Benefits Of Yoga

The benefits of yoga are extensive. Not only does yoga affect the physical aspect of the body, it addresses the mind and spirit as well. Daily exercises are a great way to help relieve the stress of your day and can bring a sense of well-being to your life.

1. Stress Relief : Yoga can help reduce the effects of stress on your body. One of the benefits of yoga is that it encourages relaxation and can lower the amount of cortisol in your body.
2. Pain Relief : Daily exercises of yoga can help ease the aches and pains of the body. Many people with very serious diseases have reported less pain after these daily exercises, such as asanas or meditation.
3. Better Breathing : You will learn to take deeper, slower breaths with daily exercises of yoga. It will help to increase your lung function and set off the body''s relaxation response. This can be one of the most powerful benefits of yoga.
4. Flexibility : You will notice your level of flexibility will increase, which will help with your range of motion. Sometimes in the yoga daily exercises, people cannot even touch their toes. The benefits of yoga will include lengthening the muscles, tendons, and ligaments in your body to help you become more flexible.
5. Increased Strength :Yoga poses use all the muscles in your body and help you increase your strength level from head to toe. The benefits of yoga and daily exercises will help you strengthen your muscles close to the bones, which increase the support of your skeletal system as well.
6. Weight Management : You will see the benefits of yoga begin to affect your scale. Daily exercises are always recommended, but yoga helps reduce the level of cortisol in your body. This aids in weight loss and fat burning.
7. Improved Circulation :Yoga will help improve your body''s circulation. In turn, with daily exercises, you will see the benefits of yoga with lowered blood pressure and pulse rates.
8. Cardiovascular Conditioning :Even the most gentle style of yoga will help to lower your resting heart reate and increase your overall endurance. This is one of the important benefits of yoga to help improve the amount of oxygen taken in during the daily exercises.
9. Focus on the Present : You can have greater coordination, memory skills, reaction times, and improved concentration skills by utilizing yoga for daily exercises. These benefits of yoga will extend far out of the yoga center.
10. Inner Peace : What more could you want. This is one of the primary reasons that people do daily exercises of yoga. This is one of the most important benefits of yoga and is also one of the more easy ones to attain.
11. Complete Detoxification : By gently stretching muscles and joints as well as massaging the various organs, yoga ensures the optimum blood supply to various parts of the body. This helps in the flushing out of toxins from every nook and cranny as well as providing nourishment up to the last point. This leads to benefits such as delayed ageing, energy and a remarkable zest for life.

Yoga Health Benefits versus Exercise Benefits :

- Yoga Benefits
* Parasympathetic Nervous System dominates.
* Subcortical regions of brain dominate.
* Slow dynamic and static movements.
* Normalization of muscle tone.
* Low risk of injuring muscles and ligaments.
* Low caloric consumption.
* Effort is minimized, relaxed.
* Energizing (breathing is natural or controlled).
* Balanced activity of opposing muscle groups.
* Noncompetitive, process-oriented.
* Awareness is internal (focus is on breath and the infinite).
* Limitless possibilities for growth in self-awareness.
- Exercise Benefits
* Sympathetic Nervous System dominates
* Cortical regions of brain dominate
* Rapid forceful movements
* Increased muscle tension
* Higher risk of injury
* Moderate to high caloric consumption
* Effort is maximized
* Fatiguing (breathing is taxed)
* Imbalance activity of opposing groups
* Competitive, goal-oriented
* Awareness is external (focus is on reaching the toes, reaching the finish line, etc.)
* Boredom factor

Yoga - Unity or Oneness

Yoga is a scientific system of physical and mental practices that originated in India more than three thousand years ago. Its purpose is to help each one of us achieve our highest potential and to experience enduring health and happiness. With Yoga, we can extend our healthy, productive years far beyond the accepted norm and, at the same time, improve the quality of our lives.
Yoga is a science of right living and it works when integrated in our daily life. It works on all aspects of the person: the physical, mental, emotional, psychic and spiritual. The word yoga means ‘unity’ or ‘oneness’ and is derived from the Sanskrit word ‘yuj’ which means ‘to join’.
The word Yoga automatically calls to mind Sage "Patanjali" the founder and father of Yoga. He lived around three centuries before Christ, and was a great philosopher and grammarian. The aim of Patanjali Yoga is to set man free from the cage of matter. Mind is the highest form of matter and man freed from this dragnet of Chitta or Ahankara (mind or ego) becomes a pure being.

WHAT YOGA IS NOT ?
There are too many misconceptions clouding the science of Yoga. People perceive it to be some kind of black or white magic, sorcery, physical or mental debauchery through which miraculous feats can be performed. For some it is an extremely dangerous practice which should be limited to only those who have renounced the world. Few others think it to be a kind of mental and physical acrobatism that is compatible only to a Hindu mind.

PATHS OF YOGA
* Raja yoga involves mastery of the mind and senses in Samadhi; essentially the advanced aspects of Patanjali's astanga yoga.
* Hatha yoga is the yoga of the will which involves cultivating ones energy to arouse Kundalini primarily by means of asana and pranayama.
* Mantra yoga involves reciting sacred syllables to reach perfection.
* Laya yoga involves absorption in god to experience ultimate bliss.
* Bhakti yoga requires absolute devotion to god to achieve the ultimate goal.
* Karma yoga achieves this through selfless work without thought of personal reward.
* Jnana yoga is the yoga of knowledge cultivating the discrimination between spiritual reality and the illusion of the material world.

YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANJALI
* Yama - Universal ethics: Non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, sexual restraint and non-acquisitiveness.
* Niyama - Principles of self conduct: purity, contentment, intense dedication or austerity, study of self and scriptures and self-surrender.
* Asana - practice of the postures.
* Pranayama - Breath control.
* Pratyahara - withdrawal and control of the senses.
* Dharana - concentration.
* Dhyana - meditation.
* Samadhi - a state of higher consciousness where the sense of self (ego) dissolves in the object of meditation and the individual self exists in its own pure nature.

Nintendo Wii Fit

The active-play phenomenon started by Wii Sports now spreads to your whole body thanks to Wii Fit and the pressure-sensitive Wii Balance Board, which comes bundled with it. Used together players will experience an extensive array of fun, dynamic and surprisingly challenging activities, including aerobics, yoga, muscle stretches and balance oriented games. The focus of these activities is towards providing a "core" workout, a popular exercise method that emphasizes slower, controlled motions, but it's the fun approach to fitness of Wii Fit that will keep players hooked on fitness for years to come.

Product Features :
* Wii Fit comes with the Wii Balance Board and requires a Wii console to play. Wii console sold separately.
* Wii Fit combines fitness with fun and is designed for everyone, young and old. Wii Fit players work towards personal fitness goals and they block soccer balls, swivel hips to power hoop twirls, and go big on ski jumps to get themselves there.
* Check your daily progress, set goals, check your Wii Fit Age, and even enter exercise time you've done outside of Wii Fit.
* Wii Fit Age is measured by factoring the user's BMI reading, testing the user's center of gravity and conducting quick balance tests.
* Training is at the core of Wii Fit. You can spend as much (or as little) time as you want trying out all of the 40+ activities Wii Fit offers.



KEY FEATURES :
- The Wii Fit Balance Board :
The primary tenet of Wii Fit is balance. Your center of balance, the point between your left and right sides when you stand upright, has a lot to do with your health. Those without an even center of balance will be unnaturally compensating for this imbalance, which causes their posture to become misaligned, increasing the possibility of putting unnecessary strain on their bodies.



- Getting Started: Create a Profile
Before you jump into doing exercises and activities, you’ll start by creating a profile. This is done easily and intuitively by simply choosing a Mii, entering your height and age information, and doing a few quick tests that will serve as a baseline for your new Wii fitness regimen. These tests are:
* BODY MASS INDEX (BMI) Check.
* Wii Fit Age: After you’ve checked your BMI, you’ll do a basic balance test and find out your current Wii Fit Age. This basic balance test measures how well you can control your left and right balance. Based on the results, you’ll be assigned a Wii Fit Age.
- Four Categories of Fun :
Wii Fit features four main categories of exercises to choose from: Strength Training, Aerobics, Yoga and Balance Games. Wii Fit will guide you through the first three with the help of your own virtual personal trainer, while the balance games offer variety and fun to help keep you engaged and excited about your fitness goals. In addition, as you spend time exercising, you’ll earn Fit Credits that unlock additional exercises and activities within your favorite categories that will allow you to continue to push yourself.
- Keep Track of Your Progress :
* Keep tabs on your daily progress with easy-to-understand graphs and charts. Using your personal profile, you can set goals, view a graph of your BMI results over time, see how many Fit Credits you’ve earned, check your Wii Fit Age and even enter exercise time you’ve done outside of Wii Fit. It’s all about coming back and exercising a little every day, and the personal profile makes tracking your daily progress simple and easy.
* Quickly check your Wii Fit Age and BMI without even putting the game in the console by going directly to the Wii Fit Channel.
* Allow up to eight family members can create their own profiles in Wii Fit. On the profile-selection screen, everyone in the family can see each other’s recent BMI progress and Fit Credit total. This will allow families to have a friendly competition to exercise and get fit.

FEEDBACK :
- Addictive. Hard. Rewarding. Fun. Tiring. Frustrating. Amazing.
- Brilliant motion- sensitive control interface.
- Sheer populist accessibility.

Tips for Better Life from YOGA

1. Take a 10-30 minutes walk every day. And while you walk, smile.
2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
3. Sleep for 7 hours.
4. Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm, and Empathy.
5. Play more games.
6. Read more books than you did in 2007.
7. Make time to practice meditation, yoga, and prayer. They provide us with daily fuel for our busy lives.
8. Spend time with people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.
9. Dream more while you are awake.
10. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
11. Drink plenty of water.
12. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
13. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip.
14. Forget issues of the past. Don't remind your partner with his/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
15. Don't have negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
16. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
17. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
18. Smile and laugh more.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don't hate others.
20. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
21. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
22. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
23. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about. Don't compare your partner with others.
24. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
25. Forgive everyone for everything.
26.. What other people think of you is none of your business.
27. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
28. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.
29. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
30. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
31. The best is yet to come.
32. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
33. Do the right thing!
34. Call your family often.
35. Your inner most is always happy. So be happy.
36. Each day give something good to others.
37. Don't over do. Keep your limits.