BOW, New Hampshire: Combine Twister, paint-by-numbers and the ancient Hindu practice of breath control, meditation and poses, and you get Yoga by Numbers.

The approach complete with a numbered mat was designed by a Boston woman whose own health scare inspired her to put yoga in reach for people with physical limitations, tight schedules or other roadblocks to traditional practice.

The oversized yoga mat is dotted with big, numbered circles that look like the target in a rifle scope. The accompanying DVD gives true yoga beginners those who wouldnt know an up-dog from a Chihuahua a step-by-step road map to learn the poses at their own pace.

Elizabeth Morrow was an athlete, a skier and football player who, two years ago, found herself hospitalized with a right lung full of blood clots, the lower lobe completely collapsed. When she was strong enough to start exercising again, she found even the easiest of yoga classes too taxing. She didnt have the stamina for an hour, couldnt hold the poses the way the instructor wanted.

So, the 32-year-old started thinking of ways to make it easier, more convenient and even more fundamental than the myriad DVDs already on the market.

I was thinking about a paint-by-number kit where you dont need to be Picasso or van Gogh, you just follow what they tell you and youll come out with something, she said. I just wanted something that felt really accessible and doable for people. The image of the mat just popped into my head: Wow, I can do yoga by numbers as well.

The DVD tells users exactly which circle to put their hands and feet in and allows for advancement to more challenging poses.

Yoga by Numbers has been compared to Twister, the popular game with giant colored circles, spinning wheel and crazy, cross-limbed poses. But Morrows cool with that, even when it comes from critics.

I think its awesome when they have that reaction because to me, that means they get it and they know how to use it, said Morrow, a certified yoga instructor.

Morrow has sold to people who live far from a yoga studio, those with tight schedules who need to squeeze in practice whenever they can, and people with health conditions. The National Institutes of Healths National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine reports that recent studies of people with chronic lower-back pain suggest yoga can help reduce pain and improve function. Other research shows regular practice might reduce heart rate, blood pressure and stress and may help relieve anxiety and depression.

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Yoga by Numbers brings poses to the people

Sacramento, California (PRWEB) March 21, 2014

The course offered by the Yoga retreat provides a solid foundation in the principles of Yoga of Recovery. The certification program will be offered April 30 - May 9, 2014. For more information, visit http://sivanandabahamas.org/course.php?course_id=3917.

Combines Ayurveda and Yoga with traditional recovery tools to offer a more holistic approach to addiction and self-destructive behaviors. For those in counseling roles, the course offers additional tools and a comprehensive approach to wellness, emotional sobriety and sustained spiritual development using ayurveda and yoga as extension therapies to any 12-step work. This course is designed for yoga teachers and health professionals who work with people recovering from addiction, and for people with personal histories or family members with histories of addiction.

Topics of this course include: Root causes of addiction Addictive tendencies of the doshic types The role of Prana in recovery (diet and exercise-Hatha Yoga) Understanding the gunas Our spiritual/psychological natures Four paths of Yoga for those in recovery Raja Yoga and the 12 steps Ayurvedic nutrition The importance of proper daily and seasonal routines Key recovery tools satsang support - fellowship Ayurvedic counseling profiles Detoxification and herbal therapies

This course is open to anyone, but may be of particular interest to therapists, social workers, addiction counselors, sponsors, yoga teachers, Ayurvedic practitioners, health professionals dealing with people who are recovering from addiction, people with family members with addiction and/or histories of addiction. Upon completion of the course students will have the skills to introduce the healing potential of the holistic sciences of Ayurveda and Yoga into their own life and those around.

For those who are already yoga teachers, this course will make the student uniquely qualified and more confident to teach Yoga in rehabilitation centers or to people in recovery from any addiction. Students will fully understand the root of the problem and the holistic approach, extended from limited understanding of substance abuse/behavioral problems to be treated with asana alone, to a full range of therapies for mind, body and spirit from these powerful healing modalities.

Catherine O'Neill (Durga Leela) Durga (Catherine O'Neill) is a Clinical Ayurvedic and Panchakarma Specialist, trained at the California College of Ayurveda, and in Kerala, India. She is also a Sivananda trained Yoga teacher (RYT-500), extensively trained in meditation and Vedanta. She has been involved with the 12-Step Fellowship for over 8 years and has developed the "Yoga of Recovery" programs and led retreats internationally since then. She is the Director of the Ayurveda Programs at the Yoga Farm in California, and leads several Ayurvedic Retreats at International Sivananda Yoga Ashrams.

Swami Sitaramananda Swami Sitaramananda is the Director of the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Farm in Grass Valley, California, and a direct disciple of Swami Vishnudevananda. She has many years of experience teaching meditation, Yoga philosophy and positive thinking all over the world. She has authored a Positive Thinking Manual and is an expert in the art of teaching positive thinking and how to deal with the mind and emotions.

Kailash Chaitanya Kailas Chaitanya is a gentle teacher of Yoga and Meditation, and the assistant director at the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Farm. He is a highly experienced teacher of Hatha Yoga, meditation and Self Knowledge.

Located across the bay from Nassau, on one of the finest beaches in the world, the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat is an island paradise with a tropical garden, crystal clear water and pure white sands - a true sanctuary of peace and natural beauty. Recognized among world Yoga Retreats, the ashram offers year-round programs presented by world renowned speakers, as well as certification courses on various yoga related topics through which you can expand your knowledge, gain a new skill and get certified while enjoying a joyous yoga practice and blissful relaxation. The Yoga retreat center also offers year-round Yoga teacher training programs, Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy Courses, Yoga for beginners, Yoga vacations and many other courses.

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Yoga for Addiction and Alcoholism Recovery Offered at World Renowned Sivananda Yoga Retreat in the Bahamas

By Anthony Meindl | Posted March 20, 2014, 3 p.m.

Stop getting caught up on how you think things are supposed to look.

Feelings, love, careers, connections, possibilities: When you give up the form in which you think these things must appear, youre instead open to the miracle of them showing up all around you all the time, in ways that are a lot more joyful and unexpected than you could have ever planned.

Part of our problem is that we feel we have to have things lined up in a definitive way before we feel like we can take the leap.

So before you can ask the girl out on a date you have to have your shit together. Before you start auditioning you need to redo your headshots, and before you move to a bigger city, you have to make sure you have money in the bank account.

These postponements keep us stuck in the idea of the fantasy of how its going to look once we get there.

The irony is that youll never get there if you stay stuck on the idea.

Theres nothing wrong with being unsettled or doubtful, or not entirely together while were out in the world. Theres nothing wrong with falling down as we attempt to walk. Thats how we learn.

Youre never going to have it all together. Ever. So if you keep putting your life on hold for greater perfection before you can do other things, youll find out youve postponed half your life.

If you let life show you how to participate, it will, but it requires us to get out of our heads that create so many distractions and reasons why we cant, that we miss it entirely.

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Don't Let Excuses Derail Your Career

General News of Thursday, 20 March 2014

Source: myjoyonline.com

Executive Director of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), Yaw Akrasi Sarpong says those against the lobbying for cannabis to be legalized in the country, appear to be losing the battle.

According to Mr. Akrasi Sarpong, the issue of drugs abuse has become more of public health issue than a moral one, but the anti-lobbyists have failed to effectively state their position and have rather turned to spirituality.

"If you are in a debate and you don't make an argument, you are on the losing side. It is not about a moral issue; drug abuse is a public health issue; cannabis use is hazardous if you use it on your person. Those are scientific data but the information gap between science and the society's knowledge needs to be bridged," Mr. Akrasi Sarpong said on the Super Morning Show on Joy FM on Thursday.

Additionally, he noted that "those of us, who are against it, we are just keeping quiet hoping that when we pray in tongues and pray in our rooms, then the challenge just goes off".

The Head of NACOB dominated the headlines a fortnight ago, when he called for a debate over whether or not marijuana should be legalized in the country. His reason is that increasingly, ordinary people do not think that possessing the mentally-disturbing substance is a crime.

Clarifying this point further, Mr. Akrasi Sarpong stated that calling on government to ban marijuana outright, is not the way to dealing with the drugs issue.

"Repression is not the solution to drugs issues...The evidence-based response is to involve the community; is to involve the society; it is not just sensitization...People think that if you smoke Indian Hemp then you are a bad man. That is not the way to go about it. The way to go about it is to recognize that it's a public health issue; the way to go about it is to tell people it is hazardous ...let's debate them [lobbyists] in the social media [and] let's debate them wherever they are. That is the way to go about it!", he emphasized He therefore called on the anti-lobbyists in the society to rise up to the challenge because; "we are on the losing side of the debate, but science and reason [common sense] are on our side".

Evidence of destruction

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Praying in tongues cannot fight drugs menace - Akrasi Sarpong