Kundalini Yoga is the original and most powerful of the twenty-two schools of yoga, all of which are beneficial. The Yoga Sutras (writings) say that what you can achieve in 12 years of Hatha Yoga, plus 6 years of Raj Yoga, plus 3 years of Mantra Yoga, plus 1 year of Laya Yoga can be accomplished in a single year of perfectly practiced Kundalini Yoga.

Kundalini Yoga is designed for the active person with responsibilities in school, work, family and the world. It was maintained as a secret oral tradition for thousands of years which protected the techniques from abuse, but also created an unnecessary image of mystery. Kundalini Yoga can be practiced by anyone if it is done gradually and according to the instructions.

As our society becomes increasingly technological, our world becomes more intimately connected and influenced by its numerous cultures. The pace of change is on the rise and the stress on our body’s nervous system is increasing. The science of Kundalini Yoga allows us to tap into a technology that helps us cope with this escalating change. The inner science of the mind is the tool that will enable us to cope with the pressure of these changes. It is the mind that interprets our outer and inner worlds and it is the mind that we must train to guide us through the flow of change.

As a beginning student you should go at a pace that suits your flexibility and endurance. As you feel more comfortable with the exercises taught in class, begin to practice at home. If you can practice at the same time each day, you will find that you will improve rapidly. Try to take one to three yoga classes a week and one workshop a month to establish a firm foundation for an effective program that fits your needs, goals, capacity and lifestyle.

Eye Care

The skin around eyes is vulnerable part of body’s entire skin surface. In most areas of the body, the blood supply cools, warms, and nourishes the skin, but facial skin, and especially the skin around the eyes, serves an additional function, that of emotional response.

On top of the emotional stresses and free radical assaults, environmental factors such as automobile exhaust and second-hand tobacco smoke cause adverse effects on skin. Allergies to nail polish and some perfumed cosmetics can also lead to a compromised skin texture around the eyes. Even internet addiction can be a factor! And of course, the sun can produce further signs of aging. Sunscreen lotions and creams are widely used to protect facial skin, but unfortunately, most sunscreens cannot be used close to the eyes.

Facial expressions are always changing in response to what happens around you. This creates tremendous stress in the facial skin and eye area. All of these reactions require complex biochemical changes. Some of the by-products of these reactions are free radicals and some are hormones such as adrenaline. The free radicals interact with normal skin structure and either have a destructive action or impair biological function. The result is that the skin looks dull and lifeless, and wrinkles prematurely as its collagen structure is impaired.

A drop of almond oil gently dabbed above and under the eyes keeps the skin there smooth and supple. Regular application is a good preventive measure. Almond oil is very fine-textured oil that is easily absorbable, giving the skin a plump, healthy feel.

Don’t rub the area around the eyes. It serves no purpose and can be dangerous. Try acupressure massage with the point where the eye meets the bridge of the nose being the first point. Press gently with the thumb and continue pressing all the way across the lids. Repeat for the lower lid with a slight thrusting movement. Massage the second point on the other extreme of the eyes with single fingers in a circular motion.

Apply used chamomile tea bags after you have chilled them. Tannic acid in the tea has an astringent effect that will shrink swollen tissues. Chilled cucumber slices can also be placed over the eyes, but their action is gentle and only useful for crow’s feet a few days old. Grated potato wrapped in a cheesecloth works faster.

Lightening Agents
Dark circles are often caused by hyper-pigmentation, meaning the concentration of melanin is higher around your eyes. These are thought to be genetic and are often similar to brown age spots. Pregnancy and the use of oral contraceptives can also lead to a darkening of the skin around the eyes. Some authorities suggest undue emotional stress also causes dark circles under the eyes.

Use a facial sunscreen with an SPF of at least 20. This prevents further damage to the sensitive skin under the eye.

Cold compresses are useless and provide the illusion of change without lasting effect. They come in handy only if there is considerable tissue swelling.

An excellent under-eye lightening cream used in Ayurveda can be made by using extracts of coconut, manjishta (the root of Rubia cordifolia), and sandalwood oil. For a generic facial lightening agent, mix one teaspoon of carrot juice, one teaspoon of orange juice and a little honey and apply this on the face for about 15 minutes everyday.

Discriminate between specialized lightening creams and cheap bleaches, which can actually damage your skin in the long run, making it look patchy and discolored. Some bleaches come with special after-bleach creams to offset damage that might be caused to sensitive skins, but you are advised to stick to natural preparations, which are free from long-term side effects.

Shakespeare once called sleep the “balm of hurt minds”. Bodies, too, apparently. People with the severe form of apnea, which interferes with sleep, are several times more likely to die from any cause than are folks without the disorder, researchers report in the latest edition of the journal Sleep.

The findings in the 18-year study confirm smaller studies that have indicated an increased risk of death for people with apnea, also known as sleep-disordered breathing.

“This is not a condition that kills you acutely. It is a condition that erodes your health over time,” Michael J Twery, director of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research, said in a telephone interview.

People with such disorders “have been sleep deprived for perhaps very long periods of time, they are struggling to sleep. If this is happening night after night, week after week, on top of all our other schedules, this is a dangerous recipe,” said Twery, whose centre is part of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

The institute estimates that 12-18 million people in the US have moderate to severe apnea. The condition is not always detected because the sufferer is asleep when the problem occurs and it cannot be diagnosed during a routine office visit with a doctor. Researchers tested the patients for sleep-disordered breathing in the laboratory and then followed them over several years.

For people with apnea, their upper airway becomes narrowed or blocked periodically during sleep. That keeps air from reaching the lungs. In some cases, breathing stops for seconds to a minute or so; the pauses in breathing disrupt sleep and prevent adequate amounts of oxygen from entering the bloodstream.
“When you stop breathing in your sleep you don’t know it, it doesn’t typically wake you up,” Twery said. Instead, it can move a person from deep sleep to light sleep, when breathing resumes. But the overall sleep pattern is disturbed, and it can happen hundreds of times a night.

He said that a person typically will have four or five cycles per night of light sleep, deep sleep and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, when most dreams occur. More deep sleep comes early in the night with more REM sleep closer to waking up. This pattern helps control hormones, metabolism and levels of stress.

The institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, says apnea has been linked to a greater risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes and excessive daytime sleepiness.

In the new report, the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort followed 1,522 men and women, ages 30 to 60. The annual death rate was 2.85 per 1,000 people per year for people without sleep apnea. People with mild and moderate apnea had death rates of 5.54 and 5.42 per 1,000, respectively, and people with severe apnea had a rate of 14.6, researchers said.

Cardiovascular mortality accounted for 26% of all deaths among people without apnea and 42% of the deaths among people with severe apnea, according to the researchers led by Terry Young of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

In the same issue of the journal Sleep, a separate study of 380 adults between 40 and 65 in Australia came to a similar conclusion. This study found that after 14 years, about 33% of participants with moderate to severe sleep apnea had died, compared with 6.5% with mild apnea and 7.7% of people without apnea.

KAPALVATI PRANAYAMA(1)

Why should you Go to Swami Ramdev Yoga Camp ????

Substitute oat flour for regular refined white flour in equal parts: It gives you a boost of filling fiber and is super heart-healthy. It’s sold in most grocery stores, but if you can’t find it, grind regular oats in a food processor.

Use real extracts and spices rather than artificial flavoring (vanilla extract instead of cheaper vanilla flavoring, for example) to add an extra kick of flavor.

Be creative! Certain delicate desserts like soufflés are tough to modify. But muffins, cookies, and cakes are forgiving. Try tossing in dried fruits, nuts, and seeds to add flavor, texture, and nutrients.

Raid the fruit bowl. Substitute a large mashed ripe banana, plus a drizzle of canola oil, for a half-stick of butter to cut fat and calories and add some healthy carbs.

Try my golden rule: I tell clients (and friends, family, and anyone who’ll listen…) to “eat real foods.” If a product has an ingredient you can’t pronounce, you probably shouldn’t eat it.

• 7 Strategies to Curb Hunger While You Lose Weight :
  

It’s 9 p.m. and you know just where that bag of peanut M&Ms is—it’s stashed in the pantry behind the ultravirtuous oatmeal and seriously fortified cereal. Out of sight, but not out of mind. How can you be hungry, you wonder, when you ate a mere hour-and-a-half ago? The answer isn’t so simple. Everything from stress to hormones to people, places, and situations can kick your appetite into overdrive. The good news: Whatever the cause, you can beat your hunger pangs. Here, the latest stay-full strategies from the experts.

Whip up a side of potato salad
Surprise! White potatoes aren’t the dietary demons Atkins devotees led us to believe. Potatoes contain a type of starch known as natural resistant starch that acts a lot like fiber once it’s in your digestive system, according to Katherine Beals, PhD, RD, a nutrition professor at the University of Utah. That means they make you feel full longer, keep your blood sugar level after a meal, and may even reduce body fat.

But there’s a trick to maximizing this benefit: Chilling cooked potatoes nearly doubles the amount of natural resistant starch in a serving. Try an Italian-style potato salad. Boil peeled, sliced potatoes until they’re fork-tender; drain, and toss them with salt, pepper, and your favorite red wine vinaigrette. Cool the salad in the fridge and garnish it with chopped parsley before you dig in. Not a spud fan? Try black beans (or any other bean) or split peas, warm or cold, for the same benefit.

Front-load your day’s calories
We all know that breakfast helps keep your waistline trim, but here’s more solid proof: In a recent study, University of Texas at El Paso researchers found that people who ate breakfast took in 5% fewer calories over the course of the day. That’s only about 100 calories (if you typically eat the 2,000 calories per day recommended for adult women), but, over time, it adds up. Saving 100 calories a day for one year equals a loss of more than 10 pounds. Experts estimate most of us eat 20% of our daily calories at breakfast, 30 percent at lunch, and 50 percent at dinner. “You would probably be better off shifting more of your total daily calories to the morning,” says lead author John de Castro, PhD. If you can’t stomach a bigger breakfast (keep it healthy with a combo of low-fat protein, whole grains, and fruit or veggies), add a midmorning snack (a container of yogurt, some fruit with a few whole-grain crackers, or half a sandwich).

Pull out the blender
Froth beats fat. This is one of the best and least-known discoveries of professor Barbara Rolls, PhD, author of The Volumetrics Eating Plan. Rolls found that study subjects who drank smoothies and other drinks blended for at least twice as long as necessary ate 12% less—and felt fuller—than those who drank beverages blended for a shorter period. Why? Blending is a no-calorie way to increase serving size by adding air. Adding low- or no-cal ingredients to entreés (such as lettuce and tomato on top of turkey burgers or alongside broiled fish) has a similar effect: They work by increasing the amount of water instead of air.

Fool your sweet tooth with scent
A whiff of vanilla may be the antidote for your craving for a double dip of Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream. Here’s the theory, according to experts: The inherent sweetness of vanilla sends neuropeptides (gut-to-brain messengers) into a kind of sensory overload that fools you into feeling like you’ve satisfied your sweet tooth. Any vanilla scent?—extract, body lotion, or a candle—has a similar effect. A special spray designed to curb appetite may work, too. One to try: Scentology’s Crave Control (read more about here), which was developed by Rachel Herz, PhD, a psychologist at Brown University’s Medical School and author of The Scent of Desire.

Stock up on lentil soup
According to a new study from The Cochrane Collaboration, an independent health research organization, people on diets that call for fiber-rich, complex-carb-loaded foods such as lentils, sweet potatoes, and apples lost a little over two pounds more in five weeks, compared with people on low-fat or other types of diets. These foods rank low on the glycemic index (GI), which means they’re less likely to cause blood sugar spikes and leave you feeling hungry.
Snack smart
By now you know that snacking doesn’t have to be a bad thing for your waistline. But did you know that the right snacks can actually suppress ghrelin, the hunger hormone? James Kenney, PhD, nutrition research specialist at the Pritikin Longevity Center and Spa in Florida, says low-calorie, nutrient-rich foods like strawberries (49 calories a cup), broccoli (20 calories a cup), and sweet potatoes (103 calories—and ready in a microwave minute) are your best defense. “They make you feel satiated on a lot fewer calories than Pringles do,” Kenney says.

Breathe hunger away
Stress causes your body to pump out cortisol. And this, ultimately, creates a resistance to leptin, a hormone that helps you feel full. As a result, says Mark Hyman, MD, integrative medicine specialist and author of Ultrametabolism, the more stressed out you are (and the more often you feel that way), the less able you are to tell when you’re full. Short-circuit the problem with this stress-reducing breathing exercise: Exhale fully, counting to five as you release tension from your body; let your shoulders slump as if you’re a deflated balloon. Then count to five as you inhale gently, fully, down through the lungs into your belly; hold for a four-count. Exhale again, repeating the first step. Continue for five minutes; practice a few times each day—or whenever you feel inclined to make tracks to the snack stash.

By Curt Pesmen