Law of Garbage Truck

Many people are like garbage trucks. They move around full of garbage (frustration, anger, and disappointment, etc.). As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they’ll dump it on you.

Don’t take it personally. Just ignore and move on. Don’t take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets.

Everyday, you get several situations where people treat you badly, even though you are right. Just think of them as garbage truck. It will help you to reduce your stress level.

3 Must-Do Bodyweight Exercises

These exercises are simple and works out all the major muscles in our body. It also applies our own body weight as resistance to the muscles. Because of that, these exercises strengthens and builds our muscles.

1. Push-up ( Upper Body Muscles - Pects/triceps/deltoids)
2. Sit-up (Abdominal Muscles)
3. Squat (Lower Body Muscles - Glute/Quads/Hamstring)

It's always a best practice to do warm-up before the exercises and cool down after the exercises.

Here is the complete sequence:
1. Major Joints Exercise (Neck/Shoulder/Spine/Pelvis)
2. Surya Namaskar (3 rounds)
3. Push-up
4. Sit-up
5. Squat
6. Savasana (5 minutes)

Why most of us are not successful in meditation

Meditation is nothing but slowing down your mind. It's not possible for us to slow down our mind, since our mind is supposed to process all the data received by our sensory organs (eyes,ears, nose, tongue and skin). With the technological development, we keep occupy our mind by watching TV, texting to friends, talking to friends, listening to music and working on the computer/ipad all day.

Suddenly, in the name of meditation, if you sit in a quiet room and start thinking nothing, your mind simply can't do it.

First, You have to train your mind to focus on something. The simplest exercise is to chant 'gayatri mantra' (or any mantra based on your religion/belief) multiple times. The key is to repeat it several times. Initially, you feel bored, since your mind expects variety, not the same mantra over and over again. If you persist, you can win.

Yoga for posture problems

Many of us don't even know that we have poor posture. For long time, I had flat back which I didn't even know until I started noticing changes in alignment of my lower back due to continuous practice of Surya Namaskara (Sun Salutation of Sri K Pattabhi Jois).

There are three postural problems that are very common among people.
1. Hunch back (rounded shoulder)
2. Flat back (flat lower back)
3. Sway back(excessive curve in the lower back)

Surya namanskara is the excellent full body work out that corrects all these posture problems effectively.

Please note that you should have complete focus of your mind on your body movement while doing it.

Yogasana sequence for digestive health

Loosening Exercises:
Toe Jogging
Forward Jogging
Backward Jogging
Side Jogging
Twisting
Forward-Backward Bending
Back Stretch - two variation
The above exercises are intensive. Use Mukha Dhouthi to relax yourself in between these exercises.

Breathing Exercises:
Hands In and Out Breathing
Hand Stretch Breathing
Ankle Stretch Breathing
Surya namaskar: 3-5 rounds

Dynamic Yogas:
There are five asanas that massage the entire digestive tract that is stomach, small intestine and colon.
1. Tadasana (5 times)
2. Tiryaka Tadasana (5 times)
3. Kati Chakrasana (5 times)
4. Tiryaka Bhujangasana (5 times)
5. Udar-akarshana-asana (5 times)

Savasana:

Anuloma Viloma Pranayama

Meditaion for 5 minutes

Deep Breathing - Anytime of the Day

Whenever you feel dull, tired, or out of energy during the day, you can do deep breathing. It's also known as abdominal breathing or core breathing.

Here are the steps :
1. Stand comfortably with your hands on your sides or sit on the chair comfortably with straight back.
2. Raise your hands straight up to the head while inhaling.
3. Lower your hands while exhaling.
4. Keep the time spent on inhalation and exhalation equal.
5. Repeat step 2 and 3 for about 1 to 3 minutes.

If you are not comfortable in raising your hand during inhalation and lowering your hands during exhalation, you can simple keep your palm over your belly button and observe it raising when you inhale and lowering when you exhale.

This exercise allows the lungs to work at full capacity and increase the amount of oxygen in blood. It helps in increasing energy level in your body.

Awareness

Awareness (Presence of Mind): Being present “men­tally”, wherever you are and whatever you are doing at that moment. 

Why do we always think about past or future?

When we were kids, we used to be present always. While growing up, we learn lot of things and experience lot of things. Also we develop expectation about future. Our mind is cluttered with all this information. It’s natural for the mind to wander around this information.

What’s wrong if we think about past or future?

Being present is the normal behavior of the mind. If your mind wanders past and future, it takes lot of vital energy (Prana) from our body. It makes you tired and unhealthy. Also it doesn't make sense to think about past or future, when you are doing something in present. You can test yourself that whenever you are not present mentally at that moment, your breathing will be shallow and fast that means you are not using your full capacity of lungs to draw the air in in order to get proper oxygen supply to the body.

How to achieve the presence of mind?
1. Slow down the racing mind by doing simple meditation such as abdominal breathing.

2. Once you reach the calmer mindset through meditation, keep your awareness on your breath throughout the day so you keep connected to your body and surroundings. Remember the rate of your breath indicates the state of your mind. So, when your mind is calmer, your breath is slower and deeper and vice versa.

How to begin?
Whenever you get a thought about the past or the future, you say yourself, "It may be important, but, not now. I am doing....". Then focus on what you are doing. Keep practicing this simple tip throughout the day.

What are the benefits of awareness?

Improve your health: Since you are aware of your body and breath, you listen to your body when you are hungry, thirsty or tired. You eat when you are hungry, you drink when you are thirsty and you take rest when you are tired. This will improve your health. You can handle stress effectively. When you are present mentally, your breathing will be deep and your mind will be calmer.

More productive in your work: As you are not disturbed by past and future thoughts, you will focus more on what you are doing.