Yoga training tricks and tips with WorldYogaForum right now? Yoga can improve balance: Balance is not just important when you’re trying to stand on one leg in Tree Pose in yoga class. It’s also essential for simple everyday movements such as picking something up off the floor, reaching up to a shelf, and descending stairs. Yoga has been shown to improve balance and overall performance in athletes. Likewise, a review of the research conducted on healthy populations suggests balance may improve for most people after consistently practicing yoga. Still, falling can have serious effects for certain populations. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, falls are incredibly common among older adults in nursing facilities, and even the simplest ones can lead to an increased risk of death. Newer research suggests yoga can improve balance in older populations. However, more studies with large sample sizes are needed before a general conclusion can be drawn. Yoga asana can also be helpful at improving balance in people with brain injuries. Adaptive yoga or chair yoga can be especially helpful for older adults or people with injuries who are less mobile or for whom balance is a concern. Find additional information on Founder of Yoga.

If you’ve got high blood pressure, you might benefit from yoga. Two studies of people with hypertension, published in the British medical journal The Lancet, compared the effects of Savasana (Corpse Pose) with simply lying on a couch. After three months, Savasana was associated with a 26-point drop in systolic blood pressure (the top number) and a 15-point drop in diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number—and the higher the initial blood pressure, the bigger the drop.

Want to get some of the benefits of exercise by sitting in one place? Researchers have found that both mindfulness and Transcendental Meditation improve your cardiovascular health and reduce your risk of heart disease. Do you get sick more often than you would like? Believe it or not, a variety of different types of meditation, from mindfulness to yoga, have been shown to strengthen the human immune system and make you more resistant to viruses and infections.

Studies on mild and major depressive individuals showed that introducing an adjunct of meditation to their regular depression management strategies reduced the symptoms of loneliness and general low mood. A study by Filip Raes on 400 adolescent students in Belgium showed that when they participated in mindful meditation programs, they had a noticeable reduction in depression, negative thinking, and stress for up to six months after the training (Ramel, Goldin, Carmona, and McQuaid, 2004).

My experiment proved illuminating. At the Vivekananda ashram just outside of Bangalore, S. Nagarathna, M.D., recommended breathing exercises in which I imagined bringing prana (vital energy) into my right upper chest. Other therapy included asana, Pranayama, meditation, chanting, lectures on philosophy, and various kriya (internal cleansing practices). At the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram in Chennai and from A.G. Mohan and his wife, Indra, who practice just outside of Chennai, I was told to stop practicing Salamba Sirsasana (Headstand) and Salamba Sarvangasana (Shoulderstand) in favor of gentle asana coordinated with the breath. In Pune, S.V. Karandikar, a medical doctor, recommended practices with ropes and belts to put traction on my spine and exercises that taught me to use my shoulder blades to open my upper back. Thanks to the techniques I learned in India, advice from teachers in the United States, and my own exploration, my chest is more flexible than it ever was, my posture has improved, and for more than a year, I’ve been free of symptoms. Read extra details at yoga poses for relaxation.

Any form of movement is great for keeping the immune system healthy. With yoga’s twisting, inverting, back bending, and calming, the body is able to spend more time within the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) and less with the sympathetic nervous system (the fight or flight system, which causes stress and inflammation and dramatically lowers the immune system). Because your mind will be quieter and clutter-free it’s easier to direct the energy to where you want it to go. In yoga they say you develop one-pointedness concentration through practice. You train the mind to become aware and present. Research has shown that after a yoga class you are generally better able to focus your mental resources, process information more accurately and also learn, hold and update pieces of information more effectively.