Yoga Cures: Simple Routines to Conquer Over 50 Common Ailments and Live Pain-Free (29 page)

Sit on Heels, Toes Tucked

Sit on your heels so your shoulders are aligned with your hips. Next, tuck your toes and sit on your heels so you can get a nice stretch for the arches of your feet. Relax your hands on your thighs and stay here for ten long, deep breaths.

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Hero

Come into a kneeling position with your knees directly under your hips. Press the tops of your feet down and into the ground. Carefully sit your hips down until they meet the ground between your legs. If your hips don’t make it to the ground without straining your knees, sit on a pillow, blanket, or yoga block. Point your knees forward and feel them

“reaching” in that direction. Stay here for ten long, deep breaths.

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Hero Reclined

If you can sit on the ground easily in your hero without a pillow and you feel like there is more room to work within this pose, slowly lower your back to the ground and reach your arms overhead. Throughout the pose, you should

continue to press down into the ground through the tops of your feet and reach forward through your knees. Stay here for ten long, deep breaths and slowly bring yourself up and out of the pose.

Hangover

When you are hung low by a hangover the only thing you want is for it to go away. The last thing you

may be thinking of for a cure is yoga, but it is one of the best hangover helpers around. My Saturday

midmorning class is usually packed with a fair number of people suffering from self-induced

dehydration, dizziness, and shakiness from having too much to drink the night before. They flock to

yoga because they know that after a little over an hour of down dogs, twists, and inversions, their

hangover will be cured.

THE HANGOVER YOGA CURE

The best way to cure a hangover is to not get one in the first place. Drinking until you get drunk is not really
all that fun. With a regular yoga practice, you might start to notice yourself enjoying one glass of wine, but not
the whole bottle. Your tolerance for alcohol might even lower quite a bit when your body gets super clean

from all the yoga. (I speak from experience here. Yoga changes you in all sorts of ways. Some you see coming.

Some come as complete curveballs.)

When hangovers do happen, it’s good to have yoga on your side. Twisting yoga poses literally wring out

toxins from your body (alcohol included), get digestion moving, and keep the blood flow fresh. Yoga also

improves circulation and helps the body produce a fresh supply of blood. Headstands are well known to cure

headaches and hangovers. Depending on the degree of your yoga experience and the severity of your

hangover, please practice headstand wisely and carefully. Do this routine when you’re hung over. If you are
doing this routine more than once a month, do more yoga, less drinking.

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Seated Spine Twist

Come into a comfortable seated position. Hug your right knee into your chest and place your right foot on the ground across and outside your right leg. Take a long, deep inhale through your nose. Exhale through your mouth. Repeat this breathing pattern twice more. Inhale with your left arm straight up. As you exhale, rest your left hand on your right knee. Press your right fingertips into the ground behind your hips. Inhale and lift your torso and chest up.

Exhale and twist your torso toward the right. Repeat this breathing and movement pattern twice more. Gently bring your torso back to center. Do the same thing on the other side.

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Hero

Stand on your knees with your shoulders aligned above your hips. Press your thumbs into the backs of your knees and move your calves out to the sides. Press into the ground with the tops of your feet, especially at the edges, near your pinkies. Sit your hips back between your legs, either on the ground or on a pillow. If you feel anything in your knees, sit up on a pillow, don’t force your hips to meet the floor. Rest your shoulders above your hips and rest your palms on your thighs. Stay here for ten long, deep breaths. This pose stimulates digestion and calms the mind.

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Hero Twist

Grab your right knee with your left hand. Press your right fingertips into the ground behind your hips. Inhale and lift your torso and chest up. Exhale and twist toward your right. Repeat this breathing and movement pattern twice more.

Do the same thing on the other side.

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