I have been focused at work and I'm quite relaxed. Being married, managing housework and office would make me irritable. But now I have a pleasant frame of mind, I'm more efficient, happy, relaxed!" shares Pritika Nair, online content writer.
Takeaway tips for youYou can do some of the simple yoga stretches and sukshma vyayam at your office desk. This can relax your tired muscles.
- Rotate your wrists, neck and ankles clockwise and anti-clockwise in turns.
- Stretch your back.
- Take the stairs instead of the elevator, wherever possible.
- Walk while having long phone conversations.
- Do a few simple breathing exercises.
- Take a few minutes off and do an online meditation.
If A is for Apple, E is for Elephant, and U for Umbrella, don’t be surprised if kids reading alphabets today spell “Y for Yoga”. Indeed, yoga is becoming more and more popular today. While there may be many reasons for this, one who has experienced the powerful benefits of simple yogic practices would hardly be surprised at how the ‘Y’ word has risen to great popularity. Since the only qualification required for yoga is the ‘ability to breathe’, people from all backgrounds, age groups and occupations could choose to take its benefits. How to do that?
To most people, the word ‘Yoga’ means a set of physical exercises or postures (called ‘asanas’ in Sanskrit). It is very interesting to know that these ‘asanas’ or physical exercises are just one of the eight “limbs of Yoga”, as explained by Maharishi Patanjali in the ancient times. Aside from the Asanas, yoga also consists of meditation, breathing techniques such as Pranayams and Kriya Yoga, hygiene and the practice of moral values. As a whole, yoga brings about not just good health to the body, but also to the mind, emotions, energy and personality. In short, it contributes to a wholesome and fulfilling life.
A complete and fulfilling life is often missing today, perhaps more than ever before. Longer working hours, reduced physical exercise, greater competition at schools and workplaces, increasing use of chemicals in food and items of daily use are some of the common factors which are leading to unbalanced, unhealthy and stressful lifestyles today. Left unchecked, this can lead to psychological and health issues. It is not surprising that diseases of the body – heart ailments, diabetes, obesity – and mind – depression, anxiety, insomnia (problems with sleep) and phobias – are so common today. Yoga offers protection from these ailments.
The old proverb ‘Prevention is better than cure’ applies perfectly well to the practice of Yoga. Apart from preventing the emotional trauma suffered by the ill and their families, one can also avoid the rising costs of medication as well as the harmful side-effects that invariably accompany allopathic medicines. But the stand-out advantage of a ‘Sadhak’ (one who practices Yoga) over others is the tremendous strength and qualities he or she gets in personality, such as the ability to focus and yet be relaxed at the same time, overcoming failure and rejection, high self-confidence and clarity of thought. His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has said: “Look at the benefits of spirituality. 1) It brings enthusiasm. 2) There is more time in your life. You can do with only 5-6 hours of sleep. It will keep you energized. 3) Will enhance your Creativity 4) Increase your Energy levels. All these lead to prosperity.”
Yogic practices have also touched the lives of the celebrated and the popular. Bollywood stars Lara Dutta and Kunal Kapoor are active supporters and teachers of Yoga. The Sri Lankan Government arranged a yoga workshop for its national cricket team following an assassination attempt on the team while on tour in Pakistan in 2009. The Sri Lankan captain was quoted as saying that “he had felt relaxed and calm” after practicing the breathing techniques. Among other famous personalities who have practiced Yoga are Arnold Schwarzenegger, Madonna, Angelina Jolie Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi.
Modern technology has also made yoga very convenient to practice. Locating yoga classes and regular practice groups has never been easier, thanks to the internet and telephone. Even meditation can be done on the internet with the help of audio tracks which guide the user through instructions. Thanks to music players on mobile phones and other portable instruments, meditation is possible anywhere, anytime using audio tracks – during lunch breaks, while commuting, in busy offices or in serene lawns.
Indeed, it is now possible to practice yoga around hectic schedules and tight deadlines without much effort. The more relevant truth is that today’s fast-paced world makes it necessary to practice yoga to keep good health, joy and a sense of balance in life. It is easy to do. And fun! So, roll out your mat and begin!
To most people, the word ‘Yoga’ means a set of physical exercises or postures (called ‘asanas’ in Sanskrit). It is very interesting to know that these ‘asanas’ or physical exercises are just one of the eight “limbs of Yoga”, as explained by Maharishi Patanjali in the ancient times. Aside from the Asanas, yoga also consists of meditation, breathing techniques such as Pranayams and Kriya Yoga, hygiene and the practice of moral values. As a whole, yoga brings about not just good health to the body, but also to the mind, emotions, energy and personality. In short, it contributes to a wholesome and fulfilling life.
A complete and fulfilling life is often missing today, perhaps more than ever before. Longer working hours, reduced physical exercise, greater competition at schools and workplaces, increasing use of chemicals in food and items of daily use are some of the common factors which are leading to unbalanced, unhealthy and stressful lifestyles today. Left unchecked, this can lead to psychological and health issues. It is not surprising that diseases of the body – heart ailments, diabetes, obesity – and mind – depression, anxiety, insomnia (problems with sleep) and phobias – are so common today. Yoga offers protection from these ailments.
The old proverb ‘Prevention is better than cure’ applies perfectly well to the practice of Yoga. Apart from preventing the emotional trauma suffered by the ill and their families, one can also avoid the rising costs of medication as well as the harmful side-effects that invariably accompany allopathic medicines. But the stand-out advantage of a ‘Sadhak’ (one who practices Yoga) over others is the tremendous strength and qualities he or she gets in personality, such as the ability to focus and yet be relaxed at the same time, overcoming failure and rejection, high self-confidence and clarity of thought. His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has said: “Look at the benefits of spirituality. 1) It brings enthusiasm. 2) There is more time in your life. You can do with only 5-6 hours of sleep. It will keep you energized. 3) Will enhance your Creativity 4) Increase your Energy levels. All these lead to prosperity.”
Yogic practices have also touched the lives of the celebrated and the popular. Bollywood stars Lara Dutta and Kunal Kapoor are active supporters and teachers of Yoga. The Sri Lankan Government arranged a yoga workshop for its national cricket team following an assassination attempt on the team while on tour in Pakistan in 2009. The Sri Lankan captain was quoted as saying that “he had felt relaxed and calm” after practicing the breathing techniques. Among other famous personalities who have practiced Yoga are Arnold Schwarzenegger, Madonna, Angelina Jolie Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi.
Modern technology has also made yoga very convenient to practice. Locating yoga classes and regular practice groups has never been easier, thanks to the internet and telephone. Even meditation can be done on the internet with the help of audio tracks which guide the user through instructions. Thanks to music players on mobile phones and other portable instruments, meditation is possible anywhere, anytime using audio tracks – during lunch breaks, while commuting, in busy offices or in serene lawns.
Indeed, it is now possible to practice yoga around hectic schedules and tight deadlines without much effort. The more relevant truth is that today’s fast-paced world makes it necessary to practice yoga to keep good health, joy and a sense of balance in life. It is easy to do. And fun! So, roll out your mat and begin!