Perfect Yoga Pose for Relaxation and Anti-Anxiety

Magarasana:  Crocodile

The Perfect yoga pose for retraining your body to Relaxation Breathing Naturally.

Breathing normally and naturally is Very important to your level of relaxation and calmness; very important to your overall health.

When we breathe high in the chest area, we are not getting a full natural breath. Even if you breathe faster or slower, if you are breathing high in your chest (your upper chest, ribs and shoulders are moving when you breathe) you are not getting enough air. This will contribute to your stress, anxiety and fear level.

Normal Natural breath is a Diaphragmatic Breath or a Relaxation Breath, as I like to call it. This breath originates from the diaphragm muscle, which is located  across the body below the lungs. When you are breathing normally your stomach area below the rib cage and above the navel will rise and fall. The Diaphragmatic Breathe originates here.

For example, when you watch a toddler running around in their diaper, you will notice that their nice round little belly is easily and freely moving in and out. You do not see their upper chest, ribs and shoulders heaving up and down, right?
This is because they haven't yet experienced any trauma or drama in their lives. Observe this phenomenon the next chance you get.

Some people have been breathing so long in a "Fight, Flight or Freeze" breathe that they have difficulty getting back to a normal breath. For those people there is a simple exercise:
The Crocodile

This is a simple Relaxing yoga pose that anyone can do.

1.    First lay on your belly on the floor.  Put your legs about a few feet apart. Drop your heels inward,                     or move your legs to what is a comfortable position for you.

2.    Next put you arms in front of you, so that your upper chest is off the ground and hold onto your elbows, making a square with your arms. Rest your forehead on you top arm. Close your eyes and Relax, Breathe.

3.Notice that you feel only your legs, hips and lower abdomen on the floor.

This position provides a gentle compression to your lower stomach and abdomen that provides you with physical feedback on your diaphragmatic breathing. It helps you learn to do this correctly.

The gentle compression is very soothing and comforting. Slow and deepen your breathing.

This is a beautiful yoga pose for Self Calming and Restoring Natural Relaxed breathing. It is helpful for headache relief and calming digestion.

Strongly recommended for the treatment of Stress and Anxiety.

Amelia Hasenohrl, LPC, CHt.                  April 7, 2016

Harvard Study 0n Hypnosis & Healing

Harvard Study on Hypnosis & Healing

The Harvard Gazette had an article regarding the use of hypnosis to help surgical wounds mend faster. A portion of the article is below. The whole article can be found at http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/05.08/01-hypnosis.html

Marie McBrown was invited to test whether or not hypnosis would help heal the scars from her breast surgery. Marie (not her real name) and 17 other women underwent surgery to reduce their breast size.
It's a common operation for women whose breasts are large enough to cause back and shoulder strain, interfere with routine tasks, or prompt social and psychological problems. The pain and course of healing from such surgery is well-known, and a team of researchers headed by Carol Ginandes of Harvard Medical School and Patricia Brooks of the Union Institute in Cincinnati wanted to determine if hypnosis could speed wound healing and recovery.
"Hypnosis has been used in Western medicine for more than 150 years to treat everything from anxiety to pain, from easing the nausea of cancer chemotherapy to enhancing sports performance," Ginandes says.
A list of applications she provides includes treatment of phobias, panic, low self-esteem, insomnia, sexual dysfunction, stress, smoking, colitis, warts, headaches, and high blood pressure.

"All these functional uses may help a person feel better," Ginandes continues. "I am also interested in using hypnosis to help people get better physically. That means using the mind to make structural changes in the body, to accelerate healing at the tissue level."
Four years ago, Ginandes and Daniel Rosenthal, professor of radiology at the Harvard Medical School, published a report on their study of hypnosis to speed up the mending of broken bones. They recruited 12 people with broken ankles who did not require surgery and who received the usual treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. In addition, Ginandes hypnotized half of them once a week for 12 weeks, while the other half received only normal treatment. The same doctor applied the casts and other care, and the same radiologists took regular X-rays to monitor how well they healed. A radiologist who evaluated the X-rays did not know which patients underwent hypnosis.The result stood out like a sore ankle.

Those who were hypnotized healed faster