Keep Cool In Summer By Practicing Yoga And Other Techniques

Summer is a time of change as there is scorching heat mostly in the subcontinent of India. So the yogi gives few of the tips to keep cool this summer with proper yoga and meditation techniques. Summer takes away the extra energy by way of perspiration so the yogi prescribes the steps to keep the body cool and hydrated. Summer essentially means different things to different people. But one of the facts which is all the while true is the heat of the summer. Beat the heat with proper yoga, pranayama and meditation techniques. 

Cool Your Body Through Pranayama

The busy schedule in summer may be more distressing and may call for more drainage of energy and make you perspire more. The yogi prescribes the Sheetali Pranayama for cooling the body temperature down.

The procedure for Sheetali Pranayama is to stick the tongue out by curling the sides of the tongue upwards towards the centre of it. Then the breathing should start through the mouth and the breath should be held for few moments and then the breath should be exhaled through the nose. 

Repeat these steps five to ten times at one time and you will be feeling much cooler.

Drink More Water

Summer is a time of more dehydration. That is the reason why you should drink more water. The reason is body has 70 percent water and during perspiration this water content of the body gets drained. The yogi advises to include the Sheetkari Pranayama in the routine. 

Sheetkari Pranayama to control thirst

Summer makes one to become thirsty a lot and thus Sheetkari Pranayama can help a lot in controlling your thirst. This is how you can try to do it. But one has to keep in mind that Sheetkari Pranayama is not a substitute for drinking water. The best thing to do is to drink lots of water but in case if you feel too dehydrated you can try this.

Close your right nostrils with the help of your right thumb and start exhaling completely through your left nostrils and start breathing through your left nostril. The next time you should close your left nostril with the little ring finger of yours and start exhaling through the right nostrils. Repeat the procedure for five to ten times. People who had been doing this have said that this reduces the urge to feel thirsty and keeps the body cool but it is not a substitute for drinking water. 

Calm the nerves

It is often noted that in a hot whether the chances of losing temper, impatience and getting more tired is always more. This is where cooling of the nerves are important. This can be done through the Chandravedi steps. This is a breathing or pranayama technique which has a cooling effect on the nervous system and the subtle energy channels of the body known as nadis. 

How to do it? 

First of all clench the teeth keeping the tongue pressed against the teeth but keep your mouth open. In that condition keep breathing in. Then close your mouth and start breathing out in normal pace through the nostrils. This should be repeated five to ten times inhaling the breath from the left and exhaling the breath from your right nostrils. After this take rest in Shavasana.This is sure to refresh and relax you to a great degree. 

Art Of Living Makes The World Meet At World Cultural Festival

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar the founder of Art of Living has implemented many breathing techniques and formulated such courses for the sake of human good. It encompasses breathing techniques, pranayamas, asanas, meditation techniques and many such activities that alleviate stress and helps one to develop leadership qualities, human values and more importantly, helps one to lead a happy life. The goal of his movement is to uplift human beings and flourish the importance and practice of human values among people, countries and communities at large.

Life, he says is celebration and it should be all the days of one’s life. The philosophy is only meditation and yoga without celebration is lame. So that is the reason Art Of Living Foundation has organized the World Culture Festival on the March 11th to 13th of 2016.

This is something not new and Art Of Living has been offering opportunities to people to showcase their culture and wanted to tie a knot among all the world cultures. The attempt was as if that there is no boundary and limitation of culture and culture is all the same as long as it resembles and embodies human values.

World Culture Festival being celebrated on this March in New Delhi is also a festival of culture where all the cultures of the world will meet on a single platform provided by Art of Living foundation.

India represents one of the most ancient cultures and in this festival, the cultures of the world will unite and will be singing and enthralling the public far and wide in the same tune and vibration. This will certainly commemorate that the entire world is ours and we belong to the big universe. India is hosting this function and it is held on the grounds of India. It is also true that for anything good there are both positive and negative comments and criticism too.

One of it is the hindrances to the bio-diversity of the Flood plain of Jamuna river where the function is taking place. In regard to this the founder of Art Of Living already admitted there are 5000 volunteers of Art of Living working there and not even a single tree is cut down. Why not! The organization itself holds these values and one among it is the conservation of the environment. This is also argued that government is also spending funds to sponsor and help the event to happen. That is also one of the negative ways of looking at it as I personally feel that where there is a scope and revenue generation of India as well and where people from different countries will host their events, it is demeaning for the government if it does not lift the face of Indian culture and its representation to the world. The reader may think I am biased but you may be against Art of Living but just think that isn’t it government’s duty to see that the face of India is being uplifted to the world. In this case if the government patronizes, it may not be for Art Of Living but for the nation’s image itself. 

We have talked so much but we have forgotten to inform what are the specialties of the programme World Culture Festival 2016. Among portraying the best of the world cultures this festival will bring unison of 10, 000 musicians, yoga aspirants and around 25000 artists from around the globe who will be performing on the same stage to create a picturesque diaspora of culture, dance, music and many other specialties of any region.  The experts believe this will be a huge platform for many of the artists who are masters of their own art forms but are in isolation. 

Yoga techniques to Quit Smoking

Smoking is injurious to health and yet one can’t quit smoking or leave it. This is true of the smokers. Probably the smokers understand the value of this statement as the hard core addicts have probably realized how hard it is to leave or quit smoking. Smoking is really injurious to health and nowadays on the packets of cigarettes it is clearly inscribed that “Smoking Kills”. In spite of that people are not able to quit smoking and they go on puffing the smokes in the air.

In earlier days it might have been a bit glamourous as our culture has been influenced a lot by the British customs and habits. But those days it was not so much known about the deadly effects of smoking. Nowadays people know about the ill effects of smoking and how deadly it can be. Nowadays smoking is no longer considered as glamourous but instead smoking is considered as stupid and people may also take it as ridiculous and think that the person does not have control on his habits. But the smokers often feel helpless in the hands of this malicious addiction and they do not know the way out of it. There are many techniques and measures available in the market which even the doctors also advocate but out of the all these yoga for quitting smoking.

Through yoga there are ways to get rid of smoking and the yogis insist yoga is one of the best ways to do so. There are few asanas and breathing techniques that can free you of the bad habits of smoking.

KapalBhati Pranayama

KapalBhati Pranayama improves the circulation of blood and energizes the nervous system, rejuvenates the brain cells and calms your mind. This pranayama also clears and cleanses the nadiswhich are the subtle energy channels and helps one to resist the urge of smoking.

NadiShodhon Pranayama

releases the accumulated stress and tension and calms your mind by purifying and balancing the nadis. This pranayama helps the eradication of many respiratory problems and helps counter the side effects of the de-addiction.

Bujanga Asana (The Cobra Pose):

The cobra pose expands your chest and improves the blood circulation too. It is helpful in reducing the fatigue, relieving stress and it eventually minimizes the urges of smoking.
SetuBandhasana: (Bridge Pose)

The Bridge pose or the SetuBandhasana pose opens the lungs and helps in improving the flow of oxygen in the body. It essentially calms the mind, reduces the anxiety levels, stress and depression and thus prevents you from getting the increased urge of smoking. 

Apart from these Trikonasana and Sishuasana also helps in reducing the stress levels and bringing a mental equilibrium and balance in the body.

Sarvangasana or the shoulder stand helps the brain and the body to be flooded with blood and helps eliminate the stress levels and even depression too to an extent which helps reduce the urge for smoking.

Shavasana which is a posture of resting the body at the end lets the body to go to deep rest and a meditative rest which helps in relieving the stress levels from the body. The Practice of this posture at the end helps in reduction of blood pressure and anxiety too.

The experts say that when the body is less stressful and the mind is calm, the urges of the smoker to smoke reduces considerably. This helps in quitting the habit of smoking as the urge for smoking reduces considerably.

Tihar Jail Organizes Yoga Teachers Training Programme For Inmates

After the celebration of the World Yoga day on the 21st day of 2015 where there were more than ten thousand inmates of the prison, it was decided that Tihar jail will produce 200 yoga teachers. These yoga teachers will earn their livelihood by way of teaching yoga. In this regard, 200 inmates were selected and it was proposed that 20 yoga teachers will teach Yoga to the inmates from Nature Cure Centre, an NGO and Panchvati Yoga ashram. This Yoga Teachers training programme will help the inmates to get a job after their release from the prison. 

Last Wednesday this programme was inaugurated by the DG of Delhi Prisons Mr. Alok Kumar Verma. The curriculum and the syllabus were also unveiled by the senior official of prisons on the occasion. The NGO had designed the curriculum of the course and the inmates of the Tihar prison will undergo a proper training and the classes are proposed to be held every day. 

The jail officials said that there will be both theoretical and practical classes and at the end of the curriculum or the completion of the syllabus the inmates will be required to undergo a final test and assessment. The inmates who would qualify would be given a certificate along with the expertise to earn their living as trained yoga teachers. The officials also commented that this kind of effort is the first of its kind that was attempted to be started in any jail. There are about 20 trainers of the Panchvati Ashram and the NGO who will train the inmates opined Mr. Ashutosh Kumar of the nonprofit organization, Nature Cure Centre.  The yoga event and the programme will be a life changing event for the inmates. The  certification so given by the institutions will help them find a suitable job after  their release. 

Yoga Makes The Indian Prisoners Smarter

A prison is supposed to be the center of rehabilitation and correction for any delinquent individual. Many correctional activities have been undertaken in the prison until recently the yoga programme in the jails of India has been the recent corrective measure of a more holistic and spiritual in nature. This has helped the individuals and the prisoners to a great extent say the reports from various sources. In the recent past Kiran Bedi is one of the police officers who has taken up many correctional programmes in the different jails and prisons of India starting from Tihar jail, Indore jail and many other prisons of India. She also opened her own NGO named India Vision Foundation which works for the rehabilitation of the prison inmates.

Followed by this came the different yoga and spiritual gurus of India who also started to think about the inmates of the prison and their physical and mental wellbeing. One such noted work is done by the Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar who used to regularly visit the prisons and use to teach and preach meditation and yoga for the inmates. Later on this was followed up by the teachers of Art of Living.

Such an attempt is also made by the popular yoga guru known as Shwaasa Guru who is also named as Swami Vachananand who visited many prisons of Karnataka and many parts of India to introduce the yoga classes for the prisoners. 

In this context, it is for us to remember that prisons of India already have a rich history of spirituality and diverting individuals to one’s real life’s goal. One such noted example would be Rishi Aurobindo Ghosh who was essentially an anarchist in the British period and was sentenced to prison in Alipore jail. It was in this period that he realized the real purpose of life and his transformation took place. After his release he took to religious transformation through the practice of yoga and moved to Pondicherry. This is when he gained enlightenment and came to be known as Sri Aurobindo Ghosh, a noted sage and a philosopher. 

India seems to take this history of spirituality and has let her rich heritage of yoga flow into the lives of the poor prisoners. Not only Sri Sri Ravi Shankar or Shwaasa Guru there are other programmes conducted by the trust of Prajapati Brahma Kumari who initiates the prisoners in the Vipassana technique of yoga, a Buddhist technique of meditation. There is Isha foundation also who conducts yoga classes on a regular basis in the various prisons of India. They have held programmes in Coimbatore, Poojapura, Thiruvananthapuram and many other places right from the early nineties. 

It was interesting to note that the country’s largest prison, Tihar Jail organized a yoga programme on the morning of the International Yoga day on the June 21st, 2015. The inmates say that they have been highly benefitted in these programmes and many have been looking forward to such practices. Many reports of increased appetite, regularity of sleep, controlled behavior and a decreased tendency of outburst of anger and negative emotions. 

Yoga & Human Resource Development For The Corporates

For the last 25 years or more yoga is tried to be inculcated in to the corporate spectrum by the corporate leaders and founders alike. Right from the days of the Hawthorne experiment there was a need from the managers to keep their workers mind and the mental conditions in the right frame. Then came different concepts like Work Life Balance, Subjective Wellbeing in the work place and the like. Stress had been a very old detriment in the work place right from the beginning and many steps in this regard is always being ushered in by the corporate and are welcome. Yoga seems to be the panacea of all these corporate ailments. Not only in the US but India, the country where Yoga was founded also seemed to catch up with yoga in the corporate world. Today in the companies and the corporate arena there are foreign teachers who claim expertise and proficiency in the yoga principles and they teach such yoga successfully. The corporates are also benefitted by these courses. Let us find the bottom-line.

The University of Massachusetts established the stress reduction clinic which is the largest and the oldest stress alleviation clinic based on the mind and body centre of its own in the USA. They have treated more than 10,000 patients since their inception in 1979.

This clinic offers Yoga Therapy as a medical supplement for treatment of stress disorders and relieving stress-related disorders in the corporate world. The clinic offers meditation courses and yoga therapy based classes to their reputed clients like judges and the correctional staff and also has a five-day retreat for the top officers and CEOs of different corporates in the Arizona Dessert.

A deserving majority of their patients and the inmates of the yoga classes report a marked decrease of the psychological and physical symptoms of stress. They also report an increment in their ability to relax and a higher energy level with greater enthusiasm in life. Increased self-esteem and an improved ability to handle stress-full situations with better interpersonal relations are few other benefits that they have reported about. Clarity of thinking, creative ability with improved ability of communication, leadership skills with a better teamwork are also some of the benefits they have reported to accrue from these courses. The exponents of management sciences argue that these are most of the objectives of the Human Resource development wing of any company.

How does it happen?

Yoga and meditation strengthen the nervous system and gives more strength and vitality to the patients and the course participants. Most of the time the meditation and the breathing techniques clears the toxins from the cells of the body and gives the body a more cleansing effect along with the brain waves to be slower. This happens because it works on the limbic system of the brain along with the pineal gland of the brain which the gland is supposed to be for the highest wellbeing of the organism. Unfortunately, this kind of effect is not gained in any kind of other corporate programmes. More importantly Yoga is a way of life and these kinds of practices make the body so clean of the toxins that most of the times the participants are in a state to leave or quit bad habits like alcohol or smoking. This strikes a balance in their work life and their family lives also as participants have reported to have improved in the quality of their family lives too. One of the renowned yoga teachers explains that yoga increases the quality of the mind and the body. This in turn improves the quality of the lives of the corporate members. This, of course is translated into more productivity inculcating a more intense bond of a relationship among workers and increases the subjective wellbeing in the climate of any company. Thus, yoga is a great HRD tool for the corporates which has a direct bearing on the performance metrics of the organizations. 

Grand Yoga Festival Will Be Organized At Mysore by Shwaasa Organisation Bangalore

Noted social worker of the state and Mysore Sri H V Rajeev invites you all to the auspicious event of Yoga in Mysore organized by Bangalore Shwaasa institute, Mysore Suttur Mutt and Sri Pathanjali Yoga Education Trust. It is indeed great news for the Yoga lovers and people looking forward to spiritual upliftment through Yoga disciplines. The Yoga festival which will last for seven days from 25th Oct. 2015 to 31st Oct. 2015 is intended to spread the message of peace, harmony and universal unity. This festival named Karnataka Yoga Abhiyan will be blessed by the august presence of many Yoga Gurus, saints and sanyasis from all parts of India and the Himalayas. The event will take place in Putta Raj Gawai Stadium, J P Nagar, Mysore.

The festival with all the spiritual masters and yogis and with the presence of swami Vachananand alias Shwaasa Guru will be a grand show of Yoga and will have various cultural programmes, lectures on philosophy and religion, yoga practice and many other practices. Sources say that there will be a gathering of more than 5000 Yoga practitioners in the festival. Apart from that the festival will be blessed with the presence of the enlightened saints of India like Dr.Pranav Pandya of Gayatri Pariwar, Haridwar, Pilot Baba of Himalayas, Swami Chidanand Saraswati Muni of Paramartha Niketana of Rishikesh, Dr. Virendra Hegde of Dharmasthala, and Sri Sri Ravishankar Guruji of Art of Living who will be present at the occasion. Sources from the Shwaasa Institute who is organizing this programme for the propagation of Yoga and to increase the awareness of Yoga among masses said that the ten enlightened spiritual masters have agreed to be present at the occasion in spite of their highly busy schedule. 

The festival with all the spiritual masters and yogis and with the presence of swami Vachananand alias Shwaasa Guru will be a grand show of Yoga and will have various cultural programmes, lectures on philosophy and religion, yoga practice and many other practices. Sources say that there will be a gathering of more than 5000 Yoga practitioners in the festival. Apart from that the festival will be blessed with the presence of the enlightened saints of India like Dr.Pranav Pandya of Gayatri Pariwar, Haridwar, Pilot Baba of Himalayas, Swami Chidanand Saraswati Muni of Paramartha Niketana of Rishikesh, Dr. Virendra Hegde of Dharmasthala, and Sri Sri Ravishankar Guruji of Art of Living who will be present at the occasion. Sources from the Shwaasa Institute who is organizing this programme for the propagation of Yoga and to increase the awareness of Yoga among masses said that the ten enlightened spiritual masters have agreed to be present at the occasion in spite of their highly busy schedule. 

The sources from the organizer’s team of the Shwaasa Institute opined that every day during the festival there will be regular practices of Yoga starting from 5:30 AM to 7 AM in the morning and also in the evening from 6 PM to 7:30 PM.