By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
That is, the solution to my hypertension or high blood pressure. Since my undergrad days, starting from the 2nd semester of 1976, I always got this comment during enrollment from the doctors or nurses attending to my medical examination in the university: “Pwede pang uminom.” (You can still drink alcoholic beverages). They meant that my blood pressure then was “very normal.”
What was the difference between then and now? My age of course. And I was strict then with my yoga practice—meditation and yoga poses or exercise. But as one yoga teacher said, yoga exercises is a misnomer. It should be yoga innercises because the effects are more on the internal organs, particularly the endocrine glands.
Being strict in that practice meant meditation twice a day, and doing the innercises once. Even when I became a lawyer I was still relatively strict. When did I become lax with my discipline and practice? When we put up this paper. Having two more-than-full-time jobs was too much. One thing led to another and then my practice became spotty.
Then the high blood pressure as I said last week. I found out that going back to doing regular meditation and the yoga poses solved the problem. And I am now more disciplined in my food intake so a lower body weight should not be far behind.
Here are the yoga poses I do every morning and the benefits from doing them. Actually the benefits are a lot more but let us just enumerate some which were lifted from the site of Yoga Journal or from the Yoga Magazine.
(1) Knees-to-chest pose (apanasana) as lifted from the internet site of the Yoga Magazine, is the body’s elimination and purification energy, which helps the body to efficiently reduce and expel waste, toxins, and tension; balances digestion and bowel moments; helps in creation of a limber lower back; and good for those with IBS or menstrual cramps. From another source, it is good in lowering high blood pressure.
(2) Posterior stretch calms the brain and helps relieve stress and mild depression; stretches the spine, shoulders, hamstrings stimulates the liver, kidneys, ovaries, and uterus; improves digestion; helps relieve the symptoms of menopause and menstrual discomfort; soothes headache and anxiety and reduces fatigue; therapeutic for high blood pressure, infertility, insomnia, and sinusitis; and increases appetite, reduces obesity.
(3) Shoulder stand calms the brain and helps relieve stress and mild depression; stimulates the thyroid and prostate glands and abdominal organs; stretches the shoulders and neck; tones the legs and buttocks; improves digestion; helps relieve the symptoms of menopause; reduces fatigue and alleviates insomnia; and therapeutic for asthma, infertility, and sinusitis.
(4) Fish pose mobilizes and strengthens the upper back and neck; strengthens the quadriceps; opens the shoulders in extension; and stretches the chest.
To repeat there is a lot more to the benefits and on how to do the poses. Email me (zigzagweekly@gmail.com) for more info especially on how to do the poses—some of the descriptions in the internet are wrong or just sketchy at best.
Practice makes perfect. As an assurance, after just about three weeks, even me who should be wearing a maternity dress due to overweight can now do the poses again in a passable way.
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