Yoga For Professionals - Business

Mind-body fitness, which derives from Eastern philosophies and religions, improves physical and emotional well-being, and has implications for workplace performance.

The overall benefits of mind-body exercise are documented in an increasing number of scientific studies. They include everything from reducing cardiac risk factors to enhancing mood.

'You're under stress, but you have to be in control all day, and after so many years, what happens is that leads to eating misbehaviors, stress hormone production and cardiac risk factors,. The good news is you can reverse these risk factors non-pharmacologically and develop some habits for a lifetime' that complement conventional diet and exercise.

The kinder, gentler movements typical of yoga improve flexibility, strength and muscle tone and can be more youth-promoting than the wear-and-tear of daily aerobics, weights and running alone.

Especially with the baby boomer generation getting older, they're realizing the need for flexibility, the need for good posture, and the desire for the things that are going to help them look and feel young.

 The Mind Body Connection

A rising number of business people are finding the mind-body connection.

Yoga, meditation, and other Eastern-born exercises are finding a growing audience among harried business people craving inner calm. Classes are offered at health clubs, company fitness centers, corporate retreats and spas.

Ideas that once were left-of-center are finding greater acceptance with the public support. Mind-body executive fitness is a hot topic right now.

Kris Fondran founder of ShapeShifter Yoga believes doing yoga can help you feel more energized and less anxious, sleep like a baby at night, have the best sex of your life and you'll feel less pain and discomfort.

There's just a general awareness, and non-conventional health care is a little more available.

Yoga forces you to focus on what's going on in the moment and to be aware of what your body is telling you. It relaxes you, brings your heart rate and your blood pressure down.

5 Basic Breathing and Relaxing Techniques

You don't need to fall into the stress mode of life. You can use breath to relax, rather than stress, your mind and body. Yoga helps you to relearn that natural state that your body and mind want to be in: relaxation.

Deep breathing is both calming and energizing. The energy you feel from a few minutes of careful breathe is not nervous or hyper, but that calm, steady energy we all need. Slow, steady, and quiet breathing gives a message to your nervous system: Be calm.

Whole books have been written on yoga breathing. Here is one 5-minute Breath Break. (Read through the instructions several times before you try the practice.)

1. Sit with your spine as straight as possible. Use a chair if necessary but don't slump into it. Feet flat on the floor with knees directly over the center of your feet. Use a book or cushion under your feet if they do not rest comfortably on the floor. Hands are on the tops of your legs.

2. Close your eyes gently and let them rest behind closed lids.

3. Think about your ribs, at the front, back, and at the sides of your body. Your lungs are behind those ribs.

4. Feel your lungs filling up, your ribs expanding out and up. Feel your lungs emptying, your ribs coming back down and in. Don't push the breath.

5. The first few times you do this, do it for 2 to 3 minutes, then do it for up to 5 to 10 minutes. At first, set aside a time at least once a day to do this. When you learn how good it makes you feel, you'll want to do it at other times as well.

Just as one stressful situation goes into your next challenge, relaxing for a few minutes every day gradually carries over into the rest of your daily life and activities.

Want to learn how to do Yoga safer and easier with better results without having to go to the Gym? Click Here!

Yoga 20 Minute Video Offers Good Instructions - Beginners

Trying to find well-produced fitness videos that are truly suitable for beginners can be a daunting challenge. 

The few videos that are marketed for beginners often are unspeakably repetitive, as if flabby muscles always mean a flabby brain. And too often, they provide no way to add extra challenge or difficulty to the routine, as if beginning exercisers are going to remain beginners forever. 

It's nice, then, to discover: 20 Minute Home Yoga Workout, a beginners' video that offers the depth of instruction and easy pace that true beginners need. 

The instructor here is Kris Fondran, an attractive looking woman who looks to be in her twenties but after reading up on her, she is actually in her mid 40's. You Go Girl. Lol. Very nice physique not over muscular but feminine and womanly. 

She has a lovely voice and a calm manner, two essentials for a yoga video, where relaxation is key. 

And she has a true gift for instruction, combining the nuts-and-bolts details of positioning with what it feels like to stretch and balance. If you have tried yoga before, you'll recognize some of them -- the down-on-all-fours stretch called the cat, the inverted V that forms the down dog, and the corpse, which requires little more than lying flat on one's back, completely relaxed.

The 20-minute session ends with stretching and relaxation, set to gentle New Age music that might lull you to sleep. 

Check out the 20-minute Yoga video below and give yoga a try with Kris. If you like and would like to learn more Click Here!