Pranayama or Yogic Breathing is highly beneficial to the body and mind. It helps to clear the mind, improve circulation, invigorate the body and increase concentration. Air Walk is a simple exercise which helps balance the two sides of the brain allowing the right and left hemispheres to communicate with one another which enhances learning and thinking. It will also improve coordination and body awareness, tone the core muscles and teach how to coordinate movement with the breath.

Air Walk

Lie on your back. Keep your right leg straight and lift it up. At the same time lift the left arm. Breathe in as you lift. Exhale as your arm and leg return to the ground. Inhale again, this time lifting the left left and right arm simultaneously. Exhale down. Keep going. Stretch straight toward the sky as you lift the limbs. Exhale and bring the arm and leg down extending them throughout the movement.

If this is difficult, remember you are in charge and tell your brain what you want it to do. Keep trying, working at coordinating your breath and your body.

Teens these days are very diet conscious. However, many have adopted destructive habits such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking or using laxatives (see How Yoga Helps Teens Battle Eating Disorders). Parents and teachers need to make sure they are teaching their teens how to have a positive relationship with food and body image. Here are 20 dirty diet tricks that will help teens maintain, or achieve, good health in a positive way. 

1. don’t eat while standing – you don’t wear off more calories by standing (common myth) and your brain doesn’t register the food you are ingesting (mindless snacking a big no-no); sit down and enjoy a meal/snack instead of nibbling
2. don’t eat more than a palm’s worth of anything – portion control is important and your hand is always available to measure by
3. munch while you grocery shop – if you forgot to eat before shopping, snag a bag of baby carrots & munch while filling the basket – ring up the empty bag
4. do traffic light isometrics - while waiting at a red light tone buttocks & abs by clenching until light turns green, you’ll learn quickly which red lights in town are the longest
5. enjoy gorgeous nails – give yourself a manicure when food cravings hit – hands are pretty and out of trouble
6. go monochrome - use colour to your advantage by dressing from top to bottom in one unbroken vertical line=instantly taller and thinner, this really works well with sophistocated dark colours (navy, gray, black, chocolate)
7. don’t eat and…(read, watch TV, work, study) – being mindful about what you put in your mouth makes it more satisfying, tune into what you put in your mouth and enjoy every morsel to its fullest
8. sign up for a fund-raising walk-a-thon or bike-a-thon – enlist sponsors and get moving, you’ll be motivated, be helping others and have a deadline which is good for body & soul
9. make a date – set a standing time to workout with a friend, you can chat, gossip, people watch, and get fit at the same time (see Diet vs Exercise – How to Win the Fight Against Childhood Obesity)
10. want chocolate – eat a sour pickle –  the aftertaste will erase your craving for sweets
11. slow down – put your knife and fork down between bites to slow yourself down & give your brain time to signal “I’m full” which usually takes 20 minutes (see Don’t Rush Your Kids Mindful Eating Key to Maintaining Healthy Weight)
12. live the 80/20 rule – eating healthily 80% of the time allows for small indulgences the remaining 20%, also don’t beat yourself up when you do indulge (we all do) just count it as your 20 percent and return to eating healthy
13. keep it small- never order anything involving the words “deluxe,” “supersize” or “jumbo” – order small sizes of everything especially at a fast food outlets and the coffee shop
14. start a healthy cooking club – exchange recipes & ideas with like minded friends and celebrate success together, you’ll be developing skills and habits you’ll use throughout your life and will have a great cache of healthy eating recipes for when you move out
15. love soup – enjoy a steaming bowl of broth based soup before your meal – it’ll fill you up and quench your hunger
16. employ mind games – cut your sandwich into quarters or use a salad plate instead of a dinner plate to fool yourself into thinking you are eating more - mind games work, use them
17. always buy thin crust pizza – deep dish is trouble and will go straight to your thighs – ugh!
18. drink water – you’ll stay hydrated and feel fuller as well as avoid the unneeded sugar in sodas or the caffiene in coffee & colas
19. smuggle healthy snacks into the movie theatre – you’ve got a big bag, use it for good
20. always bring a guilt free option to get togethers- a fruit or veggie platter are always hits, or if you want to indulge, raid your stash of healthy recipes from #14 and whip up a divine low fat, low sugar option of your fav dessert

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Last week I was thrilled to be interviewed by a Reader’s Digest writer researching an article on yoga in schools. She was commenting on how little information there was regarding the benefits to kids about doing yoga in schools.

Then over the weekend the PranaMama sent me this great article from Active.comwhich tells of the link between brain function and activity. Charles Hillman, one of the researchers, commented “The fit kids processed information more quickly and performed faster and more accurately than their sedentary peers. Exercise can really affect cognition, just as it affects muscles.” In fact,

According to neuroscientists, exercise increases blood flow in the brain, encourages activity between the neurons, and even promotes new neurons to grow in the hippocampus, which plays a major role in memory and learning.

“Exercise is the single most powerful tool you have to optimize your brain function,” says Harvard psychologist John Ratey, M.D., and author of the book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.

So yes, yoga really will make you smarter and now science is proving it.

This is great news for teachers. Suddenly the DPA Requirement isn’t just about healthy bodies and habits (though those goals are valid in their own right). Its also about how to maximize children’s learning potential. 

So crack out the yoga games, get your downdog on, do a few washing machines at your desk, or be majestic as a mountain and know that you are feeding your brain. You’ll feel better, be healthier, and best of all be smarter.

And as a Mom I’m relieved to know that my children are brilliant!

This week at my Yoga Sampler Class, a class where each week we focus on a different body part (hips openers) or style of yoga (intro to Kundalini), the topic was Yoga for Face, Feet and Hands. This class has been anticipated ever since a student demonstrated a few face yoga asanas at a dinner party some months ago.

The Theory of Face Yoga

Face Yoga became quite the rage in 2007 with the publication of The Yoga Face: Eliminate Wrinkle with the Ultimate Natural Facelift by Annelise Hagen. The concept being that if exercising the body produced longevity and health the same is true for the face; that by performing various yoga postures you could erase the ravages of time and develop a “beaming, joyful, bright-eyed” countenance.

The Reality of Face Yoga

That’s wonderful and may easily be the case. However, the reality is that most of us have developed nasty habits in regards to our facial expressions and these exercises may just be what is needed to develop awareness, relieve tension and tone the myriad of muscles which compromise the face and neck. Kids and teens can also benefit from face yoga by increasing awareness of their face, reducing stress, and learning not to take themselves too seriously. Add to that the humor factor of purposefully making funny faces and you’ve got a fun and beneficial yoga class waiting to happen.

How to do Face Yoga

Some insist on performing face yoga in front of a mirror as this helps to make sure you are doing the exercises properly. However you can do them anywhere, anytime, even standing waiting for the bus. Keep in mind you may get a few odd looks from those passing by, so either get over your possible embarrassment or keep your yoga face routine for a less public location.

In class, face yoga always elicits the same response … giggles. You may think you are immune but just wait until the students facing you start pulling Jim Carrey look alike contests. My kids actually play this as a game to see who can last the longest without giggling. And of course, during our weekly sampler class we didn’t last very long either. Every student enjoyed a good belly laugh watching the facial antics of others. So whether it was from the face yoga, or from the laughter, we all felt better and had a smile on our faces when we left class. If that doesn’t make everyone feel and look their best I don’t know what will.

Face Yoga Exercises

Here are a sampling of some face yoga exercises you can try. Take five minutes, do a few, and see how much better you feel. These are great to use before performances (ie: school concerts, speeches, etc.) or exams as they take very little time, help refocus the mind, relieve stress, and increase circulation.

• Lion Face: clench every muscle in your body tight, then let it all go while sticking out your tongue, opeing the eyes wide, repeat 3x
• Cheek Pinch: the age old method of adding colour to the checks without rouge, lightly pinch all over the cheeks enough to increase blood circulation
• Satchmo: fill both cheeks with air, pass the air back and forth from cheek to cheek, continue for 1 minute
• Vowel Exaggerations: in turn repeat the soft vowel sounds (ah, eh, eei, oo, euw) while exaggerating and holding the facial patterns this makes, relax your tongue and eyes making your face (cheeks, lips & jaw) do the work, repeat a few times
• Tongue Rolling: roll the tongue, stick it out and bring it back repeatedly, a genetic exercise as some will not be able to perform this activity
• Angry Smile: smile while tensing the muscles in your face as if your children have done something horrific in public and you really cannot lose your composure at this moment
• Surprise: lift your eyebrows high and open the eyes wide imitating shock and surprise 
• Brow Smoother: using your fingertips slowly and lightly pull the eyebrows away from one another
• Jowl Stretch: cross your arms and place them at the base of your neck, like you are choking yourself, while gently pressing down with your hand, stretch your chin up and away, hold the stretch for 10 seconds and relax, repeat
• Horse Lips: on an exhale, relax your lips and let the air pass over them as if you were a horse, you can even shake your head gently and neigh slightly to really get into it, repeat
• Inversions: downdog, wide angle forward bend, headstand, etc are all beneficial to the face as they increase blood flow to the head
• Twists: include in your twist a facial twist
• Facial Massage: using your middle and ring fingers massage all around your face, in gentle circles, paying specific attention to the jaw hinge, brow,cheek and jaw bones
• Palming: Rub your hand quickly together generating heat, gently cup your palms over your eyes and let them rest and relax

You can find more information about other face yoga exercises at Yoga Eyes Teaches Kids How to Tell Time and Yoga for the face and neck from Yogababy.tv

Timesonline reports that new research stresses that exercise does NOT result in weight loss.

“Professor Boyd Swinburn, director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention, says: “This is provocative in many ways . . . but my concern is that if we put the emphasis on exercise we are unlikely to tackle the obesity problem as we are not driving at the root cause.””

This is shocking as it attacks the entire culture that exercise is key to losing weight which has been accepted as fact since the 1980s aerobics boom. So why doesn’t exercise work? Two factors are key:

1. We overestimate calories burned typically doubling the figure
2. We eat more to reward ourselves for exercising

OK, guilty as charged.  I’ve been known to enjoy an extra slice of cheese cake if I went to spin class. And I know that when my kids get home from their evening sports activities their first stop is the fridge. In fact, in “a review of 18 studies of new school exercise programmes, published in March in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found that in none of them did increasing PE reduce the children’s weight.” So where does that leave the Daily Physical Activity requirement? (see the post Yoga and the DPA Requirement)

We are now forced to consider the other side of the “eat less, move more” equation. Yes, the four letter word, “diet.” A simple mathematical equation of “calories in = calories out” and you won’t gain weight. Put emphasis on either side and you have either weight gain or weight loss depending on how you mess with the balance. True, it sucks, as you actually have to watch what you eat, make healthy choices, and be aware of your consumption habits.

Its always been easier to simply enrol Junior in a sporting activity and allow free reign at the table. Therein lies our problem. Constant snacking, high fat/high sugar foods, easy access to fast food, excessive consumption of soda and juice, highly refined products, convenience over nutrition. All these are contributing to an epidemic which is killing our children.

In order to truly combat the childhood obesity we need to follow the Surgeon General’s three pronged attack to:

• Help kids stay active
• Encourage healthy eating habits
• Promote healthy choices

For ideas on how to implement these goals check out the suggestions for Schools & Teachers and Parents & Caregivers.

Its not a case of diet vs exercise but more a lifestyle shift which includes both diet AND exercise. Yes, this means hard work, consistency, and actually eating 5-10 serving of fruit & veg a day. For a multitude of suggestions on how to accomplish this visit Diet-Blog. When we finally figure this out we’ll be well on our way to healthier living for ourselves and our children.

yoga helps children with cerebral palsy

Cerebral Palsy is a group of injuries caused by damage to the brain and is the most common permanent disability of childhood. Compromised posture, tight muscles, and restrictive movement are characteristic of Cerebral Palsy. 

For children and teens with Cerebral Palsy yoga may help stretch and realign the spine, increase flexibility, and augment range of motion. Holding yoga poses in a gentle stretch helps relax the muscles, reducing high muscle tone, and exercising areas of low muscle tone.

Twisting poses are especially beneficial. A simple seated twist begins while sitting, rooting into the pelvis, inhale as you extend the spine/sit tall, exhale as you twist. Repeat two more times working deeper into the twist with each exhale. The last thing to rotate should be your neck with you gazing behind you. Release and return to centre. Repeat the process on the opposite side. This same exercise can be performed while lying on a mat or the floor.

There are numerous other yoga asanas which may prove especially helpful. Modify the poses as necessary, even performing many while lying on a mat or supported by an adult. Remember the goal is not a perfect pose, but the integration of body, breath, and mind. Some suggestions include:

• Standing poses (Mountain, Compass, Warrior, Chair)
• Inversions (Downward Dog, Dolphin, Rabbit)
• Backbends (Cobra, Dancer, Camel)
• Yoga Eyes
• Foot Massage

Yoga will exercise the spine in many ways, lengthening the space between vertebrae and relaxing the pressure on nerves. As a result, nerve function is enhanced and muscle tension released, providing greater range of movement, increased coordination, and flexibility.

An exercise which is highly beneficial for children with Cerebral Palsy is to make a bolster out of a rolled-up blanket or large pillow. Have the child lie back on it with their arms resting by their sides. Gently roll and rock the bolster back and forth. This is a wonderful way to energize the spine and open the front of the body.

In addition, a focus on breathing exercises will increase spinal movement and strengthen stomach and back muscles while stimulating internal organs. Learning to use a complete breath will loosen muscles throughout the torso and increase respiratory control.

Chanting and using music will also provide needed stimulus and is most enjoyable. Often activities involving moving to music, or sitting quietly and feeling the reverberations of “Aum,” are the ones which bring the greatest happiness and contentment as the connection with sound becomes more vital than any physical limitations.

An example of yoga for children with Cerebral Palsy as well as other special needs is here from the Special Yoga Centre in London. They are doing amazing work.

Sonia Sumar’s book Yoga for the Special Child is an essental resource for those wanting to use yoga for children and teens with Cerebral Palsy. In addition read this terrific article by NCPAD with video attachements of yoga exercises for children or youth with Cerebral Palsy.

For a more compelte understanding of Cerebral Palsy read What is Cerebral Palsy?