Yoga for Blood Circulation | how to increase blood circulation

The circulatory system is an essential part of what keeps us going.  It is also referred to as the cardio-vascular system and consists of the heart and the blood vessels.  The hearts job is to pump blood to different parts of the body and this blood carries vital nutrients and oxygen to the different organs.  It travels via the blood vessels.  The heart is divided into four compartments that each have a different role.  The compartment on the upper right is responsible for collecting the incoming impure blood from all over the body and moving it on to the lower right compartment.  The lower right compartment sends the blood on to the lungs for purification.  The purified blood is then returned to the heart - this time in the upper left ventricle from where it is moved into the lower left compartment and then back out as fresh, pure blood to the remainder of the body.

  The blood is primarily carries through main arteries that are thick tube like structures leading from the heart around the body.  The arteries branch into many sub arteries which in turn will divide into thin-walled capillaries.  The capillaries interact with the organs directly and due to their thin walls they pass oxygen and nutrients to the organs and tissues that need them the most.  The used resources are ejected from the tissue and back into the capillaries to be fed on through specialized veins to return the impure blood back to the heart to start the entire process once more.  This is a difficult job as the pressure has decreased this far from the heart so the veins are assisted by valves to regulate the flow.

  The important thing to understand about the way the circulatory system is set up is that it has two main parts, the blood system and the lymphatic system.  It is the job of the lymphatic system to remove waste from the circulatory system.  The two different systems run almost side by side but while the blood system has a pump - the heart - the lymphatic system does not have a single organ designed to power it's operations.  This job falls to the muscles, which pump the lymphatic system by contracting and expanding.  This is of course where Yoga comes in.

  Yoga is a discipline unique in it's combination of focus on body, mind and spirit.  The body component is taken care of with a series of poses and postures, which are designed to clear blockages in the circulatory system and ensure that everything is flowing as it should at an even regular rate.  It also flexes the muscles and strengthens them very efficiently over time with a minimal amount of 'grunt'.  This strengthening and constant working of these muscles pumps the lymphatic system and makes out body many times more efficient at the removal of waste matter.  As a result people who practice Yoga regularly can expect that they will have a greatly enhanced immune response system and be able to deal with infection and disease better than their non-Yogi counterparts.

  Furthermore the benefits start before this.  Yoga sessions will usually being with a series of standing exercises emphasizing long slow breathing exercises.  These breathing exercises are common to all forms of yoga and force us to concentrate on our breath and it's pathway trough the body each time we take a fresh breath.  The exercises are designed especially so that people are not restricted in where and when they can practice them and ideally would use them instead of our slower shallower normal breathing pattern.
 
  Because the breaths are longer and deeper the oxygen intake is increased.  Combined with the enhancing effects that the exercises have on the regularity of circulation in the blood system the oxygen is much more efficiently transported to the muscles of the body.  If these muscles, along with our other organs and tissues are not receiving the oxygen and nutrients we need then we starve them and become ill as a result.

  As you can see Yoga is of great assistance to the complex and interlocking system of circulation.  It recognizes the basis and importance of the system and helps to being it back into balance.

Lifestyle Choices to prevent Heart Disease

Lifestyle Choices to prevent Heart Disease

Can Yoga Help Asthma?

Simply lifting a person's level of fitness can help to reduce the number of asthma attacks for many people.

Yoga is one of the best methods to help people to learn and implement better breathing habits and this is something that can help those who suffer from asthma considerably.

There are various different reasons why people get affected by asthma and for a lot of them it is brought on during times of stress.

Yoga has proven to be one of the best ways of reducing and eliminating stress from people's lives and that alone can often be all that is needed to ensure that a person no longer needs to suffer from asthma attacks.

Anxiety is often a precursor to an asthma attack and once again yoga has been proven to reduce anxiety attacks in most people.

By simply learning and applying the breathing techniques that are taught in yoga a person can control situations that would normally have set off a reaction. Any time that the asthma can be controlled without the use of medication in the form of inhalers or other solutions the asthma sufferer goes one step further to eliminating it from their life. The mind is very powerful and it can affect the body functions both positively and negatively and each time the asthma sufferer manages to handle a situation where an attack would have occurred it sends a powerful and positive message to the subconscious that will add support to the next time such an event is encountered.

For some people with asthma it is the panic and anxiety that they feel when an attack begins to develop that makes the situation all the worse. The calm and relaxed manner that yoga helps these people develop also helps to reduce the impact of these events and in doing so either eliminates them or makes any asthma attack milder than what would normally be expected.

Dealing with Chronic Pain

For some people there seems to be no alternative in their life other than to accept the fact that they have to live with chronic pain each day of their life.
The pain can also stop them from doing specific forms of exercise.

Medications rarely help and often they have other side effects that cause problems that add another factor to the difficulties the pain sufferer has to endure.

Obviously then an alternative method of pain management where medications aren't required or where they can be reduced is welcomed by these people.

Yoga offers the opportunity to help people manage their pain and sometimes eliminate it from their life.

When we feel pain it naturally causes the body to become tense and tighten the muscles in the area of the pain. This natural reaction actually makes the pain more intense and using simple yoga relaxation techniques will help to retrain the body's response to the pain.

Breathing techniques that are taught in yoga help the body to become more relaxed and without the additional tension in the muscles the pain can be reduced somewhat.

As people become more advanced with their yoga training they will be able to calm themselves and relax more easily and when they feel pain they will be able to instantly relax and reduce the impact of the pain.

These relaxation techniques also help the brain to release more of the positive chemicals that not only make the person feel better, but help to reduce the effects of the pain.

Yoga exercises also help to strengthen the body as a whole and quite often the additional strength and flexibility that is gained from yoga in other areas of the body is sufficient to reduce the pain considerably in the affected area and in many cases eliminate it completely.