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Beautiful Rituals Healthy Activities Healthy Living Yoga

Benefits of Restorative Yoga

The following is straight from International Restorative Yoga Day’s HP.  I didn’t make it up (lol) …If you click on the pink texts, related study details are found, compiled by Lindsay Sisti.  In my mind, it’s a meditation practice and an effective preventative medicine and… so much more.  I had known all these years there’s something precious that’s been neglected and amiss in our lives – this practice represents exactly what I had missed all these years.  We need to make it a ritual.  In parenting, parent education class often stress the importance of setting a “routine” – and I hated that word, routine – ugh – so boring. I  say – make it a “ritual”.  a Ritual for adults… Make it a sacred ritual in which you honor yourself by being kind to yourself. It’s not merely a 5 minutes for the exhausted, an after-thought post sweaty practice (which is very good for you BTW!).  It’s for everybody. It’s mindful not mindless.

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Benefits Of Restorative Yoga

Restorative yoga actives the parasympathetic nervous system, which balances out the over-charged sympathetic nervous system, bringing about overall balance, wholeness, in a natural yin-yang way. The practice, if well designed, allows the body to reap the benefits dwelling in its restorative ‘rest and digest’ mode that yields the body’s natural functions to enliven you at top efficiency:)

This style of yoga can be beneficial for people struggling with a variety of conditions such as insomnia, asthma, migraine headaches, and chronic pain.

These are some of the benefits of restorative yoga:

  • reduces cortisol, the stress hormone
  • lowers blood pressure and heart rate
  • reduces muscle tension, insomnia, and generalized fatigue
  • boosts immunity
  • reduces serum triglycerides and blood sugar levels
  • increases “good” cholesterol,
  • improves digestion and elimination
  • greater capacity to regulate blood glucose levels
  • lessens or alleviates chronic, severe pain
  • enhances fertility
  • increases blood flow to the heart
  • stimulates flow of the lymphatic system
  • increases oxygen levels in the blood
  • greater flexibility
  • reduces brain arousal
  • feeling balanced and grounded
  • increases mental acuity
  • increases ‘vividness’ in daily sensory life
  • cultivates greater patience with yourself and others

Researchers have been investigating the benefits of restorative yoga. Here is a sampling of the findings:

Restorative yoga for women with breast cancer: findings from a randomized pilot study.
These pilot data suggest potential benefit of restorative yoga on emotional outcomes and fatigue in cancer patients. This study demonstrates that a restorative yoga intervention is feasible for women with breast cancer.

Restorative yoga for women with ovarian or breast cancer: findings from a pilot study.
Significant improvements were seen for depression, negative affect, state anxiety, mental health, and overall quality of life. Fatigue decreased between baseline and post-intervention follow-up. Health-related quality of life improved between baseline and the 2-month follow-up.

Feasibility and acceptability of restorative yoga for treatment of hot flushes: a pilot trial.
This pilot trial demonstrates that it is feasible to teach restorative yoga to middle-aged women without prior yoga experience. Mean number of hot flushes per week decreased by 30.8% and mean hot flush score decreased 34.2% from baseline

Restorative yoga in adults with metabolic syndrome: a randomized, controlled pilot trial.
Restorative yoga was found to be a feasible and acceptable intervention in overweight adults with metabolic syndrome.

 

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Healthy Activities Healthy Living Yoga

I’m too young! Really?

There appears to be a trend that more and more women are experiencing various discomforts attributed to onset of menopause early on – a premature(*) peri-menopause that comes to the unprepared is alarming, even scary. ( “*Premature menopause means the woman’s ovaries have spontaneously stopped working before she has reached the age of 40 years. Women can be affected in their teens or early 20s: About one in 1,000 women may reach menopause before the age of 30.”)

Yet it is nothing to be in denial about or feel negatively about – your body is on its natural trajectory of … aging. Yes, aging – I said it without flinching – and … let me tell you that it’s okay because you can do something about it. No you cannot reverse the clock but you can change the bias and prejudice you, yourself have about this very natural process every human being alive undergoes.  You can choose to age with grace and acceptance.  It begins with you. Then you can change how you treat yourself with more compassion. You need not fear the change. In this outer world we live in, everything changes; nothing is permanent.

The average age of menopause was 55 just ten years ago but now it’s something like 51; however, many start noticing the tell-tale signs in their 40’s; some as early as in their 30’s… and perhaps this earlier occurrence is directly related to the fact that more and more young girls are experiencing early puberty (the new “normal”). It follows logic that what starts early must end early… (so know that it’s okay to be a late bloomer girls – early bloomers, on-time bloomers, late bloomers – like flowers, all are beautiful:) This is a mystery but some say it’s due to increased additives/chemicals such as growth hormones in our foods.

Women’s experience in living in their bodies will bring about 3 major life altering events – this is as far as their physical biological development is concerned: First – when you start having your monthly cycle; Second – pregnancy and childbirth; then finally, menopause.   Some may skip the second event but no women is likely to skip over the last transition in their lifeline. When these junctures come varies but they follow a general statistical trajectory.

And what about men?  That typical term used by lay-people “mid-life crises” or “Man-opause”… is apparently also prevalent and I am here to propose there’s a healthy way to deal with this change that may often be unwelcome:

“Although male menopause occurs in older men whose testosterone levels have declined, it tends to affect older males with heart disease, obesity, hypertension (high blood pressure) and/or type 2 diabetes. In other words, unlike the female menopause, several factors together contribute to the development of male menopause. Some underlying health problems, lack of exercise, smoking, alcohol consumption, stress, anxiety, and sleep deprivation could also be key factors.

Psychologists suggest the male “midlife crisis”, when men are supposed to wonder what they have accomplished so far professionally and personally, can be a cause of depression and might possibly trigger a cascade of factors that lead to symptoms associated with male menopause.”

– excerpt from Medical News Today Knowledge Center

Some go to yoga to escape the daily stress, some for fitness to burn calories and lose weight and some because … maybe their doctor told him/her to… whatever motivates you to get on with the journey with all your senses engaged is… all good.  I want to assure you (1) you are not alone; and (2) if you are committed, you can find the power to heal within; It’s a mind-body-spirit all working together to get you to that place of balance, freedom and stability.

And to those who are just hooked for no reason other than it makes you feel good, you might stumble upon rediscovering your body – mind – spirit.  Yoga allows you to rediscover who you really are under all those layers of habits and societal and self-imposed limitations.  You are then practicing preventative medicine and meditation in motion and … stillness… it’s… sublime.

 

 

Categories
Beautiful Rituals

Happy Girls Day !

On March 3rd, most Japanese families, especially those with daughters will display the Hinamatsuri dolls, in many traditional homes, passed down for generations from their mothers and grandmothers. The family will gather around their daughters at the center and celebrate with special Hinamatsuri feast … red and pink colors tend to adorn the homes with more spring toned pastels and florals…to honor their princesses.

As part of a typical feast, here’s a photo of Chirashi-sushi in a red lacquer bowl with a message, “Spring is coming soon.” … & a graphic garnish of cherry blossom images. Chirashi sushi is topped with decorative (and quite edible delicacies) shrimp marinated in sweet rice vinegar, salmon fish roe (orange/red caviar symbolizing fertility), lotus root (that white stencil cutout flowers representing purity and faith), anago, golden egg threads, and sea vegetables/nori strings…). Feast to the eye, Pretty!

“The custom of displaying dolls began during the Heian period. Formerly, people believed the dolls possessed the power to contain bad spirits. Hinamatsuri traces its origins to an ancient Japanese custom called hina-nagashi (雛流し, lit. “doll floating”), in which straw hina dolls are set afloat on a boat and sent down a river to the sea, supposedly taking troubles or bad spirits with them. The Shimogamo Shrine (part of the Kamo Shrine complex in Kyoto) celebrates the Nagashibina by floating these dolls between the Takano and Kamo Rivers to pray for the safety of children. People have stopped doing this now because of fishermen catching the dolls in their nets. They now send them out to sea, and when the spectators are gone they take the boats out of the water and bring them back to the temple and burn them.

The customary drink for the festival is shirozake, a sake made from fermented rice. A colored hina-arare, bite-sized crackers flavored with sugar or soy sauce depending on the region, and hishimochi, a diamond-shaped colored rice cake, are served.Chirashizushi (sushi rice flavored with sugar, vinegar, topped with raw fish and a variety of ingredients) is often eaten. A salt-based soup called ushiojiru containing clams still in the shell is also served. Clam shells in food are deemed the symbol of a united and peaceful couple, because a pair of clam shells fits perfectly, and no pair but the original pair can do so.

Families generally start to display the dolls in February and take them down immediately after the festival. Superstition says that leaving the dolls past March 4 will result in a late marriage for the daughter.”

– Source:  wikipedia excerpt

It’s an auspicious day of celebration.  A Ritual that says to our girls and to every woman who retains that source –  that eternal ” girl” within – you are valued; you are loved. Boys are off springs of the divine mothers and consequently, reasons for them to celebrate The Girls Day in the girls honor as well.  Whether a boy or girl, we all entered this world from a mothers’ womb – and so we cherish and honor our girls – whether in a form of one’s daughter, sister, aunt, mother, grandmother, wife or a girlfriend.  Love, love, love…A ritual for all who care for, all those who care about and love our girls –  Beautiful ritual indeed.