Yoga provides a natural relief for anxiety. Harvard Medical School stated that a wide range of yoga practices suggest they can reduce the impact of exaggerated stress responses. As a result they may be helpful for both anxiety and depression. For this reason, yoga functions like other self-soothing techniques, such as meditation, relaxation, exercise, or even socialising with friends.
By reducing perceived stress and anxiety, yoga appears to modulate stress response systems. This, in turn, decreases physiological arousal â for example, reducing the heart rate, lowering blood pressure, and easing respiration. Likewise there is also evidence that yoga practices help increase heart rate variability, an indicator of the body’s ability to respond to stress more flexibly.
The chakras store the anxiety
Notably if someone is feeling anxious it is very difficult to lasso the mind and body to sit in the stillness and emptiness of Yoga. Often the mind will conjure up many reasons not to attend a class. Even though, after a class the vibration of anxiety inevitably slows down.
Chakras store anxiety
A yoga practice will move the anxious vibrating energy. The prana (life force) moves the anxiety from the solar plexus chakra (Manipura chakra) down to the root chakra (Muladhara chakra). Under those circumstances you will feel a sense of feeling grounded, solid and secure (kapha) .
Literally speaking, the word âchakraâ from Sanskrit translates to âwheelâ or âdisk,â but references a spiritual energy centre within the human body. You can read more about the chakras here.
5 ways Yoga relieves anxiety
A regular Yoga practice is an act of self love and has many benefits like improved breathing, stretching, relaxation, peacefulness of mind and a like minded community. These are all built into the one class. When you recognise you are having an anxiety attack, tune in and ask yourself the following:-
Where do I feel the sensation in my body?
Am I concerned with something that is happening now, in the past or future?
How smooth, subtle and long is my breath?
Do I feel restless and unsettled?
What do do I need right now, am I hungry or cold?
Yoga relieves anxiety
Yoga (asana) is not just for the physical body to build strength and flexibility. Actually Yoga works on so many levels including the mind, body and spirit.
Yoga and Ayurveda combined providing many benefits and tools to help you to manage your vata, pita or kapha imbalances.
Anxiety, Ayurveda and Vata dosha
Anxiety is a vibration that is experienced in the mind and body. The body vibrates as the thoughts jump around. Anxiety produces the Ayurveda symptom of Vata. Vata is predominantly air and ether and moves via prana (life force) throughout the body.
People born with the Vata dosha when out of balance experience anxiety. Others may not be predominately Vata but have experienced a traumatic event in their lives increasing vata. Equally, growing up in a home with strong vibrations may seem the norm, until diagnosed with anxiety.
Motivating oneself to make changes can be difficult for a kapha, a pita will think the issue is outside of them, and a vata person will find it difficult to slow down and stick to a plan. To discover more about Ayurveda you can take our simple test here.
Can you feel the vibrations?
‘Can you feel the vibes man’ – was a popular saying in the 1960’s. It was seen to be a hippy term that coincided with the sensitive, vegetarian, peace, loving lifestyle. Vata is a sensitive body type and just the tone in the environment or interactions with others can disturb.
The vibration of anxiety is exhausting to experience and be around and is linked to the base emotion of fear. Likewise the side effects of fear or anxiety lead to the Vata symptoms of: insomnia, constipation, rapid movement, fast speech, shallow breathing, poor digestion and restlessness.
Ayurveda states like increases like
Feeling anxious often makes it difficult to want to sit still and slow the mind down. Anxious people will gravitate to others with the same vibration. Having said that Yoga combined with Ayurveda has many tips to reduce anxiety.
12 practical suggestions to reduce anxiety
Track back after an anxiety attack to view how its started (and subsided)
The glow of technology suppresses and effects the pineal gland from functioning properly in the brain. This gland the Yogis have recognised for thousands of years. Did you know that the pineal gland produces melatonin? Likewise it is activated by darkness and inhibited by light. As well as suppressed by electromagnetic fields (EMF) released by mobile phones and other wireless devices (5G).
Magical pineal gland is an endocrine gland sitting alone in the brain, level with our eyes. Whether we look at it from a philosophical or a scientific point of view, the pineal gland plays a vital role in mental, physical, and spiritual health. Yogis have long known h importance of the pineal gland with postures having a positive effect. However the ongoing and long effects of Technology are only just being known.
What Does the Pineal Gland Do?
Melatonin is what the pineal gland produces and this is in charge of our daily and seasonal circadian rhythms. There is a direct connection to our sleep cycles and the quality of our sleep from melatonin. It also regulates the onset of puberty.
High melatonin levels reduce cortisol which allows us to sleep at night. On the other hand, low melatonin levels increase cortisol which causes anxiety and disrupts our sleep patterns. Fighting against free radicals is what Melatonin is in charge of. A decline in melatonin can also trigger the ageing process in the body.
Serotonin, the neurotransmitter of the happy chemical responsible for our mood, is transformed into melatonin only in the pineal gland. Melatonin is not only crucial to healthy cell growth, but it also affects the levels of a stress hormone called cortisol.
Once released, melatonin circulates through the brain and enters nearby blood vessels that will distribute it to the rest of the body. When melatonin levels are disrupted, people often experience mood swings, depression, and seasonal disorders.
Spiritual Aspects of the Pineal Gland
Given its essential role, it comes as no surprise that an activated and healthy pineal gland has been linked with spirituality for millennia. Its pinecone shape can be found in art and artefacts of many ancient traditions, where it is associated with enlightenment and immortality. Ancient Egyptians admired this tiny gland so much that they even preserved it separately during the process of mummification.
The pineal is a major psychophysiological centre or a chakra (energy centre), according to Yogic teachings. Â Many people consider the pineal gland to be the source of intuition and clairvoyance. It has also been called âthe principal seat of the soul,â and the portal to the higher dimensions. This is because the pineal, or third eye, provides perception beyond plain sight.
When the pineal and the third eye are awakened, our whole body awakens. They enable us to open up to having visions, clairvoyance, and other psychic gifts. It is crucial to our spiritual growth and consciousness to keep our pineal gland-free of toxic substances. As we become more toxic, and exposed to the effects of technology our pineal gland calcifies further. This causes us to lose our spiritual connection to higher energies and our oneness with everything.
Technology overuse and the effects on the body
We define technology addiction as an uncontrollable impulse that forces you to use mobile devices, the internet, graze on social media or simply play games. These malpractices lead to the Pineal gland not working properly. The effects this has on the body will be further explained. Our Sleepy Time Yoga is part of the Yoga for over 40's (online) classes and will help you to sleep and counter the effects of technology on your pineal gland.
In general, addiction is characterised by the inability to consistently abstain from something. Impairment in behavioural control, craving, reduced recognition of major problems with oneâs behaviours and interpersonal relationships, and impaired emotional response.
Technology Addiction
Like many other chronic diseases, addiction often involves cycles of relapse and remission. Without treatment or engagement in recovery activities, addiction is progressive and results in disability or premature death.
Four key parts constitute addiction:
Addiction include both substances or/and activities such as sex, work, media, eating, shopping, alcohol, drugs and gambling
An addiction leads to substantial harm
The definition of addiction is repeated involvement despite considerable harm
Pleasurable and/or valuable is what makes adddiction persists
Addiction is a psychological or physical need to do or use something, to the point where it could be detrimental to you.
Technology addiction - Zoom, Facebook, Youtube and isolation
With the increase in the use of technology, staying at home, using Zoom and Facebook etc to connect with the outside world our dependency and addiction to a digital life has increased. People are spending hours each day browsing social media or playing games while forsaking other aspects of their lives. No matter what the personâs addiction is, they canât control how they use it. They may even start to rely on it to get through daily life.
Some studies suggest that addiction is genetic. However, environmental factors, such as being brought up by someone with an addiction could also increase the risk. An addiction is a way of masking or medicating the difficulties within oneâs life. Research shows addiction often is triggered by childhood trauma and abuse. However, it can come from other things such as unemployment, poverty along with stress, and emotional or professional pressure.
A digital detox story
A good friend told me about "sleep hygiene."Â Likewise I started shutting the lid on the computer, no later than 7 p.m. But I still had the phone.
A new strategy was to delete the Facebook app from my phone, this stopped me from looking at it throughout the day. But it was still only on my iPad. Lets limit myself to just one look before going to bed I thought. However before I knew it time had passed and I was so engrossed with the alternative media. With the recent bushfires, floods and now the plague of the COVID 19, I look at these devices even more.
With three Facebook pages and one profile to manage there was always so much to do. Furthermore, I have two business websites that constantly need work to keep them alive. As well as five e-mail addresses, a LinkedIn business profile, Instagram photos, Twitter posts, Pinterest boards, Google business and Google Plus pages to manage. Yikes!
Apps on devices are made to be addictive
Messenger, Skype and WhatsApp and an app that helps to prevent any vagueness around money. Time has also been used up in front of the screen writing and uploading 4 digital books to iTunes and Amazon. Of course then I need to download iBooks, Kindle and the Kobo book reading apps.
There has been no time for a TV in my life over the past 10 years. When I have time to watch something I use SBS and ABC on-demand viewing platforms. The iPad is easily transportable and will go with me outside when I stop to have a cuppa. Making movies and editing images on my phone and iPad is enjoyable and time consuming.  There is always something to do. Talk about complicated and busy mind. Life is so full and I am so grateful for Sleepy Time Yoga.
As a teacher of technology for that last 35 years, I know there are many benefits with technology and I marvel at the changes. However, anything in excess soon becomes the exact opposite â a disadvantage. If we do anything too much, we begin to lose balance and feel the painful symptoms.
What Yoga Can Do to Counteract the Effects of Overdosing On Technology
Optimal health and balance of the entire being is Yogaâs mission. Technology addiction can directly affect the pineal gland and this leads to being out of balance. Quality of life is diminished. Learning tools to bring your self into a state of balance is a much needed strategy in todays world. The irony is we use technology to connect yet in reality the effects of overusing a good thing, keep us separated from ourselves and others.
The balancing act of Yoga poses, meditation, breathing and chanting may be everything we need to remedy our minds and get our circadian rhythms back in sync. Some tips to keep yourself in balance are:
Spend time in the sunlight every day.
Shut the lid on computers at 7pm.
Sleep in complete darkness.
Commit to a regular meditation practice before bed, because this will develop and enhance your pineal gland.
There are many Yogic practices that are very powerful methods for awakening the pineal gland.
Inversions are especially helpful since they increase blood flow to the pineal while you are upside down.
The practice of Yoga Nidra and yogic sleep meditation can also help in awakening the pineal gland.
Technology Addiction and Pineal Gland
How Sleepy Time Yoga helps
As a computer coach, a Yoga Ayurveda therapist and someone who is struggles with technology over use I know Yoga therapy works. I have learnt many experience, knowledge and skills to help people with their technology addictions. You will learn to bring yourself to a state of balance.
Learn how to be time efficient using technology. Likewise create time to focus on your visions and goals in life.
By incorporating Yoga Ayurveda Therapy into your everyday life. Our Lunchtime Chair Yoga Therapy is about sitting at the desk. You will bring into your everyday life when standing in a cue or the simple act of breathing, opening and stretching. Yoga reverses the harmful effects that technology has on the pineal gland, body and mind. Combining both Yoga Ayurveda therapy with technology you bridge the gap between the ancient teachings and the modern day technologies. As a consequence, you will move towards a healthier lifestyle.
There are so many ways we can connect with our inner selves or meditate. Some people prefer sitting still for 30 minutes a day and witnessing their thoughts and mental chatter -or joining a retreat and sit for 10 days – or focusing on the body sensations – or letting the thoughts go with the intention of a blank slate, with a job well done IF successful or perhaps walking meditation – gardening, listening to a guided recording – or just “being” truly present with oneself. I am sure you can think of many more.
I have tried so many of the ways meditation is taught over the past 30 years and the style of meditation that best suits me is Yoga Meditation – awareness of combining the breath with the postures. Also I enjoy connecting with nature – decreasing outside distractions like mindless chatter with ear plugs in and listening to my breathing. Chanting or prayerfermations sung to my favourite tunes is another sensory way of mine.
I experience these forms as fine tuning my inner vibration and connecting with myself in a world that encourages disconnecting. A huge distraction for me is technology and busyness – I can always find something to do – but today I ask myself to aspire for 10 mins morning and night (often this can morph into longer time permitting)
Yoga is an act of self love to listen and really hear my inner selves – give them a voice – some team work within me and most importantly I do not set my bar too high for further self criticism or lack of self love.
My understanding of meditation is to listen to my intuition – some may call that God – Wisdom – or even the gut – I aim to feel the sensations in my body – I use my breath as the bridge between my mind and body – creating connection and I use daily triggers to have some conscious long exhalations.
Yoga Meditation is free yet difficult to make the space / time to do.
The Yoga sutras – yamas & niyamas are what leads us to yoga (mostly unconsciously until we hear them) sustaining, nourishing and enhancing our lives.
The 8 steps Patanjali passed down and the Buddha the no 1 teacher of meditation focused on the 1,2,4,5,6,7,8 – not 3, the asana or exercise.
The Buddha gave detailed descriptions of many forms of meditation and mind control techniques. The mind & senses constantly seek distraction & naturally want to find a way out of the stillness – the mind & ego wants to move & change – so a new layer or meditation technique needs to be added to keep the mind still.
Recognition of our thoughts our physical sensations our reactions towards self and others is a noble path – to take responsibility for our actions and to understand our re-actions ( which often comes from our childhood templates ) can make the planet a better place.
How can Yoga for kids be harmful? Yoga creates flexibility of body and mind – flexible and strong like the willow tree – open gracious and giving. Or brittle closed and fearful – what do you want your kids to be? Read this article and let me know what you think!
A recent controversy has been making the news in the United States about banning yoga in schools because of its supposed religious and Hindu overtones.
Sadhguru explains that yoga is a technology, and religion has nothing to do with it. Sadhguru: What religion you belong to has nothing to do with your ability to make use of the yogic systems, because yoga is a technology. Technology does not make any distinction as to what you believe in and what you do not believe in. What you may believe in or not is purely a psychological process â it has got nothing to do with making use of a technology.
Yoga is Hindu just the way gravity is Christian. Just because the law of gravity was propounded by Isaac Newton, who lived in a Christian culture, does it make gravity Christian?
Yoga is a technology. Anybody who is willing to make use of it can make use of it. It is ridiculous to even think that there could be a religious tinge to yoga. The spiritual process and the technology of yoga predates all religion. Before human beings started thinking of forming religious groups to fracture humanity in a way that you canât fix them, the idea that a human being can evolve himself came from Shiva, the Adiyogi.
Hindu is not an âismâ
Why the yogic sciences have gotten labeled as Hindu is because this science and technology grew in this culture. And because this culture was dialectical in nature, naturally they delivered the science in a dialectical manner, involving the cultural strengths of the land, which is essentially the Hindu way of life.
The word âHinduâ has come from the word âSindhu,â which is a river. Because this culture grew from the banks of the river Sindhu or Indus, this culture got labeled as Hindu. Anybody who is born in the land of Indus is a Hindu. It is a geographical identity, which slowly evolved into a cultural identity, and when some very aggressive religions came into the land and a big âcompetitionâ was set up, they tried organizing themselves as a religion â which has not happened yet. You still cannot put them together because they donât have one belief system.
We need to understand this â Hindu is not an âism;â it is not a religion. Being a Hindu does not mean having a particular belief system. Whatever you did in this culture was Hindu.
There is no particular god or ideology which you can call as the Hindu way of life. You can worship a man-god and be a Hindu; you can worship a woman-god and be a Hindu; you can worship a cow and be a Hindu; you can give up all worship and still be a Hindu. So you are a Hindu irrespective of what you believe or donât believe.
The God-makers
At the same time, there was a common line running through all these.
In this culture, the only goal in human life is liberation or mukti. Liberation from the very process of life, from everything that you know as limitations and to go beyond that.
God is not held as the ultimate thing in this culture, God is seen as one of the stepping stones. This is the only culture on the planet which is a godless culture in the sense that, there is no concretized idea of God. You can worship a rock, a cow, your mother â you can worship whatever you feel like â because this is a culture where we have always known that God is our making.
Everywhere else, people believe âGod created us.â Here, we know we created god so we take total freedom to create whatever kind of god we can relate to. It is a science of how to take a human being to his ultimate potential.
We evolved a whole technology of God-making â not just creating forms, but energizing them in such a way that it will assist you to touch that dimension of life which is the basis of creation. It is not because somebody believes in it that it reverberates. This is the science of consecration where we know how to turn a stone into the Divine.
Personally I don’t like yoga in the sun or out in the open around people and the elements.
I prefer to practise yoga so I can listen internally and connect with my intuition & become aware of a deeper awareness that may be stored up in areas within body – as it was said to me once – yoga is not a work out but a work in.
Sunday afternoon a headstand is performed in Bidigak park north Bondi beach – with many people picnicking with their loved ones and pets running around
In honor of Brain Injury Awareness month, former pro snowboarder Kevin Pearce talks about how key the practice is to his ongoing brain injury recovery.
On December 31, 2009, less than two months before the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, snowboarder Kevin Pearcecrashed his head into an icy half pipe in Park City, Utah.
The traumatic brain injury (TBI)brought on a 6-day coma, memory loss, mood swings, and vision problems, but Pearceâs discovery of yoga has helped give him new eyes. Quite literally.
Pearceâs vision problems required glasses all the time, but two months ago, Pearce attended a life-changing yoga class near his home in Carlsbad, California. He drove to the class, wearing his glasses, but found afterward as he drove home, he didnât need to them for the first time in five years.
âIn no way are my eyes 100 percent better, but it made that big of a difference that I donât have to wear glasses anymore,â says Pearce, whose story is captured in the 2013 documentary âThe Crash Reel.â Since then, Pearce has become a regular, practicing yoga and meditation at least once a day when heâs home and at least two or three times a week when traveling.
How could one yoga class have such powerful effects? Former representative Gabrielle Giffords has also been quoted saying yoga is a key part of her therapy recovering from that 2011 gunshot wound to the head. Kim Greene, an injury prevention specialist at the Vail Valley Medical Center in Colorado, isnât surprised. Greeneâs son, Jeremy, suffered a severe TBI in a 1999 car accident when he was 16 years old, and she says thatâs when both she and her son found yoga and meditation.
âThe practices help you use your brain in a different way to calm it down and to focus,âGreene said. âI think thatâs for all of us, but when you have a TBI, your brain is going in 100 different directions at one time, and the yoga and meditation helps to slow it down and bring a calmness.â
Yoga and Meditation Program for Brain Injury Survivors
âFinding yoga and that ability to be exercising and be moving, but at the same time be meditating and be calm and be so relaxed and so mellow, has been so helpful and healing for me in the most amazing way,âPearce said. âIt has changed my life in a way that I could have never imagined, so I want to share what I have found with the rest of the world.â
The impact was so real for him that he enlisted his brother Adam and started The LoveYourBrain Foundation in 2014. In honor of March, Brain Injury Awareness Month, the new nonprofit is leading a monthlong yoga and meditation fundraising campaign. Their aim is to partner with at least one studio in every state to offer a donation-based class. All of the money raised will help grow LoveYourBrainâs flagship yoga program, supporting affordable yoga and meditation classes tailored to the needs of traumatic brain injury survivors.
Other than knowing your dosha ( Ayurvedic body type) through an Ayurvedic consultation to treat skin disorders, below are 3,useful herbs
Three Herbs for that Perfect, Glowing Skin
Want to have that perfectly glowing skin but not sure what to do about it? Well, the answer lies in your own surroundings! We often fail to realize the importance of the things that are easily available to us â the biggest example being ânatureâ itself. Just look around and you will find that there are numerous valuable herbs and plants that have endless therapeutic and rejuvenating properties that could be a boon to your skin in the scorching heat.
Here are three useful, easily available herbs that will pacify your doshas and keep your skin healthy and glowing in summers:
Turmeric (Haldi)
Turmeric purifies blood, nourishes the skin and gives it a healthy natural glow and radiance. It has anti-inflammatory, anti-aging and anti-bacterial properties that help reduce inflammation of skin, acne, pimples, blemishes, pigmentation, and prevent many skin ailments. It also helps heal and prevent dry skin, and slows down the skin aging process.
To brighten your skin up for a hot day, mix turmeric powder and rice powder with raw milk and tomato juice, enough to form a paste, and apply to face and neck for 30 minutes. Rinse with lukewarm water.
For a night cream, prepare a paste made from turmeric and milk or yogurt and apply it to your face. Allow the mask to dry and leave it on overnight. Wash off the mask in the morning using a gentle cleanser.
Applying turmeric powder along with lime juice on exposed areas of the skin helps remove tanning.
Sandalwood (Chandan)
The key ingredient in many Ayurvedic skin-care treatments, Sandalwood is effective in treating scrapes, rashes, blemishes, acne, and other common skin problems. When used externally, the oil and paste of Sandalwood has a calming, cooling effect on the body. It is bitter, sweet, astringent and cooling in nature, and helps balance the body after overexposure to the sun. Sandalwood powder can be made into a paste, lotion or soap for cleansing and hydrating the skin.
Ayurvedic Properties:
Quality: Rough, Light
Taste: Bitter
Post-digestive Effect: Bitter, Sweet
Potency: Cold
Effect on Doshas: Pacifies Pitta and Kapha
How to Use:
To treat pimples, make a paste of one teaspoon of sandalwood powder mixed with one teaspoon of turmeric. Add one teaspoon of water to make the paste, and apply to pimples before bed.
For itchy skin, apply the mixture of one teaspoon of sandalwood with one teaspoon of turmeric and one teaspoon of lime juice. Leave on for 20 to 30 minutes and rinse with cool water.
Sandalwood oil can be used as a moisturizer on the face and body and is also great for massaging.
Mix five tablespoons of coconut oil with two teaspoons of almond oil. Add four teaspoons of sandalwood powder, and apply the mixture to the overexposed areas of your skin. You will notice a considerable improvement in your tan.
Aloe Vera (Ghritkumari)
Aloe Vera has been well known for centuries for its anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, healing and cooling properties. It facilities healing of any kind â be it a skin wound, acne, burn, scald, blisters, insect bites, rashes, urticaria, vaginal infections, allergic reactions or dry skin. The gel of this plant helps to protect the outer layers of the skin, keeps the skin cool and reduces inflammation.
Ayurvedic Properties:
Quality: Heavy, Oily
Taste: Bitter
Post-digestive Effect: Pungent
Potency: Cold
Effect on Doshas: Pacifies Pitta and Kapha
How to use:
Applying Aloe Vera gel on the skin prior to application of make-up can prevent the skin from drying.
lend the pulp of some fresh fruits with Aloe Vera gel in a blender and use it as a pack to keep the skin cool.
Mix Aloe Vera with wheat germ oil or almond oil to use it as a moisturizing pack.
To treat pigmentation, get a fresh leaf of Aloe Vera and split it to remove the gel. Apply this on clean skin and leave for about 20 minutes.
In case of sunburn, the application of Aloe Vera-based cream acts as a protective layer on the skin and helps replenish its moisture.
Yoga is over 5000 years old, it’s one of the oldest forms of healing therapy.  Way back in India, animals were observed in nature, and noted for their particular abilities and many yoga postures were taken from them.
