Easing the Pain of Arthritis with Simple Yoga Practices
So what is Yoga? That is a tough question to answer as yoga can accomplish different goals for each individual. A basic definintion of yoga might be, a system of developing the mind and body using natural methods. Using these natural methods Yoga helps to improve the person's confidence, discipline, and fitness, which will leave them as a more contented individual. There are literaly thousands of different asanas, (positons or techniques) and the proper ones for each person must be determined on an individual basis with the help of a trained instructor. You will find there are yoga positions for beginners, to more advanced techniques for the masters of yoga. Retreats dedicated soley to yoga can be found just about anywhere in the world. As you do your research into yoga you will find information about clothes for yoga, yoga books, yoga mats, yoga videos, and the list goes on.
Easing the Pain of Arthritis with Simple Yoga PracticesArthritis can be just an occasional pain in some fingers or joint to an incapacitating pain that keeps you from enjoying life to the fullest. Most doctors agree that some form of regular exercise can help by keeping our muscle tone intact and in helping to prevent stiffness in the joints. Whatever your level of arthritis is, it can be helped by the practice of Yoga. When the pain of arthritis hits, it causes the rest of the body to stiffen up to keep the part that’s hurting from hurting more. Most of us would respond to that by doing even less exercise, but inactivity is the worse solution to combating the pain of arthritis. Inactivity weakens the muscles and can increase stiffness and pain. Yoga encourages you to keep moving, although gently, to allow your body to heal and preserve muscle tone. Yoga practice also helps you psychologically, it increases your confidence that you can still function as a normal person and do all the regular activities you do in a day. You don’t have to let arthritis confine you to a wheelchair. Some gentle Yoga exercises begin with movements while sitting in a chair. These are adaptations of the regular Yoga poses, and help to loosen joints and relax muscle groups. With a regular breathing pattern, you will gradually increase the level of difficulty in your Yoga practice. Breathing helps bring fresh blood and the proper nutrients to muscle tissue. It also helps relieve physical and emotional tension. As you slowly start to loosen up from these gentler Yoga movements, you can gradually add standing poses to your routine. By adding additional Yoga poses, you are improving strength, flexibility, and balance. If it’s necessary, do your routine with a sturdy chair as a prop so you will feel safer and steadier. As time goes by and you become more flexible you can gradually stop using supports. If you can’t, don’t beat yourself up because of it that defeats the purpose of Yoga. The idea is to relax and loosen the muscles. Yoga will also make those joints less painful. Self-massage is also a way to bring improved circulation and warmth to the joints affected by arthritis. The American Yoga Association has instructional tapes and books to show you how to effectively massage the areas of pain. Breathing, meditation and other relaxation techniques should be a part of your daily routine. They help improve respiration, ease anxiety, and help take your mind off the pain. Oxygen flooding the body gives relief for both physical and emotional tension and the best part of that is, you can do it anywhere! There are many books and tapes that are developed to help with coping with the pain of arthritis. Arthritis doesn’t have to be a disease that will turn into an insurmountable disability. By practicing breathing, gentle exercises, and meditating every day you can rebuild your strength and pursue your daily activities with renewed energy, better health, and less pain. Yoga is not without it's Christian criticsMany in the Christian circles are dead set against the practice of yoga, citing the Hindu background of yoga and claiming that the practices of yoga are designed to have the practioner become one with other gods. It is considered to be another facet of the new age movement by many Christians. Christians hold to one God in three "persons" (The Trinity) Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and to give recognition to another so called god is considered to be blasphemy. There have been attempts to create what is being called "Christian Yoga" but even this is being opposed in many circles. Better Your Health will be doing further research into this matter, and by signing up for our newsletter, you will be notified as soon as the material is availiable.
We at Better Your Health hope you have found this article to be very helpful in your research into Yoga. Please feel free to check out the many other articles we have on this site about Yoga. Click here to add this page to your favorites. Be sure to check out Better Your Health for more Health Related Topics. |
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