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Yoga Therapy for Back Pain Series: Yoga Pose for lower back pain – downward-facing dog
Adho Mukha Svanasana, downward-facing dog, is one of the basic poses you will practice in a yoga class. It strengthens the legs and arms, stretches the hamstring muscles, opens your hips optimizing the curve in the lumbar region, and lengthens the spine. All of these are key elements for a healthy pain-free back! Whether you spend a lot of time sitting down and your back feels tight, have tight leg and hips, or you suffer from chronic back pain, this pose can be a life savior.
There are common mis-alignment cues in this pose that make it very challenging for some, such as weak arms, putting too much pressure on the wrists, and tight hamstring muscles and hips. So I will show you a variation of this pose, without bearing weight on your hands to give you the opportunity to learn and work on the alignment.
1. Alignment, alignment, alignment
Stand in front of a wall, place your hands at shoulder level, and walk your feet back until you come to the general form of the pose.
It is key to pay close attention to the way you align your feet and legs. Stand with your feet parallel and draw two imaginary parallel lines that run from the middle of the second and third toe to the front of the ankles.
Make sure that your knees are in line with those two imaginary parallel lines, kneecaps pointing straight ahead. It is important that your knees are straight and that you try to prevent them from turning in.
Keep your hands firmly pressing on the wall, your arms strong and shoulders lifting.
Breathe.
2. Access the hamstring and hip flexor muscles
Bend your knees (keep the knees wide) and lift your sit-bones.
Ground the four corners of your feet evenly, spread your toes and firm your legs.
Press the tops of your feet down, keep the knees bent and press the tops of your thighs back into the back of your legs.
This will allow you to lift you seat even further back and up and you will feel your lumbar spine curve more.
3. Tone the abdominal muscles and ground your legs
Once your thighs are back and you have a healthy curve in the lumbar spine, lift your waistline, take your outer hips back, and extend the tailbone down and forward towards your pubic bone.
You will feel your abdominal muscles engage, the lower belly will lift and your pelvis will feel more grounded.
4. Stretch and expand!
From here, ground your hips to your feet, with your hands push the wall away from you, as you root the top of the thighs and hips and lengthen the spine.
As you stretch your seat back, ground your legs and work on straightening your legs, only as far as you can without compromising the curve and length in your lower back.
The key to this pose is mindful alignment, strength in the legs and arms, and the ability to tone and access deep muscles. This allows you to access the hips, line up the muscles and stretch and lengthen uniformly in balanced action.
The action of rooting the thighs back to curve the spine is very helpful in relieving back pain. Here is another variation you can use and it can help ease lower back pain immediately.
You will need the following props:
- A yoga belt
- A chair
- A steady door handle
Secure belt around the door handle
For this variation secure the belt in the door, place the belt at the top of your thighs, right at the crease of the hips.
Try to get to the general form of the pose and keep your hands on the chair.
Apply the same principles of alignment and actions explained above. Keep your feet grounded and legs very strong.
Try this variation first, it can really help you feel the thighs root into the back of the legs. Gives wonderful relief when you are having lower back pain. Build your strength and work towards the full pose.
Kanta Barrios is a Certified Yoga Teacher E-RYT 500. She is author of best selling DVD “Yoga Therapy for Back Pain & Stress Relief” She lives and teaches regular classes, workshops & yoga retreats in Ireland. www.kantabarriosyoga.com
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Published in categories: Health & Wellness, Yoga & Meditation
Why Practice Yoga
Why Practice Yoga?
I often refocus my intention as to why I practice and teach yoga. Contemplation keeps my practice fresh and avoids the traps of monotony and daily routine. I invite you contemplate the benefits of yoga in your life. A refreshed and vibrant intention will keep your practice filled with enthusiasm.
The following are some of the things I am focusing on this year:
Health and Wellbeing:
In the words of Yoga Master BKS Iyengar:
“Yoga has a threefold impact on health. It keeps healthy people healthy, it inhibits the development of diseases, and it aids recovery from ill health”
When the body is strong, supple and healthy our life flows with a lot more ease. Hatha Yoga is truly a gift to humanity, and when practiced with good alignment is extremely therapeutic.
I’ve always been very active and loved to exercise. Last year, in addition to my regular Yoga practice, I incorporated sessions of interval training. I started to notice the effect that sprinting and running had in my body, and the results were not all good. My body got tighter and I started to feel strain and pain in my lower back. It became obvious that my alignment while running was not correct. I applied my knowledge of alignment from yoga and was able to correct my movement, while also developing a yoga sequence to help my muscles repair and deep stretch accordingly. And the pain went away.
You can pretty much apply the principles of alignment that you learn in yoga to any sport or exercise routine. In my experience, anybody who is interested in doing any kind of sport will benefit from a skillful yoga practice.
And we are just talking about bones and muscles. There are a myriad of benefits yoga provides to help have a healthy digestive, nervous, and endocrine systems, which we will get to in another post.
Mind & Body as One
Yoga is good for the mind. It teaches the mind to focus, pay attention and engage with the body and breath. A mindful yoga practice will sharpen your perception, reasoning and thinking process.
With a regular yoga practice you learn to be fully present within the body; it teaches us to move with awareness and mindfulness between pose to pose and within the pose itself, taking you for a wonderful ride of self discovery. Yoga practiced in this manner is intelligent, skillful and highlyrewarding. After a while the practice on the mat truly starts to manifest in day to day life.
The Heart: Cultivating Positive Qualities
My teacher once said:
“You practice Hatha Yoga to embody the qualities of the Heart.”
Some qualities I am contemplating are: Steadfastness, Discipline, Love, Gratitude and Remembrance.
I often ask myself before practicing: How will you embody the quality of steadfastness? How can you embody and express the deep sense of Gratitude through this pose? Or if I am having a gloomy day: How can you embody enthusiasm and celebrate life?
Inevitably, when I put my mind and body into embodying and manifesting, a heart quality magic happens! A simple pose rekindles the power of the Heart and fills life with purpose and inspiration!
Sometimes I just need to practice because my muscles are tight and there is a need to lessen physical pain or discomfort. Other times, I may wish to simply to restore, rest and rejuvenate my body and mind. And sometimes it is just fun to do it as a challenge to myself and explore new realms of possibility. Regardless of the purpose, every time after practice I feel bright and vibrant with a sense of deep fulfillment and freedom. My mind is sharp and my heart is open. And this experience makes me want to share the practice it with others.
Ultimately for me yoga is a path that leads to self-awareness and revelation. Yoga is for everyone. It can serve you at any stage in your life in any way that you need or want. It will support you in any task or endeavor.The work will need to be done, but the road is paved with pure delight.
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Published in categories: Yoga & Meditation
Meditation Music – Tibetan Singing Bowl
Please check out our music video for Tibetan Singing Bowl and Didgeridoo by Music for Deep Meditation. Please like and enjoy!
You can find album here: http://innersplendor.com/didgeridoo-and-tibetan-singing-bowl.html
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Published in categories: Yoga & Meditation
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The sacred space of the heart
“The little space within the heart is as great as the vast universe. The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun and the moon and the stars. Fire and lightening and winds are there, and all that now is and all that is not.” ~ The Upanishads
Please join the fun at: https://www.facebook.com/vidura.barrios.9
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Published in categories: Yoga & Meditation
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5 Reasons to Drink Tap Water and the Best Water Filters
If you want to help the environment, and your wallet, there is something you can do right away and make a big difference: Consume tap water instead of bottled water. Americans consume an average of 28 billion bottles of water a year. That is an unfathomable waste. Here are our top 5 reasons to consume tap water instead of bottled water:
1- The making of bottled water is very energy intensive. On average, bottled water consumes around 2000 times more energy than tap water.
2- Plastic Bottles pollute the ocean. Since only 5% of plastic bottles are recycled in the US, most of them end up in landfills or in the ocean. In the Pacific ocean there is a massive body of plastic particles floating around, larger than the state of Texas. This plastic is wreaking havoc on marine life and birds, who often confuse the small particles with food.
3- It is expensive to consume bottled water. Bottled water is a drain on your wallet. It costs 10,000 more times than tap water in the US. Bottled water is more expensive than gasoline!
4- Purchasing bottle water contributes to the corporatization of water. Huge multinationals are purchasing water bodies and water rights making it more expensive and less available to the public. Water should not be owned by corporations.
5- Bottled water is no healthier than tap water. In the US tap water is well regulated and it is regularly tested for heavy metals and bacteria. Also some brands of bottled water–such as Coca Cola’s Dasani–is actually just expensive tap water.
Should you Filter your Tap Water?
Many people express concern about the quality and taste of their tap water. In this industrial age such fears are not unfounded. The main problem though, is what is added into the tap water: chlorine and fluoride. Both substances taken over long period of time can be toxic to the body. We recommend using a water filtration system. Whatever system you pick make sure that it takes the chlorine out. Very inexpensive water filters such as Britta only takes the chlorine flavor out, not the chemical itself.
I recommend the following water filtration systems, both take chlorine out of the water and are relatively inexpensive:
Aquasana is an affordable and effective over the counter filter. It is easy to install and to replace filters. It takes 97.4% of Chlorine out of water and some of the fluoride out of the water. (most of the added fluoride not the naturally occurring type) You need to replace the filters once every 6 months.
Big Berkey Water Filter This is currently my favorite filter out there. You don’t need to plug it in. It functions by gravity and it last a very long time. Contaminants are captured on and within the micro-porous filtering element and are separated from the water. Each durable and efficient self-sterilizing element can be cleaned with a toothbrush or scrub pad and will last for 6,000 gallons. I recommend getting the fluoride and arsenic filter too, which needs to be replaced every 1000 gallons.
Water is life. Let us honor it and do the right thing.
Statistics: California Academy of Sciences
Photo and article: Vidura Barrios
If you love nature please join us at: I love Nature
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Published in categories: Health & Wellness, Nature & Environment
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Chanting Om and Beautiful Nature (Video)
This is the original video of Om we created back in the day when we founded Inner Splendor. It is the one with the most views so far (almost a million) and it is so very sweet to think of so many people experiencing it.
Om is the vibration of the Universe. Om is the beginning. Om is the end. May Om lift us and bring us closer to the experience of the divine inside. Enjoy!
To find the album on iTunes you can click on the picture below:
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Published in categories: Yoga & Meditation
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Some of my favorite meditation quotes
“O soul, you should see the inner beauty. It is so sweet, so fascinating, so joyous. Not even drop of that inner ocean can be found outside. Therefore, turn within. Meditate, meditate, meditate!” – Bhagavan Nityananda of Ganeshpuri
“Quiet the mind, and the soul will speak.” – Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati
“The act of meditation is being spacious.” - Sogyal Rinpoche
“To understand the immeasurable, the mind must be extraordinarily quiet, still.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti
“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.” - Lord Buddha
“Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.” – Voltaire
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Published in categories: Yoga & Meditation
Happy Birthday To His Holiness The Dalai Lama
Today July 6th, 2012 is the 77th birthday of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. In celebration of this very special day here are some of our favorite quotes of his.
If we were to practice even a fraction of this teachings, the world would become an even more beautiful paradise. Enjoy!
“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”
― Dalai Lama
“Love is the absence of judgment.”
― Dalai Lama
“Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can.”
― Dalai Lama
Photo: Vidura Barrios
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”
― Dalai Lama
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
― Dalai Lama
“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” – Dalai Lama
“Be kind whenever possible.It is always possible.” – Dalai Lama
“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.”
― Dalai Lama
“Spend some time alone every day.” Dalai Lama
And lastly here is a beautiful and practical meditation you can try today:
“As you breathe in cherish yourself. As you breathe out cherish all beings.” – Dalai Lama
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Published in categories: Yoga & Meditation
Free Yourself
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” ― Albert Einstein
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Published in categories: Yoga & Meditation
Chanting of the Shri Rudram, an Ancient Vedic Hymn
The Shri Rudram is one of my favorite sanskrit texts. The hymn is part of one of the oldest scriptures in the world, the Krishna Yajur Veda; it praises and invokes the divine in the form of Rudra, or Lord Shiva. Shiva in its deepest meaning represents the consciousness within everything, the light of the Self within everyone.
This chant is really special. The Shri Rudram is a great purifier that brings balance to the body and the environment; the mantras are full of energy and light. You can simply listen and meditate on the sacred syllables or chant along. Enjoy!
If you would like to have the transliteration of the Shri Rudram, the SYDA foundation has a great one: http://siddhayogabookstore.org/rudram.aspx
This video is produced by Inner Splendor Media, and part of our mission is to promote ancient mantras and texts and make them available to the wider public. To check out more recordings of Vedic mantras please visit us at http://www.innersplendor.com/vedic-mantras-2.html
The video was recorded at the Big Island of Hawaii.
Chanted by Vidura Barrios
Video production by Jeffrey Main
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Published in categories: Yoga & Meditation
October 12th, 2012 at 11:06 pm
Wonderful
October 21st, 2012 at 9:22 pm
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