Jiyo Healthy!

Surya Namaskar consists of 12 different bodily postures that ought to be performed in particular sequence. So here are some positions benefits:

• Positions 1 and 12: Promote balance; stimulate the respiratory system, exercise shoulder, back and neck muscles.
• Positions 2 and 11: Promote balance, promote digestion, exercise arms and shoulder muscles, tone the spine, promote flexibility in back and hips.
• Positions 3 and 10: Promote blood circulation, tone abdominal tracts, stretche back and leg muscles, stimulate spinal nerves, and stimulate lymphatic system (system for fluids flow within body).
• Positions 4 and 9: Exercise spine and strengthen hand and wrist muscles.
• Positions 5 and 8: Stimulate blood circulation, strengthen the heart, strengthen wrist and arm muscles, and relieve neck and shoulder tension.
• Position 6: Strengthens leg and arm muscles, increases flexibility in neck and shoulders, stretches arms, shoulder, neck and back muscles, exercises back muscles, releases tension in neck and shoulder.
• Position 7: Stimulates circulation to abdominal organs, tones digestive tract, stretches upper and lower body, promotes flexibility in the back, and stimulates nerves in spine.

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By making Surya Namaskar a regular practice it will tone all body muscles, help lose weight and maintain right weight consistently. Here are some more benefits:

• Reduces fat - Regular practice of Surya Namaskar helps to lose extra calories and reduce fat. It helps to stay thin. Practicing Surya Namaskar is the easiest way to be in shape.
• Eases digestion, combats belly fat – The combination of backward and forward movements ensures that your digestive system is on track and helps in curing constipation and other digestion related ailments. This combination stretches the abdominal muscles. Regular practice of Surya Namaskar helps to lose excessive belly fat and gives flat stomach.
• Mitigates sleep disorders - Surya Namaskar is the ideal exercise to cope with insomnia and related disorders. Surya Namaskar practice calms the mind, thus helps to get sound sleep.

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Surya Namaskar provides all of the key health benefits of yoga in a very succinct package. It is a holistic exercise that provides physical health benefits, but also mental or emotional as well as spiritual benefits. Here is why it is good for you?

• Enhances strength and flexibility - Regular practice of sun salutation boosts endurance power. It gives vitality and strength. It also reduces the feeling of restlessness and anxiety. It helps in making the joints and ligaments stronger to carry the body weight without much effort. Daily practice of Surya Namaskar makes body flexible.
• Nourishes hair - It helps to prevent hair graying, hair fall, and dandruff. It also improves the growth of hair making it long.
• Helps look young - Sun salutation exercise helps to add glow on your face making facial skin radiant and age-defying. It is the natural solution to prevent onset of wrinkles.

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One of the best things about Surya Namaskar is how flexible and versatile a form of exercise it is, for individuals at all fitness levels including individuals of different age groups. So here are the benefits:

• Regulates endocrine system - It improves the entire endocrine system and regulates the functioning of endocrine glands. The secretion of endocrine glands such as thyroid gland, pituitary gland, and adrenal glands in a proper way ensures that each organ of your body is working appropriately.
• Controls menstrual cycle - Surya Namaskar practice regulates menstrual cycles. Practicing Surya Namaskar ensures easy childbirth. It helps to decrease the anxiety during pregnancy and childbirth.
• Provides oxygen - It helps in keeping you stress free and rejuvenates your mind, because, it promotes the circulation of fresh oxygen to your brain.

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All 12 positions are done in a series first using the left leg and then the right. Once both the sides are done, one round of Surya Namaskar is completed.

When being performed one needs to inhale and exhale at every alternate position, beginning with inhalation, except in the 6^th position where the breath is held.

Surya Namaskar is ideally done, in an open space and most preferably facing the sun. The most suitable time is in the morning before any heavy food intake.

Usually people begin with 6 rounds and then move on to 12 rounds. A set of Surya Namaskar can consist of either 12 or 24 rounds. Each set should be followed with a break of 3-5 minutes in shavasan. The maximum number of rounds that can be practiced, with the breaks, are 108. More than that would be more physical exertion than the body can take.

Start slow. Within a week get to 12 rounds every morning and stick to it. If you feel the need to do more number of sets to lose more weight, gradually increase the number of rounds.

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Surya Namaskar, also known as sun salutation, is a combination of 12 different postures performed in a series. It has been in existence since the Vedic times as worship to the Sun God, alongside other regimes like pranayam, asanas, and meditation. The 12 positions were accompanied by mantras specific to each that was chanted during the worship.

But today Surya Namaskar is widely practiced as an amazing exercise that works out all the muscles of the body. It can be practiced at different states of the mind from simple exercising to deep chakra meditation, which is mediation that concentrates on all our body’s energy centers.

Surya Namaskar offers stretch in every muscle at each position and gives a complete workout to the entire body. Regularly practiced, it can alone result in weight loss and muscle toning.

Surya Namaskar is an exercise in itself, but it is also used as a warm up for other, more strenuous workouts. You can perform Surya Namaskar at the end of other exercise routines as well, as a way to relax and wind down strained muscles.

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We get those hunger cravings at certain times of the day and you can stop those cravings by doing some simple, natural things.

• Drink black tea after consuming a meal high in carbohydrates, had a 10% decrease in their blood sugar levels for a time period of close to 3 hours, meaning they didn’t experience any untoward hunger pangs during those 3 hours.
• Don’t drink too many soft drinks, because HFCS hinders the body’s ability to use Leptin, which helps our body to know when it has had enough.
• Eat heavy breakfast so you have to face a fewer number of the unexpected hunger pangs through the day.

To read more such solutions see Can’t stop feeling hungry? Here’s why …

Did you know that most times when you are accosted by sudden hunger pangs; it’s simply your body’s way of telling you that it is thirsty! And with the body being made up of 65-70% of water, dehydration easily mimics the signs of hunger, leading to sudden cravings which could easily have been satisfied by drinking water!

Quoting Gabriel Cousens, a famous M.D who says that, “When you start to hydrate by drinking enough water, then your appetite goes down because you’re actually fulfilling what your body needs—which is water!”

To read more see Can’t stop feeling hungry? Here’s why …

Many of us have occasionally fallen prey to unexpected hunger pangs, which most often result in a minor weight gain as we end up eating more, despite being full. And if you were to put together these entire ‘mini – weight’ gains, it would surely amount to a considerable weight gain! Here are some ways to control it:

• Teeny Weeny breakfasts :Having a heavy breakfast is necessary because it ensures that you have fewer and smaller rises in your blood sugar and insulin throughout the day, which basically means that you have to face a fewer number of the unexpected hunger pangs through the day.

• You avoid the ‘Leafy Green Stuff’: Even us Indians, of whom only 31% are vegetarians, are found to be avoiding green leafy vegetables instead opting for Potatoes or other non-leafy green vegetables! But did you know that eating your leafy green vegetables will help you to curb down your cravings, as they contain vitamin K, a vitamin which helps in regulation Insulin levels and thereby helps you to avoid those unexpected hunger pangs!

To read more such solutions see Can’t stop feeling hungry? Here’s why …

Have you ever wondered what prompts these sudden yet unexpected hunger pangs? Could it be the food that you ate….Indeed it can be!  For there are some food ingredients that can fool your body into thinking that it has ‘not had enough’, leading to re-bound hunger or those nasty unexpected hunger pangs. So here are some more reasons for it:

• You prefer Milk in your Tea! We Indians prefer drinking their Chai with Milk and that is precisely where we lose out on the tea’s benefits! A study published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, found that those who drank black tea after consuming a meal high in carbohydrates, had a 10% decrease in their blood sugar levels for a time period of close to 3 hours, meaning they didn’t experience any untoward hunger pangs during those 3 hours.

• Maybe you are drinking too many soft drinks: With us preferring Colas, Iced Teas and other sweetened beverages over good ol’ water, we have been ingesting high levels of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), unknowingly.  HFCS hinders the body’s ability to use Leptin, which is better known as the ‘satiation hormone’. The role of Leptin is to let our body know when it has had enough, but with HFCS inhibiting it, the body does not understand when it’s had enough, which invariably leads to the sudden cravings!

To read more reasons see Can’t stop feeling hungry? Here’s why …