R E L A X A T I O N   E X E R C I S E S

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PART 1
QUICK REGENERATION TECHNIQUES
The relaxation techniques are mostly indicated for the moments of tiredness and stress in our daily life. You can practice them when you are sick or when you have already recovered but you should mainly do them when you are healthy, as they have a powerful preventive effect on illness.

Generally, to relax means to rest. The profound yogi relaxation is a state in which your body does not move, does not make any effort and your mind is still.

What is common to all these relaxation techniques is the fact that your body is placed in a comfortable position and your attention focuses on certain parts of the body and/or on your breath.

But do all these methods work? Scientists who have studied their effect, concluded that they have lots of beneficial effects, such as: removal of stress, a better psycho-affective tonus, the decrease of muscular tension, an improved blood circulation.


YOGA PRACTICE REMOVES STRESS

Traditionally, a Hatha -Yoga course or session implies the performance of some postures ( asana -s) in a certain order and it ends with a complete yogic relaxation.

In this article we are going to present some other simple but efficient exercises for relaxation, which you can do in special conditions to regenerate your body.

Some of them have a global influence, others are meant for certain parts of your body. All the techniques presented here have physiological effects, beneficial for your health, thus decreasing the number of diseases caused by stress.


STAGES OF RELAXATION
The regeneration techniques remove chronic stress in the following stages:

1. First of all, you must place your body in a comfortable position (remember that for a complete relaxation you must keep your backbone straight).

2. The second stage is to run over certain parts of your body with your inner sight and, implicitly, focus your attention on them.

This kind of relaxation illustrates the ageless wisdom of the yoga system that asserts that the structure of the body is easier to be preserved in a state of perfect health when it is accompanied by great mental power.

3. Thirdly, the relaxation technique may include the performance of a partially inversed position that counteracts the common gravitational effects on the human body.

When you lie down on an inclined surface, with your head below the level of your feet (which can be placed on a pole or a pillow) has some very powerful effects.

As we keep our body in a vertical position almost all day long, the blood and the lymphatic fluid accumulates in the inferior extremities of the body. Changing the relation between the position of the feet, the blood circulation and gravity, the blood returns in the superior part of the body and considerably improves the sanguine irrigation of all the "superior extremities" of the body: the head (implicitly, the brain, the eyes, ears, etc.), the neck and the limbs. The heart activity is evidently improved, too.

4. Fourthly, the organs are simultaneously purified and stimulated through relaxation. A stronger irrigation with blood of a part of the body feeds the cells with a bigger quantity of nutrient substances such as oxygen, hormones etc. This promotes more intense calorie burning, quicker regeneration and much better self-adjusting processes.

Furthermore, the higher sanguine and lymphatic supplies increase the drainage and removal of residual elements.

Yoga teaches us that the physical body feeds itself with energy ( prana and apana ), too. Prana is a type of yang energy (masculine, solar) projected in the physical body, especially above the diaphragm; it controls the cardio vascular and breathing systems.

Apana is a type of yin energy (feminine, lunar), situated at the physical level, under the diaphragm. It controls the functions of the abdominal organs. The yogic relaxation techniques balance these two energetic aspects, of opposite polarities.

In a perfect world we should have enough time to practice a long relaxation daily. But today, our duties leave us too little time for ourselves. Therefore, we need relaxation and revitalization, especially after so many moments of stress.

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