Does Your BodyMind DO
What You Want It To Do?
If Not, Here Are 21 Yoga Benefits: Why You Want &
Need Physical/Mental Yoga & Yoga-based Bodywork
1. Improve Your Posture!!!
Stand Taller and Sit Straighter with Less Effort and More Comfort.
Learn where “Effortless Great Posture” really comes from.
TIP: It’s NOT from “strengthening” your ABs, your CORE, or your back muscles!!!
The Secret to Good Posture is in learning how to Feel, Relax, Lengthen, Balance & Coordinate certain muscles of your body. You’ll find that coordinated relaxation, NOT the tensing or “toning” of muscles, allows your body to stand and sit straighter and taller.
HINT: The words Tone and Toning do not necessarily mean what you think they mean. In some cases, what people are doing to “tone” their body actually leads in the opposite direction from where you want to go. But like many things, it all depends on how you define your terms.
(Please See Law #4 in the 9 Natural Laws of Yoga.)
2. No More Sit Ups!!! — (Unless You WANT To)
Discover why so-called “abdominal strengthening” exercises could be BAD for your waistline and WORSE for your back, neck and shoulders. Find out why any exercise that shortens, contracts or “tones” (see the HINT above) those muscles is prone to making your posture worse, not better, and what You can do about it.
The Big Myth Is that postural problems are about muscles that are “too weak” or “too strong.” … WRONG!!! It’s far more often about muscles that are “too short” or “too long,” meaning out of balance. Learning how to “Consciously Stretch” and balance the various muscles of your bodymind is a part of the Secret to Better Posture.
3. Restore Your Waistline!!!
Has your narrow, hourglass waistline been disappearing? Don’t know where it went? Never had one to begin with? Sit Ups or Crunches don’t seem to help? … Or even makes it worse? Some of the yoga benefits how it affects your posture.
Often times, that “lost” waistline is only a matter of muscles shortening up and compressing the abdomen so much it has no choice but to “bulge out” at the middle, no matter how much you “exercise” or “strengthen” those muscles. DSL shows you how to regain that lost waistline. Learn to Feel, Relax, Lengthen & Balance muscles that will restore your waistline.
Or, if you still have yours and want to maintain it, DSL will show you preventive measures necessary to maintain proper length and muscular relationships in the “Abs.
(PLEASE NOTE: If you have too much adipose tissue (a polite way of saying “fat”), then the above ideas might help, but you WILL have to deal with the adipose tissue effectively before you’ll make much visible progress. But adipose tissue or not, lengthened muscles and a longer waistline will be beneficial regardless of the cause of an extra-large dimensions.)
4. And Your “Buns” Too!!!
Been tightening those gluteal muscles, but your “butt” seems to keep disappearing? DSL will show you where it went and how to get it back! Like the Abs, it’s not about how strong those muscles are, it’s far more about having the proper length & structural balance. You’ll be amazed at how simple the concepts are, and how quickly — in many cases — the DSL solution works.
REMEMBER: The hunched over posture of “Old Age” very often comes from OVER-shortened muscles in the abs, hamstrings & buns!!!
ABs of Iron … Buns of Steel …
… Can Lead to Backs of Pain!!!
5. Learn Conscious Stretching
There are “Right Ways” and “Wrong Ways” to Stretch. There are ways that are safe while producing results you’re looking for, and there are ways harmful to your bodymind. Vague instructions such as “hold a position of mild discomfort for 2 or 10 to 30 seconds” or “breathe into the pain” or “always stretch the opposite muscles” are highly misleading, and more like “slow calisthenics” than true Conscious Stretching. And though they can work for some people some of the time, for other times and other people, they are exactly NOT what you want to be doing.
The DSL Method of Conscious Stretching (physical/mental yoga) will teach you little known but fundamental basics of stretching & exercising effectively, efficiently, safely, and without pain.
6. No Pain, Means MORE Gain!!!
Tired of exercises and stretches hurting too much instead of making you feel good? Playing The Edge of Pain, Fear & Resistance encourages you to go up to, but NOT INTO the “stuff” that doesn’t feel good, or hurts, and holds your bodymind back. You don’t have to go into the pain or fear to process it, merely close enough to “take a look at” and feel what it’s about. In fact, many of the yoga benefits are lost when you push too hard into a posture or exercise.
The Power of Awareness does much of the rest of the work for you by dissolving or balancing the tensions behind your pain, inflexibility or so-called “weakness.” … And sometimes, that deeply intense, pleasurable stretch sensation is masking “behind-the-scenes” trouble.
7. Flexibility & Resilience
As you learn to Feel, Relax, Lengthen, Balance & Coordinate your muscles, they allow more range-of-motion in all your joints. You’ll be able to move more fully in more directions with less stress & effort. Your muscles will act more like “shock absorbers” against the strains of life, not steel posts or bricks. You’ll also discover that a muscle that’s too hard is not usually a healthy one. In fact, the more relaxed you can be, the better. …
Muscular Relaxation & Length Breeds STRENGTH & Resilience
8. Strength & Endurance
DSL Stretching & Exercise Technique includes numerous ways to increase the power of your muscles without compressing or pounding joints, bones, muscles or other tissues and body parts. You can improve your health — SECC: strength, endurance, cardio & coordination — with the least amount of negative stress on your body. You can also learn the basic but very effective Hindu body-weight exercises derived from Indian wrestling. Yet there’s a way to do them with Radical Relaxation, preventing excess tension from building up.
Learn How to Pump Energy, NOT Iron!!!
9. Balance & Coordination
Many Conscious Stretching & Exercise Techniques develop balance, coordination, agility and general motor skills very effecticiently.* This happens, in part, by fine-tuning your nervous system so it feels what’s happening to it and “clearing the channels,” allowing your body to react and respond to minute internal and external changes effectively, efficiently and smoothly.
* Effecticient = Effective + Efficient
10. Breath Deeper & Easier
Learn Effecticient use of your Breath. Learn how to breathe deeper, easier and longer without forcing or straining the muscles. To get started, you really don’t need to learn HOW to breath. You need to learn how to “dissolve” (RELAX) the tensions interfering with your breathing. Better breathing provides a better balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the body, providing you with greater all around energy levels and less stress. Finally, one of the Great Secrets of Breathing is to JUST Focus More Attention to it. Attention alone can very often produce many of the benefits of so-called “proper breathing,” because focused attention on your breathing tends to spontaneously slow it down, RELAX it, and LENGTHEN it.
11. Create “Lines of Energy” & Fluid Movement
Learn how to generate energetic, fluid yet relaxed movement within your bodymind while decompressing your joints and other tissues. Spontaneous internal alignment of your posture is a result of effectively using Lines of Energy, and the more you use them while stretching, the more tension release will happen naturally in your other day-to-day activities.
Stretching the Nerves gives you more precise control of specific muscles and joints, strengthening your neural connections. by activating psycho-neuro-muscular pathways.
12. The Art of Relaxation
The “secret” to relaxation are more yoga benefits is that the ability to relax is already built into your bodymind! Relaxation is not something you learn “how to do”! But you DO have to Stop Doing Tension!!! You are actually UN-learning your accumulated psycho-neuro-muscular habit patterns. … “Doing Tension” is why you’re “up tight” (tense) to begin with. In DSL, you will learn to DE-contract your muscles and Stop Doing Tension.
13. Accessing Parasympathetic Healing States
One of the biggest benefits of relaxation is LESS sympathetic nerve activity. These nerves control the emergency 4-F: Fright or Freeze, Fight or Flight mechanisms causing general increases in muscle tension throughout your entire bodymind. Turning the parasympathetics down also shuts down important healing and restorative functions, such as digestion, detoxification, and tissue repair. Because of the many stresses of life, most people spend much, if not most, of their time in some degree of 4-F emergency mode and never fully calm down. As a result, their BodyMind is always excessively tense, does not rest fully even when asleep, and never fully restores and repairs itself.
Learning How To Relax moves you OUT of the sympathetic, 4-F mechanisms and into greater parasympathetic nerve activity. This portion of the nervous system controls the many processes associated with maintaining, healing, resting, rebuilding & restoring your bodymind. Many physical (and some psycho-emotional) problems can be reduced or eliminated merely by accessing the relaxed, parasympathetic nerve state for long enough periods of time, and often enough. …This is a Primary Objective of DSL Let-Go Yoga.
14. Internal Organ Health
The Parasympathetic State will help the health of all your internal organs! … Your organs are not designed to be “on” all the time. They need Rest & Relaxation, just like YOU do. But if your psycho-neuro-muscular load is too high and too constant, that rest & relaxation never happens. Therefore, organ regeneration and healing never happens either, or is diminished. As described above, the healing resources of the body are brought back to proper function in true and deeper relaxation states. These regenerating powers affect all the organs, glands and systems of the body, including immune system function.
AGING . . . Just Don’t Do It!!!
15. Talk With Your Body!!!
Internal Biofeedback — Your body talks to you constantly. It tells you many things. Problem is, the body does NOT speak in English; it speaks in “Body” (language). And if you do not respond soon enough, the body stops telling you certain things. Like a jilted lover, it eventually and literally cuts you off. (That’s actually the job of certain very specific nerve pathways in your lower brain.) Yet you can learn to hear or feel messages from your body, interpret them, then take effective action appropriate to messages received. … If it goes too far before you start communicating and responding:
DSL uses its Hands-On PsychoMuscular Release techniques to help you learn to tune into and interpret signals coming from your bodymind, and appropriately respond to them. And sometimes, external applications of pressure to muscles is FAR more effecticient than stretching (as great as conscious stretching is) …
Since Your Body ALWAYS Talks to You, Do You Think You Should Learn To Listen to What It’s Saying?
16. “Response-Ability”
As you get better at perceiving and interpreting messages from the body, your nervous system becomes increasingly better at two-way sensory/motor communication. Simply put, better sensitivity to what’s happening produces better responses to what is. Better information in, better information out. As we practice feeling and using our nerves, they find paths of least resistance and shortest distances to travel. They literally learn to be more effecticient. (Provided you give them a proper learning environment.) Your ability to provide relevant, timely, appropriate actions as a response to your conditions of life is greatly enhanced.
17. Stress Management — Stress Reduction & Elimination
Everything so far on this page leads up to learning to deal with all the stressors we run into nearly every day of our lives. Stress by itself isn’t all bad. In fact much, if not most, stress (within limits) is necessary for survival and development. However, if stress accumulates excessively in our muscles & fascia, nerves & organs, it becomes unmanageable, possibly dangerous. In worst case scenarios, it causes lost freedom of movement, aches & pains, decreased body functions of all types, and worse.
While we can’t eliminate all sources of stress, we can find better ways to respond to, process or relieve it. You’ll find that stress begins to move through you rather than getting stuck IN you! … DSL will show you many ways to do this internally without relying on an outside therapist, machine or substance. …
And Stress Management Includes Stress Reduction!!!
18. Better Circulation of Blood & Lymph
As muscles relax and energy levels increase, the small muscles surrounding the blood vessels also relax, allowing blood to flow more freely through the body. Lymph, the “detox fluid” of the body, moves better with movement, especially if that movement is not excessively tightening up muscles and over-stimulating nerves. The more blood going to and from all your tissues, and the more lymph that’s carrying waste matter away, the better the health and function of all systems of your bodymind. Though not exact, think of a garden hose and water flowing through it. But if you or an object compresses the hose, what happens to the outflow of water?
High Blood Pressure can result from the constant antagonistic & isometric contractions of skeletal muscles. Reducing the chronic combat between muscle groups can reduce blood pressure.
19. Greater Sensitivity
Nearly every human activity is enhanced when the nervous system is more able to Sense, Feel & Respond. The more sensitivity we have, the more information we have about our internal states as well as our environment, including the people around us. The more info we have, the better response we can generate with less stress. We find more satisfaction in life if we can feel what is happening to us.
Unfortunately, as we go through life, our nervous systems tends to become increasingly activated beyond necessity. This excess activity tends to produce “static” or interference making the signals in our nervous system less precise, lost in the “noise” of so many nerve signals. At the seam time, part of the nervous system is specifically designed to block sensations that are redundant or noxious. This reduces sensitivity at all levels. Let-Go Yoga and Yoga-based Bodywork are specifically designed to reduce this excess activity and “noise” in the system. …
Pleasure in general is thereby enhanced.
20. Mental Clarity — Emotional Integration — Meditational Experience
There is, in the DSL Let-Go Yoga process, an opportunity for exploring various aspects and techniques of mind/body integration. One becomes more clear on differences between Awareness & Thought, how they work with and complement, as well as conflict with and oppose, each other. As one observes how each works, thought begins to quiet down, allowing awareness to bring energy, newness & innovation into the human system, to grow and develop.
Expanded Sensitivity and Awareness, Tempered by Effective Thinking, leads to greater Response-Ability, the ability to respond effectively to the conditions of life. Sensitive, feeling states become more aligned with your thinking, analyzing mind. Emotional, feeling states become less reactive, yet often deeper and more satisfying. A more meditative relationship with one’s self and world develops.
21. Greater Sexuality
Much decreased pleasure from sexual activity results from decreased sensitivity in the nerves. This decrease can come from over-contracted neuromuscular units and over-stimulated nerves. All of this can also lead to reduced blood flow. In either case, the ability to feel pleasure can be over-ridden by excess nervous and muscular activity. Conversely, any act of feeling can be made more effecticient with practice. And yoga is, among other things, a process of practicing the Art of Feeling & Responding.
DSL Let-Go Yoga and Conscious Stretching, done with lower levels of intensity, decreases over-stimulation to nerves, thereby reducing tension in muscles. The ability to relax specific muscles, and the body in general, allows more energy to flow through. In many cases, this frees up your ability to feel sexual pleasure.
ULTIMATELY, however, All The Above is, at least in great part, about the reduction of C.E.M.&.N.T. or Chronic, Excess Muscle & Nerve Tension. This is the Solution to many of the problems that plague so many people. For more on C.E.M.&.N.T. PLEASE CLICK HERE.
And if you have not already, here is a Sign Up box for my FREE Occasional e-Letter and Min-e-Course on the 9 Natural Laws of Yoga: …
OR
Please Return Me to the Let-Go Yoga Home Page
Thank You for Reading, and Please let me know
what you think via the Comment Box below.
Take Care,
David Scott Lynn
DSL: Your Hi-Touch Up-Link to Your Inner-Net
- Only YOU Can Prevent Yoga Injuries! - February 6, 2015
- Does Psoas Cause Lordosis? - June 11, 2014
- MyoFascial Facts & Fallacies - June 7, 2014
Comments
Your 21 Yoga Benefits — No Comments
HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>