Get Healthy Texas

DALLAS (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ― From peacock pose to headstand, yoga is a great way to increase your flexibility, strengthen your muscles and center your thoughts.  That's just the tip of the iceberg or top of your head in tree pose.

"You're using your own body weight and when you do the movements in a really mindful or slower way you're just much more focused and working harder than you might if you were mindlessly doing some other type of exercise," says Ginger Newberg who teaches at Karmany Yoga in Dallas.  

Yoga has been around forever.  It reportedly originated in India more than 5,000 years ago but what's interesting is that in a number of studios across North Texas, instructors are seeing an influx of students looking to escape from the stress and bad news that seems to be surrounding us right now.

"A lot of people do come to yoga because it does get you more physically fit," Newberg said.  "But they find pretty quickly that the greater benefit is the stress relief which is the peace you get from it."

"Lots of people who have lost their jobs are coming to take yoga in the middle of the day and they're using it as an opportunity for them right now," Newberg adds.  "It's helping them relieve the stress of not having a job." 

"It's an hour. It's quiet time," agrees yoga student Amanda Dalton-Bowen.  "When I practice I'm not thinking about my bills or the mortgage or stress of my job.  It's a whole hour of resting my mind, de-stressing."

A number of participants say the mental benefits begin to outweigh the physical.  Personally, I have practiced off and on since I was about four years old.  It's one of those things I love to do but just can't get around to on a consistent basis.  I haven't progressed to that level of tranquility and "lightness of being" many practitioners experience (that's my own personal problem...one of many) but I feel its positive affects in a number of ways.  After a tough class, I feel stronger thanks to the body control required to make it through a class.  The flexibility work takes me to a level I can't achieve on my own.  And the more I think about it, I do breathe better and feel perhaps a bit calmer after a class.  I need all of that I can get.

If that doesn't interest you, this might: a recent study conducted and paid for by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and recently published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, determined that people who practice yoga are more mindful eaters. Meaning, that the mindfulness which is a "skill learned either directly or indirectly through yoga – could affect eating behavior," according to Alan Kristal, Dr. P.H. who is the associate head of the Cancer Prevention Program in the Public Health Sciences Division at the Hutchinson Center. 

People who eat mindfully pay closer attention to the eating process.  If they are full, they stop.  If they are hungry, they eat.  If not, they don't.  They don't eat if they're upset or anxious – they learn to deal with those issues in another way.  Ultimately, if you are more aware of what you eat, you are generally less likely to be overweight. 

Give it a try, the worst that can happen is that it doesn't do much for you and you experiment something else.  But, you could just get that "yoga high" and before long you might notice that you have better posture, toned arms, a smaller waist and a new outlook on dealing with difficult situations.  

Here's a rockin' Survive in '09 Bonus: Karmany Yoga is a unique donation-based studio.  You pay what you can afford.  The suggested donation is $15.00 per class.  But if you can only afford a buck that day, that's all you need to pay.

Very cool. Very Om.

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