Yoga Daily

Aaron Hunsaker is a yoga instructor at Centered City Yoga in Salt Lake City, Utah. Hunsaker and Centered City Yoga are opening a new studio and are welcoming a different type of yoga practitioner: those trying to get off of drugs.

Hunsaker has a first hand experience of how difficult it is to get off of, and stay off of, drugs. A number of years ago he was struggling with staying clean when he accidentally attended a yoga class. He recalls the demons that were chasing him before he learned how to calm his “bad desires” by meditating and practicing yoga.

Those who deal with recovering addicts on daily basis, like Terry Campbell, the director of the recovery center known as First Step House, believe that yoga can be useful. Campbell stated, “When someone quits using drugs and alcohol, they are discarding a tool they have used to manage their life.” Campbell suggested that yoga might be one more tool in helping someone to stay clean.

Hopefully Centered City Yoga will put a new face on yoga by helping those who need to learn how to help themselves.

Facial Yoga is a fairly new type of yoga. It has all of the elements of regular yoga: the practitioner is asked to relax and tries to tone the muscles through specific poses, but it focuses wholly on the face!

Annelise Hagen, a facial yoga instructor, believes that facial yoga is the answer to eliminating facial plastic surgery. “There’s no need for Botox,” she says. “Here you’ll see better results.”

 Facial yoga is becoming so popular that a game called Face Training, which instructs users to make specific facial expressions, will soon be released in the UK on the Nintendo DS console.

Some people don’t have the ability to carve out the time to attend a yoga class, and others are uncomfortable going to a class full of strangers. The new Livingroom Yoga DVD is the perfect thing for those people.

This fifty minute workout focuses on the basic, tried and true moves. Creator Eva Barash said “I teach Yoga as a way to untangle and strengthen bodies and minds. My classes are vigorous to warm my students and move them to their core. And focused so they stay in that spot and breath and concentrate.”

Concentrating is exactly what you’ll do as you stare at your television for the full fifty minutes. It was even filmed on a set that looks just like a living room! The DVD makes use of living room furniture to get wonderful stretches, and it gives those that don’t want to, or can’t, leave their house the ability to experience some excellent yoga.

Yoga experts will tell you that you don’t have to have special yoga attire in order to practice yoga. They will say that all you need is comfortable clothing and a comfortable space.

Many, however, do wear “yoga clothes”, which generally consists of tight tank tops and pants that flow but stop before the ankle, so that the instructors can see exactly what the student is doing. While it was once difficult to find great clothes for a session, these days you can get them almost anywhere. From online sales to gyms that order wholesale, nearly everywhere you look, you’ll find the perfect gear for your next session.

Many don’t even save their yoga attire for the studio. Some people are purchasing yoga clothes to work in, while others are merely enjoying how comfortable they can be in their day-to-day lives in yoga apparel.

These days it seems as if everyone is doing their part to help soldiers. One yoga chain in Arizona is doing its part to honor those in the military services. Dahn Yoga will be providing free workshops at six different locations all day on November 3, as a way to honor the military personnel and to give them a taste of Yoga.

Dahn Yoga founders believe their mission “is to empower individuals to manage their own bodies well in order to become more healthy, happy and peaceful. Dahn Yoga Centers accomplish this mission through the creation of tools to foster the health and well-being of the individual, family and society as a whole.”

The classes will run from 9:30 a.m. until 2 p.m. and will focus on breathing, relaxation, and brain-healing techniques. All are welcome, including those who are completely healthy, those who have mobility problems, men, and women!

Just another example of how yoga and those who teach it are trying to change the world.

A question has been raised recently as to whether regular yoga and meditation sessions can help children that suffer with ADHD. Dr. Joyce Brothers seems to think so.

In a recent question and answer column, Dr. Brothers stated that children are being overrun with an increasing amount of stimuli as time goes on. “Studies suggest that meditation can help train attention through focusing on quiet breathing, the sounds it makes, and the sensations one can experience in silence,” Dr. Brothers said.

Can yoga help a child with ADHD calm down? All children are different, but yoga is good for both the body and soul, so it can’t hurt to try!

Everyone remembers what a horror it looked like for the evacuees in New Orleans that took shelter in the Superdome. The Qualcomm Stadium, located in San Diego, is nothing like the Superdome.

Over 10,000 California wildfire evacuees are residing in the Qualcomm, and the city officials are doing everything they can to make the displaced residents feel at home, including providing entertainment for the children, acupuncture, and even a place for people to do yoga.

The evacuees may be worrying about their homes, but they can do their best to calm their mind with some yoga and deep meditation in the special areas set up in the Qualcomm Stadium. No one knows how long the good vibes will last, but a little yoga is sure to help everyone - relief workers included.

The market is deciding that it’s time to cater to the pregnant women of the world. Instead of having to wear the oversized maternity clothes of the past, pregnant women can choose from designer fashions and beautifully tailored clothes.

Instead of staying at home with their feet up, women are indulging in yoga classes that are designed specifically to help the mom-to-be stay fit and centered. Is it all truly good for a new mom?

Experts suggest that pregnancy yoga is one excellent thing that has come out of this baby marketing boom. By keeping the body limber and the mind centered, pregnant moms are in a much better place to be able to handle labor and delivery, as well as the recovery period.

Lots of local gyms offer prenatal yoga classes, so if you’re one of the thousands of moms-to-be, give your local gym a call today.

There is a huge list of celebrities that are rumored to practice yoga. Some of these celebrities have admitted that they enjoy the exercise while others have been caught practicing in public.

The list includes people like Meg Ryan, Ricky Martin, Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, Shirley MacLaine and Nicholas Cage. But why do celebrities choose yoga as their exercise of choice? Many choose it because it’s possible to get a quick workout in no matter where they are. They simply tote their mat with them from hotel to hotel and are able to workout whenever they can. Others enjoy the way yoga tones their body and centers their mind. The key, though, is that most celeb yogis enjoy the same benefits you do from this ancient practice.

Recently the Bachelor, Andy Baldwin, was caught doing some rather intense yoga poses on a Hawaiian beach. Another celebrity joins the yoga craze, and for good reason. Get into the yoga habit today!

One of Yoga’s more outspoken gurus, Swami Ramdev, has made a controversial statement once more. You may remember that Swami Ramdev has been under fire before for claiming that some types of Yoga can cure cancer. He held a press conference this past Sunday stating that sexual education in schools are responsible for leading children onto a path of crime.

“Sex education has been dragging the children towards crime and if this situation continued, they would become dreaded criminals,” the esteemed guru said.

Swami Ramdev believes that children should be taught yoga in school instead of sexual education. Not only does it offer better futures, suggests Swami Ramdev, but there are many illnesses that can be cured through yoga.