Thursday, July 16, 2009

Take Charge Of Your Health With A Yoga Fitness Workout!

By Nanette Cole

Inner Peace - Balance - Anxiety Management - Confidence

What do all these things have in common? First, they are all things doctors let us we need to work on improving in our busy daily lives. Making lifestyle changes in these areas, as endorsed by the book "YOU : The Owner's Manual," can increase the joy you experience each day, extend your lifespan, and add health to your years.

Second, these are all benefits of working out with Yoga! Hatha yoga - the physical yoga postures or "asanas" that most of us associate with yoga exercise - is a great way to build muscle, increase the range of motion in our joints, and create an opportunity for calm, balance and relaxation in our daily schedules. Now before you get nervous that I'm going to go all "transcendental" on you, don't worry! Although yoga traditionally does include a lot of spiritual, meditative and holistic practices, you can get many of the benefits of a yoga lifestyle by just incorporating a little yoga fitness workout routine into your weekly schedule. Whether you can do 60-minutes 3x per week, or squeeze in some Sun Salutations for 15 minutes every morning - even a moderate increase in your activity level through the incorporation of yoga practices can help.

Now - everyone knows we are intended to exercise but we don't! Not enough anyway! Why? Well, one common excuse is the concern over not having sufficient time in the day to force in a workout. Working out at home with a yoga fitness DVD might be a great solution to this problem. Just pop in the video and watch a twenty to sixty minute workout you can follow along with.

I know your schedule already feels jam-packed and you're worried you won't have time for yoga. As a full-time-mom (all parents are full-time in my opinion - you never stop worrying about your kids!) and a business-owner, I find that there are never enough hours in the day to do everything I want to. However, it's important to prioritize your health and make time for replenishing your body and spirit on a daily basis. Exercise is a great way to do that. When you work out at home with a yoga fitness DVD, you can squeeze in your exercise whenever you have time. Before dawn when the house is quiet, when the kids are napping or the family's watching TV downstairs, or even as a family activity that encourages everyone in the household to be active and share time together.

Another concern that many of us have about yoga exercise is that it might be more than we can afford. Yoga has actually enjoyed a period of "trendiness" recently and with yoga classes growing up all over the country at select gymnasiums and studios, it's straightforward to see how yoga has gotten the name for being expensive. However, remember that yoga was developed by ascetics in some of the least wealthy areas of the Earth. You've got more than they do re material possessions - if they can do it, you can do. Though you don't "need" anything to practice yoga, and you can even learn it for free with some workout videos from the library or picture books that show you step by step what to do, I advise that you start with two necessities : A yoga mat to enhance your comfort and safety while doing the poses, and a good instructional yoga video to lead you through a workout or two that you can follow and enjoy again and again.

For the cost of a class or two at the local yoga studio, you can get everything you want to workout at home.

I hope I induce you to look into yoga exercise as a total body workout, or a supplement to your present exercise routine. The advantages are simply wonderful, and the positive impact of your new fitness will routine will only get bigger the more you practice.

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