in mind the meaning of the name as you practice: Easy Pose.
•Since it’s so important to be comfortable in this position, make whatever modifications you need to feel steady, safe, and supported in the pose. Here are some suggestions:
•If your hips are tight, do not sit flat on the floor! Prop yourself up on a blanket, two blankets, a bolster, a block, or a meditation pillow. Lifting your hips above the level of your knees will greatly reduce stress and discomfort in your hips, knees, and back. It’ll also open your groins even further and bring your spine into correct alignment, which will help you to stay in the position for much longer periods.
•Experiment with various heights of support to find the one that is most appropriate for you.
•For those with extremely tight hips, practice the pose seated in a chair.
•Leaving one foot flat on the floor, cross the opposite ankle over the knee of the grounded foot. Hold the pose for a minute, then repeat on the opposite side.
•For more back support, sit with your back against a wall. Another variation is to place a yoga block between the wall and your shoulder blades.
•If you’re practicing a mudra as part of your meditation, you can bring your hands into the correct position instead of resting them on your thighs.
•This pose is very similar to Accomplished Pose, Sidhasana.
Benefits of Sukhasana (the Easy Sitting Pose)
•Sukhasana strengthens the back and stretches the knees and ankles. It also opens the hips, groin, and outer thigh muscles (abductors). Sitting upright with your spine aligned also reduces stress and anxiety. It calms the mind and is known to be therapeutic for stress.
•Sukhasana is the most suited sitting posture for beginners. It’s good for practice of meditation and Pranayama. Those who have tight hips cannot sit in advanced postures like Padmasana. For them Sukhasana is the easiest alternative.
•Once you’re comfortable with Sukhasana, you should move on to more advanced sitting postures like Ardha Padmasana, Padmasana or Sidhasana for meditation. If you’re meditating for less than 30 minutes per session, Sukhasana may be sufficient. But to hold the body steady for longer durations, one needs to adopt more advanced sitting postures.
Tips
Practicing Sukhasana in correct alignment will automatically begin to calm your mind and senses. Keep the following information in mind when practicing this pose:
•Keep your pelvis in a neutral position, balancing equally on both sit bones. To find neutral position, gently rock forward and back, and shift your hips side-to-side once you’re in the pose. Once you’re neutral, your pubic bone and tailbone should both be the same distance from the floor and both sit bones should have an even distribution of weight.
•Be sure to change the cross of your legs, not favoring one side or the other. Hold the pose for the same length of time on each side
•Let your legs cross naturally – there’s no real ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way for them to cross. In this regard, Sukhasana is slightly different from other seated cross-legged positions, such as Perfect Pose (Sidhasana) or Lotus Pose (Padmasana), which require a more precise foot placement. As long as there’s a comfortable gap between your feet and pelvis and the pose feels ‘easy,’ it is Easy Pose.
•Sukhasana is a simple and basic pose to come into at any time. Whenever you need to find peace, simply bring yourself to the ground and sit quietly. As you slow your breath, your mind will begin to calm down. Regularly integrate Easy Pose into your practice and into your daily life – you may notice serenity and ease flowing through all areas of your life!
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The asanas usually start with breathing slowly and deeply, concentrating your mind, and making yourself centered. Remember that your body movements and breathing must be coordinated until such time that they are one and the same.
Your breathing will be your guide on when to start or stop the yoga exercise. You must continuously come into a pose, hold it, and come out of it with gracefulness. These yoga exercises will help you to completely improve the state of your mind and body.
Neck Exercises
Many people hold tension in their necks and shoulders, leading to stiffness, bad posture, and tension headaches. Yoga practice can ease tension, increase flexibility, and tone the muscles.
Yoga for Eyes: Improve Eyesight Naturally
Like any other muscles, the eye muscles also need exercise to be healthy and strong. By moving the eyes in every direction, without turning your head at all, these Yoga Eye Exercises will strengthen the eye muscles, help prevent eyestrain, and improve eyesight.
Yoga provides a series of eye exercises that improves the functioning of the eyes and helps to overcome various eye-related problems, such as:
•Myopia or short sightedness,
•Hypermetropia or long sightedness, and
•Various other eye-related disorders.
In the older days, our descendants get to see a horizon of blue sky and unlimited peripheral vision. Today, we are blocked by high-rise buildings and live in small spaces that limit our chances to use our distance vision. And, we spent most of our time doing close up work and staring at the 15-inch computer screen that further limits our eye movement and creates a lot of near-point stress.
Presently, about 35 % of the world population suffers from myopia and hypermetropia. These refractive errors of the eye are typically corrected using glasses and lenses; however, glasses never cure bad eyesight. In fact, they can worsen eye problems. So, glasses should only be worn when absolutely necessary.
Apart from a few diseases such as cataract and glaucoma that occur due to bacterial infections, many eye illnesses are related to the malfunctioning of the ocular muscles caused by chronic mental and emotional tensions. Yoga techniques help to improve various conditions related to defects in the eye muscles such as myopia and hypermetropia.
When people depend on glasses, their eyes become lazy which eventually leads to weakening in accommodation ability and their eye muscles. This eye yoga exercise rectifies that.
Eye yoga exercises had existed for centuries and helped many people regain back their natural eyesight. They are easy to do and can be done anywhere and anytime. It helps us to use our eyes to their fullest capability.
Eye yoga exercises aim to return our eyes to its natural state. Eye exercises let you learn how to maintain optimal eye health such as avoiding eyestrain and excessive near-point stress; and keeping the eye moist. These are probably the biggest factors in causing bad eyesight.
Yoga practitioners emphasize on eye exercises, for these two reasons:
•A lot of eye problems in later life are due to a loss of tone in the eye muscles. These muscles become rigid, which reduces the ability of the lens of the eye to focus at different distances, and causes the eyesight to become weaker. Yoga exercises tone the eye muscles up and keep them elastic. If you already have eye problems when you begin these exercises, you will find your eyesight improving after a few months.
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