Yoga Poses' Effect on the Body
By Sara Mitschke and Yuki Nakanishi
Does doing yoga with others make it stressful?
Why yoga helps relieve stress-
Half Moon Pose
- Balancing posture with one leg raised 90° and one hand on the floor
- Cultivate focused awareness to the body
Fish Pose
- Anxiety relief
- Gentle back and stretches the shoulder
Headstand pose
- Reverses blood flow
- forces you to focus on the breathing and body in the present moment
Yoga can hurt the body too!
The people from India who used to do yoga normally sat squatted or cross-legged all day. For them, yoga was an outgrowth of those poses. Now, people who sit in office chairs all day strain themselves to so poses that require more flexibility than they have.
Glenn Black, a 4 year yoga teacher, says not to do yoga after major traumas because you can just injure yourself more.
One college student sat in the vajrasana pose (sitting upright on your heels in a kneeling position) for hours everyday. He began to have trouble running because nerves that run below the knee were being deprived of oxygen. After he stopped doing yoga, his condition greatly improved. Some people have dome yoga poses that hurt their ability to walk and they never fully repair, but this is really rare.
Works Cited
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"How to Safely Do a Yoga Headstand Pose." About.com Health. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Nov. 2015. <http://yoga.about.com/od/yogaposes/a/headstand.htm>.
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"Yoga Can Help Cure Anxiety... But Can It Cause Anxiety, Too?" Greatist. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Nov. 2015. <http://greatist.com/happiness/yoga-can-help-cure-anxiety%E2%80%A6-can-it-cause-anxiety-too>.
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"Yoga for Stress Relief." KidsHealth - the Web's Most Visited Site about Children's Health. Ed. Mary L. Gavin. The Nemours Foundation, 01 Sept. 2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2015. <http://kidshealth.org/teen/your_mind/problems/yoga_stress.html>.
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