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At the AVWA office, a few colleagues and I have embraced BIKRAM YOGA, and I can’t stop but rave about it!!!! Last month we signed up for this new fitness regime at an inner city studio that gave us unlimited yoga classes for 10 days for the special introductory price of $19!!! Can you believe it, we rocked up to the 6am sessions 4 times during those 10 days! That’s dedication!

What is Bikram Yoga?
Basically Bikram Yoga is a form of yoga that aims to better help the participant stretch through presenting the class in a heated room.

·  The idea is that our muscles stretch better in warmer environment. Having said that, the classes aren’t just WARM, they can be HOT and sometimes for new beginners its almost like being in a middle of a HEAT WAVE. But it’s controlled and if you feel overwhelmed it’s ok to just sit and watch on.  

·  Oh and let me make this clear- YOU WILL SWEAT A LOT, as if you’ve just ran more than 5-10km. Honestly because I sweat more during a class of Bikram Yoga than running 5-10km. The idea is also to help the body detox all the bad things inside it with the underlying motif that YOUR BODY IS A TEMPLE, and so anything that shouldn’t be there is encouraged to exit via the sweat pores! Having said that there is another way yoga helps the body to detox, but more about that below.

The science behind yoga in general
It’s about enabling yourself to breath properly because apparently we don’t do it right and thus are not bringing as much oxygen (the purpose of breathing) into our body as we should be. Here is what Dr Mehmet Oz had to say about this and the other effects of yoga

·  Most of us never take a deep breath all day long. The most fundamental practice in yoga is the deep, belly breath through the nose. The diaphragm is a large muscle located just below the lungs that ideally should pull down the lungs during inspiration. This is why young children push their stomach out when sleeping or exercising. Adults need to do the same. To properly exhale, suck your belly button toward your spine to push the diaphragm up and empty all the air from your lungs. This process also brings nitric oxide—not nitrous oxide—from the back of the nose into your lungs, which dilates arteries to bring more oxygen into your body. 

·  Yoga helps clean blood of waste material (through lymphatic stimulation), and trains us to loosen muscles and joints that are ignored in our day-to-day lives. Routines like sun salutation get the blood flowing as we warm up and free our body to experience the new stresses we will face. The practice also gets us to handle the weight of our body more effectively, which builds bone and muscle strength so we are more resilient to the frailty that afflicts many. This is why power yoga practitioners have great bodies. 

·  Finally, yoga gets us to focus our minds on remote parts of our body—like tight joints and muscles—as we gently but firmly deepen into our poses. For people like me, meditation proves difficult because our mind wonders. But if we can concentrate on the tension in our hips as we empty our mind, then we are well on the way.

So what do you think? Time to start practicing YOGA? It REALLY is great!I know that having done it for only those 4 sessions I was definitely more stretchy/bendable and people even commented on how great my complexion was (due to the good blood flow!) So to sign off, do give yoga a chance and let’s start your mornings with REJUVENATION!

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