Posts filed under 'Yoga'
Children cannot easily understand the virtues of yoga or anything that relates to health. The generation brought up on fast food is too mesmerized by the burger and chips marketing gimmicks to pay heed to good advice about “boring yoga”.
Unfortunately even my own daughter, Diya, calls yoga “boring”.
I was appalled to see that 30% of the children at my daughter’s school were overweight, and some even obese, so I arranged a meeting with the headmistress to see how we could discourage the kids from eating so much fast food.
She issued a circular to the children to discourage fast foods and asked me to address the issue directly to the parents at the next parents-teacher meeting. She wanted me to prepare a module on yoga and how it can help the young and wanted me to tell the parents about it.
This is what I proposed:
First thing in the morning the parents are asked to wake their children up to flute music as a call to the yoga session. The parents themselves must get in the habit of rising early and are asked to give kids more than two hours of time before they leave for school.
The day must begin with the intake of water – in the beginning even a few sips will do and kids are asked to go to the toilet to inculcate a habit of evacuation as soon as they get up. Parents must also do as they preach else their instructions will invariably fall on deaf ears.
Next the children should brush their teeth and fill their mouths with water. Holding the water in their mouths while splashing some water into their open eyes 3-4 times will improve eye-sight and helps improve the health of the eye. This is very important as computers increasingly become widely used tools of education.
With the flute music playing, do the following:
1. Sit down cross-legged on a thin woollen or silken mattress in a quite place of your house.
2. Eyes closed, start with deep breathing – deep inhalations and exhalations slowly without exerting, just for one minute.
3. Keep sitting in the same position and start blowing your nose rhythmically – one blow a second, again without exerting too hard; one should be able to hear the quick exhalations as you blow air out of your lungs, without minding the inhalations which will happen involuntarily. As you blow your nose it will be accompanied by an inward pull of your stomach. Hence, a nose blow and an inward pull of the stomach have to be done for 2-3 minutes without break. You can take some rest as initially you may find it exhausting.
4. The above exercise has to be done 2-3 times with some rest every 2-3 minutes.
5. Thereafter, lie down on your back. Lift your head and feet at about 30 degrees with arms stretched straight along your body. Hold it here as long as possible. Repeat this 4-5 times.
6. Sit straight with your legs stretched as much apart as possible. Hold your arms stretched too and parallel to the legs. Place your right hand on your left foot and left hand to the right foot in slow successions. Do it for 10-20 times, about 2-3 minutes.
7. We stop here. Just lie down on your back, eyes closed, arms placed along your body, back of the hands touching the mattress, legs straight and open, and feet comfortably spaced. Just try to go into momentary sleep for 2-3 minutes.
8. Take your weight if you have the machine handy or do it when you go out. Chances are you will have lost between 250-500 grams. You can lose inches over a period though. But for today even before you check your weight again you feel light. That’s the promise of yoga.
9. Reduce the amount of fast, fried and spicy, and high-starch foods, long hours watching TV and staying back home when you have time to play out.
August 3rd, 2006
Written By: lalitgambhir
Elmsford in United Kingdom recently was host to one of the largest yoga camps in the world outside India.
The yoga camp was also the first outside India organized by Swami Ramdev, who is spearheading the yoga movement in India. “I am basically a nationalist, so my first priority is to set my own home in order”, he has said, so his Yoga camp in England was a notable event.
Swami Ramdev is the head of Patanjali Yog Peeth, a charitable institution which has a sophisticated hospital and research facility devoted to yoga and ayurveda.
The Elmsford yoga camp was a long time in coming as Swami had vowed to complete a planned number of yoga camps in India first. Under the banner of Patanjali, Swami and his team are working on a target of training 10,000 teachers in the discipline of yoga by the end of this year. While the process for reaching the target is in place, Swami can now concentrate on running yoga camps in other countries.
The Elmsford yoga camp was different from the ones normally organized in India. Here the participants and/or patients were asked to bring diagnostic reports about their health problems to the eight-day camp. As videos of the camp show, there were scores of testimonies by the participants on improvements in the health.
The participants reported relief in their problems, which ranged from obesity, blood pressure, diabetes, sinus, asthma to arthritis. There were quite a few participants who had been following up the yoga instructions of Swami on television through the live telecast of the camps in India. They told how they were coping with their mild to serious health problems and how yoga had helped them.
A lady from Elmsford, in her mid-fifties presented a moving testimony - “I suffered depression for more than ten years; I rarely slept soundly and never felt like eating too; I was losing my hair every time I touched my head”. She said that she had longed for an end to her life; yoga changed all that. “Now I sleep like a child and have a healthy appetite too; I am even getting my hair back” She said.
For the convenience of patients with blood pressure problems, sphygmomanometers were provided at the camp. The patients were asked to measure their BP on the first day of the camp and see if they improved at the end of it. All reported varying degrees of improvements.
There were a large number of Britons including some politicians, at the camp, as well as native indians, and everybody reported on time for the early morning starts for all eight days of the camp.
Speaking mostly in Hindi, Swami was particularly impressed with the British habits of punctuality and cleanliness when he said,” Not a single one I noticed coming in here late even by a single minute, and that’s the first and the basic quality a yogi must have”.
August 1st, 2006
Written By: lalitgambhir
I can recall my trip to the north eastern Himalayan state of beautiful and colourful tribes – Arunachal Pradesh, a decade or so back.
My friend and guide Bida Taku, an Arunachali, was an avid walker. He was always 10 steps ahead of me in our entire trek and had to bear with my slow pace while climbing the virgin forest hills. I actually envied his pace and his remarkable ability to sustain his climbs even if we were same age and had similar stature.
During my entire trip I wondered how he could do what I couldn’t, so asked him what his secret was. “I carry more oxygen in my blood than you even if we are equally strong”, Bida was candid in his explanation. I remember having wondered if there was something amiss with my blood.
I decided to get my blood tested once I was back home.
At the end of our trek, just as we were about to leave, Bida fell terribly sick. I had to take him to the hospital and had to postpone my departure for he had nobody to look after him. Since he was advised to go for some routine blood test I had an opportunity to look at the laboratory report.
To my surprise, his red blood corpuscles count was 17.5. The sceptic in me murmured – “I think you have some primitive laboratories which may have defective instruments or chemicals,” as I disbelieved the report completely.
Bida informed me that was not rubbish, for that was his actual RBCs count. He further told me that even his father had a similar count and his mother too had somewhere around 15 or so. People living in the mountain have much higher RBCs level. Whereas ordinarily healthy people living in the plains have their RBCs mostly in the range of 11-13.
A few years back I happened to discuss the subject with my teacher. It was not difficult to understand, as he explained. Adverse climb and difficult terrains of the hills were part of everyday life of hill people. They have had their quota of pranayama, the rejuvenating breathing exercises day in day out, since their childhood.
My teacher told me that his RBCs count was more than 17.
I had understood what Bida had said. He definitely carried more oxygen in his blood as he had much greater number of RBCs – red blood corpuscles are the carrier of oxygen; more RBCs mean more oxygen.
Bida had aptly given me the reason for my inability to keep pace with him during our treks. It was the reason I had refused to accept and it took yoga to show me what he meant.
July 28th, 2006
Written By: lalitgambhir
The most difficult person for me to initiate into yoga so far has been my own daughter, Diya.
My seven year old has all the reasons why she is unable to follow the regime every day seven days a week – “father if I get up early I sleep in the class while ma’am is teaching; then I feel sleepy in the afternoon after I return home, and I’m unable to do my homework if I go off to sleep; in the evenings I’m playing and then I am packing my bag, preparing my uniform and polishing my shoes for the school; so it’s late and I cannot get up early in the morning.”
Diya says all this and more in a single breath
But while she continues to be the most difficult person to involve in my own yoga practice, I continue to be perhaps the most difficult father to give up on those often forceful arguments – “reduce your playing hours, go to bed early, and if you do that you will need to spend less time learning; because when you do yoga you concentrate much better, hence you learn faster and then you have all the time to play”, is my refrain everyday after I wake her up to join me in the yoga practice at half past five in the morning.
Diya had been wearing specs to correct her left eye squint ever since she joined her school four years ago. She would break her expensive specs almost every month and I had a difficult time taking her to the eye specialist and optician more than 40 miles away. This was an expensive monthly grind.
The most disappointing part was that her squint had worsened so the doctor had suggested some eye exercises to complement the glasses she was using for the purpose.
But all that is a history now.
She has not had any new specs ever since she broke her last pair in May this year. The recent check up has confirmed that she does not need to wear her specs all day long as her squint has been reduced by 80%.
Diya has been practising yoga since May though she did not practise consistently at first. Her doctor believes the exercises he had suggested had worked. But honestly I never cared for his new prescription as I feel that Yoga had corrected her sight problems.
I keep reminding her how she got rid of her specs she has worn for as long as she can remember. And I encourage her to follow my yoga instructions as we proceed in our morning practice. But only for about 10 minutes or so as she is too talkative to concentrate properly.
Children must be initiated into yoga early. It’s a discipline which can set firm foundations for a responsible childhood and a basis for a thoroughly mature adulthood.
July 26th, 2006
Written By: lalitgambhir
The participants at the yoga camps organized at different places across the country in India are asked to take an oath that they will teach yoga to at least 100 people, thus spreading the practice for healthy living.
Many of us yoga practitioners and teachers are campaigning for the same.
One of our close associates, an elderly gentleman had had a harrowing time convincing his equally elderly fellow neighbours on the merits of yoga. The old gentlemen were regular gossip mongers at a neighborhood park which was also frequented by our yoga associate. I call him Mr Joy for anybody who comes in his contact goes back filled with joy.
He shared his frustration with me several times over for not having been able to convert his friends into yoga followers. His being upset was obvious for he always believed that his friends would be the first ones to follow his advice and become yoga practitioners. But sadly for him and for us too to an extent, he was unable to deliver a message of joy to his fellow beings. This was talked over a number of times and was almost forgotten.
Then one fine morning I saw Mr Joy in his beaming best. “Looks like you have been to a saloon for a facial, Mr Joy”, I asked. “Today I have had my first session of yoga with the diehard skeptics,” he announced to my utter surprise. How it happened finally? I was too eager to know.
Mr Joy narrated the saga of his success, which did not come through with his efforts but because of the sudden demise of one of their fittest and perhaps most affectionate fellow gossipers. The gentleman who had passed away had had the best medical indicators in the group, the most talkative. He was also the staunchest opponent of the “hocus pocus called yoga”. He had died of brain hemorrhage induced by sudden rise of his blood pressure which could not be controlled in time.
That’s exactly what Mr Joy was talking to him about just a few days before his unfortunate death in the presence the others who too had all the arguments against the traditional system of healing. Mr Joy wanted the gentleman who had passed away to take to yoga to treat his persistent high BP but has met with no success.
The death of the gentleman proved to be a blow to the arguments the oldies had held against yoga. The golden advice of Mr Joy had registered with the fellow oldies. They were too shaken on the death and all seemed to wish they had heard the good advise of Mr Joy. A week after the sad event they all came knocking at the door of Mr Joy. That’s when they had had their first session of yoga. They have become quite regular with their early morning practice since.
The latest student of yoga in our community and who is also the first one from across our frontiers is Chris, the webmaster of this site. I am quite sure, Chris will not only do good to his health and well being but is already doing a great service to the suffering humanity through his generous effort we see in the site. A physiologist turning a yogi is no mean feat. That fills my heart with joy.
I will be even happier if I can get his wife and their children to join our community of health crusaders.
July 21st, 2006
Written By: lalitgambhir
One of the most revolutionary rewards of information technology is turning into an unpleasant feature of our working lives – too many emails choking our inboxes vying for our attention. I am concerned here only with the messages other than spam.
Like all kinds of problems in our life we have more than a fair share of unanswered emails in our mail boxes. But then are we patient enough to read through and answer the mails we choose to open? My experience says we don’t.
I receive about 60-70 mails a day which are not spam. Atleast 60% of the mails are incomplete responses to my queries addressed to the concerned persons. The responses clearly show that either the senders did not go through my mails from top to bottom, had no patience to write more than they did or simply chose to ignore the queries left unanswered. A majority of responders thus resort to impression reading – going through a few top lines, a couple of them in the middle, and a response is shot.
The breed of impression (read, impatient) readers is growing.
The end result is incomplete responses, which means repetition of unanswered queries in my follow up mails, more time spent unproductively. Sometimes such carelessness leads to blunders. Yet we claim that we are a people in hurry, capable to doing much more than the time allows.
I can recall incidence of incomplete responses or unanswered mails was not the scenario say five years back. Over the period despite the most advanced repertoire of information technology at our disposal we have grown into an impatient and incommunicable lot with terribly decreasing attention spans.
There are hardly any areas of our life which get our undivided and unhurried (read, unharried) attention We jump out of bed in the morning late; we rush through ablutions hurriedly as we are late; breakfast is a pain in the throat as it means gulping down morsels of food as big as we picked them up from our plate, as we are late; and then we turn into devils behind the wheel as rash drivers because we are late.
Let’s face it; we are a generation of workers going out of focus about just everything about our lives.
Recently I was invited to introduce the basics of yoga to a group of busy executives from an IT company. All of them were overworked and just everything they did as part of their job was firefighting. They often left assignments in hand unfinished for one reason or the other resulting into piles of work left incomplete at the end of the weeks.
Responding to mails was one of the most neglected aspects of their chaotic routine.
For all of them the last time they were happy about their jobs was when they received their appointment letters on joining. It’s just hell thereafter, all agreed.
We discussed time management as the first step to make space for yoga in their life. Unless their job demanded they had to get into the habit of going to bed early; by 10 o’clock preferably. They had to be up early too, say at four – six hours of sound sleep are more than enough for an ordinarily healthy individual.
I prescribed them Aalom Vilom (AV), one of the seven breathing exercises under the yoga regime of pranayama. AV is a single-nostril breathing practice. After morning ablutions one has to sit cross-legged, relaxed on a thin mattress spread on the floor. One should preferably choose a quiet place in his house, out on the terrace or a public park. Closing his eyes, he should start with deep inhalations and exhalations five times each, very slowly.
This should be followed by actual AV. One should press one’s right nostril with his thumb and inhale through the left without exerting too much. This is followed by pressing the left nostril with two middle fingers and inhaling through the right. It takes 2-2.5 seconds for a single inhalation or exhalation. It is a good beginning to do AV for five minutes. But those five minutes must be undivided and without break. A very short break for a few seconds to clear up one’s nose, as a beginner would need to, though is fine. The duration could be extended to 10 minutes over a period of few weeks to a month.
For an ordinarily healthy individual 15 minutes of AV is advisable. The practice makes the practitioner focused, helps him plan and develop concentration in his work and day to day routines. He can set priorities clearly, take decisions and work on them without deviating or getting distracted.
The change will be reflected in the mailbox itself.
July 17th, 2006
Written By: lalitgambhir
Lalit, the author of the Yoga and Ayurveda articles on FurtherHealth, and a teacher of these disciplines, has been encouraging me to try some of the techniques that he has been writing about.
This was particularly in response to my blog about the meditating monks in Burma, and my confessed lack of patience to develop these skills.
Lalit had suggested that I try Pranayama, specifically five minutes each of Aalom Vilom (AV) and Kapalbharti (KB), as explained in our article about Yoga and diabetes.
As it is a nice sunny day today, I decided to put a blanket on the lawn and do five minutes of AV followed by five minutes of KB. At the very least it would be ten minutes sitting quietly in the sunshine!
Reading our article I could easily understand how to perform Aalom Vilom so I sat crossed legged on the blanket, closed my eyes and started to concentrate on inhaling and exhaling through each nostril seperately - long slow inhalations followed by long slow exhalations.
Concentrating on each breath I suddenly remembered to look at my watch to see how long I had been doing the exercise. Expecting it to be two minutes, I was surprised to see that I had been doing AV for seven minutes!
I noticed that by the end of the exercise that I was taking much deeper inhalations than when I started. As a Physiologist, at least by training, I know that this is a very good thing as air can linger and stagnate in the depths of your lungs if you don’t inhale and exhale deeply.
I felt good after this brief AV exercise - there is no doubt about it.
The KB exercise was more difficult to fathom so I need to ask Lalit to explain this better so that we can update our articles to better inform, but I can see (and feel) that controlled deep and slow inhalations and exhalations are highly beneficial.
I’ll learn more about KB and keep the blog updated with my progress.
Samadhi, here I come!
July 11th, 2006
Written By: chris
In the western world we don’t get much exposure to the powers of Yoga or meditation, other than watching, or even participating in, Yoga classes in sports clubs and gyms.
I get the impression, though, that Western Yoga, by and large, only scratches the surface of what actually can be achieved, though as our Yoga article on FurtherHealth points out, attaining high levels of expertise and benefit from Yoga requires it to play a central role in your lifestyle.
I am fortunate to have travelled reasonably extensively throughout Asia and have often seen how religion and everyday living are intertwined in these societies. For example, I vividly recall a group of Buddhist monks walking down one of the main streets in a city, a novice leading the way with a brush, sweeping the path to ensure that no insects were trodden on by the monks.
A particular encounter with the power of meditation stands out in my memory though.
There is an amazing temple in Burma (now called Myanmar) called the Shwedagon Pagoda. Covered in gold this huge pagoda is stunning and hugely interesting. It takes at least three hours of wandering around to come to terms with its majesty and serenity.
When I went through the gate to visit the pagoda I noticed three elderly monks dressed in black, each standing motionless on one leg holding a begging bowl.
I thought nothing of it until more than three hours later when I wandered out through the gate again, to my amazement the three monks were still there in exactly the same spot, in exactly the same one legged pose. They hadn’t moved an inch in three hours.
I went over to look at them and they were like statues. Eyes closed, completely still, physically there, but mentally far away in deep meditation. It was awesome to see and in fact, to me, even overshadowed the splendour of the Shwedagon.
Meditation, when performed to a high level is amazing. I probably haven’t got the patience to scratch the surface of it, which is a real shame.
July 7th, 2006
Written By: chris
The road traffic administration in India has introduced two new features at major intersections – the motorists stopping at the red signal read “Relax” glowing with the light and there is a digital timer indicating the countdown to the green signal. Hence one knows the time available to relax at the traffic intersections.
The need for the system grew from a study on the behavioural pattern of the motorists. It was found that those behind the wheels were a harried lot given the pace of life and the increasing traffic congestion on the roads. This resulted in a marked rise in the impatience of the motorists. So jumping the red signal or speeding away as the green light turned red resulted in many accidents at the intersections, which were increasing by the year.
Hence, now the red signal says Relax and the digital timer tells how long. This saves precious fuel as well as a motorist can turn the ignition off for the time period.
The new system is a reminder that life can go on without stress only if we know how. Yoga trains a person to make best use of those free moments when one can come back to himself from his involvement in the affairs of his world.
Yoga is not just a regimen of exercises and the way one can go about his diet. It is about how one can go about his life in totality.
A yogi and an ayurveda (a traditional Indian system of medicine and treatment) practitioner can tell you the root cause of all the humanity is suffering from – stress. Stress is a major killer.
The effect of stress is first visible on your digestive system. If you have not had a good night sleep, you will find your bowels not evacuating with ease the following morning. So constipation is the first problem to strike you if your system has not relaxed enough. Eating too late in the night or having a low fibre diet are other reasons, but stress is number one as observations of the ayurveda doctors reveal. Stressed out and frayed nerves leading eventually to cardiovascular problems, is a well known medical fact.
The first thing that a beginner at yoga learns is how to manage the flow of his stress hormones – adrenaline and noradrenaline, which trigger a destructive response to an unpleasant situation or a crisis. Yoga’s regulatory effect on the cellular followed by organ level follows hence.
The most chronic of physical conditions, known to medical science as incurable, have been successfully treated and cured through the system and practices of yoga. This is being confirmed in a major new research study that is being undertaken in India.
You may watch these pages for free advice on how to go about your invaluable life. You may even post your queries via our contact form to this author, who is a practitioner and teacher of yoga and can help you with advice on ayurveda.
July 2nd, 2006
Written By: lalitgambhir
As a child I always looked at yoga and ayurveda with disdain – a bunch of some stupid exercises and some dubious concoctions that made you feel ill just at their mere sight. I remember there was this very old gentleman who used to visit us for an evening chat with my dad. He used to finish off the whole packet of biscuits with the tea served to him and then would expect us to serve him with dinner as well.
Those were good old days of hospitality and my parents always took care of him and would send him home after a hearty dinner. This became almost a routine. So every second or third day he was expected.
Since I did not like him very much I once asked him contemptuously why he visited us so often. He was very frank – I am very poor and alone, so I come here to meet you all and have food. He said he skipped his meals for two to three days and he was not affected because he was a yogi. So he would eat only twice a week. The first thing that came to my mind was that he was talking rubbish. I told him that he was kidding. He smiled at me and kept quiet.
He told my parents that he had no work and his only son could not afford to take care of him. So all he did was experiment with yoga. He said he was working on a solution to hunger other than food. For me he was a major laughing stock and a joke which I shared with my friends. We all planned that I would go and live with him for at least couple of days to know the real story.
The old man was very welcoming and for two days he gave me a rundown on yoga, which I found sickening. He would accompany me to a nearby restaurant and sit with me watching while I had food. He did not eat himself. I remember that he promised to pay the restaurant owner later as he had no money. I spent those two days with open eyes as I was on a serious investigation. The old man had no clue on the purpose of my visit nor did he bother to ask.
On the morning of the third day he accompanied me back to my home. There he had a hearty lunch again.
I made my skepticism into a profession. More than twenty years later, on an assignment as a journalist, I had a chance to live in a commune of ascetics in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. I spent two months investigating about the real age of the inmates of the commune as quite a few I was told were more than a century old while they looked much younger – something like in their 60s and 70s. I was told, and saw with my own eyes,l that they used to eat only once to twice a week. The younger ones were eating maximum thrice a week.
Without telling the commune inmates the purpose of my visit I watched their movements, day and night for a number of days. I made checks and cross checks with the villagers living around the commune. I concluded that they were really very small and infrequent eaters and were all in perfect health. They were used to starvation. All the commune inmates were yogi, the practitioner of yoga.
My third encounter with yoga happened when my own sister was struck with rheumatoid arthritis. I investigated the subject when all other treatments failed. Among many things I learnt how a yogi could awaken his higher mental faculties to win over hunger and desire, and could free himself to live healthier and longer.
Now all the pieces of the puzzle started falling into place. That old man of my childhood and the inmates of the commune seemed to smile at me in their wisdom. And not with the contempt and skepticism I had previously had for them.
June 24th, 2006
Written By: lalitgambhir
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