Our health is the reflection of the choices we have made.The choices are our “Habits” that we have acquired over a period of time. When the choices lead to pain and disease, which means we have made bad choices or so called “Bad Habits”.
Off late, even our lifestyle has a lot of bad habits which is shortening our life span. Our life has become very mechanical and we don’t get time to pamper ourselves. Now it is time break the patterns of our life choices and make the right and good choices for ourselves.
This can be done with exercise, proper diet plan and enough relaxation. But how many of us have the time in this busy world to actually dedicate 1hr to work out at the gym? How many of us are following the right diet of eating healthy food 3 times a day? How many of us get enough relaxation and sleep for proper 8hrs a day? Instead why don’t we spend a few minutes on stretching our body and doing some yoga!!
Yoga helps in relaxation, balancing and stretching the body. It maintains the flexibility, vitality and good health of the body and gives us the strength to travel through our fast moving mechanical world.
When I say yoga, don’t think I am going to ask you to spend a lot of time in doing yoga. You just have to do a few stretches and Surya Namaskar.
The stretches are done so that the body does not feel the sudden pressure of doing the Surya Namaskar. The stretches would be:
- Neck Stretches i.e., looking up, looking down, looking to your sides and rotating your neck- 10 times each.
- Trunk stretches i.e., bending down, looking back, bending to your sides and rotating your hips- 10 times each.
- Shoulder stretches- 10 times each.
Now, with all these done, let's proceed on to Surya Namaskar. Suryanamaskar is a combination of 12 asanas. These 12 asanas, concentrates on the whole of your body, thereby keeping your mind, body and soul healthy and flexible.
The Suryanamskar consists of:
- Pranamasana– promotes balance, stimulates the respiratory system, readies the body for a work out. Inhale- exhale
- Hastauttasana- promotes balance, promotes digestions, exercises the am and shoulders, improves flexibility of the spine and tones the spinal musculature. Inhale.
- Hastapadasana- promotes blood circulation, tones the abdominal, stretches the back and leg muscles, stimulates spinal; nerves and the lymphatic system. Exhale.
- Ashwasanchalasana- exercises the spine and strengthens hand and wrist muscles. Inhale.
- Parvattotasana- stimulated blood circulation throughout the body, strengthens arms, wrists and shoulders. Exhale.
- Astanganamaskara- strengthens the leg and arm muscles, improves the flexibility in the neck and shoulders, releases the tension in the neck, back and the shoulders. Inhale- exhale.
- Bhujangasana- stimulates the blood circulation to the abdominal organs, stretches the front, back and leg muscles, and stimulates the spinal nerves. Inhale.
- Parvattotasana – exhale.
- Ashwasanchalasana - inhale.
- Hastapadasana - exhale.
- Hastauttasana - inhale.
- Pranam Asana - exhale- inhale.
Perform Surya Namaskar coordinate with your breathing, this helps in improving your respiratory system also. The simple formula is, breathe in when you move away from the body and breathe in when you’re coming close to your body.
Give a gap of 30 counts between each cycle.
Doing this is not going to take more than 30 mins of your time. Make this a good choice to add up to your good health and remain fit and fine.
This will help you attain relaxation of body and mind, improve your overall fitness and improve your mental and physical strength in facing the stresses encountered in this mechanical world.
All the junk food eaten is digested easily without getting stored as fat and the unnecessary build up of gas due to untimely eating is also released, thereby leading to improved gastric health.
So do your Surya Namaskar daily and remain fit.
Stay healthy, Stay fit