Time certainly flies when you're having fun! And that's exactly what we've had this past year – lots of fun, laughter, and enthusiasm as we've shared our love of yoga and alternative health and wellbeing with you through our website.
We hope you enjoy receiving our newsletters and the content has inspired you in your personal yoga practice. Our intent from the very beginning has always been to foster a community spirit by embracing the wonderful cultural diversity that makes each and every one of us special.
We hope you have found our newsletters interesting, humorous on occasions, and even provocative at times. Our Yoga and Religionnewsletter was a deliberate attempt on our part to provoke a reaction and response in you. This is a fascinating topic that never fails to generate a dialog – hopefully a respectful one – between people of ethnic and religious diversity.
We also want to thank those of you who have taken the time to communicate to us what you want to share with the community. Although we have not been able to respond to every single one of you, we want you to know that we appreciate your input and intend to reply to you soon.
As we continue on this exciting journey of discovery together, we hope you will join us in spreading our philosophy and promoting emotional, physical, and spiritual wellbeing for all.
As a gesture of appreciation and belief in fostering our yoga community, we at YogaHub will soon inform you about a special gift that we will be releasing to promote the benefits of yoga.
Thank you for your support this past year. Your enthusiasm has motivated us to continue to gather and share information so that you, as individuals and as a community, can decide what is best for you at this time in your life.
Everybody has felt depressed before at one time or another. For most, it's fleeting – a feeling that limits itself to isolated occasions. It strikes and fades as part of the natural emotional tapestry of life.
For others, however, it can be something much more significant – a kind of depression that is qualitatively different from its short-lived counterpart. It overwhelms. It becomes central and inescapable, and it's spelled with a capital D.
In light of May being National Mental Health month, we at YogaHub are turning our attention to this imbalance and the ways to support individuals through it.
Despite Depression's increasing prevalence in society – or at least with our increased awareness of it – medical treatment options have been few. Ever since fancy cameras detected that a decrease of a particular neurochemical in the brain can cause Depression, the accepted treatment method has been to prescribe medication to increase that chemical's activity. It has worked for many people. The other common medical treatment has been psychological counselling – usually coupled with medication – and it bridges the gap once the individual is off the meds.
However, there are many alternative treatments for depression, some of which are becoming more and more commonly used as part of modern healthcare practice. Among these growing therapy options, yoga is gaining popularity and depression sufferers both on and off medication are finding it highly beneficial to attend regular sessions.
Although yoga's benefits are vast, its impact on mental health can often be understated or overlooked. It is, however, undeniable that yoga can have a profound effect on one's psychology. It is not only stress relieving, but also mentally therapeutic. And for more and more people, these benefits are proving to be crucial to their health and wellbeing.
At its bare bones, yoga is physical exercise, and any kind of physical exercise is therapeutic. It promotes biological processes and helps to flush toxins that can affect mood. Moreover, many yoga poses specifically target the core or torso, thereby stimulating important internal organs, improving circulation, digestion, and respiration. This can have significant psychological effects caused by increased oxygen and healthy blood flow to the brain.
Perhaps more importantly, however, yoga stimulates and massages the nervous system. Incorporating the brain and spine, the nervous system forms the intricate network of communication throughout the body, and is central to all biological processes. In Depression sufferers, high levels of anxiety spike the nervous system into frenzied activity, as it would when responding to a threat.
Through the regulation of kinaesthetic motion, yoga poses massage the various bundles of nerve fibres throughout the body. This promotes feedback that helps relax the entire nervous system, improving the transmissions between nerve cells and thereby stabilizing and regulating the nervous system's response.
Despite the fact that your physical health can impact your mental health, there's still more to overcoming Depression than staying fit. That all-encompassing, bleak feeling is psychological. It's fear. It's self-doubt. It's gut-wrenching anxiety over life in general. It's not indigestion.
Through practicing yoga, you can control these involuntary and seemingly inescapable emotions. The practice of breathing exercises trains the mind to focus inward, attending to posture, alignment and breath, thereby drawing the mind away from negative psychological stimuli. Regular practice of this mindset will ingrain it further into your daily lifestyle, thereby providing much-needed emotional stability.
Furthermore, through meditation – the paradoxically focused clearing of one's mind – you develop good psychological habits whereby thoughts and stresses can be let go rather than dwelled upon. This enables you to think about and deal with problems and anxieties without becoming overwhelmed and drowning in them.
Only recently have we in North America realized the universal healing potential of yoga. More and more it is becoming apparent that regular practice is massively therapeutic, and the demonstrable psychological benefits experienced by practitioners are undeniable. For those dealing with any form of emotional distress or imbalance, yoga may be able to provide the much-needed stability required to get back on an even mental keel and counter the psychological fog of anxiety.
Updates from the Blog:
What a Difference an Instructor Makes by Christina Souza Ma
After my first class with Yin Yoga, when I was quite surprised by the instructor, I was not feeling at all at peace with the experience.
However, whenever I try a new form of yoga, I like to experience it several times before I really know if it will benefit me at this time of my life. Each one of us is unique and the journeys we take as individuals inspire us to grow in different directions that in turn enable us to have the greatest effect on how we share or teach others. Continue Reading...
Yoga on a Cruise Ship by Francesca Silva
Okay, I'm excited – and that's putting it mildly!
This year, my husband and I will be celebrating our fifteenth wedding anniversary. Has it really been that long already? It seems just like yesterday, although my husband may beg to differ! Continue Reading...
Spread the Love - Referral Rewards
Special care goes into the preparation of each weekly Yoga Newsletter. We invite you to help us spread the word by sharing this message with others. Once a month, we will select an individual to receive a special gift as a token of our appreciation for passing it on. Gift-It-Forward and Win »
After my first class with Yin Yoga, when I was quite surprised by the instructor, I was not feeling at all at peace with the experience. 
Okay, I'm excited – and that's putting it mildly!
