Yoga for a Healthy Mind and Body
Nearly all of us would like less stress in our lives, a better ability to focus, improved health, and a fitness routine that we truly enjoy. You may be surprised to learn that yoga provides all of these benefits with a system of exercises that can be adapted to any age or level of fitness.
Nearly all of us would like less stress in our lives, a better ability to focus, improved health, and a fitness routine that we truly enjoy. You may be surprised to learn that yoga provides all of these benefits with a system of exercises that can be adapted to any age or level of fitness.
Today, millions of people practice yoga, from young to old, from the hyper-athletic to those dealing with chronic diseases. Based on extensive studies, yoga is recognized as one of the most effective activities for achieving a healthy mind and body.
While the roots of yoga go back thousands of years, yoga is a relatively new phenomenon in the West, where it has blossomed into a multitude of different styles, each addressing a specific set of issues. For example, yoga routines have been optimized for these goals, among others:
- Calming: A practice called yin yoga gently stretches the body’s connective tissues in poses held for several minutes at a time. It is ideal for meditation.
- Cardiovascular fitness: Power yoga is a vigorous workout, coordinated with attentive breathing that leaves you feeling both vibrant and centered.
- Pain relief: Yoga exercises focused on breathing, stretching, and relaxing can relieve chronic pain in the lower back, arthritic joints, and other areas of the body.
- Mental healing: Forrest yoga is one of several yoga practices that help resolve addictive behavior, eating disorders, negative thought patterns, and other self-destructive habits.
Yoga’s many poses and exercises make it endlessly interesting and emotionally rich, giving you a wealth of options for designing a practice that fits your needs. Isn’t it time to get started—not just learning about yoga but doing it?
Yoga for a Healthy Mind and Body is the ideal way to take that first step with a course that makes yoga accessible and the poses doable. These 12 half-hour lectures with acclaimed yoga teacher Dr. Heidi Sormaz will also deepen the knowledge of those already experienced in yoga. No other yoga video program offers such a comprehensive presentation of both the science and practice of the discipline.
Discover Yoga’s Many Benefits
After covering the history of yoga and its physiological effects, Dr. Sormaz takes you through a diverse set of routines, introducing the basics of hatha yoga along with the more specialized practices of Iyengar yoga, power yoga, yin yoga, Anusara yoga, and Forrest yoga. You don’t just learn how to do the poses; you learn how conscious breathing and a focus on mindfulness can open the door to yoga’s many benefits that go beyond improved physical health.
Dr. Sormaz has a Ph.D. in Psychology from Yale University and is an expert on the emotional obstacles that can be addressed by the powerful meditative component of yoga. In Yoga for a Healthy Mind and Body, you practice simple routines that make you feel and move better, and you also learn how yoga can help resolve chronic pain, insomnia, depression, anxiety, and cravings and compulsions.
A typical yoga session incorporates a wide range of intriguingly-named poses, such as warrior 1 and 2, cat/cow, side angle, mountain, and downward facing dog. Dr. Sormaz demonstrates how these and many other revitalizing exercises are the building blocks of a yoga routine that can be tailored specifically to your needs.
If you are a person who thinks, “I’m not flexible enough to do yoga,” then that’s exactly why you
should try this course. Dr. Sormaz shows that there is a practice that will work for you and start you on your road to a healthier mind and body.
