Kneeling Pose (Vajrasana or bhujrasana)

Kneeling Pose, is a deceptively simple looking pose, but it can help calm the mind and is the start position for Camel and Cow Face poses. If you have knee or ankle problems, try Easy Sitting instead.

English Name: Kneeling

Sanskrit Name: Vajrasana or Bhujrasana

Difficulty Level: 1

Start Position: Kneeling

Instructions:

Step 1.

While kneeling lower yourself down until you are sitting on both heels

Step 2.

Keep your back straight and rest both hands on your knees.

Step 3.

Remain in the pose as long as it feels comfortable.

Physical Benefits:

  • Aligns spine
  • Improves circulation
  • Invigorates hips, calves and ankles
  • Opens knee, ankle, and hip joints
  • Stretches quadricep muscles

Mental Benefits

  • Calms the mind

Contraindications:

  • Knee injury
  • Ankle injury

Hero (virasana)

Hero pose stretches leg muscles more than kneeling pose where you sit on your heels rather than on the floor. You get the benefits of stretching your leg and thigh muscles while calming the mind.

English Name: Hero

Sanskrit Name: Virasana

Difficulty Level: 4

Start Position: Kneeling

Instructions:

Step 1.

Starting in kneeling pose, separate your feet and sit with your buttocks on the floor between your feet.

Step 2.

You can rest your hands on your legs as in kneeling pose, extend your arms as shown in the photo, or sweep your arms above your head and intertwine your fingers.

Step 3.

Breath normally and remaining the pose as long as it feels comfortable. To get out of the pose, use your hands to support your body while you raise your upper body back to a kneeling position.

Gentle Variation

If you feel tension in your legs or hips when trying to sit on the floor, sit on a block or edge of a folded blanket.

Physical Benefits:

  • Opens lower back
  • Improves knee, hip and ankle flexibility
  • Helps relieve menstrual discomfort
  • Can lower high blood pressure

Mental Benefits

  • Reduces anxiety and stress
  • Improves focus

Contraindications:

  • Injured coccyx
  • Knee or ankle injury (try gentle variation)
  • Arthritis (try gentle variation)

11 Tips To Reduce Added Sodium

Salt has been used for thousands of years to flavor and preserve foods. Many Americans eat a high sodium diet on a regular basis. Too much sodium can increase blood pressure due to increased fluid (water) to dilute the concentration in the blood and cells.

People eating a high potassium diet may be able to eat more sodium than a person eating a low potassium diet.

Added sodium from salt and other sodium based ingredients is common in most highly processed foods.

This video highlights foods high in sodium and how to reduce sodium in your diet.

Complete Protein

For decades, we have been told meat and dairy protein is complete, and vegetables protein is incomplete. That vegetarians, especially vegans, must eat a combination of foods at each meal to obtain compete protein. By complete, they mean provides all 9 essential amino acids. Our bodies do not use protein directly. Protein is needed to supple amino acids the body cannot make.

As it turns out ALL proteins are complete, but some foods provide more essential amino acids than others.

This video shares:

• What is protein?
• Why is protein important?
• Protein & amino acids.
• Complete vs. incomplete protein.
• Animal vs. plant protein.
• How much protein do you need?
• Risks of too much protein.

Protein Powders

Many Americans eat a high protein diet. A diet provide more protein than their bodies need. The past few years has seen explosion of highly processed protein products; bars, shakes, and powders.

Some protein powders have been found to contain high levels of toxins had increase health risks when consumed on a daily bases.

This video shares some of the risks and benefits of adding protein powders to your diet.

Non-GMO Foods Facts & Myths

Are prepared foods labeled Non-GMO healthier or worth paying a premium price or is it just marketing hype? This video looks at what Non-GMO and Non-GMO Verified really means.

24 High Magnesium Foods

Magnesium is an essential nutrient. That means your body cannot produce magnesium it must come from your diet.

This video highlights 24 high magnesium foods available at most U.S. grocers, why magnesium is important, symptoms of magnesium deficiency, and the USRDA.

High Resistant Starch Foods

Most people eat some form of starchy food for energy. Starchy foods include wheat, potatoes, and bananas.

Many American diets recommend reducing or eliminating starchy foods. That means no more fried potatoes, pasta, and dozens of other foods.

New research reveals there are more than one type of starch and foods high in resistant starch have a lower glycemic index. The reason is resistant starch behaves like fiber and is not converted to glucose.

They key is refrigeration in the case of potatoes, potato salad has more resistant starch than fried potatoes, and ripeness. Anyone who has eaten a green banana knows it is less sweet than a ripe banana. As a banana ripens, starch is converted to sugar.

This video explains resistant starch and provide sample foods high in resistant starch.

10 Dumb Diet Tips

Americans are bombarded by dieting tips. Some are helpful like eat more high fiber foods and less processed foods. Other tips can be confusing or even misleading.

For example, nuts are considered a healthy food and Americans are advised to add nuts to their diet on a daily basis. Since most countries are use the metric (SI) units of measure, people in those countries may be advised to eat 30 grams of nuts daily (about 1 ounce, 160 calories). Some diet experts advise Americans to eat a “handful” of nuts daily. Depending on your hand size and how many nuts you can hold you could eat up more than 300 calories of nuts daily. For a 2,000 calorie diet, 300 calories is 15% of total calories versus 8% for one ounce of nuts.

This video looks at ten common diet tips and why they are not as helpful as they can or should be.

Bone Broth Facts & Myths

Americans are spending millions of dollars on bone broth.

Bone broth is supposed to be high in collagen the protein used to make gelatin. Collagen is claimed to have miraculous health benefits.

This video looks at some of the facts & myths behind bone broth and how one prepared broth appears to have less collagen than homemade chicken soup.

 

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