is yoga enough?

When it came to the fitness benefits yoga can or can’t provide, yoga teacher John Schumacher had heard it all. A student of B. K. S. Iyengar for 20 years and founder of the Unity Woods studios in the Washington, D.C. area, Schumacher was convinced yoga provides a complete fitness regime. But many people, even some of his own students, disagreed. Yoga might be good for flexibility or relaxation, they’d say, but to be truly fit, you had to combine it with an activity like running or weight lifting.

Schumacher just didn’t buy it.

He knew three decades of yoga practice—and only yoga practice—had kept him fit. He didn’t need to power walk. He didn’t need to lift weights. His fitness formula consisted of daily asanas (poses) and pranayama (breathwork). That’s all he needed.

Four years ago at age 52, Schumacher decided to prove his point. He signed up for physiological testing at a lab in Gaithersburg, Maryland. As he expected, Schumacher tested near the top of his age group for a variety of fitness tests, including maximum heart and exercise recovery rates. His doctor told him that he was in excellent physical condition and estimated that Schumacher had less than a one percent chance of suffering a cardiac event. “I’ve always maintained that yoga provides more than adequate cardiovascular benefits,” says Schumacher. “Now I have the evidence that regular yoga practice at a certain level of intensity will provide you with what you need.”

Evidence of yoga’s ability to bolster fitness, however, goes well beyond Schumacher’s personal experience. Yoga Journal’s testing of three yogis also yielded impressive results. Even physiologists who don’t do yoga now agree that the practice provides benefits well beyond flexibility and relaxation. Recent research—though preliminary—shows that yoga may also improve strength, aerobic capacity, and lung function. If you practice yoga, you already knew that. But if, like Schumacher, you’ve been told by friends, family, doctors, or even other yoga students that you need to add some power walking for your heart or strength training for your muscles, here’s evidence that yoga is all you need for a fit mind and body.

Why Yoga Works
Exactly how does yoga build fitness? The answer you get depends on whom you ask. Robert Holly, Ph.D., a senior lecturer in the Department of Exercise Biology at U. C. Davis and one of the researchers on the U. C. Davis study, says that muscles respond to stretching by becoming larger and capable of extracting and using more oxygen more quickly. In other words, side benefits of flexibility include increased muscle strength and endurance.

“My own belief is that the small but significant increase in maximal oxygen capacity was due to an increase in muscle endurance, which allowed the subjects to exercise longer, extract more oxygen, and reach an increased maximal oxygen uptake,” says Holly.

Then there’s the pranayama theory. Birkel suspects that yoga poses help increase lung capacity by improving the flexibility of the rib area, shoulders, and back, allowing the lungs to expand more fully. Breathwork further boosts lung capacity—and possibly also VO2max—by conditioning the diaphragm and helping to more fully oxygenate the blood.

Birkel, Dina Amsterdam, and others are also quick to point out that Suryanamaskar (Sun Salutations) and other continuously linked poses increase the heart rate, making yoga aerobically challenging. And many yoga poses—particularly standing poses, balancing poses, and inversions—build quite a bit of strength because they require sustained isometric contractions of many large and small muscles. Of course, holding the poses longer increases this training effect.

Finally, yoga tunes you into your body and helps you to better coordinate your actions. “When you bring your breath, your awareness, and your physical body into harmony, you allow your body to work at its maximum fitness capacity,” says Dina Amsterdam. “Yoga class is merely a laboratory for how to be in harmony with the body in every activity outside of yoga. This improved physical wellness and fluidity enhance not just the physical well-being but also permeate all levels of our being.”

Yoga Timer with Tibetan Singing-Bowl

Use our unique “Zen Clock” which functions as a Yoga Timer.  It features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings your meditation or yoga session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal. Our Yoga Timer & Clock can be programmed to chime at the end of the meditation or yoga session or periodically throughout the session as a kind of sonic yantra. The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you “make time” for meditation in your life.  Bring yourself back to balance.

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Adapted from Yoga Journal.com by Alisa Bauman stays fit through yoga, running, and fitness ball workouts.

the zen of air travel

Flight delayed for another three hours? Just breathe deeply.

The San Francisco International Airport continues its quest to make itself its own destination. The airport has just opened a yoga room for harried travelers seeking a moment of peace following airport security.

In Terminal 2, serving Virgin America and American Airlines passengers, SFO’s “Zen Room” is reportedly the first of its kind. The space features dimmed lights meant to soothe weary spirits, a glass wall and door to act as a sound barrier from the busy noises of the terminal, and felt-covered rocks to add to the Zen garden atmosphere. The room will have plenty of yoga mats for travelers to use, and will be open from 4:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. each day.

zen mediation space in SF airport

Melissa Mizell, design director for Gensler, the architecture firm behind Terminal 2, said in a statement that the room “gives modern travelers a space that fosters and supports quiet and reflection,” MSNBC reports.

adapted from Time Magazine, January 2012

Use our unique “Zen Clock” which functions as a Yoga Timer.  It features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings your meditation or yoga session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal. Our Yoga Timer & Clock can be programmed to chime at the end of the meditation or yoga session or periodically throughout the session as a kind of sonic yantra. The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you “make time” for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance.

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Mindfulness

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Sharon Salzberg said her mind might be very different if it weren’t for meditation, and new neurologic research suggests that she might be right.

Troubled by a traumatic, stressful childhood, Salzberg traveled to India as a college student and discovered meditation. Not only did it help her deal with her painful past, Salzberg said, but the practice helped change the way her mind worked.

“I hadn’t really looked within,” said Salzberg, a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society and author of seven books on meditation. “I felt much more presence, rather than being distracted. It felt like the whole world opened up for me.”

A new study from Yale University suggests that the brains of experienced meditators like Salzberg may actually work differently than brains of those who don’t meditate. The study gives scientists a window into the meditating mind, providing evidence that the practice appears to change the way the brain works and could give meditators a leg up when it comes to dealing with mental disorders.

Dr. Judson Brewer, medical director of the Yale Therapeutic Neuroscience Clinic, and his colleagues asked 10 experienced meditators and 13 people with no meditation experience to practice three basic meditation techniques: concentration, loving-kindness, and choiceless awareness.

The team then used functional magnetic resonance imaging to observe the participants’ brain activity when they were practicing the meditative techniques and when they were instructed not to think of anything in particular.

In a report published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Brewer and his team report that the experienced meditators had decreased activity in an area of the brain called the default mode network, a region that is usually at work when the mind wanders. Even when the meditators weren’t meditating, this region of their brain was much quieter than in their inexperienced counterparts.

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Most people spend a lot of time in mind wandering or daydreaming, and research shows that it comes with cognitive pros and cons. Scientists have shown that daydreaming can be a good thing, providing a boost for creativity, aiding in the processing of social functions, and refining other important psychological processes.

However, recent studies have suggested that a wandering mind is also an unhappy one. In 2010, one study found that people reported being significantly less happy when their minds were wandering than when they were engaged in the task at hand. Researchers suggest that this is because when our minds are wandering, most of us are worrying rather than living in the moment.

Brewer also notes that the psychological hallmark of many forms of mental illness — anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and schizophrenia — is a preoccupation with one’s own thoughts, specifically the negative ones. A series of studies have linked these disorders with overactivity or faulty neurological wiring in the default mode network, the brain region that was less active in experienced meditators.

“One of the things that meditation and basic mindfulness seems to be doing is quieting down this region of the brain,” Brewer said. “It absolutely makes sense, given what we know about the default mode network.”

Meditation isn’t a cure for mental illness, Brewer said, but he said his study suggests that there may be a neurological basis for the benefits that many meditators report — increased awareness, improved concentration, and a better ability to deal with the cognitive and emotional stresses of modern life.

Salzberg said she hopes that increased scientific study will continue to document the benefits of meditation for easing a troubled mind.

“It’s quite great that in our contemporary time where science is the language of validation, there’s evidence showing that in fact this is true,” Salzberg said.

adapted from abcnews.com by Carrie Gann

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Soothing Sound Timer and Alarm Clock - Harunobu Suzuki, Beauty at the Veranda

In the yogic tradition, breath is the foundation of all life, the sustaining connection between body and spirit. A telling indicator of health and mood, breath puts us in closer touch with ourselves on every level. Through pranayama, or breath control, we can manage our emotions, gain clarity — and take greater control of our lives. “The way you breathe is a metaphor for the way you live your life,” says Amy Weintraub, Kripalu yoga-teacher mentor and author of Yoga for Depression. “Are you taking little sips of breath as though you don’t deserve to take up space on the planet, or are you breathing full and standing tall?” Try this pranayama exercise once a day or whenever you need to.

Ocean-Sounding Victory Breath
This calming breath, also known as ujjayi breath, has a settling effect on the central nervous system while increasing mental alertness and clarity — making it very effective for those suffering from anxiety and depression, says Weintraub. “Even three ujjayi breaths can cause a complete paradigm shift in your mood. This is a great exercise to do before meditation or anytime to help reduce stress.”

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1. Inhale through your nostrils with a slight constriction at the back of your throat so the breath travels over the glottis, making a soft but audible sound. Think ocean waves rolling over pebbles. Imagine that you are actually breathing from the back of your throat.

2. Exhale through your nostrils, pulling the belly toward your spine. Empty your lungs completely. Begin again, slowly.

3. Continue to breathe deeply and audibly on the inhalation and exhalation. Allow the belly, the rib cage, and the upper chest to expand with each inhalation. Let the breath be like a lullaby to yourself.

Use our unique “Zen Clock” which functions as a Yoga & Meditation Timer.  It features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings your meditation or yoga session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal.

Our Yoga Timer & Clock can be programmed to chime at the end of the meditation or yoga session or periodically throughout the session as a kind of sonic yantra. The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you “make time” for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance.

adapted from body + soul, April/May 2005 Terri Trespicio

Soothing Sounds Alarm Clock and Meditation Timer from Now & Zen, Inc.

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Eisen Keisai, Woman Getting out of a Mosquito Net - Soothing Sounds Alarm Clocks by Now & Zen

Power Hara Breathing Exercise:

The yogis understood the connection between breath and power. This energizing breath combines a spinal twist and vocal sounds to release tension and build energy. For an even more invigorating experience, try this breathing exercise outside first thing in the morning.

1. Bring your hands to your shoulders with your elbows pointed out. Stand with your feet slightly wider than hip width.

2. Twist to the left as you inhale, filling your lungs halfway, and then twist to the right as you complete the inhalation.

3. Twist left as you exhale, making a powerful “ha” sound as you extend your right arm forcefully to the left, like a punch.

4. Twist right to finish exhaling, again with a “ha,” punching your left arm out to the right. Make the vocal sound from deep in your gut, not just from your throat.

5. Practice 10 full rounds, then relax, arms by your sides. Close your eyes; feel your awakened energy. Breathe normally.

Body and soul in balance - Choose a Soothing Sounds Alarm Clock by Now & Zen

Use our unique “Zen Clock” which functions as a Yoga & Meditation Timer.  It features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings your meditation or yoga session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal. Our Yoga Timer & Clock can be programmed to chime at the end of the meditation or yoga session or periodically throughout the session as a kind of sonic yantra. The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you “make time” for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance.

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mind-body therapies help your heart

Research shows that the stress-inflammation cycle is as detrimental to your heart as a plate full of the cheesiest fettuccine Alfredo. “Stress hormones, such as adrenaline and cortisol, cause the arteries to constrict, which results in a rise in blood pressure and decrease in blood flow,” Moyad explains. Less blood flow means less oxygen circulating through the body to combat free radicals—unstable cells that can damage healthy tissues. “We know now that bad LDL cholesterol only becomes threatening when levels get so high that it binds with free radicals,” Moyad says. When this happens, LDL changes structure and gets absorbed by the arterial walls’ lining, resulting in plaque buildup, or atherosclerosis. Such tissue damage causes the immune system to go into overdrive, triggering inflammation. Reduce your risk with effective mind-body therapies like meditation, yoga, exercise or massage.

The Digital Zen Clock & Meditation Timer serves as a countdown and interval timer for yoga, meditation, bodywork, etc.; and it can also be set to chime on the hour as a tool for “mindfulness.”

adapted from Natural Solutions Magazine, January 2010 by Kate Hanley

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The Digital Zen Clock is the perfect companion for a natural lifestyle. Its long-resonating acoustic chime set in a solid hardwood case adds tranquility and aesthetic pleasure to any environment or activity. Used as an alarm clock, its gradually-increasing chime progression sequence begins your day with grace and beauty. As a timing device the Digital Zen Clock’s acoustic chime is unsurpassed for yoga, meditation, bodywork, or any practice.

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harunobu suzuki, Beauty at the Veranda

You can add vocalization to almost any pose to develop your sound and calm your emotions

You can add vocalization to almost any pose to develop your sound and calm your emotions, says Suzanne Sterling, a yoga teacher and kirtan leader. Using traditional Sanskrit seed sounds like “om” and “ah,” find a comfortable pitch and sing gently on the exhalation as you move through your daily practice. Most beneficial to the voice are poses that release upper-body tension, relax and open the throat, and promote alignment. Here are a few to try:

Simhasana (Lion Pose) is a great way to revitalize and relax all the muscles involved in vocal production. If you vocalize as part of this pose (the lion’s “roar”), keep it gentle and move completely through your vocal range, high to low. Don’t force the sound.

For passively relaxing the throat, seek out poses that tilt the chin toward the chest. “Shoulderstand is a great pose for the throat,” says Ann Dyer, a nada yoga teacher and vocalist based in Oakland, California. If you can’t do Shoulderstand, try Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (Bridge Pose).

For actively opening the throat, you want gentle bends that tilt the head back. Dyer recommends Matsyasana (Fish Pose) and Urdhva Dhanurasana (Upward Bow Pose).

adapted from Yoga Journal by Karin Beuerlein, a writer in Knoxville, Tennessee.

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Using a kitchen timer or beeper watch is less than ideal when practicing yoga.  And it was with these considerations in mind that we designed our digital Zen Alarm Clock and Yoga practice timer.  This unique “Zen Clock” features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings the meditation or yoga session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal.  The Digital Zen Clock can be programmed to chime at the end of the meditation session or periodically throughout the session as a kind of sonic yantra. The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you “make time” for meditation yoga in your life.

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yoga when you are tired, yoga when you are wired...

After a stressful day, yoga brings your body and 
mind back into balance.

By Karen Macklin

We’ve all been there at the end of a long day: too exhausted to do anything substantial but too hyped up and jittery to really relax. Feeling simultaneously tired and wired happens more often than many of us would like, and it can be hard to know what kind of practice is best to do when you feel this way.

“The goal of yoga, among other things, is unification of body and mind,” says Frank Jude Boccio, a yoga and meditation teacher. But when your body is tired and your mind is wired, he says, you don’t experience that unification. “The beauty of it is that yoga practices are specifically designed to bring the two into balance.”

According to Boccio, the first step is to rest the body. Even if your job is not physically rigorous, he says, your body is tired at the end of the day because the mind uses a lot of glucose, which leaves you feeling depleted.

Boccio recommends this short series of restorative postures that combines forward folds to calm the nervous system and simple twists to revitalize the body and move stagnant blood, rebalancing your energy.

Once your body starts to relax, Boccio says, you can bring your mind into balance with it by doing a simple breath-awareness practice. Start by exhaling completely, with long and steady breaths, as if the receding waves are drawing with them the accumulated detritus of the day; then take deep inhalations that feel like waves coming in with great force. Finally, beware of how much you reactivate the mind with television or computer time before going to bed. If you don’t get enough sleep, you start the day feeling depleted, and end it feeling even more so.

To unwind just before going to sleep, Boccio suggests giving yourself a foot massage: Coat the sole of your foot with raw sesame oil (you can add a few drops of a calming essential 
oil like lavender), and massage for a few minutes. This brings the energy down in the body, helping you feel grounded 
before bed.

Savasana (Corpse Pose)

Begin by feeling the support of the earth 
beneath you. Mentally scan your body and 
notice your level of fatigue or over stimulation. As you move through the following sequence, hold each pose as long as feels right to you.

Apanasana(Knees-to-Chest Pose)

Bring one knee into your chest, keeping the other leg straight on 
the ground. Switch knees, and then bring both knees into your chest. This pose helps release the kidney area, where fatigue is often felt.

Jathara Parivartanasana (Revolved Abdomen Pose)

Extend your arms. Bring your knees over to your right side and hold; switch sides. 
Twists like these lift your 
energy and bring new 
blood to your 
internal organs 
and kidney area.

Viparita Karani (Legs-up-the-Wall Pose)

This calming inversion takes pressure off the lower part of your body.

Janu Sirsasana (Head-of-the-Knee Pose)

Come into the pose and hold; 
then switch sides. This forward bend helps calm the nervous system.

Seated Twist

Take a gentle twist to either side to help lift lethargy and increase energy.

Use our unique “Zen Clock” which functions as a Yoga Timer.  It features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings your meditation or yoga session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal. Our Yoga Timer & Clock can be programmed to chime at the end of the meditation or yoga session or periodically throughout the session as a kind of sonic yantra. The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you “make time” for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance.

Zen Timepiece by Now & Zen

Now & Zen’s Yoga Timer and Alarm Clock Shop

1638 Pearl St.

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(800) 779-6383

Adapted from Yoga Journal.com