Come learn the unique benefits of Yoga for the Special Child! Until the end of 2015, we are offering 2 free Yoga for the Special Child sessions to new clients.
Yoga for the Special Child is gentle and therapeutic for babies and children with a range of diagnoses: Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, Microcephaly, Autism, ADHD, developmental disabilities and learning disabilities.
Contact our office today to take advantage of this special offer!
Blood tests before and after the trial showed that, after three months of yoga practice, all three markers for inflammation were lower by 10 to 15 percent. That part of the study offered some rare biological evidence of the benefits of yoga in a large trial that went beyond people’s own reports of how they feel.
Read the full article here.
Don’t forget to register! See our flyer for course information and how to register.
A meditation study led by Harvard affiliated researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital shows that meditation can change the parts of the brain associated with memory, sense of self, empathy, and stress.
“Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day,” says study senior author Sara Lazar of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program and a Harvard Medical School instructor in psychology. “This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing.”
New research has come out showing the great importance of the vagus nerve on health. The vagus nerve starts in the brain stem and travels down the sides of the neck to the rest of the body. ‘Vagus’ is Latin for wandering, and this nerve, which is made of thousands and thousands of fibers, wanders throughout the whole body, connecting the brain with the organs and a range of other nerves.
Operating far below the level of our conscious minds, the vagus nerve is vital for keeping our bodies healthy. It is an essential part of the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for calming organs after the stressed ‘fight-or-flight’ adrenaline response to danger. Not all vagus nerves are the same, however: some people have stronger vagus activity, which means their bodies can relax faster after a stress.
The strength of your vagus response is known as your vagal tone and it can be determined by using an electrocardiogram to measure heart rate. Every time you breathe in, your heart beats faster in order to speed the flow of oxygenated blood around your body. Breathe out and your heart rate slows. This variability is one of many things regulated by the vagus nerve, which is active when you breathe out but suppressed when you breathe in, so the bigger your difference in heart rate when breathing in and out, the higher your vagal tone.
Research shows that a high vagal tone makes your body better at regulating blood glucose levels, reducing the likelihood of diabetes, stroke and cardiovascular disease. Low vagal tone, however, has been associated with chronic inflammation. As part of the immune system, inflammation has a useful role helping the body to heal after an injury, for example, but it can damage organs and blood vessels if it persists when it is not needed. One of the vagus nerve’s jobs is to reset the immune system and switch off production of proteins that fuel inflammation.
Neurologists have found that stimulating the vagus nerve with electric currents can reduce inflammation in the body, and can be used to treat chronic inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. Meditation can also be used to improve vagal tone. In one experiment, half of the participants were shown meditation techniques to promote greater feelings of goodwill. Those who meditated were found to have a significant rise in vagal tone compared to those who did not. This article on the Bulletproof website offers more ways to ‘hack’ your vagal tone.
To learn more about this fascinating system, please read the article, Hacking the nervous system‘ by Gaia Vince.
The Yoga for the Special Child® Basic Part 1 Course will be held at Solaris Pediatric Therapy in Houston, TX from November 1-7, 2015. Kathy Randolph is leading the course and Solaris’s Yulene Broussard is the program coordinator. This comprehensive training course delves into the theory and practice of Yoga therapy for babies and children with learning and/or developmental disabilities from 0 to 12 years. This course is open to Yoga therapists, instructors and students, health care practitioners, and families of special children. The comprehensive workbook, Yoga for the Special Child®, is provided to participants. It is important to understand the medical contraindications to certain asanas, so please do not try to copy the work of Yoga for the Special Child® without proper instruction. If you are interested in attending this course please fill out the form below and we will send you the registration packet.
Please welcome our new yoga instructor, Annette Raj! Annette has practiced and taught Iyengar yoga for the past 15 years and recently completed the Basic Yoga for the Special Child certification, a long-time goal of hers. Before dedicating her life to Yoga, Annette was a school psychologist. We are so happy to have Annette join the Solaris family! We are accepting yoga bookings so please call the office on 832-727-3771 if you are interested.
