In a 2006 study, it was concluded that the subjects that lost weight and kept weight off  engaged in activities that were also mentally soothing everyday along with physical exercise everyday (http://www.ijbnpa.org/content/3/1/17).  The study's conclusions findings suggest that the subject, by thier own choice, set themselves up  a work and rewards system in order to have continued success. 
Why is this information important?  Three reasons. First, I want to point out that I was prepping you for a thought about weight loss as it relates to yoga.  Second, when adding a new activity or behavior into your daily life, you need to also add an encouraging support (work and reward for that work).  This concept is the key to continued success of any new lifestyle change. Second, to those of you who do not know the experience of yoga, yoga not only helps you to lose weight BUT it helps you have, what can be, an amazing inner (mental, reflective, or even spiritual) experience, granted you reach a class attendance of at least 4 days a week consistently (for a prolonged period of time or working toward a long committment).  Yoga is a physical practice that can bring about both weight loss and reward all in itself.  That is why the yoga community is rapidly growing.  So, try the very popular, introductory special of 10 classes for 10$ and try out yoga and see how it will benenfit your life.

Emily Kathryn Narayan, RYT

In 2010, research gave high accolades to the effectiveness of yoga in recovery from breast cancer.  The research findings were formed and in the end compiled into a series of lists as tips for breast cancer patients.  It suggests that women receiving breast cancer treatment need to do yoga during the treatment.
-http://www.fhcrc.org/en/news/releases/2010/10/10-tips-breast-cancer-patient-treatment.html

Emily Kathryn Narayan, RYT

Yoga has many benefits.  So why choose Hot Yoga?  Or, more specifically, why choose hot yoga for weight loss? How does weight loss occur with Hot Yoga?
"The heat of a hot yoga class does not cause permanent weight loss. You'll lose water weight, temporarily, through sweating. When you rehydrate, however, your body will regain the water it needs to function properly, and your weight will return to normal. However, the heat raises your heart rate slightly. As you sweat, your blood volume decreases because of dehydration, and your heart must pump faster to keep the blood flowing throughout your body. In this way, the heat helps you reach and maintain your target heart rate, achieving a level that burns calories effectively."
- http://www.livestrong.com/article/401127-weight-loss-benefits-of-bikram-yoga/

Emily Kathryn Narayan, RYT

Yoga on Obstacles and Distractions (Chitta Viksepa):  The Challenge of The Human Condition

We find ourselves in soured states of being in many times in our lives. Example:  The relationship failed.  Irritation and, the behavior that ensues as a result, of small interruptions and changes out of control plague us.  We get depressed. We battle superiority and inferiority.  We run from our thoughts, feelings, past, or fear.  After we run from something we go to something else or someone else projecting the dis-ease of our life.  We, simply, are addicted to the more base components of the human experience. 

Though there is much debate concerning the truest account of yoga’s origins amongst Hindu and other religious theologists, historians, philosophers, and yogi’s and yogini’s.  The one constant in yoga, as it was intended, was to inform and assist the descendants of the human race in their journey to becoming less attached to our multiple sensory experiences in this life in order to be able to perceive and feel contentment, inner peace, connectedness, and oneness with all living things.

The Chitta Viksepa, or Causes of Modification of the Mind, is a line of thought, informational, and instructional, laid out in the Yoga Sutra’s of Pantanjali.  Some yoga experts argue that the Yoga Sutra’s are the foremost authority on yoga (others argue that the authoritative texts are the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, The Upanishads, and other texts). The Yoga Sutra’s are mostly written like a line of thought that resemble a philosophical arguments in format.  With a starting point beginning in the first sutra, the consecutive texts continue to build on the first and beginning sutra.  All sutra’s point to one thing… the attainment of a state of detachment. This is a vague term, but, you can easily come to know the context of this idea of detachment and what it means to become detached and how it is life changing. 

We are fortunate to have our many experts on yoga that have compiled the information for us and presented it to us in many different ways.  B.K.S Iyengar wrote in his book Light On Yoga in 1966 about the Obstacles and Distractions.  He outlines this easily for us in Light On Yoga.

We go deeper into the Obstacles and Distractions in our next blog.

Emily Kathryn Narayan, RYT