March/April 2009 Alternative Health
5-Minute Yoga

by Shiela Baker

How would you like to feel more relaxed and energized in five minute or less? Regardless of age, gender or size, we all want to be happy, peaceful and full of energy. Yoga focuses on calming the mind, strengthening the body and connecting with the divine.

Any one can do yoga. Discover powerfully easy yoga asanas (poses). Learn simply how inhaling and exhaling consciously changes your attitude and view of life, calming the mind. Put your feet underneath you and stand strong, fully grounded, strengthening the body and opening to spirit. Flick off tension, removing any blocks to being open hearted. Scan your body effectively and quickly noting without blame, shame or judgment where stuck energy still remains.

Accept where you are now. Meet your first resistance, the first hint of an owie. Stay there. Do not bully your body - rather listen to what it is saying to you. Your body is a great teacher and is stronger and smarter than you might imagine.

Try these three easy poses to put balance back into your life.

Alternate Nostril Breathing

Why? Conscious intentional breathing balances the body and mind, leaving you peaceful yet alert. As we breathe the nervous and glandular systems are affected, generating either a calming or energizing effect, which can be felt almost immediately. Focus and control over your life is a long-term result of paying attention to the breath.

How? Sit comfortably and close the eyes. With the right index finger, close off the right nostril and inhale through the left. Then close the left nostril with the ring finger of the left hand and exhale through the right nostril. Inhale eight times through the left nostril then alternate and inhale eight times through the right nostril. To end, take a deep breath and just hold for a moment then deeply exhale.

As you inhale use your imagination drawing soothing energy into every cell in the body. As you exhale allow all stress, tension, discomfort and disease to leave the body. Often the breath flows more easily on one side than the other, just notice without blame or judgment.

When? Anytime you feel tense. Before an important meeting and anytime you want to become more alert and focused.

Tadasana Mountain Pose

Why? This is the foundation pose from which all others begin, the starting place. From a firm supple stance we become open hearted, in balance, ready to take action.

How? Standing or sitting with your feet hip width apart, focus your attention on the feet (flat on the floor). Notice whether you have the same amount of weight on both the inner and outer aspect of the feet. Balance the weight on both inner and outer aspect of the foot, the ball and heel of the foot. Lift the toes and replace one toe down at a time. Breathe.

Lift the awareness to the knees and have knees strong and supple, lift the kneecaps up without jutting the knees back to the wall behind you. If sitting just be aware of the bent knees. Draw the attention up to the hips and drop the tail down toward the floor, which automatically tips the pelvis. Take a deep breath and feel the chest and heart open.

Have the same distance between the front of the shoulders and the back of the shoulders so you are not thrusting your chest nor curving the shoulders forward. Soften your throat by swallowing.

Imagine that there is a string attached to the top of your head and that each vertebra is being lifted one off of the other. Palms are open, hands at the side of each hip. Close your eyes and lift the gaze up as if looking to a distant mountain top. Say to your self silently, "I stand ready to obey thy least command." Softly open eyes. Breathe deeply.

When? Any time you are standing: in a grocery line, at the bank when talking with someone. Any time.

Wrist Wings

Why? To release tension in a simple and effective way any time or place you need to relax.

How? Sit or stand in Tadasana Mountain Pose and breathe. Dynamically, as if you are pushing something away with the back of your hands, lift arms out to the sides and over the head. Just keep the arms parallel to the floor if your shoulders are very tight. Have palms down or facing away from the body if arms are overhead. Drop the shoulders away from the ears.

Keep arms straight and pretend the hands are wings and flap your hands. Close your eyes imagining the tension flipping off the finger tips as you continue to flap. Say to yourself silently, "Away, away, away." Dynamically return your arms to your sides back into Tadasana. Now allow your minds eye to scan the body noticing without blame or judgment any residual blocked energy.

When? Any time you feel strain in the upper back and lower neck area.

Shiela Baker, author of Practical Shamanism, is a shamanic psychotherapist assisting with relief from trauma. She facilitates vision quest, shamanic counseling and teaches shamanism. Shiela is certified both in Iyengar and Ananda yoga. Visit www.shamanweaver.com.