You may think that yoga only involves stretching but strengthening makes up a huge part of the practice, as evident in the Warrior II Pose or Virabhadrasana II. Even some experienced yogis forget this! They pay for it later with overstretched, weakened muscles and tendons that need a good workout, not just another session of being pulled. This is why I advocate yoga positions that can do both stretching and strengthening whenever I can. Warrior II is a great one. Depending on how far you take this pose, it can offer huge gains in terms of stamina, flexibility, and strength in your legs and groin. This is as great for runners as it is for those of us that spend our busy weeks hunched over a desk. Read on to learn the many benefits of the Warrior II Pose, as well as how to perform the pose properly.   Benefits of Warrior II Pose Warrior II Pose puts a load on your legs and ankles to first stretch and then strengthen them. Your back leg will get stronger as you maintain the pose and your groin will get a good stretch. This can do wonders for people who lead sedentary work lives and who probably have adhesions and stuck tissue throughout their inner thighs. As you stand tall and hold the pose, you’ll also get a stretch in your chest and lungs, as well as your shoulders. Like many poses in a standing sequence, this also energizes your internal organs, waking them up and making them function better. Your back will get a nice feeling of “opening” as well. And Warrior II does this in a way that’s perfect for women carrying a baby. I recommend Virabhadrasana II particularly during the second trimester to give your back more flexibility and strength to carry your heavy load. What physical problems can this pose help you with? Remember that yoga poses are therapies, not cures. However, those with flat feet, osteoporosis, sciatica, and even carpal tunnel can benefit from the regular practice of the Warrior II Pose.   How to Do the Pose As with many standing sequences, begin Warrior II Pose in Mountain Pose or Tadasana. Breathe out as you move your feet 3 or 4 feet apart from each other (depending on how tall you are). Lift your arms so they are straight and parallel with the floor. Stretch out your fingers. Let your shoulder blades open and widen. Your palms should be facing the floor. Now turn your feet so that your heels form a straight line between them (your back foot should be aimed towards the front of you and your front foot should be aimed forward and away from you). You’ll feel your thighs tensing. Turn your back thigh out. Fully bend the knee of your front leg until that leg forms a 90-degree angle with the floor. Press your front heel down. Straighten your back leg. Focus on your trunk. Make sure your torso stays long and your shoulders and hips are on top of each other. Turn your head to look [...]

Upward Bow Pose is not for the faint of flexibility: just looking at pictures of the pose may make you wince! But it is for the faint of heart because this pose is a fantastic heart-strengthener, lung-opener, and energy-booster. Our frozen spines, locked into sitting positions, need this release. If you have weak arms and legs, you may have trouble getting into Upward Bow. That’s because you need it! To stretch and strengthen your extremities as you open your chest wide enough to even treat symptoms of asthma, use Upward Bow Pose. Those suffering from fatigue love it too because of how stimulating it can be. Read on to learn the specific benefits of performing Urdhva Dhanurasana and how to do the pose correctly.   Benefits of Upward Bow Pose Upward Bow Pose gives you a beneficial stretch in your chest and lungs – that’s the main reason to recommend it. This can strengthen your spine and relieve back pain, as well as provide essential therapy for asthma and osteoporosis. At the same time, Upward Bow Pose strengthens your legs, arms, wrists, abdomen, and buttocks. Stretching and strengthening aren’t the only reasons to practice Urdhva Dhanurasana, however. The pose can actually increase your energy due to the strengthening of your spine. This in turn can fight depression and improve your mood all-around. Upward Bow Pose helps you stimulate your pituitary gland and thyroid, giving you that boost of energy and helping you face your busy day more confidently. The combination not only fights depression and asthma but gives you strength. Urdhva Dhanurasana is not an easy pose to pull off, but if you follow the instructions below, you should be able to start seeing these benefits.   How to Do the Pose Upward Bow Pose begins on your back. Bend your knees so your feet are flat, with heels close to your thighs, like you’re about to do a glute bridge. Place your hands flat on the floor beside your head, fingers pointing in the direction of your head. Keep your elbows from falling outward; try to keep them close to your armpits. Inhale. As you breathe in, let your weight fall on your inner feet as you lift your tailbone. Your butt should be firm, but not tense and hard. Listen to your body! If this hurts or feels weird, gently lower yourself back to the floor. People with injured or recovering backs, carpal tunnel, or bad headaches shouldn’t do Urdhva Dhanurasana. If you feel good, press into the balls of your feet, keeping your thighs straight in line with your feet. Use the inside sides of your hands to push. As you do so, feel your weight held up by your legs without letting your heels come up or skew to either side. Your shoulder blades should be pressing into your back. Your head should be lifted from the floor. Take each step slowly, with a few deep breaths. Push up until your [...]

Your diaphragm supports your breath – we know this! But healthy diaphragmatic breathing can do so much more than that. From digestive health to mental calm, the right breathing techniques can make you young again. That’s the centuries-old promise with the Upward Abdominal Lock or Uddiyana Bandha. People have practiced it regularly for centuries in the pursuit of youth. Healthy breathing improves so many bodily functions that they may have achieved such youth, in a way! You’ll never know how beneficial regular diaphragmatic breathing through the Upward Abdominal Lock can be until you add it to your practice. Use this guide to learn about its benefits as well as how to perform the pose the right way.   Benefits of Upward Abdominal Lock The strength of your abdominal muscles directly impacts the healthiness of your breath. Upward Abdominal Lock gives you that strength. It also opens your diaphragm and improves its function. Uddiyana Bandha stimulates energy in your lower abdominal and digestive tract, which benefits you in two ways. The first is that the increased abdominal circulation aids your body in digestion, elimination, and detoxification. This is why Upward Abdominal Lock is well-known as a purifying pose, one that helps your body rid itself of problematic substances more effectively. At the same time, you activate the energy of your heart (we call this your Prana Vayu). This energy opens you up to a greater sense of calm. This along with the increased blood flow to your brain makes Upward Abdominal Lock a meditative, relaxing pose. Your solar plexus, a nerve system in your abdomen, encourages healthy heart, liver, and adrenal function. You can massage it with Uddiyana Bandha, thus provoking your heart and lungs to function better. The combination of all these effects creates a system of energizing calm that can turn back the clock on your body’s functions. You may not literally get younger, but you might feel it.   How to Do the Pose Upward Abdominal Lock looks scary at first. If you’re thin, you’ll be able to see your ribs as you compress your stomach cavity inward. Let me give you a few pointers before you start. Firstly, never try Uddiyana Bandha after you’ve eaten. Practice in the morning on an empty stomach. Also, never perform the compression before you inhale. Only do it after you exhale. Though demonstrations will show Uddiyana Bandha in a seated position, you may practice it standing to gain experience before performing the seated version. Now that you’re ready to begin, this is a little awkward: there’s not one accepted way to learn Upward Abdominal Lock. Many teachers begin their students in this pose with their torso rounded completely forward and their knees bent. They then progress to performing the pose standing tall and then sitting. The easiest to understand is to practice with the torso upright the whole time, or perhaps rounded forward before you enter the pose and then return to standing. However, you choose [...]

Tree Pose or Vrksansana should be familiar to anyone that has begun their yoga journey. In standing yoga routines, Tree Pose is both the simplest pose and the most widely practiced. It requires no complicated muscle stacking or positioning and no superhuman flexibility. Those who hope to learn yoga from the beginning need balance. The beginning of balance is the Tree Pose. That’s enough martial arts master talk! What you really need to know is that from this pose, you can build stability as well as create a whole standing sequence. Despite its simplicity, Tree Pose offers many health benefits on its own, benefits which can be keenly felt by anyone, but which matter even more as you age. Read on to learn these benefits and how to do this simple pose to reap its complex benefits.   Benefits of Tree Pose Balance can seem like a luxury of the young when you’re getting older and find yourself losing it. But any of us can take advantage of the core stability offered by a balanced standing yoga routine. Tree Pose offers the best lead-in to these advantages. It is the gateway to building a healthy core. As you probably know, no muscle group in your body activates, strengthens, or stretches in isolation. They’re linked through muscles, supporting each other (or failing to). This means that you’ll feel the strengthening of your core and spine as a function of your hips. Tree Pose opens your hips, stretches your groin, and releases your inner thighs. This functionally releases your core to a state of better balance. Getting stronger legs may not be your major goal with Vrksansana but it comes with the territory of opening and balancing your core. Those of us who work all day in an office may experience groin tightness as well, as muscles harden up in those areas and become less receptive to movement. Tree Pose can help you open up and get your thighs back. In addition to strengthening the body, the Tree Pose has also been said to help with headaches, insomnia, sciatica, flat feet, and blood pressure issues.   How to Do the Pose To reap these benefits, you need to know the proper way to do the Tree Pose. It begins in Mountain Pose, hands to heart, feet firmly on the floor with your weight distributed evenly. Shift weight away from the first foot you’d like to lift. Lift it, keeping the other leg straight. At this point, yoga novices may find themselves wobbling, giggling, or tipping over. That’s okay! The point of Tree Pose is to achieve a standing balance. It’s only natural that you may not have it when you begin learning. Just try not to lock your knee when you’re swaying and looking for balance. That could make you fall over. Bend the raised knee and place your foot on the inside of your standing thigh. Press into it with your foot so that your hips don’t drop one direction or the other (you want them to stay straight ahead). A little tip: let your [...]

Hamstrings can fall asleep when you sit too long. They tighten up and become inflexible – on some people, this can cause pain. This is bad enough, but hamstrings connect structurally to so many muscle groups that this can create posture problems over time, problems that Standing Forward Bend can help you fix. Uttanasana has many therapeutic applications, as well as the ability to relieve your headache and reduce anxiety. Read on to learn the specific health benefits you can get from practicing Uttanasana as well as how to perform the pose safely and correctly. I recommend this pose primarily as a hamstring and hip stretch, but many people in many stages of life can benefit from regularly practicing Uttanasana.   Benefits of Standing Forward Bend Standing Forward Bend offers such a good stretch in your hamstrings, hips, and calves that many people who need the pose won’t be able to achieve the full stretch at first. If you work up to it though, your sleepy, tight, and inactive hamstrings can get a great wake-up call with this pose. At the same time, your thighs and knees get stronger from maintaining Uttanasana. The stretch works on your abdomen too, stimulating your kidneys and liver, improving your digestion, and helping you relieve uncomfortable symptoms of menopause. Standing Forward Bend can be integrated into your standing sequence to manage abdominal discomfort from many sources, and even offer therapy for infertility. Due to its energizing stretch, Standing Forward Bend can help you calm down, reducing the buildup of fatigue and anxiety that can crop up over the busy week (or just one busy day!). This makes Uttanasana therapeutic for high blood pressure as well. If you want to reap the benefits of this pose, follow these instructions.   How to Do the Pose Like so many standing poses, the easiest way to transition into Standing Forward Bend is to start in Mountain Pose. As you breathe out, bend forward using the joints of your hips to make the bend. Try to open the front of your torso and make it feel nice and long as you bend. As you let your head hang freely, hold onto your elbows with the opposite hands. You should feel your heels digging into the ground and your tailbone and buttocks lifting. Make sure not to lock your knees! Bend your thighs a little inward to make sure you don’t. In fact, those who can’t quite make the bend successfully can do this pose modified with your knees bent until you gain the right flexibility. Depending on how flexible you are, you can place your fingers on the floor, grab your ankles, press your palms flat on the mat, or use a block to rest your hands higher. No matter what, make sure your front torso is long and your knees are straight (unless you’re doing the modified version). You should feel the front of your thighs firming up. It’s this action of [...]

Yoga teaches us that healthy balance comes from properly stretched, opened, and stable functions in your spine, hips, and the surrounding structures. In other words, balance is not only something you can have but something you can refine! Adding Revolved Triangle Pose to a standing sequence is one way to do it. Getting the right stretch in your hamstrings, calves, and shoulders can do a lot to refine your structural balance, which has beneficial effects across your body, including stress management and healthy digestion. You should know now, however, that Parivrtta Trikonasana is an advanced pose that challenges your balance, deeply twists your spine, and requires a challenging hamstring stretch. Not everyone will be able to pull it off, but if you start slowly and avoid the common mistakes that I’ve listed for you below, you can build up to benefiting from this open, balancing pose.   Benefits of Revolved Triangle Pose The challenges of Revolved Triangle Pose come with benefits in mobility, core balance, and flexibility in your hamstrings. The main movement of Parivrtta Trikonasana opens your heart and stimulates your core, which promotes consistent, healthy digestion. The clarity provided by this movement can help you ease physical pain as well as improve your focus on a daily basis. Flexibility represents one step towards improved balance. Increasing circulation in your lower spine and pelvis can help you maintain stability while this stretch in your leg muscles improves their function as well. By learning to rotate your spine without faltering or skewing your torso and legs, you can begin to master greater stability in your standing sequences. With an open chest and heart, stretched shoulders, and an accentuated stretch in your lower body, you can use Revolved Triangle Pose to maintain a sense of balance as well as improve many bodily functions.   How to Do the Pose There are several poses you can use to transition into Revolved Triangle Pose, including Mountain Pose or Pyramid Pose. I like starting with Pyramid because it will start the pose with your legs where they need to be – straight, about 3 feet apart, with hips square and facing forward. Turn your left foot forward and your right foot out a quarter turn. As you exhale, lean your whole torso forward directly over your front leg, making sure to keep your spine long and straight. This is really important! If you feel your back rounding, you can’t lean further into the pose. Notice your back heel as well – the first mistake beginners make is to let their heels come up. In yoga, grounding creates mindfulness, which is the first step towards balance. Physical stability and mental calm go hand in hand! This is why the simple act of letting your heel come up, which can disrupt your balance, can prevent the pose from improving your mood. In your forward bend, rest your right hand on your opposite shoulder or on either side of your foot – [...]

Think of your spine as a long sponge hardened and crusty from days of sitting, slouching, overloading, and driving to work. The kind of twist you get when you properly perform the Reclined Spinal Twist Pose is like wringing out the sponge. The water is really your tension, anxiety, and built-up compression. Therefore, the stretching, lengthening, and relaxing power of this pose cannot be overstated! Read on to learn the benefits you can get from regularly performing the Reclined Spinal Twist Pose, as well as a step-by-step guide on how to easily do it. I use this pose to break out of my dormant tension and release the anxieties of my busy day. If you find yourself frustrated at work or your relationship, give this pose a try to relieve some angst instead of letting it build up.   Benefits of Reclined Spinal Twist Pose Like the best yoga twists, Supta Matsyendrasana stretches the muscles in your back, as well as your glutes and major thigh muscles. These areas get a massage in this pose, which helps relieve tension, as well as releasing and enervating the area around your spinal disks. Reclined Spinal Twist Pose has become known as a great pose for detoxing due to its ability to massage your vital organs at the same time that it strengthens the muscles in your abdomen. Toxins that build up in your core can affect functions in all your major organs. Therefore, massaging and energizing those functions can have a similarly far-reaching benefit. Just one such benefit is that the pose improves blood flow to your digestive system, which helps your immune system, metabolism, and even the tone of your waist. By stimulating and detoxifying your major organs, you can use Supta Matsyendrasana to blast away frustration and tension. If you indulge in holiday food and feel sluggish and tense during the busy season, use the Reclined Spinal Twist to get your energy back.   How to Do the Pose Supta Matsyendrasana begins with you on your back, knees bent up with your feet flat and your arms resting evenly at your sides. If you feel pain in your neck in this position, use blankets or a pillow to make yourself comfortable. As you breathe out, hold your knees to your chest. You should feel a release of tension and energy in your lower pelvis. Keeping your right knee against your chest, extend your left leg on the floor. As you do so, extend your right arm straight out to your side with your palm flat on the ground. You should be able to bring your bent knee to the floor on the opposite side. Shift your right hip while exhaling with your left knee pulled over your body and your right hand on that knee. Turn your head over on the floor away from your bent knee as you press your shoulder blades down and towards your feet. You should feel your gaze becoming soft. [...]

Many of the simpler, basic yoga poses get looked over when it comes to benefits. While certain poses may seem unremarkable, many of these gentle and easy postures actually serve a greater purpose than what meets the eye. Besides being the link between other poses in a flow, these postures have many unique benefits for both the body and the mind. Mountain Pose, or Tadasana, is a basic foundational pose that is excellent if you need to improve your balance and find your center. It is such a simple pose, but it has its benefits just like any other yoga posture, and is central to the practice of yoga. Experienced yogis will continue to find it in their classes time and time again, and beginner yogis will start to feel more and more confidence once they master this pose.   Performing Mountain Pose Start standing, with your big toes lightly touching each other and your heels slightly apart, so that you create a very narrow ‘V’ shape with your feet. Feel the weight in your feet, and make sure it is evenly distributed and balanced, rather than focused in one spot. Roll your shoulders down your back and elongate through your spine and neck. You should create one line from your feet to the top of your head, with the crown of your head aligned directly over your pelvis. Your arms will be at your sides, but keep them active and engaged. Turn your palms so that they are facing the front of the room. Feel your feet on the mat, and continue to ground down through all four corners of your feet. Ensure you continue to elongate through your spine, and keep your shoulders rolled back and away from your ears. Your gaze should remain straight in front of you, but gentle and soft. Continue to breathe deeply in this posture as you elongate through your spine. Hold for 30 seconds or longer, and then release.   Benefits of Mountain Pose While Mountain Pose is a foundational posture that is often used to link other poses in a flow, it does have its own unique benefits. These benefits include:   Improves and encourages good posture. Strengthens the thighs, ankles, and knees. Helps improve balance. Relieves symptoms of flat feet. Relieves side effects of sciatica. Helps you focus inward and calm the mind.   Mountain Pose is a foundational, grounding yoga posture that is great to practice on its own or within a yoga flow. Experienced and beginner yogis alike can reap the benefits of this pose by regularly practicing it in their physical routine. Give it a try and enjoy the benefits!   Source https://www.yogajournal.com/poses/mountain-pose      

When someone does yoga in a film, or meditates in a martial arts sequence, they’re likely going to be in Lotus Pose! It’s immediately associated with yoga, probably the ultimate expression of the calming stability that yoga can provide. It appears simple and beginners can do it easily. However, to do it well, and consistently, and reap the maximum calming effects of Padmasana, you’ll need diligence and practice. Continue reading to learn about Lotus Pose and why it’s the most typical, even most essential, pose in regular practice. I’ll go over the details of how to perform it properly so you can be a master of your own mind, even if this is the only pose you learn.   Benefits of Lotus Pose Lotus Pose offers serenity for those that lean into its heritage and take advantage of it with consistent devotion. Calming a troubled mind doesn’t come easily but Padmasana can offer a gateway to better mood control and reduced anxiety. At the same time, this physically and mentally reduces menstrual discomfort by stimulating your abdomen and pelvis. Those with bladder control and postural issues (often interlinked) may find balance by regularly practicing Lotus Pose. I recommended Padmasana throughout pregnancy to ease the process of childbirth. While its spiritual benefits to those preparing for childbirth may be historically overstated (verging on mythical!), stimulating your pelvis and calming your mind still helps. It should not be performed in the last trimester, however. Lotus Pose has been said to rid the body of all known diseases. While I can’t promise this, those who need to stretch stubborn knees, relieve symptoms of menstruation or sciatica, improve the health of their pregnancy, or adopt a calmer outlook can find a lot to gain through the regular practice of Padmasana.   How to Do the Pose In movies, Lotus Pose looks easy. However, there are a lot of little things to keep in mind. Begin with your legs in front of you, seated on the floor. Your back should be straight, your arms loose. You may recognize this as Staff Pose. Bring your right leg towards you with the right knee on top, your ankle resting in your left hip with the bottom of your feet facing towards you. Line up the tops of your feet with the folds of your hip. Bend your left leg and cross it under your right shin. Try to bring in your knees as close as you can and maintain a straight, long sitting posture. Place your hands on your knees, palms facing the sky. Make a circle with your thumb and forefinger, with the rest of the fingers straight (we call this Gyan Mudra). Find your softest gaze, with brow unfurrowed, with as much inner gaze as you can find. Let your eyes rest while you divert your attention to your forehead, your mind, your “third eye,” as we call it. You can stay here as long as you like, or at [...]

If you’ve ever watched people do yoga in a movie or on TV, then you’ve probably seen a few key poses that just scream “yoga.” Extended Triangle Pose is probably one of them, as it’s a classic beginner’s pose and a great transition pose throughout a standing sequence. It’s one of the first poses recommended to people who want to stretch and strengthen stubborn hips, thighs, knees, calves, hamstrings, and basically the entire lower body. Extended Triangle Pose can help you through difficult times as well with its rejuvenating stretch, which is therapeutic for a number of conditions. Read on to learn about what you can use this pose for and how to perform it properly.   Benefits of Extended Triangle Pose Extended Triangle Pose stretches the large muscle groups in your lower body, which is great for getting them prepared to do work or just trying to release some stubborn tightness built up from sitting. These muscles include those in your hip and groin, your hamstrings, calves, ankles, and those surrounding your knees. The upper body stretch in Extended Triangle opens and stretches your shoulders and chest as well. This has a lot of benefits to offer, including offering some therapy for mild anxiety or stress. You can feel the sensation of stretching and lengthening in your spine in this pose, which has therapeutic benefits for people with sciatica and osteoporosis. I recommend Extended Triangle Pose as a regular practice for women in their second trimester as well, as it can really help relieve a stubborn back during the middle of your pregnancy. At the same time, it stimulates vital organs and improves digestion, as so much of yoga does. That’s useful whether you’re pregnant or not.   How to Do the Pose Begin in Mountain Pose, as so many standing yoga transitions do. As you breathe out, use a single step or hop to get your feet 3 to 4 feet apart. Reach your arms out with your palms facing the floor. At this moment, you should feel your shoulder blades open comfortably. Now, you need to turn your feet to prepare to reach down into this pose. They should turn to the right slightly (make sure your heels are even). As your right thigh comes out, you’ll feel tension in your thighs as your right knee makes a straight line to your ankle. Now for the extension. As you breathe out, bend from your hip as your torso lengthens and falls towards your right leg. Your left leg should be grounding you at this moment (you should feel the weight in your outer left heel). As you bend, rotate to the left at the torso, making sure your hips stay forward and your tailbone feels long, reaching towards the floor. If you can make it all the way down into Extended Triangle Pose, you should be able to grab your right ankle. It’s okay if you grab your foot or shin instead, [...]

Sitting is not the healthiest position for the human body. The amount of time we spend in chairs in the modern age is inconvenient for our tightening hip flexors, freezing inner thighs, and overworked hamstrings. All these groups get short and weak when we spend too much time at our desks. However, Easy Pose or Sukhasana can help you reorient your body to healthy sitting. For a posture that strengthens a weak back, Easy Pose can really help you open up. Sukhasana can help you get a strong back, stretch your ankles and knees, and open your hips and groins. The spinal alignment that comes with your straight posture can also help you stay calm. Learn about this pose’s benefits and how to perform it by reading below.   Benefits of Easy Pose Maybe you work at a desk all day counting numbers or arbitrating advertising deals. Maybe you’re a marketer or you write health blogs for a living. Regardless of what you do, so many of us are locked into chairs and this affects our posture, which affects our health. Lengthening and straightening your spine in Easy Pose is one of its most potent benefits. By opening the space between vertebrae, you can improve your posture, which makes your muscles load more efficiently and healthily. This action can also help you calm down, normalizing blood flow to your head and throughout your body. In a purely physical sense, Easy Pose can also make your back stronger, an effect which will increase as you use this pose to sit more healthily. You’ll get a stretch in your ankles and knees as well as your inner and outer thighs begin to open up. Softening and stretching your groins and adductors can help you relieve tension in your hips and take the load off your hip flexors. All these effects benefit people who live sedentary lifestyles or who sit for a living. Since that’s most of us these days, sitting tall in Easy Pose can help you keep up your posture throughout your busy week.   How to Do the Pose In Staff Pose, cross your legs with your right shin in front of your left. Your knees should be directly over your feet. On the ground, your weight should be directly on your sits bones with a neutral pelvis. What does that mean? Here’s what I tell people: imagine your pelvis is a bucket full of water. Neutral is the position where no water tips out from the front or back (it’s the healthiest position for your pelvis to be!). When you’ve found this position, place your hands on your knees and use the weight of your arms to stretch and lengthen your spine. Pull your sacrum towards the front of your hips while holding your spine in a straight, lifted position. Turn your palms up as you draw your arms into the side of your body. At the same time, lift your chest and securely [...]

Relaxation is not an event – it’s a practice. For most of us, this practice should be reinforced daily with consistent commitment. Eagle Seal or Garuda Mudra is less a yoga pose than a symbol of devotion. It has its own physical benefits, but Eagle Seal relies on your perseverance, your relaxation mentality, to have the intended effect. While most yoga poses involve stretching and strengthening using calculated movements, Eagle Seal is more spiritual and educational. I’ll go over the benefits of Eagle Seal below and how they relate to your continued practice. If you need to devote yourself to greater relaxation, Garuda Mudra could be your gateway to deeper calm.   How to Do the Pose I’m beginning with the instructions on how to do the pose since the benefits are a little more abstract with this particular practice. Begin Eagle Seal in a seated position, whichever is most comfortable to you. Lotus Pose and Easy Pose are good choices. Sit up strong and tall with your weight on your sitting bones and your back as long as possible. As you breathe in, place your palms face-up on your knees. Widen your fingers in a nice stretch as you close your eyes. Breathe easily for a few breathes. Don’t force it or over-inflate your diaphragm. Breathe normally for maximum relaxation. On one of your in-breaths, place your hand, palm up, on your abdomen. Bring the other hand to meet it, with the right on top. Lock your thumbs together while you stretch the other fingers out in extension. As kids, we used to do this to make the sign of a bird with our hands. Open your palms and extend your fingers as long as you can. Remember to remain sitting straight with your eyes closed, breathing in and out around 10 times. Move your hands to your chest, following your chakra from low to high and balancing your energy. Take 10 more breaths. When you’re ready to release, release the lock in your thumbs (keep your eyes closed!). Return your hands to your knees with palms facing up. Find a sense of easing calm. Feel free to repeat Garuda Mudra as many times as you need, or until you feel pain in your wrists or fingers (you should not!).   Benefits of Eagle Seal Eagle Seal doesn’t stretch major muscle groups. However, it essentially binds you to your practice, promoting a sense of greater understanding of how yoga connects your body and mind to find balance. The act of interlocking your thumbs, with hands crossed to opposite quadrants of your nervous system, allows you to more keenly feel both sides of your body. This allows you to find greater energy and an improved mood. Eagle Seal is said to balance your air and fire energy, two forces that control how our bodies function through energy (air) and internal processes (fire). Our stretched fingers in Eagle Seal promote a sense of letting go, of [...]