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In a corporate environment one of the things that makes a critical difference for employees is a relaxed congenial environment.  The headquarters of Google is one of the most productive places in the world and every idea that comes out of the Google thinking tank seems to be another winner, yet this is achieved in a building that is filled with slides, relaxation equipment, staff libraries, canteens and even beds.  The message is clear - we care about the results not about how long or hard you work.  Not surprisingly the results come and the staff are happy to work long hours in a relaxing environment knowing that they will not be harshly judged by their co-workers for taking a relaxation break.  In less ideal environments the opposite of this is often true with stress levels high because every decision, every move, everything could have the future of a company hanging on it.  Successful businesses recognize that this stress is not productive and that if it can be reduced the level of accomplishment will rise proportionately.  Google is the extreme of a trend that has been developing for a long time - providing recreation facilities inside corporate buildings.  One of the most successful and popular is a Yoga centre.

The stress of the modern corporate world is usually a counterproductive thing, it puts people on a knife-edge and frequently leads to mistakes that a calmer more relaxed person would not make.  Yoga is known to be one of the most effective forms of stress relief.  Yoga is a special type of discipline that can be utilised on a number of different levels, places and situations.  A perfect example is the Yoga breathing exercises such as Anulem and Vinolum.  These are used to calm the thought process and allow you to maintain focus when overwhelmed with too much information or too many thoughts and problems at once.  And because they are merely a deep and focused way of breathing they can be performed sitting in a chair, standing in an elevator or even while driving a car.  Cramps and bad back posture are also often treated with nothing more than a steady breathing exercise with some quite spectacular results in some cases.  

The simplicity of being taught to breath properly may strike some corporates as strange.  Nobody teaches us to breath, or sit or even stand.  These are simple things that we spend our whole day doing, yet at no point in our lives are we actively taught them.  Incorrect posture when sitting is a very serious problem if you are in front of a monitor all day, but simply learning the correct way to breath can align your body properly and solve many of the problems associated with this bad posture.  If you take deep breathes and focus on them your body is pulled in to shape by this most natural of human movements.

Where specific problems such as Obesity or joint pain are present, a Yoga class can be specially tailored to address them.  Blood pressure problems and ailments of the kidney can be treated with Yogic Kriyas.  Poor agility is a result of poor balance and this issue is frequently confronted and quickly overcome with a range of balance-enhancing Yoga exercises.  Some people who have reported daily occurrences of problems like anger, tension, hypertension, stress and headaches have achieved very good results simply from using Yoga to it's full potential.  The increased flexibility that Yoga provides is a godsend for people in sedentary job environments.

The mental advantages of Yoga are also quite clear.  Yoga has an ability to redirect our thinking to a more positive frame.  The most common form of Yoga used in corporate stress management is Hatha Yoga because it is a particularly potent form of physiological and psychological cleansing.  In any environment stress is a normal occurrence, what differentiates a successful person from an unsuccessful one (and by extension a successful business from an unsuccessful one) is how we deal with that stress.  Hatha Yoga, and Yoga in general provide executives with the tools they need to deal with stress on a daily basis.

Yoga and office workers don't usually mix, but they should.  When you work in an office you will usually be spending a lot of time hunched over a keyboard and sitting in a seat.  It can also be an environment that is prone to produce a whole heap of stress and very few outlets to release it.  In this article we examine how these things are bad for your general health and how Yoga can help.

Let's start with a little bit about what Yoga is.  At it's simplest level it is a very effective form of exercise.  It involves flexing the body into static poses and holding them which is a fantastic method of increasing blood flow and circulation through various choke points in the body.  

Yoga also puts a lot of emphasis on the correct patterns of breathing which allows you body to get the most benefit from each breath of air we take.  Expanding from this we take care to un-clutter our thoughts when we are performing Yoga and the more advancement someone makes with the discipline the more focussed and calm they will become.  Have you ever told someone to take a breath to calm him or her down?  With Yoga it is the same principle.

So how does this all help our office worker?

An office environment is usually neither a calm nor a healthy place.  Most office workers will spend the majority of their day stuck in a chair and often staring at a computer screen or hunched over paperwork or a keyboard.  This causes a lot of tension to well up, particularly in the back and shoulders.  The legs are also often denied a supply of fresh blood by the long hours spend sitting down.  

Yoga forces the body to move in ways it would not usually do in an office environment.  This can be a very effective way of clearing choke points and allowing circulation to resume it's normal flow.  The blood takes valuable supplies of oxygen and nutrients with it wherever it goes and without these supplies the organs cannot operate properly.  The more starved the organs become the sicker we will become, so clearly restoring blood flow to the areas that are being deprived of it is an important health priority.

Did you know that most diseases are directly caused or antagonized by stress?  It's true, and it's a much more serious problem than most people ever know.  In an office environment this is even more so.  The pressure of deadlines, the constant activity and the need to constantly be on the move are all primary factors in escalating stress levels.

Imagine for a moment - stopping.  Forget about all the things that you need to get done in the next week.  Forget about the rent payment and the assignment you have to finish.  Forget about your boss and your family and concentrate on one thing.  Breathing.  Yoga is as much a mental discipline as it is a physical one and it will teach you to clear your thoughts and focus on the activity at hand.  While you will certainly benefit from the health benefits of Yoga, the mental benefits can be truly life changing.  People who learn Yoga usually deal with stress better and are able to calm and centre themselves when there is turmoil all around them.

Yoga has been practiced for 400 years and is a system of exercises which are very easy and effective at increasing a persons overall health ad well-being.  Yoga instructors and students alike will often talk about phrases like "being in harmony with oneself and surroundings" and indeed this is a primary goal of Yoga, to achieve a unity of body, mind and spirit in a oneness with the world around us.  Yoga will teach a person to stimulate internal organs including the likes of the prostate, which is practically never exercised by any other discipline.  It will teach you to apply pressure upon glandular areas of the body and it will combine this with meditation and breathing techniques that will grant you the ability to turn your concentration inward to examine your feelings and thoughts.

There are a number of different aspects in Yoga, but one of the most appealing is that this is a set of exercises that anyone can enjoy and benefit from.  It does not require any expensive equipment or a special setting, it can be practiced by anyone, man or women, rich or poor, young or old, healthy or ill.  Perhaps it's greatest appeal has always been that it is a set of beneficial exercises that anyone can do at any time and in any place.  Yoga is even a safe form of exercise for pregnant women and prenatal Yoga classes are often recommended to expectant mothers.  A specially tailored prenatal yoga class will help prepare a women, physically and mentally to become a mother.  It gives her a number of useful tools for coping with labour and the strengthening of the body means that the recovery period after giving birth will be much shorter.

There is a preconception amongst many men that Yoga is a female pastime, but this couldn't be further from the truth.  Yoga provides numerous benefits to men:  decreasing stress, assisting in relaxation and increasing power, stamina and flexibility across the board.  

Senior citizens can get a number of benefits from a yoga course and are often the first to praise the mental advantages such as an increased attention span and a better memory both long and short term.

Even young children will benefit from a Yoga regime by stronger bones, increased circulation and a better disposition resulting from breathing exercises and the relaxation of the exercise.

Regardless of the person Yoga has a number of lasting benefits and will aid in a wide variety of different health issues.  Regular practitioners of yoga will live an overall enhanced lifestyle, are more likely to have a strong memory and better stamina combined with a stronger sense of balance.  Even late starters can use Yoga to combat a range of health disorders from Blood pressure to arthritis to breathing orders.

This is a short quiz to see if the ideas you have about Yoga are correct.  Yoga is a very broad description that takes in a number of different types and styles so the questions and the explanations given for the answers are equally broad.

Question One:  What is Yoga?

a/  An Exercise Program. b/  A Meditation Program. c/  A Healing Program. d/  All of the above.

If you answered (D) then you get a tick.  Well done.  Yoga can be any of these things and often is all of them at once.  At it's simplest level it is an exercise program which, when practised regularly will increase strength and flexibility in the body.  Because of the speed that positions are changed and the emphasis on static exercise many Yoga classes put an emphasis on breathing and directing energy and thought to different parts of the body.  This aspect of Yoga is where it most closely resembles a Meditation program, though exactly what meditation means in each person's individual case is going to be different depending on him or her.  Finally, Yoga is most definitely a form of healing.  It allows the increased flow of blood, which carries oxygen and nutrients to all parts of the body, greatly accelerating the healing rate.  The stretching actions are also good for healing tissue injuries providing they are done to the right depth.  Overextending can lead to re-damaging an injury, so it's important to know your limits.  Yoga can also be a fantastic pre-emptive healing strategy and this is why Prenatal yoga classes are so popular.  They prepare a women's body for childbirth and because of the strengthening of the specific muscles women who undergo prenatal Yoga find it much easier to recover and get back into shape after a birth.

Questions Two:  Yoga Exercises are________?

a/  Fast. b/  Slow. c/  Static. d/  All of the above.

Yoga is usually a static exercise regime so (C) is your answer here.  However an argument can be made for (B) because the movements between exercises are also part of the Yoga equation.  Often an exercise will involve a long slow stretch, gradually pushing a little further, but ultimately the stretch needs to be held for a certain amount of time to gain it's full benefit.  Fast exercise programs are all about getting the heart and blood pumping, whereas Yoga is about releasing blockages and getting the blood flowing to all parts of the body.  This difference is quite important and a key element in the success and popularity of Yoga.

Question Three:  Do You Have to Do Yoga In Classes?

A/  Yes. B/  No.

Four thousand years ago Yoga was practiced in India, today it is popular all over the world and in numerous different styles and forms.  Not only is the popularity of this form of exercises remarkable, but so is the results and benefits that people are getting from Yoga every day.  The benefits can be broadly split into three different groups - physical benefits, mental benefits and spiritual benefits.  Which benefits are most important to an individual will vary based on their preconceptions and motivations, but anyone can experience beneficial results in all three areas from a prolonged use of Yoga.

Physical Benefits

The first types of benefits are those purely on a physical level.  Yoga is at it's core a group of exercises.  Some disciplines will use these exercises to prepare the body for a deeper meditative process, but they will still experience physical benefits from performing them as exercises.  The deep breathing exercise has immediate health benefits due to increasing the intake of oxygen into the system.  This oxygen is transported by the blood to our organs and tissues, which will become sick without sufficient oxygen and nutrients.  Frequently these tissues and organs are starved of nutrients due to a number of reasons including poor air intake or quality, bad circulation or disease within the body.  Yoga increases the oxygen intake, removes blockages in the circulation to ensure it's safe delivery and also stimulates the lymphatic system to aid in the removal of toxins from our system, leaving our bodies auto immune system more free to deal with invading disease or viruses.

Beyond this internal health which many people take for granted, Yoga will also greatly increase a persons balance, flexibility and muscle strength.

Mental Benefits.

Many people see this as the most import benefit that we can gain from Yoga.  It will of course depend on what your priorities are but the mental benefits of Yoga are certainly impressive.  The ability to focus on ones breathing has a natural consequence of allowing extraneous thoughts to melt away and a state of calmness to be introduced.  This is not a feat to be taken lightly as it provides a valuable skill in the ability to remain calm amidst turmoil.  A mother can use this when everything happens at once in the home, a businessperson can use it to focus on a single task despite everyone around him being panicked or a soldier can use it to block out the bullets and noise and focus on an important task.

Yoga also requires a high level of discipline from those practicing it - both the discipline required to perform the exercises themselves and the discipline needed to stick to a regular exercise regime.  Again this is something that comes surprisingly easy to people once they have mastered the basis of the Yoga breathing exercises.

Spiritual Benefits

There are many different reasons for taking up and practising Yoga.  For one person they may be ill and looking to rejuvenate themselves.  Another will want to maintain and improve their current level of health.  Some people like the mental challenge...and for some it is a physical challenge that can be overcome.  Some people may use Yoga as a relaxing form of stress relief.  The great thing about Yoga is that all these people are going to find what they are looking for and so much more.

Yoga has a long list of benefits, both physical and mental, associated with it.  Yoga can assist in recovery from a heart attack through it's blood lowering and distressing effects.  There has been a considerable amount of research done into heart patients and Yoga, most notably by Dr Ornish who is now also a best selling author.  Dean Ornish has no reservations in recommending Yoga both as a way of recovering from heart attacks and also avoiding future heart problems.  Yoga has also been reported to be very beneficial to people with diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis due to it's ability to assist with balance and muscle tone.  

Yoga gently works muscle groups around the back and spine of spinal injury sufferers and because it puts very little stress on the muscles while still working them thoroughly it is a fantastic way of strengthening this part of the body.  Regular Yoga for back pain sufferers can result in complete restoration of their range of movement.  

As we age most of us become frailer and less co-ordinated in our movements, but Yoga can help us age more gracefully by ensuring we are always in control of our body and mind.  In fact most Yoga sessions are filled with a slightly older crowd who recognize the ongoing benefits it gives them.  

Yoga is also a strength building discipline that allows even progression in the arms, the legs and the trunk or core of the body.  Many of us take strength for granted until it fails us, but increasing your physical strength will benefit you not just with lifting heavy objects, but also in everyday tasks like getting groceries or mowing the lawn.  It even makes it easier for us to move ourselves!  

As well as strength Yoga will greatly increase the range of motion we are able to achieve, particularly in the spine and joint areas.  Once again this is often something we take for granted unless it is missing.  The act of reaching up to put something in a cupboard is natural to many of us, but for others it can cause a jolt of pain down their back, they simply cannot move their arm through the range of motion needed to reach up, or when they do their grasp is not strong enough to grab anything from the cupboard.

It's important not to just focus on the physical benefits of Yoga because the mental benefits are at least as impressive.  Simply put Yoga will focus and sharpen your mind.  Each posture is performed with a focus and an awareness of your body and your breathing.  This is not a gym session with mind numbing reps or chatter between exercises.  Whatever you are doing during a Yoga session is done with absolute focus on the movement, the body, the breathing and the moment.  Breathing is something that most of us do wrong most of the time.  We are accustomed to taking shorter, quicker breaths, but with Yoga the breathing is deeper and fuller.  These deeper breaths will make the mind calmer and more focused.  Yoga enthusiasts often describe this calmness as a sense of well-being.  The deep breathing also makes it easier to release the stress and negative thinking that accumulates in us.  Just as the physical blocks are removed through increased blood circulation during the exercises, so the mental blockages are removed by clarity of thought.

Yoga is not a discipline you simply know or do not know; it is an ongoing learning process.   There are a huge number of different postures and each posture has a number of different variations on how it can be performed.  This never-ending sea of options keeps the body stimulated and engages the mind constantly.  Behind the postures and exercises themselves there is a complex philosophical system based in the writings that Yoga derives from.  Not many people think of a complete code of ethics including steadfastness, truth, self inquiry and an opposition to stealing, harming others and hoarding when they think of yoga, but these ethical issues are a central part of the system on which Yoga was founded.  

The different postures, breathing exercises and the deep philosophy of Yoga all lead to the same end - a deep contemplation.  Because Yoga relaxes both the body and the mind tension and stress are greatly reduced.  This is highlighted during a Yoga class by pauses for us to get in touch with how we are feeling and reacting.  Ending the class in a point by point contemplative meditation performed on the back is common.

The origins of Yoga are about 4000 years old and based in a Far Eastern spiritual practice designed to realize ones own Divine Nature.  In the western world today it is mostly seen as a form of exercise although all forms of Yoga are still based in the three traditional techniques of Eastern Yoga.  These three fundamentals of Yoga are the Asanas (Sanskrit for Postures), the Pranyama (the Sanskrit for breathing or breath control) and meditation.  Yoga increases the strength of your muscles, your flexibility, helps you relax and calm yourself and centre your thought.

Different Types Of Yoga

Raja Yoga:  This form of Yoga focusses on achieving unification or oneness ( Samadhi ) through the ahstangas of Yoga (Yama, Niyama etc).  Anyone competent enough to achieve the goal of Samahdi through this method is believed to be a Raja(King of Yoga).  A most famous example is Swami Vivekananda.

Bhakthi Yoga:  In Bhakthi yoga a person seeks to reach the ultimate state of oneness or attunement through the sheer power of devotion and faith.  Bhakthi does not concentrate on the traditional methods of pranyama, yogasnas or mudra, and instead preaches attention to a loving god, unquestioning devotion to god's will and a sharing of gods love towards humanity.

Jivamukti Yoga: In 1986 Sharon Gannon and David Life developed the Jivamukti Yoga method because they believed that traditional western Yoga practices focussed only on the physical aspects of Eastern Yoga and not the spiritual.

Ananda Yoga:  This discipline is a preparatory one for entering a state of meditation.  Gentle postures, correct body alignment and focus on breathing are all used towards the end of preparing the Yogi for a meditative state.

The Effects Of yoga

There are a number of different paths that are intended to lead a person to a higher state or realization of Moksha(the oneness with ultimate reality).  It refers to a gradual 'yoking of the self' through strong spiritual discipline so that each subsequent session of Yoga brings one a little closer to a full state of acceptance of themselves and their place in the universe.  The ego is seen as an aspect which limits our ability to accept our place in the universe and something which is gradually toned down.  The traditional yoga Margas, or path to salvation, would involve a long and dedicated apprenticeship to a Yoga Guru.

The Benefits Of Yoga

Yoga has a number of specific benefits.  One of the most well known and commented on is an increased level of flexibility.  Yoga will work through all the muscle groups and grant increased range of motion through the attention it plays to some muscle groups which are often overlooked by other exercise programs.  Yoga also works the internal glands and body organs in a thorough manner.  This is a very impressive ability when we consider that Yoga can act on glands and organs such as the prostate which are unlikely to receive any regular external stimulation.

The benefits of Yoga are well know to everyone who has ever tried the discipline but if you are new to Yoga let me recap.  Yoga is a fantastically popular and effective way of strengthening you physically as well as mentally and spiritually.  This last 'spiritual' aspect may turn some people off, but it's not something that needs to be associated with religion.  Really the best alternate word for the spiritual strength of Yoga is contentment or happiness.  It allows you to be a calmer person and more happy with yourself.  Put like that it sounds pretty great doesn't it?

So you've probably heard a little about Yoga and wondered what it's all about.  you probably have a few preconceptions and maybe an image of an old man with a long beard sitting in the lotus position springs into your head in automatic association with the word.  Let's go through step by step what you can expect in a typical Yoga session.

Step One:  The Introduction and Preparation.

Most Yoga classes begin in a standing position.  There are both mental and physical reasons for this and they are closely connected.  The standing position is the most natural Human position there is.  Leonardo Da Vinci produced a famous scientific picture of the symmetry of the human body when it is in it's natural standing position.  The outstretched arms and legs can have a perfect circle drawn around them and this is true of everyone regardless of their height or weight.  What this means is that a standing pose comes naturally to us - we are not worried about getting it wrong and we can concentrate of the state of the body.  Breathing exercises will be a key part of the warm up stage for your routine.  This is the only time in your life you will be 'taught' to breath and it's a skill which allows people to restore calm to their bodies and thoughts.

Step Two:  The Main Routine

This is the art of your Yoga session which will vary the greatest depending on what forms of Yoga you are learning.  While the individual exercises you will be doing are going to be quite different, the nature of them will be very similar.  This will mean moving into certain poses and positions and holding those poses to allow the body to stretch out muscles and muscle groups that in many cases haven't been given much attention during the week.  Some Yoga teachers will talk to you about energy points of chakra's.  These are important junctions in your body where congestion occurs and stretching them out allows energy to flow freely around your body.

Ste Three:  Ending the Session