Course pack exam Flashcards
Yoga in Sanskrit
yoke or union.
Yoga traditional goal (spiritual)
yoga is a method for joining the individual self with the Divine, Universal Spirit, or Cosmic Consciousness
physical and mental exercises are designed to help achieve this goal, also called self-transcendence or enlightenment
what do the physical exercises achieve
On the physical level, yoga postures, called asanas, are designed to tone, strengthen, and align the body. These postures are performed to make the spine supple and healthy and to promote blood flow to all the organs, glands, and tissues, keeping all the bodily systems healthy
what do the physical “mental” achieve (3)
On the mental level, yoga uses breathing techniques (pranayama) and meditation (dyana) to quiet, clarify, and discipline the mind. However, experts are quick to point out that yoga is not a religion, but a way of living with health and peace of mind as its aims.
3 major components of Yoga:
Pranayama (breathing) , Asana (posture) and Dyana (meditation).
history of yoga
Yoga originated in ancient India and is one of the longest surviving philosophical systems in the world. Some scholars have estimated that yoga is as old as 5,000 years; artifacts detailing yoga postures have been found in India from over 3000 B.C1.
Yoga was first brought to the United States in the late 1800s when Swami Vivekananda, an Indian teacher and yogi, presented a lecture on meditation in Chicago.
Yoga slowly began gaining followers and flourished during the 1960s when there was a surge of interest in Eastern philosophy.
2day, yoga is thriving, and it has become easy to find teachers and practitioners throughout America. Yoga stretches are used by physical therapists and professional sports teams, and the benefits of yoga are also being touted by movie stars. Many prestigious schools of medicine have studied and introduced yoga techniques as proven therapies for illness and stress
how many types of yoga
Classical yoga is separated into eight limbs, each a part of the complete system for mental, physical and spiritual well-being. Four of the limbs deal with mental and physical exercises designed to bring the mind in tune with the body. The other four deal with different stages of meditation.
here is no consensus from the literature about how many types and roots of yoga there are. However, commonly speaking, there are six major types of yoga, all with the same goals of health and harmony but with varying techniques:
6 types of yoga
- Hatha Yoga • Raja yoga • Karma yoga • Bhakti yoga • Jnana yoga • Tantra yoga
Hatha Yoga
(yoga of postures) is the most commonly practiced branch of yoga in the United States, and it is a highly developed system of nearly 200 physical postures, movements and breathing techniques designed to tune the body to its optimal health
Hatha Yoga most important parts
he yoga philosophy believes the breath to be the most important facet of health, as the breath is the largest source of prana, or life force, and hatha yoga utilizes pranayama, which literally means the science or control of breathing. Hatha yoga was originally developed as a system to make the body strong and healthy enough to enable mental awareness and spiritual enlightenment.
Schools of Hatha yoga (named)
There are several different schools of hatha yoga; the two most
prevalent are Iyengar and Ashtanga yoga (other variations
include Kripalu, Yin, Integral, Viniyoga, Hidden Language, and
Bikram yoga, to name a few)
Hatha yoga (Iyengar yoga) what focus and what useful
Iyengar yoga puts strict emphasis
on form and alignment, and uses traditional hatha yoga
techniques in new manners and sequences. Iyengar yoga can
be good for physical therapy because it allows the use of props
like straps and blocks to make it easier for some people to get
into the yoga postures
Hatha yoga (Ashtanga yoga)
Ashtanga yoga can be a more vigorous
routine, using a flowing and dance-like sequence of Hatha
postures to generate body heat, which purifies the body through
sweating and deep breathing.
Hatha yoga (Kripalu and Yin yoga) goals general and individual
On the other hand, Kripalu and
Yin yoga are ‘softer’ type of yoga. In both of these, yoga
postures are held for a longer time. Yin targets connective tissues, such as fascia, joints and ligaments, done in a restorative way. Kripalu is also called the Yoga of Consciousness, which is a gentle and interoceptive practice, which ultimate goal is to eventually let the body’s wisdom lead the sequence of postures done, in a meditative state.
Raja yoga
Raja yoga strives to bring about mental clarity and discipline through meditation, simplicity, and nonattachment to worldly things and desires.
Karma yoga
Karma yoga emphasizes charity, service to others, nonaggression and non- harming as means to awareness and peace.
Bhakti yoga
Bhakti yoga is the path of devotion and love of God, or Universal Spirit.
• Jnana yoga
• Jnana yoga is the practice and development of knowledge and wisdom.
• Tantra yoga
• Tantra yoga is the path of self-awareness through religious rituals, including
awareness of sexuality as sacred and vital.
Specific physical benefits Hatha Yoga
specific physical benefits include improved balance, strength, flexibility, energy level, and sleep; improved spinal disc health, and positive impact on healing or managing pain and injury in general.
Specific spiritual/emotional benefits Hatha Yoga
Moreover, yoga has been shown to reduce anxiety and stress, as well as improve mindfulness, executive function, mood, emotional state, self-compassion, happiness, and overall mental health.
Specific social benefits Hatha Yoga
Relational benefits include increased compassion and generally improved interpersonal relationships. Spiritual impacts of practice include spiritual well-being.
True or False yoga can provide the same benefits as any well-designed exercise program
Yoga can also provide the same benefits as any well-designed exercise program, increasing general health and stamina, reducing stress, and improving those conditions brought about by sedentary lifestyles. Yoga has the added advantage of being a low-impact activity that uses only gravity as resistance, which makes it an excellent physical therapy routine. Certain yoga postures can be safely used to strengthen and balance all parts of the body
is yoga ever a good things to add to part of a medical treatment ?
Yoga has been used to alleviate problems associated with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, migraine headaches, asthma, shallow breathing, backaches, constipation, diabetes, menopause, multiple sclerosis, varicose veins, carpal tunnel syndrome, and many chronic illnesses1. It also has been studied and approved for its ability to promote relaxation and reduce stress.
Meditation definition
Meditation can be defined as a form of mental training that aims to improve an individual’s core psychological capacities, such as attentional and emotional self-regulation
what practices are encompassed within meditation (5)
Meditation encompasses a family of complex practices that include mindfulness meditation, mantra meditation, yoga, tai chi and chi gong.
mindfulness meditation description
Of these practices, mindfulness meditation–often described as nonjudgmental attention to present-moment experiences has received the most attention in neuroscience research over the past two decades.
Mindfulness meditation requires
Mindfulness meditation requires both the regulation of attention (in order to maintain the focus on immediate experiences, such as thoughts, emotions, body posture and sensations) and the ability to approach one’s experiences with openness and acceptance.
mindfulness meditation components
It has been suggested that mindfulness meditation includes at least three components that interact closely to constitute a process of enhanced self-regulation: enhanced attention control, improved emotion regulation and altered self-awareness (diminished self-referential processing and enhanced body awareness)
can meditation have an effect on brain activity
Research has been done using neuro imaging during and after meditation. The findings showed that meditation can change brain activity. Over time, change in brain structure can also happen through what is called brain plasticity. This means that you can end up with a brain that is conducive to the benefits and the practices that come along with yoga and meditation.
Mantra Sanskrit
A mantra is a Sanskrit word that refers to sounds
Mantra descript straigh up and spiritually
It is said to be an instrument of the mind, a powerful sound or vibration that one can use to manage one’s mind and inner life.10 It can be syllables, words or groups of words, which are repeated a number of times.
Mantra is a special form of poetry which is said to be the phonetic manifestation of the Supreme Being or the Divine. This sound composed of certain phonemes and words arranged in a definite sequence is said to bring vibrations that act on our centers of consciousness and bring about their effect on the various levels of mind and body.
When use Mantra
here’s no right or wrong way to use mantra, although they are most often used during meditation, either repeated and listened to, most of the time chanted. Mantra can lower stress level and increase awareness and concentration
How Mantra work?
One explanation is that if someone is repeating a mantra in their head or out loud, it occupies their awareness and prevents it from drifting off in other directions.
Most common mantra in yoga
The ancient sages identified “Om” (or aum) as the most elemental sound, representing the infinite universal consciousness. For thousands of years, people have used this mantra to expand their awareness of the divine
Meditation & breathing technics physical benefits
- reducing stress- related conditions
- could have the opposite effect of stress, reducing blood pressure and other indicators
- general health
- first step before medication for borderline hypertension cases
- lowering serum cholesterol
most powerful tool to bring their stress response down
Breath is the most powerful tool that everyone has within their reach to bring their stress response under their control
most direct/ accessible way to breathing
The most direct way to doing that is by taking fewer breaths within a period of time and try to feel your lungs and expand their volume with every single breath. Trying to increase this, from one breath to the next.
physical benefits breathing (other than living)
- reduce blood pressure by controlling breathing. Blood pressure is governed by the sympathetic nervous system, which is a messenger of the stress response.
- helps stay in moment long poses = Breathing, plus the effort of regulating thoughts, both enhance the parasympathetic nervous system signals and bring the sympathetic nervous system signals down.
- increase lung capacity
is yoga helpful to college students
Many systematic reviews and different studies on effects on yoga for stress management in college students revealed positive effects of yoga (as a mind- body intervention) on stress reduction in college students.
Yoga benefits college students
- enhancing stress management, and wellness
- Pranayama training decreases sympathetic activity, resulting in mental relaxation and decreased autonomic arousal thereby, decreasing force fluctuations during isometric contraction = may increase control and stability when performing a muscle contraction.
- leading to relaxation dispositions such as physical relaxation, mental quiet, at ease/peace, rested and refreshed, strength and awareness and joy and reduces sleepiness, somatic stress, worry and negative emotion at a dispositional level.
- play an important role in enhancing emotional sensitivity, sustained attention, mental performance, and balance personality trait among students, thus paving the way for their academic excellence. Yoga also reduces perceived stress and negative effects in college students thereby improving psychological well-being in them.
yoga benefits sports
- Because of its multifaceted emphasis, yoga is a highly structured activity that mimics critical aspects of athletic performance including balance, flexibility, muscular strength, muscle endurance, and movement efficiency (coordination)
- For instance, following weeks of practice, joints comprising movement in their kinetic chains may be optimized through increased alignment, increased range of motion, and a greater muscle fiber recruitment.
- help to improve and balance muscle growth,
example sport better yoga
or instance, successful soccer players must continually move their body in one of a variety of different directions while simultaneously maintaining the balance and extend joints beyond a normal range of motion. Similarly, an
evolved yoga session maximizes the balance and joint range of motion by consciously transitioning the body through a series of constraining positions as fluidly and efficiently as possible.
Yoga can also help to improve and balance muscle growth, especially in athletes performing sport resulting asymmetric muscle development such as tennis, badminton or golf.
what is PMS
Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is a common disorder in menstruating females.
Women with PMS often report cyclical symptoms that are both psychological, such as
irritability, and physical, such as headaches and back pain. Up to 80% of females
experience at least one premenstrual symptom during their menstrual cycle
PMS + Yoga
growing body of evidence indicates that yoga benefits physical and mental health by
downregulating the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and the sympathetic nervous
system, and yoga has become an increasingly popular form of Complementary and
Alternative Medicine (CAM) among people with pain
decreased prevalence of four physical symptoms, including -abdominal swelling, -breast tenderness, -abdominal cramps, -cold sweats. - positive effects on brainwave activity, and alpha brain waves are associated with states of peace, relaxation, creativity, mood elevation, and the release of serotonin;
good yoga poses for menstrual cramps and co
yoga poses (such as cobra, cat/cow, plank, downward facing dog and fish poses)
reduce the severity and duration of primary dysmenorrhea, and are a safe and simple
treatment for primary dysmenorrhea
The idea behind performing these postures is
simply to create light and smooth movement (fold, compress, twist, etc.) in the lower
back and abdominal region, which can increase blood flow. These findings indicate that
yoga exercise can improve menstrual pain.
Adverse effects yoga
- basilar artery occlusion 2 months after adopting unusual neck postures during Yoga practice
- possibility injury especially old peeps w/mobility issues
- harms caused by misalignment include fracture, strain and sprain, joint dislocation, bone spurs, sciatic nerve damage, stroke.
modern father of yoga. did whats
The Yoga Sutras were written by a man named Patanjali, who lived somewhere between the second and fourth century BC2.
Yoga Sutras
The Yoga Sutras, a foundational text of yoga philosophy, contain 196 sutras (verses); which offer guidelines to attain wisdom and self-realization through yoga.
What are the Sutras comparable to in the modern-day reality
Many ideas of Patanjali Yoga sutras are parallel to and resemble the concepts of psychology. The mind or chitta as described in Patanjali Yoga sutras is said to be comprised of the conscious, subconscious and the unconscious.
Content of Sutras
- yogic theory of perception.
- concept of conscious and subconscious
- pain
yogic theory of perception in sustras
Yoga sutras explain the yogic theory of perception. According to this, even though the object is one, it is perceived differently at different times by different people depending on the difference in mental conditions. This difference in perception makes the object capable of inducing pleasure and pain and suffering. Once the perception is cleansed of one’s mental modifications, external events fail to evoke pain and suffering in the individual. This is similar to the principle of cognitive behavior therapy
Subconscious and consicous in Sutras
It holds the concept of conscious and subconscious memory. Conscious memory involves the recollection of things already experienced. This is different from subconscious memory that refers to the memory that one does not consciously remember.
pain in Sutras definition and three types
It also discusses pain and its cause. They explain that pain is not in the present but is rooted in the past. Klesha (means ‘poison’ in Sanskrit, refers to negative mental state) is the agony that is present in our very being. According to them, everyone feels pain but everyone is not aware of it. Pain is thought to be at the bottom of everything and Patanjali also talks of three different types of pain. The first pain is change, life changes to death. The second is acute anxiety, achievement, success, and love give rise to anxiety at some time or the other. The third pain is habit; we become used to things and are then afraid of losing them.
Goal order yoga routine
A typical hatha yoga routine consists of a sequence of physical poses, or asanas, and the sequence is designed to work all parts of the body, with particular emphasis
on making the spine supple and healthy and increasing circulation1
do poses matter in the order of a routine (the answer is obvious)
Hatha yoga asanas utilize three basic movements: forward bends, backward bends, and twisting motions. Each asana is named for a common thing it resembles, like the sun salutation, cobra, locust, plough, bow, eagle, tree, and the head to knee pose, to name a few. Each pose has steps for entering and exiting it, and each posture requires proper form and alignment. A pose is held for some time, depending on its level of difficulty and one’s strength and stamina, and the practitioner is also usually aware of when to inhale and exhale at certain points in each posture, as breathing properly is another fundamental aspect of yoga. Breathing should be deep and through the nose (both inhale and exhale). Mental concentration in each position is also very important, which improves awareness, poise and posture. During a yoga routine there is often one (or many) position(s) in which to perform meditation, especially if deep relaxation is one of the goals of the sequence.
yoga routine order
- Seated or floor relaxation/meditation
- Initial warming
- Hip openers and standing asanas
- Coreposes
- Arm balances (can be omitted)
- Backbends and forward bends
- Inversions
- Twists
- Savasana
example purpose routine
Want to feel grounded? Include asanas that are very stable (eg: warrior) and others that will work on your balance toward the end (eg: tree pose)
- Want to feel energize? Include dynamic and challenging asanas. Make sure there is a progression from one asana to the other.
- Want it to feel like a workout? Make it flow quickly or stay for a long time in the challenging asanas
- Want a bedtime routine? Smooth practice, easy asanas, especially toward the end
- Want a relieve from back problems? Include smooth backbend, deep core contractions, etc
- Etc….
