Yoga For Stress

November 28, 2022

Has the start of the hoilday season brought on feelings of stress or anxiety? Have these feelings led to bouts of depression? Are your nights filled with tossing and turning because your mind can't shut down? Guess what? You're not alone. Harvard Medical School shared in a recent study that sixty-two percent of people report feeling stressed during the hoilday season. In another study, The American Psychological Association says that Major depressive disorder (MDD) is one of the world's most common mental health disorders, and MDD is higher during the holidays.

Thankfully, several options are available to decrease stress and add more bliss. These alternatives are merely adding a yoga and meditation practice into your life. We already know that yoga's physical exercise can improve flexibility, mobility, and overall body strength. What's incredible is that the popularity of yoga over the last 20 years has brought on many scientific studies showing its numerous psychological benefits.

The APA did a 2017 meta-analysis of 23 interventions looking at the effects of yoga-based treatments on depressive symptoms, overwhelmingly concluding that yoga can now be considered an effective alternative treatment for MDD.

Medical News Today reports that scientists are now learning the mechanisms behind how yoga lowers stress.

Persistent surges of stress hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol, may damage blood vessels and elevate blood pressure.

Research shows that people who practice yoga regularly have low cortisol levels.

Studies have also found that practicing yoga for at least three months may lower cortisol and perceived stress.

The APA's recent studies report that meditation, breath work, and auditory rituals, like chanting and sound baths, have also been shown to lessen tension and relieve stress significantly.

That's all encouraging news! Now, let's put it into practice.

Here are the eight yoga poses and a bonus meditation exercise to help decrease stress and anxiety and help you feel less depressed.

Thumb to Index Finger Meditation. Come into a comfortable seated position, lie on your back, and relax the face, neck, and shoulder muscles. With gentle pressure, bring your index fingers and thumbs together. Allow your breath to deepen, and make circles with the thumbs and index fingers. As the meditation exercise continues, you'll lighten the touch even more and proceed to slow down the rotation-making process. Slow down to the point that the thumbs are barely moving. Continue to focus on every movement by the thumbs and continue to lengthen your breath as well. Stay here for 5-10 minutes, then release the thumb and finger, and be aware of how you feel. The concept of this meditation is to become aware of sensations and be in the moment. Meditation will help slow your mind down to ease anxiety, stress, and tension at the moment and your life.

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Yoga for Golfers

August 16, 2022

According to the National Golf Foundation, nearly 25 million people played golf in the United States in 2020. That’s roughly 8 percent of the total population of the U.S., and numbers show that the sport added over 500,000 more participants from 2019 to 2020. Though the median age of individuals who play golf is 54, statistics show that six million of the nearly twenty-five million players were between 18 and 34 years old. It doesn’t seem that the activity will be slowing down anytime soon, especially as we come out of the pandemic, which appears to have added more players to the sport. The NGF reports that around 77 percent of golfers are male, leaving female golfers to make up only a little more than 22 percent. Though this seems like a massive gap between genders, the number of female golfers is rising. NGF reports that 3 million of these people are new golfers, playing on a golf course for the first time (a record-breaking number of new players), with women numbers on the uptick. Another stat that the NFG shows is that millennials and that Generation Z are picking up the golf clubs and heading out onto the course. Statistics show that a little over three million are junior golfers, and almost six million individuals playing today are young people between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four.

So as more people add golf to their activity schedule, we should look at what muscle groups are used in the golf game to generate more power for their back and forward swing.

Upper Body: The pectoralis, biceps, sternocleidomastoid, serratus anterior, rotator cuff, upper trapezius, and rhomboids.
Torso: The obliques, transverse abdominus, and lattissimus dorsi.
Lower Body: The quadriceps, hip flexors, glutes, hamstring, and calves.

When all these muscles are stable and strong, you will have a balanced golf game every time you walk onto the course.

I understand that every golfer wants to do all they can to improve their game to avoid frustration and injury on the golf course. To assist my clients and those looking for a leg up in their game, I’ve created a specific yoga sequence to help strengthen and stabilize the body to improve their golf game.

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Yoga For Baseball

July 10, 2022

July is a festive yet relaxing summer month. The nation celebrates the fourth of July by having cookouts and watching fireworks. Other Individuals take some much-needed time off work to head to the beach or go on a vacation with their families. It’s the month when baseball players, or as they are also known as the “boys of summer,” come together to play the annual All-Star Game. I love being a part of all these events, but I must admit that the All-Star Game is one event I look forward to watching every year. This gathering of the best baseball players to compete yearly in the mid-summer classic is intoxicating. Watching Willson Contreras playing to his potential in the All-Star game today is just as exciting as viewing Ryan Sandberg running onto the All-Star field and playing his best when I was a kid. Though some time has passed from watching the All-Star game as a child to watching it today, the sport of baseball hasn’t changed much. Each player continues to play just as hard in today’s game as those legends performed in the past. Each individual must be able to hit, catch and throw a baseball with high efficiency while running on the bases and baseball field without making any physical or mental errors. What techniques do these athletes use to help improve themselves to live up to their potential?

Baseball players include weight training to help increase strength and stability for their bodies to perform at a high level in the sport. More and more teams have added sports psychologists working with their athletes to ease the mental stress the sport can have on them in a season. Teams have even hired nutritionists to help these players fuel their bodies to increase optimal performance.

Are there any other ways that baseball players could improve their overall training? There is one. This activity that more teams could incorporate that can help bridge the mind/ body connection for baseball players to perform to their peak potential is yoga.

When baseball players introduce yoga into their training cycle, they will increase strength and stability in their shoulders, hips, and legs l. They will add mobility to their latissimus dorsi, obliques, and the quadratus lumborum, assisting in hitting and throwing across their bodies in a game. This extra flexibility helps to decrease muscle strains and chronic inflammation in the back, hips, legs, and shoulders. These physical benefits will assist a baseball player by gaining a faster recovery time by reducing the delayed onset of muscle stiffness (DOMS) effect that comes with training and competition.

Another perk of adding yoga to the training cycle is focused breathing exercises that increase the parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS). Having a raised PSNS will initiate a “calming yet alert state” in the mind when placed in stressful situations in a game. This raised PSNS will also reduce sleep disturbances, as the calming mental state will lead to a more restful night’s sleep allowing the mind and body to recover from their busy schedule and competition.

Here are the eight yoga poses that will help baseball players excel on the diamond:

Warrior Two strengthens the ankles, legs, and hips.

Reverse Warrior stretches the hips, lats, and obliques.

Twisted Warrior adds mobility to the spine and stability to the hips.

Superman helps strengthen the back body and shoulder girdle.

Downward Facing Boat strengthens the back body, while opening the chest.

Cow Facing Pose stretches the shoulders and the hips.

Intense Seated Side Stretch opens the lats, obliques, and the lower back.

Seated Twist increase mobility in spinal rotation and stretches the hips.

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Yoga For Allergies

June 7, 2022

It's springtime again. The flowers are blooming, and leaves begin sprouting from the branches of the trees. For some, this is the best time of the year as we transition from colder temperatures to some milder weather to enjoy the outdoors. For others, this is the most brutal season to deal with because of their battle with seasonal allergies.

So what is an allergy? The Merriam-Webster definition of an allergy is an exaggerated or pathological immunological reaction ( such as sneezing, difficult breathing, itching, or skin rashes) to substances, situations, or physical states without comparable effect on the average individual. Most individuals are affected by seasonal rhinitis, an allergic reaction to pollen from trees, grasses, and weeds. This seasonal rhinitis occurs mainly in the spring and fall and when pollen has been released into the air.

According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, more than twenty-five million people suffer from seasonal allergies. That is the sixth leading cause of chronic illness in America.

Unfortunately, there is no cure for allergies, though you can manage these allergies with medication such as antihistamines and nasal steroids. You may want a more natural approach by consuming probiotics and using a neti pot to cleanse the nasal passages of pollen. You can clean your home often and keep the windows closed during the peak allergy season to cut down on the body's reaction to pollen. Another way to handle allergies is to decrease your stress load. When the body is stressed, it releases cortisol and adrenaline, overloading the immune system and worsening seasonal allergies. You can reduce stress by taking more downtime to relax or meditate to calm the mind and body. Another great way to diminish stress is by adding a regular yoga practice during these peak months. One benefit of a yoga practice is that it decreases stress mentally and emotionally by combining the poses and the breath. Integrating a focused breathing pattern during yoga calms the mind and allows the practitioner to become more grounded at the moment. Another advantage to practicing yoga is it increases strength and flexibility in the intercostal muscles along the rib cage. When the intercostal muscles are more mobile, the lungs will work efficiently to increase oxygen in the body. Having the intercostal become more mobile will allow individuals to take deeper breaths, which can benefit during an allergy or asthma attack.

Here are six yoga poses to incorporate to decrease stress and strengthen the lungs during allergy season.