Daily Yoga Pose
Pose Name: Reverse Warrior
Sanskrit Pose Name: Viparita Virabhadrasana
Chakra: Solar Plexus Chakra
Level of Pose: Beginner
Health Benefits: Opens and strengthens the lungs and respiratory system; strengthens legs, arms, and back; stretches obliques. Tones the waist and stretches the groin.
Emotional Benefits: Helps you feel expansive, open-hearted, and willing to try new things.
Instructions: Start in Warrior II, which is a deep lunge with your front knee no further than your front foot and your back foot turned in slightly with your back heel on the ground. Your hips are open to the side and arms are stretched out reaching forward and backward. Drop your back arm down your back leg as you lift your front arm up and back making a crescent shape with your arm. Look up and back. Breathe deeply. Switch and do the same thing on the other side.
Pose Name: Splits
Sanskrit Pose Name: Hanumanasana
Chakra: Sacral and Root Chakra
Level of Pose: Advanced
Health Benefits: Stimulates digestion and helps reproductive organs. Stretches groin, thighs, hips and back. Stretches hamstrings to reduce lower back pain.
Emotional Benefits: Helps relieve stress and tension.
Instructions: Start in a lunge position with your right leg forward and your left knee on the ground. Start to straighten your front leg and slide the right heel forward until you feel a stretch but not pain. Keep one hand on each side of the leg to help take some pressure off. You may want to use blocks under your hands. Keep your left hip pulling forward so the hips are square. Stay in the position as long as you would like breathing deeply and then switch sides.
Pose Name: Happy Baby
Sanskrit Pose Name: Ananda Balasana
Chakra: Root and Sacral Chakra
Level of Pose: Beginner
Health Benefits: Realigns spine, stretches and relieves lower back. Stretches groin and inner thighs.
Emotional Benefits: Lowers stress and allows energy to flow better to all chakras.
Instructions: Begin laying down on your back and then bend your legs and lift them so you can grab the outsides of your feet. Keep your elbows inside of your knees and pull your feet down to stretch your hips and bring your knees closer to the ground. Breathe deeply and rock gently side to side in this position to massage the muscles that line the spine.
Pose Name: Head To Knee Forward Bend
Sanskrit Pose Name: Janu Sirsasana
Chakra: Heart Chakra and Sacral Chakra
Level of Pose: Beginner
Health Benefits: Helps with menopause symtoms. Stretches hamstrings and back. Stimulates digestion, liver and kidneys.
Emotional Benefits: Relieves anxiety and can help reduce feelings of depression.
Instructions: Start sitting and bring one leg out in front of you bending the opposite leg so the inside of your foot comes the inside of your thigh on the opposite leg. Turn towards the outstretched leg using your core muscles and reach towards your foot. Lengthen from the base of your spine and bring your nose towards your knee and breathe before switching to the other side.
Pose Name: Standing Forward Bend
Sanskrit Pose Name: Uttanasana
Chakra: Root Chakra
Level of Pose: Beginner
Health Benefits: Improves digestion, complexion, memory and other brain functions. Improves heart health and stretches hamstrings. Relieves lower back pain. Can help relieve headaches.
Emotional Benefits: Reduces anxiety. Brings clarity and a fresh perspective.
Instructions: Stand with your feet hip distance apart. Lean forward and grab your toes with your index and pointer finger. Inhale and lift your torso straightening the spine but hold onto the toes. Exhale bend your elbows to the sides to pull your nose toward your knees. Take three deep ujayyi breaths here.
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What is Yoga?
In Sanskrit, yoga literally refers to a connection or uniting, or the act of discipline. A practice that dates back thousands of years, yoga involves a combination of meditation, movement, and spirituality to bring us into connection with the Universal energy that allows us to connect with our soul. Yoga guides us to enlightenment, not just through the flows and poses themselves, but through a retraining of the mind that harnesses the energy of the body to expand one’s consciousness. Yoga has many forms and the benefits reach far beyond the physical body. Like meditation, yoga is a personal practice that will look different from person to person.
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What are the Different Types of Yoga?
In the west, there are 22 main different types of yoga. The poses in traditional yoga are called asanas. The traditional branches of yoga include Hatha, Vinyasa, Iyengar, Anusara, and Ashtanga. Traditional yoga almost always includes mantras, breathwork, and meditation. Kriya yoga, kundalini yoga, and yoga nidra focus more on the emotions, mind, and soul through a development of the mind and energetic body. Recently, more westernized versions have evolved, giving us Bikram, Restorative, Yin, hot yoga, and many other variations.
It’s important to realize that every type of yoga will have an entirely different feeling, depending on the style, speed, environment, and the teacher (if there is one) - so don’t let one bad experience throw you off. Yoga takes study, persistence and personal dedication. Keep experimenting until you find the style that works best for you and your unique needs.
How to Decide Which Type of Yoga is Best For You
If you are looking to lose weight, a regular vinyasa or heated vinyasa class can help speed up your metabolism. The emotions can best be aided in slower, more traditional forms of yoga where meditation and breathwork are prioritized. Hatha yoga is a great way to prepare the body to sit in meditation. Ultimately, reading about the types of yoga will allow you to intuitively pick a type that will help you grow the most.
If you’re dealing with substance abuse, depression, anxiety, or abusive relationships, just getting to class can be difficult. Not everyone has access to a yoga studio either. At Daily Life, we want to assist you in developing your yoga practice by meeting you exactly where you’re at. Check this page every day for a new daily yoga pose that you can experiment with in the comfort of your own home.
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How Does Yoga Affect Mental Health?
Yoga is continually prescribed to help people with depression, PTSD, anxiety, and other mental health issues. While yoga is not a substitute for serious mental health condition treatments, it can be incredibly impactful as a supplement in the healing process. Yoga helps regulate the chemical balance and hormones in the body, bringing the mind, body, and soul into harmony. Because yoga teaches us how to manage our mind while strengthening the physical vessel we take through the world every day, yoga can be a crucial catalyst of growth and healing.
How Does Yoga Improve the Mind?
Yoga works by making you more conscious of your mind, allowing you more control over what you keep inside it. For many people, yoga is actually much more about the mind than the body. A lot of people don’t realize the myriad mental benefits of yoga that they keep going back because they start to feel a little better each time. The gentle coaxing of the teacher, the fluidity and flow of movement, and the calmness of the yogic mind all contribute to the health of the mind.
How Does Yoga Affect the Soul?
Yoga’s purpose is to connect you with your soul. The Ego, the sense of one’s self as a physical being in the world, often obstructs our ability to communicate with the soul, which is where the true self is housed. Yoga allows us to raise our health and emotional state to be able to perceive the higher frequency through which our soul communicates with us. Once we establish a clear channel through which to access our soul, we can align our thoughts, motivations, words, and actions to be in harmony with ourselves and the life force that we are all a part of on this planet.
How Does Yoga Improve the Body?
Yoga improves the 10 main systems of your body: skeletal, muscular, circulatory, digestive, urinary, reproductive, lymphatic, nervous, endocrine, and respiratory systems. As if that’s not enough, yoga is designed to bring harmony and balance to the mind, body, and soul. If the mind and soul are not in balance, the body will feel the effects. Adopting a regular yoga practice into your daily life will allow your brain function to improve and your body to detox as well as strengthen itself to defend against illness naturally. Yoga is the science of optimization.
Can Yoga Assist in Weight Loss?
Yes! Yoga stimulates the metabolism and internal organs, regulating digestion. With consistent practice, yoga builds momentum that aids in weight loss in various ways. As your muscles grow and strengthen, your body burns more fat since the fat cells store the energy that is used to feed the muscles. Even breathwork can improve the metabolism because it creates heat in the body, causing the metabolism to speed up. Of course, yoga is not an overnight fix (but what is?) and the results will be greater with more frequent practice.