FitSugar

Reese Witherspoon Loves YogaHop

FitSugar — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 03:30:00 -0800

Reese Witherspoon is one of those celebs who loves to work out (and it shows!) When she's not jogging or working outside the gym, according to the latest issue of Shape magazine, she takes YogaHop classes. These 90-minute workouts incorporate yoga poses with booming hip-hop, rock, and pop music. The class feels more like a dance party than an exercise routine, yet it's still as spiritually uplifting as traditional yoga classes. For the first 60 minutes, students flow from pose to pose to increase their heart rates, holding postures for a few breaths each. Then the last part of the class focuses on stretching for longer periods of time to increase flexibility. The reason this class helps you tone up is because you're encouraged to do sets of push-ups between poses.

If you're looking for a way to kick it up a notch on your mat, classes are offered at the YogaHop studio in Santa Monica, CA for $17 a pop.

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yogaHOPE

FitSugar — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:30:00 -0800

yogaHOPE, is a non-profit yoga outreach program dedicated to offering yoga instruction to women in recovery or life transition – the incarcerated, those in drug and alcohol treatment, those living on the streets, battered women, and women transitioning from hospital treatment for eating disorders.

The practice of yoga has been shown to produce positive motivational change by helping women regain their vital center of energy, satisfaction, and stability.

Yoga can help reduce low self-esteem and poor body image, and greatly improves a woman's sense of personal empowerment - yet female populations who could benefit from this practice don’t have access to it.

Their team of volunteer teachers believes very strongly in the practice of yoga and the importance of making yoga available to those women, therefore they bring yoga classes to the facilities where these women live or visit: Their residential rehab facilities, homeless shelters, prisons etc...

If you're interested, you can volunteer as a teacher or in other ways as well.

Through yogaHope, these women will have the opportunity to make powerful and positive changes in their lives. Want to see their inspirational video? Then read more

Yoga in Prison

FitSugar — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 08:45:00 -0700

Now I've heard about yoga helping cancer patients, and the program yogaHOPE, offering yoga classes to women in recovery or life transitions. Just recently I also heard about another yoga outreach program - yoga in prison.

Three correctional facilities in Hawaii, are offering yoga to inmates. Louisa DiGrazia is one of the yoga instructors. A decade ago, she studied the effects of prison yoga programs as a Peace Studies major at the University of Hawaii. She says that correctional facilities have found that the ancient Indian practice of yoga helps relieve "stress of inmates' daily routine," and can help establish or maintain good health.

This program, paid for by the state's annual budget for academic and elective programs, costs $13,000 a year, which only pays for 4 ongoing classes, with an enrollment of 20 students in each. Since so many inmates are responding well to the program, they want to expand the program even further. Louisa DiGrazia and her husband, owners of the Yoga School of Kailua, have already donated 2 dozen mats to the program. In addition, their yoga school, along with other businesses, have also pitched in a total of $10,000 for the yoga program.

Yoga programs have been a part of various prison systems across the country for more than 25 years. I think it's a great idea to offer yoga to everyone, especially those in emotional need. Yoga can slow us down, so we pay attention to and become aware of the important things in life. It encourages peaceful thoughts, which is so needed in a harsh environment such as a prison. What do you think about this?

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Yoga Helping Cancer Patients

FitSugar — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 03:00:00 -0700

A while back I told you about yogaHOPE, a non-profit organization that offers yoga classes to women in recovery. They believe that yoga can produce positive motivational change in people by helping them to regain their personal strength, and I completely agree.

Doctors at the MD Anderson Cancer Center also feel that it can help patients battling cancer. Dr. Maria Jorgenson and yoga instructor Michael Moritz are working on researching the benefits of Tibetan yoga in helping patients to relieve the side effects of cancer treatments.

Cancer patients who suffer from severe pain, fatigue, and mental stress can use yoga to calm their nerves and empower their souls. In their weekly classes, they practice breathing exercises that can help them get though times when they are suffering great pain or feelings of discomfort. Patients try to eliminate the negative thoughts they have about cancer and being sick, so they can then concentrate their energy on healing.

We can all benefits from the calming effects of yoga, from both the poses and the breath work. Yoga - it encompasses so much more than just the physical body - it's a way to heal, stretch, and strengthen your emotional self too.

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