 We might rarely read or listen about Human Growth Hormone (HGH), but this hormone is very important in maintaining our health as we age. Human Growth Hormon (HGH) or somatotropin is an important hormone that is secreted by pituitary gland in your brain. It is associated with:
1. Bone mineralization 2. Muscle mass 3. Strength booster and exercise performance while helping you recover from injury and disease 4. Fat breakdown and protein synthesis 5. Growth and regeneration of all internal organs 6. Homeostasis (balance) 7. Immune system HGH is the agent that stimulates growth throughout childhood and then maintains the tissues and organs throughout life. In our 40s, the pituitary gland that produces HGH, begins to decrease the amount it produces. The diminished production of HGH is associated with symptoms of aging which can include poor stamina, decreased muscle mass, increased body fat, poor mood, lack of motivation and decreased of bone density. Essentially, it slows the aging process. Interestingly, your diet and lifestyle choices can significantly affect your HGH level and one of the lifestyle choices is to have enough rest. However, in this fast-paced modern day which often keeps us busy, not everyone is able to follow the rule of 8 hour sleep. So, how can we keep up with that? Practicing Yoga Nidra regularly can help you with this situation. It is stated that forty five minutes of Yoga Nidra is as restorative as three hours of sleep. Yoga Nidra is an ancient-sleep based meditation technique. It is a series of breath, body and awareness technique to help you slip into a state of non-doing. The body needs to let go and to rest. It needs to have profound experiences of non-doing so it can regenerate itself. Without this, the body begins to tire. Like a car, it needs maintenance and repair. Keep it in overdrive and it will eventually burn out. Yoga Nidra is regenerative, but it is more than a nap. It is a spiritual practice that, through a structured and conscious movement through sleep states, takes you to realms beyond the mind and into the fourth state of consciousness beyond waking, dreaming and deep sleep. Yoga Nidra stills the waves of mind by taking us into conscious sleep states, progressively moving us through the same brainwaves state as sleep. These brainwaves indicate less and less activity of the mind, creating profound state of meditative awareness - if experienced intentionally. There are five major brainwave states: 1. Beta: Beta is associated with normal waking state. Beta brainwaves is found between 13-100 cycles per second. It is most identified with the character, least still and most driven by ego programming. 2. Gamma: Gamma is associated with high IQ and is found between 40 and 70 cycles per second. Gamma waves are important for learning, memory and information processing. Additionally, greater Gamma activity in meditators is associated with greater empathy and compassion. The Gamma brainwave is usually experienced while awake, but interestingly can also be experienced in REM sleep. 3. Alpha: Alpha ranges between 8-12 cycles per second. The Alpha brainwave state is associated with relaxed wakefulness all the way into dreaming or REM sleep. Brain activity begins to slow down and our thoughts come fewer and further apart. As we enter the Alpha brainwave state, we experience relaxation and ease. The body is often overcome with an overwhelming feeling of well-being associated with the release of serotonin into the system. In this state, the immune system is boosted enabling us to better fight off and recover from infections and disease. Here, we also begin to gain access to the subconscious mind which is associated with the Prana or Energy body. 4. Theta: Theta ranges between 4-7 cycles per second. It is associated with increased creativity, feeling relaxed and carefree. Artists, inventors, and children often have more Theta brainwave activity, even in the waking state. This is also the state out of which creative solutions, inspirations and answers will often arise. If you have ever fallen asleep and awoken with an answer or solution to a problem, it is a result of entry into the Theta state. Along with the Alpha brainwave state, the Theta brainwave state is associated with increased retention of learned material and long-term memory. 5. Delta: The deepest sleep state and Yoga Nidra state happen in the Delta brainwave frequency. Here, amazingly, brainwave activity can slow all the way down between 0.5 to 3.9 cycles per second. The fluctuations of mind are down to only the most basic survival functions. Since all other activity is shut off, this is the most restorative state for the body. When under anesthesia, when knocked unconscious or in a coma, the body is in a Delta brainwave state. The body, if injured severely enough, goes into a coma because this is the best state from which to heal. Every time we go to Delta brainwave states in Yoga Nidra, we are profoundly healing and restoring the body. Every night, we cycle through the brainwaves several times. When we get a good amount of Delta brainwave sleep, we awake feeling particularly refreshed, alert and rejuvenated. It has been repeatedly proven that Theta and Delta activity tend to decrease as we age, and the tendency to stay in upper Alpha increases. Yoga Nidra can help reverse this tendency and the sleep problems that can result. In Delta states of Yoga Nidra, HGH is released. As we get older, HGH levels decline. In adults, low or absent HGH can cause emotional symptoms, such as tiredness and lack of motivation. This can be counteracted in the Delta brainwave state where HGH is released. Delta brainwave states also reduce the amount of cortisol, a stress hormone which accelerates aging process, in the system. In the Delta state, we not only have access to the unconscious, but also the the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious, defined by Jung, refers to primal patterning built into the DNA of all humans being all over the world. These are issues that are common to being human rather than more specific issues that are unique to each individual person - such as power, the search for wholeness, and being a woman or being a man. Yoga Nidra experiences in the Delta state are usually associated with one's complete loss of body awareness. This is why, in the deep Delta brain experience, you may feel you cannot move, or it takes longer to come back to waking consciousness and the ability to move. Some may even have out-of-body experiences in Yoga Nidra, which are associated with the Delta state. One benefits of the out-of-body experience is that it allows us to see that the body is not the total sum of who we are. We are more than the body. This expands our awareness to a greater sense of Self and begins to help us release our identification with the body as the limit of who we are. In conclusion, developing and maintaining healthy lifestyle habits is important for our well-being as we get older, especially getting enough rest, and Yoga Nidra can assist you with that, not only with physical term, but also with emotional, mental and spirit as a whole being.
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 YOGA AND SELF-LOVEMany would say that practicing yoga is a form of self-care and self-love. Yes, it is true. However in this article, I wanna talk about yoga and self-love from my own experience as an instructor.
Having a profession as a yoga instructor is not only about giving clues and telling clients how to do yoga poses, but most importantly holding the space for each client. Every client is special with their own needs. They may have concerns regarding physical health, mental health, emotional health or the combination of all three. It is very important for them and me as the guide to understand about ourselves, who we truly are inside, what makes us happy, what we want to create, how to keep our masculine and feminine energy in balance so that we are healthy, and most importantly yoga practice is there to remind us that we are a whole and complete human being, that we are not a broken piece which we often forget. Guiding clients in a yoga class needs the teacher to hold the space for each individual. It is about exchanging energy, giving and receiving. For the clients, it is in the form of feeling good in general, not only in the body. For the teacher, it is in the form of money as payment of services, and seeing the clients happy and healthy. I had experience regarding holding the space. For these past few months, I have been helding many yoga classes per week. I can teach 3-4 yoga classes per day. In the beginning it was okay. I thought I could handle it, and I was teaching online anyway, so I did not have to spend too much time on the road. However, I was wrong. I felt burn-out and tired. I did not have that much energy anymore by the evening. So, I did my own self-love thing which was to limit the classes from teaching three classes for a client, becoming two classes per week. It took me courage to say that to the client, but I felt relieve afterwards. I did what was best not only for me, but also for the client. So she can have maximum result for her practice. That was my story regarding self-love and work. What was your story? You can tell me in the comments below. Sharing about ourselves in a safe community is a good thing. You do not know what you will learn and whom you can help. So, do not hesitate to tell your stories. THE HEALING POWER OF BREATHING Breathing is an activity that happens naturally for all beings since birth. However, some of us, human, take it for granted. We do not feel grateful enough for the power it has. Yes, you heard it right. Breathing has super power, the POWER OF HEALING. In fact, without it we are nothing. We won't be alive to do all things we like and live life to the fullest.
So, what is this super power? The day when we were born, we were given certain amount of prana/qi/energy through our breath (oxygen) to sustain our life. When we breathe, our whole body breathe as well, not only the chest or belly, but also our spine, rib cage, and skin through the pores. The abdominal diaphragm pushes down our digestive organs during inhalation to create more space for the air to come in. That is why the belly is moving out when we inhale. When we exhale, the diaphragm moves up and massages our heart and lungs. There is space for the belly to move back in. This is called diaphragmatic breathing and the act of breathing itself has helped strenghtening and toning our belly. You can place both your hands on your belly and observe how you normally breathe. Some people breathe shallow and only using their chest. Some do what is called "reverse-breathing". This means the belly is coming in on inhalation and going out on exhalation. These types of breathing can cause stress. Therefore, practice is needed to return our breathing pattern like when we were a baby. Baby does proper breathing and take longer exhalation. Therefore, they are always joyful and relax. Furthermore, this way of breathing relaxes our nervous system, from Symphatic Nervous System - SNS (fight or flight or freeze mode) to Parasymphatic Nervous System - PNS (rest and digest). It sends signal to our brain that we are safe and that we can relax now. This is when the process of letting go happens with each exhalation. What do we let go of? We let go of stucked energies like tiredness, exhaustion, tension in our body, stress, anxiety, depression, fear, anger and all that do not deserve us anymore, only with the act of breathing. By breathing properly and mindfully our mind becomes clearer and sharp, our body is healthier, and our mood is improved. We will also feel more energized. Breathing gives impact on our whole being, including our decision making. If you want to change and improve your life, you can start with your breath.  MASCULINE ENERGY AND FEMININE ENERGYPeople have heard about masculine and feminine energy, but do they know that we have both masculine and feminine energy as a person? Common statement in public is that masculine represents male and feminine represents female. That statement is not necessarily true. We can see male that is gentle, dare to cry, and nurturing while there is woman who is "get and go" type.
So, what is masculine energy and what is feminine energy? MASCULINE energy:
FEMININE energy:
Do you know which energy is more dominant in yourself? We need both energy to work together to create balance. When both energies are balanced, we are more aligned with ourselves, between our heart and our mind. It makes it easier to attract things to come into our lives. Focus on the BEING first (for example be happy, be joyful, etc.) then take action or DOING. Allow me to make our body as example. We need both strength (masculine energy) and flexibility (feminine energy) to keep it healthy. If we only focus to strengthen our muscles through hardcore practice that gets us sweat by forcing and pushing, and we forget to make the joints flexible, it is not considered as healthy as well. Our body needs to be both strong and flexible to sustain our everyday activities. Therefore stretching is needed here. A more gentle practice like yin yoga, qigong, taichi is a feminine practice that can keep your masculine practice in balance. Nurturing yourself in nature like walking barefeet on grass, journaling, meditating, dancing are some of examples to escalate our feminine energy and be creative. Remember to have fun and be playful as well. Don't take all things too serious in life. Create rooms in life where we can enjoy things. In modern times like now, we are mostly busy all the time and always try to achieve something. We get busy with the outer world like checking messages or emails in our cellphone, overthinking of something, etc. that sometimes we forget to take care of our innerself. It is time to return inside and balance our masculine and feminine. When we take care of our inner world, our outer world will take care itself.  Pic: Sage Glow Studio THE GOAL OF YOGAWe can see many people do yoga activity nowadays either indoor in gym or yoga studio, or outdoor like in park. People do yoga for many reasons, such as keeping their body healthy, reducing stress, being suggested by health professionals after experiencing injury, or they take it merely as physical activity because they get addicted to the sweat and its challenge. That's what creates common statement in public that in order to do yoga you need to be very flexible. For those who think that their bodies are stiff, they become reluctant to do yoga.
The reasons above are partly true, that yoga is great to maintain health, focus, and the body BECOMES FLEXIBLE. I said "become", not a pre-requisite (a must). With consistent practice, flexibility can happen on its own as our body is getting used to be opened. Getting back to the goal of yoga. Essentially, there is only one goal, according to "Yoga Sutras of Patanjali", the holy book of yoga practitioners. Sutra means threads and yoga means union. Therefore, Yoga Sutras means "Threads of Union". It is stated that the goal of yoga is yoga citta vritti nirodha meaning "a state of mind that is calm (non-fluctuative)" There are four parameters to check our current state, whether we are heading to disturbed or undisturbed state: 1. Heart: Check-in with your heart space. Do you feel constricted/heavy/closed or do you feel your heart is spacious/open/expanded/light? 2. Mind: Do we overthink? Often think of something negatively before knowing the truth? Are we in depressed, feeling anxious and having brainfog? Or the opposite .. we feel light, joy, passionate, positive and get clarity in thinking? 3. Body: Do we feel painful/achy/stiff/discomfort/trembling or do we feel at ease and steady within our body? 4. Breath: Do you feel disturbance in your breath of any kind, such as short/shallow/ jagged/irregular or is your breath smooth/long/regulated? One parameter will affect the other three, for example if you feel angry, your chest (heart) is heavy, you can feel heat and tremble in your body, your breath becomes short and irregular. In order to return yourself back to balance, you can start by regulating the breath. Take a long inhalation and exhalation, and continue to make the length of the exhalation longer than the inhalation. And then notice what happens to your body, mind, and heart. Everything becomes ease, calm and relax. This practice can be done anywhere and anytime. It does not have to be on the mat. Therefore, we can do yoga at every minute and to achieve the calm state of mind involves the aspects of us as human being ... physically, energetically via breathing, mentally, and emotionally. |
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