mind-body therapies help your heart

Research shows that the stress-inflammation cycle is as detrimental to your heart as a plate full of the cheesiest fettuccine Alfredo. “Stress hormones, such as adrenaline and cortisol, cause the arteries to constrict, which results in a rise in blood pressure and decrease in blood flow,” Moyad explains. Less blood flow means less oxygen circulating through the body to combat free radicals—unstable cells that can damage healthy tissues. “We know now that bad LDL cholesterol only becomes threatening when levels get so high that it binds with free radicals,” Moyad says. When this happens, LDL changes structure and gets absorbed by the arterial walls’ lining, resulting in plaque buildup, or atherosclerosis. Such tissue damage causes the immune system to go into overdrive, triggering inflammation. Reduce your risk with effective mind-body therapies like meditation, yoga, exercise or massage.

The Digital Zen Clock & Meditation Timer serves as a countdown and interval timer for yoga, meditation, bodywork, etc.; and it can also be set to chime on the hour as a tool for “mindfulness.”

adapted from Natural Solutions Magazine, January 2010 by Kate Hanley

bamboo meditation timer and natural alarm clock with gentle chime

Now & Zen’s Clock and Meditation Timer Shop

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Zen Timepiece with brass singing bowl

Singing bowls are unique because they are multiphonic instruments, producing multiple harmonic overtones at the same time.  The overtones are a result of using an alloy consisting of multiple metals, each producing its own overtone.

New bowls can also produce multiple harmonic overtones if they are high quality bronze, but many are made from a simpler alloy and produce only a principal tone and one harmonic overtone.

adapted from wikipedia.org

Zen Timepiece, a brass singing bowl clock and timer

Singing Bowl Alarm Clock

Now & Zen’s Singing Bowl Alarm Clock Shop

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Yoga timers made from bamboo

The Digital Zen Clock is the perfect companion for a natural lifestyle. Its long-resonating acoustic chime set in a solid hardwood case adds tranquility and aesthetic pleasure to any environment or activity. Used as an alarm clock, its gradually-increasing chime progression sequence begins your day with grace and beauty. As a timing device the Digital Zen Clock’s acoustic chime is unsurpassed for yoga, meditation, bodywork, or any practice.

yoga and meditation timers

Now & Zen

1638 Pearl St.

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

yoga at home

I got into yoga as a college student on a typically tight budget. To save money I decided to memorize my favorite sequence and practice at home. It was love at first Sun Salute. But not so much in class, where I obediently followed along, trying my best to keep up with a fast-moving flow, diligently taking the inevitable corrections, and silently cursing the woman next to me who was clearly related to Gumby.

Practicing at home gave me the time and the freedom to play in the poses and see how my body reacted. “You can feel when a pose is right and when it’s a little off,” says Barbara Benagh, a Boston yoga instructor and home practice veteran. “If it doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t matter how good it looks.” My first uncertain, bumbling adjustments eventually guided me to a better understanding of yoga as well as my own strengths, limitations, and needs.

Think of yoga, especially a home practice, as a learning process. There will be fits and starts, but you’re not alone in your struggle for consistency. “Sometimes the challenge is doing it at all,” admits Benagh. But once you step on the mat, you can let the practice take shape. Whether you stick to a specific sequence or just muddle through a few of your favorite poses, you’re still doing yoga. Give yourself permission to explore the poses that attract you and, just as importantly, those that you resist. Tune into how your breath feels, where your mind goes, and the sensations that each pose invites. Avail yourself of books, DVDs, and websites (see “At-home helpers” on page 58 for suggestions), and go at your own pace. Once in a while get a yoga checkup by going to a class that emphasizes adjustments or splurging on a yoga private session.

yoga at home, use a yoga timer tool from Now & Zen

The bonuses of a steady practice may surprise you—improvements in your health, strength, flexibility, and general quality of life. A new study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine reports that just one week of daily yoga practice increases spinal flexibility and decreases pain in people suffering from chronic low back pain. Plus you’ll strengthen your body’s ability to fight disease: A 2007 study analyzing antioxidant levels in the blood found that study participants who had practiced yoga for six months had significantly higher levels of free radical–fighting antioxidants in their blood than the control group.

My home practice was born of financial limitation, but I’ve stuck with it for many different reasons: self-nurturing when I’m feeling down or during that-time-of-the-month, a busy schedule, convenience, a chance to work on difficult poses in the privacy of my own home (with no Gumbies around). Whatever inspires you to begin a home practice, this easy-to-follow guide can help you succeed.

The yoga of distraction
You don’t need a private studio to have a successful home practice. But it does help to create a space you can come back to where you feel comfortable and focused. Distracted by a cluttered room? Take five minutes to tidy up before stepping on the mat; it can be a great way to center yourself for each session. Have trouble staying put? Benagh suggests you use music—just practice for the length of one album or playlist—to provide some structure as well as motivation to stick it out. But she reminds us that, “one element of yoga is discipline and exertion. Be patient with the process, and you will build stamina by continuing to persevere even when you get discouraged.”

Kid Yoga Lotus Pose

Focus on the breath
Yoga’s mindful breathing sets it apart from most other forms of exercise. This diaphragmatic or belly breathing begins in the abdomen rather than the chest, pulling the air deeper into the lungs, which fosters more complete oxygen–carbon dioxide exchange. To tune in to your breath, sit comfortably, and rest your hand on your belly. As you inhale, feel your belly filling up with breath; as you exhale, allow your belly to empty.

By linking your inhale and exhale to your movements, you can use the breath as a powerful guide for your yoga practice. Pay attention to the quality of the breath. If it feels jagged, you may be working too hard. Ease up or go into Child’s Pose until you feel ready to move again. If your breath becomes very slow or lazy, you may be losing focus. Challenge yourself to stay more alert and active in your practice. If at any point you lose track of your breathing, that’s OK. Just notice it, and come back.

Build a sequence
A balanced sequence of poses moves your body and spine through its full range of motion—circulating oxygen-rich blood, eliminating toxins, stretching and lubricating the entire body. Every asana (body) falls into at least one, and sometimes several, of eight categories—standing, balancing, forward bends, backbends, hip openers, twists, inversions and restoratives. Each type offers different benefits, challenges, and insights.

Standing postures ground your energy, revitalize the legs, improve balance and digestion, build bone density, and lubricate joints. * Balancing postures improve balance, build bone density, focus the mind, and strengthen the joints. * Backbends open the chest and heart, relieve depression, keep the spine supple, and energize body and mind. * Forward bends soothe the nervous system, release tension in the back, and promote sound sleep. * Hip openers promote pelvic, prostate, and reproductive health and reduce sciatic pain. * Twists lubricate the spine and tone and detoxify the organs. * Inversions tone and relax the organs, recirculate blood, center the mind, and improve concentration. * Restorative postures do exactly that: Restore mind and body and reduce stress and tension.

yoga practice

The four Bs
* Blocks help you maintain proper alignment while you build strength and flexibility. * A belt supports you in restorative poses and helps you stay aligned and safe as you stretch. * A bolster supports your body in passive, restorative poses. * A blanket can be used in lieu of or in addition to a bolster to make you more comfortable and help you relax.

Now you’re ready to go. Try the following sequence, courtesy of yogis Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman, creators of the Gaiam Yoga Club, an online community offering healthy home practices anyone can do.

1. Mountain Pose
(Tadasana)
How to: Stand with your feet parallel, heels slightly apart, and big toes touching. Broaden your collarbones, press your shoulder blades into the back to open up your chest, and place your arms by your sides. Lengthen through the sides of your waist, and balance your head over your shoulders, feeling a sense of ease (and no tension) in the neck. Breathe here for eight to 10 breaths.
standing pose

2. Tree Pose (Vrksasana)
How to: From Mountain Pose, bring your right foot up and press it against the inside of your left thigh or calf, or rest your right heel on the inside of your left ankle. Keep your hips facing the front and your right knee opening out to the side. Stay here for five to eight breaths; release your right leg to the floor and return to Mountain Pose. Repeat pose on the other side.
Variation: Hold on to the back of a chair or touch the wall for balance if you need to. Caution: Don’t rest your foot against your knee as this can cause strain in the joint.
standing; balance; hip opener

3. Standing Forward Bend
(Uttanasana)
How to: From Mountain Pose, exhale and fold from the hips (not the waist), and bring your hands to the floor beside your feet. Keep your knees lifted, relax the low back, and soften the belly. Stay here for five to eight breaths.
Variation: Rest your hands on blocks if they don’t reach the floor; bend your knees to avoid stress on your lower back. Caution: If you have sciatica, you may want to avoid this posture.
standing; forward bend; inversion

4. Downward-Facing Dog Pose (Adho Mukha Svanasana)
How to: From Standing Forward Bend, step your feet back, coming into a plank position (yoga push-up position—arms straight, shoulders over hands, and legs straight so that your body forms a flat plank). Exhale and lift your sit bones toward the ceiling, pressing into your palms and inner arms. Keep the kneecaps lifted; reach your heels toward the floor. Stay here for five to eight breaths, and work up to 15 breaths. Step your right foot between your hands, then your left foot, returning to Mountain Pose.
Variation: Rest your forehead on a block (to ease a headache, calm your nerves, or cool a hot flash).
standing; inversion

5. Triangle Pose (Trikonasana)
How to: From Mountain Pose, step your feet about 3 to 4 feet apart. Turn your left foot slightly inward and your right foot out 90 degrees; the heel of your right foot should be in line with the heel of your left. Stretch your arms out to the sides, lift up through the front of your thighs, and press your shoulder blades into your back to open your chest. Exhale, and keeping both sides of your waist long, extend your trunk to the right and bring your right hand down to your shin or a block. Stretch your left arm up to the ceiling. Look straight ahead or up at your left hand. Rotate your belly toward the ceiling. Hold for five to eight breaths. On an inhalation, lift up and turn your feet back to a parallel position. Repeat on your left side, then turn your toes forward and step back into Mountain Pose. Note: The object is to support and open the chest by keeping your spine and waist long. Don’t worry about bringing your hand all the way down to the floor.
Variation: Place a block on the outer edge of your right foot to support your hand.
standing; hip opener; twist

6. Extended Side Angle Pose
(Utthita Parsvakonasana)
How to: From Mountain Pose, step your feet out slightly wider than you did for Triangle Pose. Turn your right foot out 90 degrees and your left foot slightly inward. The heel of your left foot should line up with the heel of your right. Stretch your arms out to the sides, exhale, and bend your right knee so that your thigh is parallel to the floor. On your next exhale, extend your trunk to the right, keeping both sides of your waist long, and bring your right hand down to a block (or rest your elbow on your thigh). Stretch your left arm up over your left ear, rotate your belly toward the ceiling, and look up under your armpit. Breathe and hold this pose for five to eight breaths. Inhale as you lift up, and straighten your torso. Repeat on the left side and then step back into Mountain Pose.
Caution: Don’t do this pose if you have arthritis of the knee or very low blood pressure.
standing; hip opener; twist

7. Cobra Pose (Bhujangasana)
How to: Lie flat on your stomach, forehead on the floor. Bring your hands beside your chest so that your forearms are perpendicular to the floor and your elbows are tucked in to your sides. Inhale, lift up from your chest, elongating your waist and spreading your collarbones wide. (You should not feel a pinch in your lower back in this gentle backbend). Keep your legs active and pelvis on the mat. Hold for five to eight breaths. On an exhalation, release back into the floor, turn your head to the side and rest for a moment before repeating.
Caution: Do not do this pose if you are more than three months pregnant.
backbend

8. Bound Angle Pose (Baddha Konasana)
How to: Sit with your back straight and your belly lifted. Bend your legs, and bring the soles of your feet together in front of you, allowing your knees to open out to the side. Hold your ankles, and draw your heels toward your pubic bone. Gently lower your knees as far as possible. Put your hands on the floor behind you to sit up taller and encourage the natural curves of the spine. Stay here for eight to 10 breaths.
Variation: Sit with hips on a folded blanket or a bolster and feet on the floor if your knees come up higher than your waist. Place a block under each thigh.
hip opener 9. Simple Seated Twist Pose
(Parivrtta Sukhasana)
How to: Sit cross-legged on the mat. Lengthen through the sides of your waist and elongate your spine. Place you left hand on your right knee and bring your right hand to the floor behind you. Keeping your hips facing straight ahead, begin twisting to the right from your belly first, then your ribcage, chest, and shoulders. Look over your right shoulder. Stay here for five to eight breaths. Come back to the front and repeat on the other side.
Variation: Place a block behind you to support your hand; sit up on a folded blanket with your knees and feet on the floor.
Caution: Avoid this pose if you have a cold or congestion in your chest.
twist

10. One-Legged Forward Bend (Janu Sirsasana)
How to: With your legs stretched out in front of you, bend your left knee and place your left foot on the inside of your right leg, near your groin. Keeping the right leg straight, turn your abdomen and chest so your sternum is in line with the center of your right leg. Inhale and stretch up. Exhale as you reach your arms out in front of you, and fold your trunk forward over your right leg. Stay here for at least eight breaths or longer if you like.
Variation: If you have tight hamstrings, wrap a belt around the base of your right foot and hold onto it as you fold forward. For a more restorative pose, put a bolster on your outstretched leg and rest your head and arms on the bolster.
Caution: Don’t do this pose if you have sciatica.
forward bend; twist

11. Corpse Pose (Savasana)
How to: Lie on your back with your legs stretched out in front of you. Rest your arms at your sides, slightly away from your torso, palms facing up. Actively stretch your arms and legs away from you, then allow them to release completely. Close your eyes, and let everything relax. Let your breathing become natural and effortless. Rest here for five to 10 minutes.
Variations: Place a folded blanket or bolster under you knees to release the back muscles. Cover up with a blanket if you feel cold. You can also use an eye pillow to help the eyes and brain relax.

Use our unique “Zen Clock” which functions as a Yoga Timer.  It features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings your meditation or yoga session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal. Our Yoga Timer & Clock can be programmed to chime at the end of the meditation or yoga session or periodically throughout the session as a kind of sonic yantra. The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you “make time” for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance.

Adapted from Natural Solutions Magazine, August 2008, by Nora Simmons

Bamboo Zen Chime Clocks & Yoga Timers

Now & Zen – The Yoga Timer Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

yoga when you are tired, yoga when you are wired...

After a stressful day, yoga brings your body and 
mind back into balance.

By Karen Macklin

We’ve all been there at the end of a long day: too exhausted to do anything substantial but too hyped up and jittery to really relax. Feeling simultaneously tired and wired happens more often than many of us would like, and it can be hard to know what kind of practice is best to do when you feel this way.

“The goal of yoga, among other things, is unification of body and mind,” says Frank Jude Boccio, a yoga and meditation teacher. But when your body is tired and your mind is wired, he says, you don’t experience that unification. “The beauty of it is that yoga practices are specifically designed to bring the two into balance.”

According to Boccio, the first step is to rest the body. Even if your job is not physically rigorous, he says, your body is tired at the end of the day because the mind uses a lot of glucose, which leaves you feeling depleted.

Boccio recommends this short series of restorative postures that combines forward folds to calm the nervous system and simple twists to revitalize the body and move stagnant blood, rebalancing your energy.

Once your body starts to relax, Boccio says, you can bring your mind into balance with it by doing a simple breath-awareness practice. Start by exhaling completely, with long and steady breaths, as if the receding waves are drawing with them the accumulated detritus of the day; then take deep inhalations that feel like waves coming in with great force. Finally, beware of how much you reactivate the mind with television or computer time before going to bed. If you don’t get enough sleep, you start the day feeling depleted, and end it feeling even more so.

To unwind just before going to sleep, Boccio suggests giving yourself a foot massage: Coat the sole of your foot with raw sesame oil (you can add a few drops of a calming essential 
oil like lavender), and massage for a few minutes. This brings the energy down in the body, helping you feel grounded 
before bed.

Savasana (Corpse Pose)

Begin by feeling the support of the earth 
beneath you. Mentally scan your body and 
notice your level of fatigue or over stimulation. As you move through the following sequence, hold each pose as long as feels right to you.

Apanasana(Knees-to-Chest Pose)

Bring one knee into your chest, keeping the other leg straight on 
the ground. Switch knees, and then bring both knees into your chest. This pose helps release the kidney area, where fatigue is often felt.

Jathara Parivartanasana (Revolved Abdomen Pose)

Extend your arms. Bring your knees over to your right side and hold; switch sides. 
Twists like these lift your 
energy and bring new 
blood to your 
internal organs 
and kidney area.

Viparita Karani (Legs-up-the-Wall Pose)

This calming inversion takes pressure off the lower part of your body.

Janu Sirsasana (Head-of-the-Knee Pose)

Come into the pose and hold; 
then switch sides. This forward bend helps calm the nervous system.

Seated Twist

Take a gentle twist to either side to help lift lethargy and increase energy.

Use our unique “Zen Clock” which functions as a Yoga Timer.  It features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings your meditation or yoga session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal. Our Yoga Timer & Clock can be programmed to chime at the end of the meditation or yoga session or periodically throughout the session as a kind of sonic yantra. The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you “make time” for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance.

Zen Timepiece by Now & Zen

Now & Zen’s Yoga Timer and Alarm Clock Shop

1638 Pearl St.

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Adapted from Yoga Journal.com

calm your mind with a mindfulness practice

Calm Your Mind
Most stress-reduction techniques will help relieve moderate anxiety, says Edmund J. Bourne, Ph.D., a psychologist practicing in Hawaii and California and the author of Natural Relief for Anxiety (New Harbinger Publications, 2004). This can include abdominal breathing, yoga, tai chi, guided visualizations, or even just taking a break two or three times every day to relax, take a walk, or imagine yourself in a peaceful place.  Set your Zen Meditation Timer anyplace or anytime for just 5 minutes a day so that you can calm your mind.

Mindfulness-based meditation, which has proved especially helpful in reducing anxiety, is now being taught in many hospitals and health centers across the country. Studies have found that, among other benefits, it can lower breathing rate, reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol, and increase activity in the left frontal area of the brain, which is associated with a positive mental state and lowered anxiety levels. In fact, a recent Canadian study of cancer patients who participated in a mindfulness-based stress-reduction program found that levels of cortisol and pro-inflammatory chemicals continued to drop for six months to a year afterward.

Mindfulness practice also helps you notice your thoughts and feelings without judging them. “Mindfulness means accepting whatever you may notice around you and not trying to analyze it,” Duke University’s Brantley says.

After she left New York for North Carolina, Miller discovered the Duke Mindfulness program and found it to be invaluable. She attended group sessions and learned how to practice the meditations. The time she spent paying attention to her breathing or visualizing something peaceful improved her concentration at work and allowed her to reduce her dose of anti-anxiety medication.

The basics of the meditation (listening to your breath or paying specific attention to various parts of your body) are simple and can be learned from books—such as Full Catastrophe Living (Delta, 1990) and Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life (Hyperion, 2005), both by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center. “The important thing is to make mindful practice a part of your life so you’ll be prepared when a stressful situation arises,” Brantley says.

Our Zen Timepiece’s acoustic 6-inch brass bowl-gong Meditation Timer & Clock is the world’s ultimate alarm clock, practice timer, and “mindfulness bell.”

adapted from Natural Solutions Magazine by Ben Kallen

Zen Timepiece with Brass Singing Bowl, a Meditation timer to Calm your Mind

Now & Zen’s Bowl-Gong Timer Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

yoga and menopausal hormones

Menopausal hormone shifts can rearrange your body and mind in unnerving ways. Let yoga bring you back into balance.

Clients at Kay Lee’s hair salon in Studio City, California, have gotten used to seeing its owner standing on her hands in a corner of the room. Lee, who’s 51, has been practicing yoga since she was in her early 20s. But she began a more dedicated practice about six years ago, when she realized she needed help managing the symptoms of perimenopause. “I was around lots of older women at the salon, and we would all talk about the changes we were going through,” she says. “Watching them go through their menopause, I realized I needed to find a good way to cope with it.”

Like many other women, Lee suspected that menopause might bring unpleasant symptoms. But when, in her 40s, she began experiencing perimenopause—a constellation of premenopausal changes that often includes hot flashes, insomnia, anxiety, irregular periods, heavy bleeding, forgetfulness, and fatigue—she discovered that she was unprepared.

For Lee, the symptoms that hit hardest were irritability and mood swings. She’d grown accustomed to juggling midlife responsibilities: running her business and household, tending to her marriage, raising two children. But her emotions sometimes flared out of control as she moved into perimenopause. The worst episodes occurred during her two-hour freeway commute from her home in Ojai, California, to the salon, and back again—a drive that grew more frustrating the deeper into perimenopause she got. “Road rage,” she says ruefully. “I would have a lot of road rage.”

Between the aggression, sleepless nights, and hot flashes, Lee decided she needed help. She knew women from the salon who were using hormone therapy, typically a combination of the female hormones estrogen and progesterone, but Lee wanted a more natural approach. She had taken classes sporadically in the past with Ojai yoga teacher Suza Francina, author of Yoga and the Wisdom of Menopause. Now that Lee needed help with the menopausal transition, she started going to Francina’s classes two to three times a week. She also began taking breaks during her busy workday to spend at least a few minutes doing yoga.

Fog-free zone

After several weeks of regular practice, Lee felt much better: Her moods stabilized, and her thinking became sharper. Even her PMS symptoms improved. Longtime yogis, of course, know that the practice can bring benefits like calmness, mental clarity, strength, and focus to people of any age. But for women experiencing the physical, mental, and emotional throes of the menopausal years, yoga’s gifts are particularly welcome.

“Menopause is like going through puberty, only in reverse,” Francina says. “By replenishing energy and soothing the nervous system, yoga goes to the root of a wide range of symptoms,” she says. Yoga teachers like Francina aren’t the only people who think that yoga can help. Because hormone therapy can raise the risk of heart disease, stroke, blood clots, and breast cancer, medical researchers have been searching for gentler ways to ease women through the menopausal transition. Although the research is still in its early stages, several studies have pointed to important ways that yoga can make a difference.

In 2005 Beth Cohen, an internist at both the University of California, San Francisco, and San Francisco VA Medical Center, studied the effects of yoga on hot flashes in a small pilot study of 14 women. The women in the study took part in a weekly 90-minute yoga class designed around eight restorative poses. They also practiced for one hour at home three days a week. After eight weeks, the frequency of the women’s hot flashes decreased by 30 percent and their severity diminished by 34 percent. Cohen suspects that the results may be due to yoga’s ability to calm the sympathetic nervous system, although she can’t yet be certain, because researchers don’t fully understand what causes hot flashes.

Cohen says that the study also revealed some unexpected findings, such as improved sleep among the participants. But since the study didn’t include a control group, it’s hard to say whether some of the response can’t be chalked up to the placebo effect. Last year, however, researchers in Bangalore, India, examined how yoga affected menopausal symptoms in a larger group of 120 women, this time with a comparison group. Half the women took yoga classes five days a week for an hour a day, while the others did supervised gentle exercise. After eight weeks, the yoga group had substantially fewer menopausal symptoms—hot flashes, memory problems, and sleep disturbances—as well as lower scores on a measure of perceived stress. There’s also evidence that yoga can do more than just ease bothersome symptoms. Kim Innes, assistant professor at the University of Virginia’s Center for the Study of Complementary and Alternative Therapies, reviewed the medical literature about ways that yoga (and other mind-body practices, including tai chi) may affect the physiological and neuropsychological processes that contribute to the increase in heart disease risk for postmenopausal women.

The hormonal changes that occur during menopause, particularly the sharp drop in estrogen, can lead to numerous health changes that make women much more vulnerable to heart disease and other chronic conditions. For instance, menopause itself is associated with a rise in insulin resistance and other adverse changes, including high blood pressure. Insulin resistance is a precursor to diabetes, in which the body becomes less sensitive to insulin, in turn causing blood-sugar levels to rise. In addition the menopausal transition is associated with increased activation of the sympathetic nervous system and related deterioration in both mood and sleep. All of these factors are interrelated, and all raise the risk for heart disease.

Yoga, Innes says, has been shown to counter these risk factors. “I wasn’t expecting to see such a widespread effect on so many parameters,” she says. “But the more you look, the more you see that so many of these are related to stress. And the thing that’s startling is how quickly these beneficial changes can occur, even over the course of six weeks or less.”

Restoratives to the Rescue

No single sequence will provide surefire relief for every woman, says Elise Browning Miller, an Iyengar Yoga teacher in Palo Alto, California, who teaches workshops on yoga for menopause. Browning Miller and other teachers agree on a few general principles for practicing during menopause.

Women who are experiencing a lot of emotional turmoil may find standing poses like Prasarita Padottanasana (Wide-Legged Standing Forward Bend) to be grounding and stabilizing, says Browning Miller. If heavy bleeding is a problem, inversions such as Salamba Sarvangasana (Supported Shoulderstand) can help reduce bleeding, she says.

For postmenopausal women who want to maintain strong bones and prevent the wrist fractures common among this group, Miller recommends practicing asanas that put weight on the hands and forearms. These include poses such as a supported version of Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog Pose), using a strap around the elbows or putting the forearms on the floor. Resting the head on the floor or on a block during the pose can also help ease emotional upset.

But for many women during this time, restorative poses are the most crucial asanas of all. “When your body is going through changes, you need more rest,” Francina says. “No aspect of yoga is more important during this time than to take time every day to practice at least one restorative pose. This is a time for a peaceful, deep approach, with plenty of props so you can enjoy staying in poses longer.”

Life Support

As for how often to practice, the consensus is at least twice a week: “Enough that you let it spill into your life,” Miller says. “There’s something about twice a week that has a multiplicative effect.”

Lee says that she can’t imagine her life these days without yoga. She practices at the beginning or end of her day for at least 20 minutes, focusing on restorative poses. And she continues to attend classes at Francina’s studio two or three days a week. The benefits go beyond the physical. Because her mother died at 52, Lee hasn’t had an up-close role model to show her how to move gracefully into the next stage of her life. The women in her yoga classes, some of whom are in their 80s, have helped to fill that void. “Yoga gave me a support group of women who are my elders,” Lee says. “When we practice together, I feel really supported.”

At Lee’s salon, she says, the topics of perimenopause and menopause come up all the time. When women come in for a haircut but wind up telling Lee that they’re fatigued or having mood swings, she passes on yoga tips that might help them feel better. In addition to having her mat at the salon, she also keeps a block, a strap, and a bolster on hand. “I’ve shown so many clients Viparita Karani,” she says. “They initially come for a beauty treatment. I try to remind them that beauty comes from inner balance and health.”

At Rest in Transition

Make restorative poses the core of your practice during the menopausal transition, says yoga teacher and author Suza Francina. “I call these the essential poses for crossing the menopausal bridge. They will carry you to the next phase of your life.” Francina recommends staying in the first two poses for 10 minutes or longer, and the third for 5 minutes or longer.

Supta Baddha Konasana (Reclining Bound Angle Pose), supported Sit on your mat in front of a bolster placed lengthwise behind you. Loop a strap behind your back at your sacrum. Bring it forward around your hips and over your shins, and secure it under your feet so that it encircles the lower part of your body. Place the soles of your feet together and put a folded blanket or block beneath each of your outer thighs. Lie back with your spine centered on the bolster and with your arms out to the sides, palms up.

Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (Bridge Pose), supported Place a bolster or two folded blankets on your mat, and lie back over them so that they support your back rib cage but allow your upper back and shoulders to reach toward the floor. Place the soles of your feet together, cross your shins, or bend the knees and keep feet flat on the floor. More-experienced yogis can practice with the legs straight and the feet on a block. Let your arms rest out to the sides or stretch them overhead with elbows bent and palms facing up.

Viparita Karani (Legs-up-the-Wall Pose), supported Place a bolster or two folded blankets about six inches away from the wall (the exact distance depends on your leg flexibility and comfort). Sit sideways on the bolster, with the side of your hip touching the wall. With the bolster under your bottom, lower yourself back and swivel around so that your torso is perpendicular to the wall and your legs are extended up it. Let your arms rest out to the sides, palms up. In the beginning, stay about 5 minutes, and gradually increase the time to 10 minutes or longer.

adapted from Yoga Journal by Katherine Griffin, a former editor at Yoga Journal, is a San Francisco Bay Area writer.

Yoga Timer with Singing Bowl - Now & Zen, Inc.

Zen Chime Alarm Clock and Yoga Timer

Now & Zen’s Yoga Timer Shop

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Shin-hanga print, Summer Beauty by Hashiguchi Goyo, 1920

We have created the perfect yoga and meditation timer!  Our Digital Zen Alarm Clock® has been specifically designed with yoga practitioners in mind.  The clock can be set to produce a beautiful Tibetan bell-like chime repeatedly at any set interval.

We know that many yoga practitioners use beeping kitchen timers to signal periodic position changes.  However, the Digital Zen Alarm Clock’s acoustic pure-tone chime is more appropriate for use in spiritual practices such as yoga.  The chime’s B tone has been hand tuned using the ancient Pythagorean method — the clock’s tone is the same as that produced by tuning forks used by musical therapists.  And not only does the Digital Zen Alarm Clock sound beautiful, it looks beautiful as well.  Its solid hardwood case is an attractive addition to an altar or mantle.

Bamboo yoga and meditation timer, designed especially for yoga practitioners

Because of the popularity of our original Zen Alarm Clock we were flooded with requests for a digital version that can be used as a countdown and interval timer.

Now & Zen’s Yoga Timer Shop

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Floating Away... Ukiyo-e by Takeuchi KeishÃ

Digital Zen Alarm Clock features

1) Alarm Function, features Now & Zen’s signature 10-minute wake up chime sequence—the perfect amount of time for your progressive awakening.   The chime strikes gradually increase according to a golden ratio progression, which you can read about on pages 26-28 of the clock’s booklet, available on Now & Zen’s website.

(2) Countdown timer, perfect for meditation, counts backwards from any set time.  It can be set from a minimum of 10 seconds to a maximum of 20 hours.  When the timer reaches zero it strikes the chime once, and then begins its preprogrammed progression of chime strikes—striking again in 3 minutes, then in one minute—the same progression as the alarm sequence.  We usually set ours for 20 minutes, but then linger in meditation for the first few chime strikes once the strike sequence begins.

(3) Interval timer, is perfect for yoga or other practices wherein a periodic reminder can help guide you through the practice.  The interval timer uses the same function as the countdown timer except when it counts down to zero, it strikes only once and then begins counting down again from the pre-set time, continuously.  We set the interval timer to strike every minute during yoga sessions to signal the time to change positions.

(4) Hour Chime, is a wonderful feature with many uses.  The clock can be set to simply chime once on the hour every hour (muted automatically when the alarm is set, so you can sleep).  We use this feature in our office to help the day go by, and when it rings on the hour it helps end meetings on time with a crisp “ding”.

Digital Zen Alarm Clocks, available in maple, walnut, bamboo, and black lacquer

(5) The Chime’s tone, the Digital Zen Clock comes in either a 7 inch “B Tone” or a 9 inch “E Tone” chime.  These long-resonating acoustic chimes have been hand tuned using the natural Pythagorean tuning method to produce the same frequencies as the tuning forks used by musical therapists.  The chime strike force can be set to “Low” or “High” to create a tone optimal for you.

(6) Power and light, the clock runs on AC power (plug included) or on 2 AA batteries (not included).   The LCD display is lighted.  When in battery mode the light comes on by touching any button and goes off automatically in 10 seconds to save power.  When the clock is plugged in it can be set so that the display light stays on permanently.

Chime Alarm Clock - Soft Sounds Alarm Clocks

Now & Zen’s Acoustic Alarm Clock Shop

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

yoga and knee issues

Yoga can be a source of knee pain or the ideal therapy. Here’s a primer on keeping the joint healthy on and off the mat.

The chorus of pops emanating from Kyle Ray’s knee was his first clue that his body wasn’t happy in Padmasana (Lotus Pose). It was the end of a relaxing yoga class in Louisville, Kentucky, and the teacher had instructed everyone to assume a seated position for some chanting. Sure, Ray’s knees had acted up on occasion, but he’d gotten himself into Lotus before and was confident he could do it again. He slowly nestled his left ankle into the crook of his hip. Then, grabbing his right calf, he used his arm strength to muscle the top leg into position.

“The noise was awful,” says Ray, 31. A second later, a quick, sharp pain shot through his knee. He gingerly unfolded his legs. After class, it was all he could do to hobble home and place an ice pack on the swelling joint. It took six months for him to be able to walk without pain. Although his knee pain did subside, Ray still frets about the stability of his knees and generally avoids knee-taxing postures like Virasana (Hero Pose).

There’s no doubt that yoga asks much of the knees. Done properly, asana practice can shore them up to prevent injuries and slow the progression of some musculoskeletal diseases, but practiced without mindfulness, it spells disaster for these joints. Clearly, there are just as many people who credit yoga with rehabilitating weak knees as there are determined yogis like Ray, who will themselves into complex poses and pay a big price for overdoing it. But in poses like Supta Virasana (Reclining Hero Pose), in which the knees can feel pushed to the edge, it’s sometimes hard to know if you’re helping or hurting them. So what’s a yoga practitioner who’s concerned about protecting the knees to do? Nothing can replace the guidance of an experienced teacher, but certain principles can guide you into a safe, beneficial practice.

Weak in the Knees

The knee marks the meeting place of three bones: the shinbone (tibia), the thighbone (femur), and the kneecap (patella). Two crescent-shaped pads of cartilage, each called a meniscus, sit between the shinbone and the thighbone and act as cushions between the bones and shock absorbers during movement. Two sets of ligaments—the cruciates and the collaterals—strap all three bones in place. The cruciates crisscross below the kneecap; the collaterals run alongside the outside of the kneecap. The leg’s substantial muscles help these ligaments keep the bones properly aligned.

Unfortunately, the knee’s mechanics are better suited to chasing animals for dinner than to sliding into second base, says Stephen Messier, professor of health and exercise science at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. “We weren’t designed to do the things we do with our bodies nowadays,” he explains. “The knee’s engineering isn’t the greatest.”

And it shows: Every year, nearly 11 million Americans complain to doctors about knee pain. Orthopedic surgeons operate more often on the knees than on any other body part; they performed more than 1.2 million such surgeries in 1996 alone (the latest year for which figures were kept).

Roughly 21 million Americans have osteoarthritis of the knee—a degenerative disease in which the cartilage gradually decays and fails to provide the shock-absorbent padding that cushions the bones. Many older people suffer from this painful arthritic condition; age is considered a risk factor, as are obesity and knee injuries.

For years, experts have touted leg strength as one of the best ways to ward off knee problems, including osteoarthritis. This is because the knee’s key muscular supports are the hamstrings—which run from the base of the pelvis down the back of the leg to just below the knee—and the quadriceps, the four muscles on the front of the thigh that (among other things) extend a bent leg. At the first sign of the disease, doctors often instruct their patients to build muscle tone and develop flexibility in the legs so as to delay cartilage deterioration and subdue pain.

But the findings of a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in April 2003 indicate that in some cases, building leg strength doesn’t slow the disease’s progression—in fact, it hastens it. Researchers tested 230 volunteers with osteoarthritis of the knee for quadriceps strength and knee alignment, and then retested them 18 months later. The results surprised the medical community: Many volunteers with strong quads also showed rapid cartilage deterioration. But there was a catch—many of those who had strong quads and experienced a rapid progression of the disease also had misaligned kneecaps, a small but significant impairment that intensifies pressure on the cartilage.

You don’t even have to suffer from osteoarthritis for misalignment to cause problems in your knees. In fact, Messier says, “misalignment can cause injury and osteoarthritis over long periods of time, especially if you have stronger muscles that are directing the forces improperly.” If the muscular contraction between the two sides of the knee isn’t balanced, the knee rotates as it bends, which makes the joint pull toward the stronger muscle. Over time, this wears down one meniscus faster than the other and eventually damages the bone the cartilage protects.

While the study points to the problems created by building uneven leg strength, Messier is concerned that its findings will be misinterpreted. “The last thing we want to do is discourage people from getting stronger,” he says. What the study actually highlights is the importance of evenly building the leg muscles to keep the joint properly aligned—a task for which yoga is perfect.

One of the Best Antidotes

Whether you’re out to guard against injury and disease or regain strength and flexibility after an injury, yoga can be a superb antidote to knee trouble. “Yoga is fantastic for the knees, especially for people recovering from damaged ligaments,” says Michael Salveson, who has worked on dozens of yoga students during his 33-year tenure as a Rolfer in Berkeley, California. “Yoga increases the stabilizing action of the leg’s big muscles.” When the inner and outer quadriceps are equally strong, he adds, they exert an equal pull on the ligaments, which keeps the kneecap in alignment.

Sandy Blaine is a good example. As a teenager, she enjoyed dance and gymnastics. By her early 20s, she’d dislocated both knees on several occasions. Searching for a low-impact way to stabilize her joints, Blaine tried Iyengar Yoga when she was 26. She was initially surprised by the discipline’s difficulty, yet what impressed her more was how remarkably good she felt afterward. Within six months of attending two to three Iyengar classes a week, Blaine found that her knee pain had vanished. Today, at 42, she still sounds as if she can’t believe her knees are pain-free, calling the result “an absolute miracle.”

yoga timers and meditation chime timers - Boulder, CO

“I was looking at a lifetime of being very constrained,” says Blaine, who is now an instructor at the Yoga Room in Berkeley and regularly conducts workshops on yoga and knee health. Regaining healthy knees “was an incredible relief,” she adds.

To evenly engage the leg muscles, Blaine does Utkatasana (Chair Pose) with her back against a wall. She focuses on lifting her toes and pressing down evenly through all four corners of her feet. Otherwise, the outer quadriceps do all the work and old patterns are reinforced, she explains. Another way Blaine works on equalizing muscle use is by balancing on one foot with her eyes closed. “Without the orientation of the eyes, your feet and ankles have to find a true alignment to come into balance,” she says.

Robust ligaments are also essential for healthy knees. Less elastic than muscles and tendons, ligaments can give a little and bounce back to their original shape. But trouble brews when they stretch too far: Like a rubber band that’s lost its snap, they lose their shape, leaving the joint loose. Salveson, who is also an instructor at the Rolf Institute in Boulder, Colorado, compares the microtears a ligament sustains in an injury to frays in a rope; when a few strands snap, the rope lengthens. After a torn ligament heals, one side may always be a little longer and, therefore, more susceptible to reinjury. “You can make it stronger,” he says, “but you can’t make it shorter.”

Knee experts are actually divided about whether ligaments can be strengthened. “We know that you can increase muscle and bone strength,” says Angela Smith, M.D., a clinical associate professor of orthopedic surgery at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. “Intuitively, we think that the other structures of the knee—ligaments and tendons—get stronger as well.”

Blane, for one, is convinced that years of Iyengar Yoga have toned her knee ligaments. “At first, my feet, ankles, and knees were so weak that the standing poses were sheer torture,” she says. “My ligaments and muscles were strong on the outer leg and weak on the inner leg, which pulled the knee joint to the side. Yoga helped me strengthen those weak areas. It taught me how not to go with the path of least resistance.” Her ligaments used to be so weak that she once dislocated her kneecap tripping on a curb. But since committing herself to a regular yoga practice, she hasn’t suffered a knee injury in years.

2 Start with your feet. Proper alignment through the feet is the key to building strength evenly in the ligaments on both sides of the knee; when all the ligaments are equally strong, the kneecap glides effortlessly up and down and the cartilage doesn’t get worn down. Separate your toes and press actively through the four corners of your feet in every pose, even inversions. If your feet are out of alignment, your knees are going to suffer.

3 Keep your knees in line. When moving into deep knee bends, such as Virabhadrasana II (Warrior Pose II) and Parsvakonasana (Side Angle Pose), first align your bent knee over your ankle, then draw your kneecap in line with your second toe. Maintain awareness in your back foot, pressing down evenly, while lifting up from the arch of your front foot. “If you let the arch drop, the knee falls inside the big toe, and you’re set up to suffer a number of different kinds of overuse and acute knee injuries,” says Angela Smith, a professor of orthopedic surgery.

4 Tune in to subtle signals. “Oftentimes, the knees don’t give immediate feedback,” explains Iyengar teacher Joni Yecalsik. “Only later do you realize you’ve gone too far. When it comes to the knees, the sensation that would normally proceed the red flag is the red flag.” If you feel achiness when you come out of a bent-knee pose, you may have worked too hard.

5 Build strength by balancing. Balancing poses, especially those that require moving through a bent standing leg, such as Garudasana (Eagle Pose), are especially beneficial. “Very dynamic balancing protects the knee against future injury by training the functional alignment, not just working the muscle,” Smith says.

6 Be prop-friendly. When it comes to seated asanas, nothing makes a tight knee happier than a bounty of props. In Virasana (Hero Pose), try raising your seat with blankets or a block. Anytime the knees are deeply bent, such as in Balasana (Child’s Pose) or Marichyasana III (Pose Dedicated to the Sage Marichi III), pressure can be relieved by placing a rolled-up washcloth as far into the knee pit as possible before bending the joint.

7 Warm up with hip openers. “If your big joints aren’t open, your small joints will always take the stress,” yoga instructor Sandy Blaine says. “Many people hurt their knees doing Lotus when their hips aren’t ready.” She recommends warming up with hip stretches like Baddha Konasana (Bound Angle Pose) and Gomukhasana (Cow Face Pose).

—C.G.

adapted from Yoga Journal by Catherine Guthrie, a writer and yoga teacher in Louisville, Kentucky, and a regular contributor to Yoga Journal.

Using a kitchen timer or beeper watch is less than ideal to use in your yoga practice.  And it was with these considerations in mind that we designed our digital Zen Alarm Clock and yoga practice timer.  This unique “Zen Clock” features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings the meditation session or yoga practice to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal.  The Digital Zen Clock can be programmed to chime at the end of the meditation session or periodically throughout the session as a kind of sonic yantra. The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you “make time” for meditation in your life.

Yoga Timer and Clock by The Maker's of The Zen Alarm Clock - Boulder, CO

Our Chime Yoga Timer serves as a countdown and interval timer for yoga, meditation, bodywork, etc.; and it can also be set to chime on the hour as a tool for “mindfulness.”

yoga and meditation timers with Tibetan Bowl Gong

Now & Zen’s Clock and Yoga Timer Shop

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383