Pelvic Liberation


Book Description

Pelvic Liberation includes detailed explanations of key yoga postures and breathing practices designed to awaken and heal the female pelvis, a system that Leslie calls Pelvic Floor Yoga. In addition to explaining practical yoga techniques that will heal body and mind, Pelvic Liberation will take you through eye-opening reflections to help you overcome cultural and historical influences that have impaired every woman's health. Leslie brings thoughtfulness, a dash of humor, and a therapeutic focus to a subject that can be difficult and overwhelming. This book is a shout-out to normalize the conversation about pelvic health and improve a woman's knowledge and awareness of her pelvis. Every woman, yoga instructor, and women's health professional will benefit from this richly informative book.




Bodies of Knowledge


Book Description

Throughout the 1970s & 1980s, women argued that unless they gained information about their own bodies, there would be no equality. Wendy Kline considers the ways in which ordinary women worked to position the female body at the centre of women's liberation.




Yoga Myths


Book Description

The essential guide to correcting yoga misconceptions and avoiding injuries in your practice from Judith Hanson Lasater, a yoga instructor, physical therapist, and bodywork expert. "Tuck your tailbone to protect your back." "Increase your breath." "Pull your abdominal muscles into your backbone." Following these movement cues is often believed to benefit your yoga practice and protect your body when entering and holding poses. However, what may seem like a helpful correction can actually lead to injury or physical harm. In Yoga Myths, Judith Hanson Lasater draws on almost fifty years of experience as a yoga instructor and physical therapist to address the most common mistakes in our yoga practice and provide clear instructions for correcting these errors. Focusing on the eleven "myths" most detrimental to our practice, Lasater provides a comprehensive discussion of what the myth is, why it can hurt us, and how we can avoid it through step-by-step instructions and guiding photos. This book will allow you to return to the inherent wisdom, natural goodness, and spiritual wholeness of yoga and avoid life altering injuries for as long as you practice.




Meditation As Medicine


Book Description

Dr. Dharma Singh Khalsa “shows us how the tremendous power of medical meditation can heal not only the body but also the mind and soul” (Deepak Chopra) in this practical and engaging guide to natural healing. Proven effective by scientific research and presented here by Dr. Dharma Singh Khalsa and Cameron Stauth, the practice of Medical Meditation revolutionizes the healing process. By balancing and regenerating the body's ethereal and physical energies through simple meditations, Medical Meditation unites the mind, body, and spirit into a powerful triad. Each Medical Meditation here has a specific physiological effect, targeting afflictions from arthritis to ulcers to cancer. Dr. Khalsa details the five unique attributes that endow this type of meditation with far more power than standard meditation. The combination of special postures and movements; exact positioning of the hands and fingers; particular mantras; specific breathing patterns; and a unique focus of concentration can change your entire biochemical profile, easing you into a calm, healing state. Practiced in conjunction with conventional or alternative medical treatments, cutting-edge Medical Meditation activates the healing force within you.




Integrative Sexual Health


Book Description

Integrative Sexual Health explores beyond the standard topics in men's and women's health, drawing on a diverse research literature to provide an overview of sexual biology and sexual dysfunction, diverse lifespan, lifestyle and environmental impacts on sexual function, integrative medicine solutions to sexual problems, and traditional eastern and western treatment approaches to healing sexual difficulties. This comprehensive guide written by experts in the field provides clinical vignettes, detailed treatment strategies for mitigating the side effects of both medications and sexual dysfunction associated with medical illness and poor lifestyle habits, and extensive further reading resources. Integrative treatment modalities not typically consulted in mainstream medicine, such as traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, aromatherapy, and botanical medicine, are presented with the best evidence, in a clinically relevant manner. Part of the Weil Integrative Medicine Library, this volume is a must read for the specialist and non-specialist alike who wish to address sexual problems using an integrative medicine approach, and acquire tools to maintain lifetime optimal health and vitality that supports healthy sexuality. Integrative medicine is defined as healing-oriented medicine that takes account of the whole person (body, mind, and spirit) as well as all aspects of lifestyle; it emphasizes the therapeutic relationship and makes use of appropriate therapies, both conventional and alternative. Series editor Andrew Weil, MD, is Professor and Director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. Dr. Weil's program was the first such academic program in the U.S., and its stated goal is "to combine the best ideas and practices of conventional and alternative medicine into cost effective treatments without embracing alternative practices uncritically."




Weight-Resistance Yoga


Book Description

Transform strength training into a mindful, meditative practice • Explains how to induce a calm, meditative state through the movements, breathing, and focus of strength-training exercises • Contains illustrated instructions for 26 exercises to safely strengthen the neck, shoulders, arms, hips, knees, ankles, and torso • Offers themed meditations on the embodied experience of the exercises to facilitate a mindful state during your session • The perfect complement to a yoga flexibility practice Applying the wisdom of hatha yoga to weight-lifting exercises, Weight-Resistance Yoga reveals how to transform a strength-training session into a mindful, calm, and meditative yoga practice. Through 26 fully illustrated weight-resistance exercises using machines, free weights, and the body itself--along with an emphasis on coordinated rhythmic breathing, stability, stillness, and full absorption in the body’s movements against resistance--fitness trainer Max Popov explains how to access the tranquility that dwells within each of us while safely, effectively, and efficiently strengthening your neck, shoulders, arms, torso, hips, knees, and ankles. To support the meditative state of this practice, the author includes 20 themed meditations on the embodied experience of the exercises. The perfect complement to yoga flexibility practice, weight-resistance yoga allows you to fully inhabit your body, empty your mind of everyday preoccupations, and fill your soul with comprehensions of deeper realities, providing strength, calm, and spiritual illumination through your physical fitness work.




Pelvic Yoga Therapy for the Whole Woman


Book Description

Focusing on women's pelvic health through yoga therapy, this evidence-based resource covers the intersections of biomechanics, self-study through yoga philosophy, emotional resilience, pain science and dynamic strategies for pelvic embodiment. Integrating pedagogical frameworks that differentiate yoga therapy from pelvic floor physical therapy, the book demonstrates how they can work together by including somatic education and case studies. It also covers breath patterns, mental constructs and conditioning, and baseline body awareness - taking the practitioner through the journey of self-assessment, building the therapeutic relationship and ongoing embodied practice. Looking at the individual rather than pelvic health as a sole diagnosis, Yoga Therapy for the Whole Woman is an invaluable guide for yoga teachers, yoga therapists, movement and fitness professionals and healthcare professionals working with women with pelvic floor challenges.




Yoga for Pelvic Floor and Postpartum Health


Book Description

The first comprehensive anatomy and yoga practice manual for postpartum pelvic healing—a gender-inclusive guide to poses, practices, and exercises for pelvic-floor, pain, dysfunction, and recovery Includes full-color photos, 7 weeks of yoga sequences, and an individualized step-by-step guided self-assessment Pelvic floor pain, injury, and dysfunction are incredibly common among postpartum people—but despite the critical importance of ongoing pelvic support and recovery post-birth, most doctors, physical therapists, and healing professionals simply aren’t equipped to offer helpful, personalized advice to ease postpartum symptoms like postpartum pain, discomfort, urinary incontinence, and painful intercourse. Rebecca Weisman (CIYT, CYT) and Meagen Satinsky (MPT, PYT) offer the first comprehensive anatomy and yoga practice manual geared toward healing postpartum pelvic issues. With full-color images, accessible tools, and step-by-step poses and breathwork exercises, Yoga for Pelvic Floor and Postpartum Health empowers readers to get to know this vital part of their own body—and reclaim agency in caring for their own postpartum recovery, postural support, organ health, and sexual function. Part 1: Anatomy reviews the anatomy of the pelvis and surrounding regions, with a special emphasis on helping you develop a deeper, more knowledgeable, and more loving connection to your own body Part 2: Sequences of Asana for Practice introduces Iyengar yoga and breathwork practices to support pelvic healing—and guides you through a flexible 7-week asana sequence that you can do on your own time and come back to again and again Part 3: Special Topics addresses specific pelvic concerns like painful intercourse, perineal tears, Cesarean delivery, pelvic organ prolapse, diastasis rectus abdominis, urinary issues, pelvic pain during menopause, low back pain, postpartum depression and anxiety, and more Yoga for Pelvic Floor and Postpartum Health is appropriate for any stage of your postpartum journey—whether you gave birth vaginally or by Cesarean, ten days, ten weeks, or ten years ago. With a guided self-assessment, full-color and 3-D layered graphics, and compassionate, expert counsel, readers can return to specific poses and sequences again and again on their pelvic healing journey.




Reproducing Race


Book Description

Reproducing Race, an ethnography of pregnancy and birth at a large New York City public hospital, explores the role of race in the medical setting. Khiara M. Bridges investigates how race—commonly seen as biological in the medical world—is socially constructed among women dependent on the public healthcare system for prenatal care and childbirth. Bridges argues that race carries powerful material consequences for these women even when it is not explicitly named, showing how they are marginalized by the practices and assumptions of the clinic staff. Deftly weaving ethnographic evidence into broader discussions of Medicaid and racial disparities in infant and maternal mortality, Bridges shines new light on the politics of healthcare for the poor, demonstrating how the "medicalization" of social problems reproduces racial stereotypes and governs the bodies of poor women of color.




Tantra Yoga Secrets


Book Description

The practice of Tantra Yoga is considered to be the highest and most rapid path to enlightenment. Master teacher Mukunda Stiles offers 18 lessons in Tantra Yoga, a practice of transformational self-healing in which we can deepen awareness of our bodies, their energy forces, and the connections to the natural world around you and those you love. While many movements today describe tantra as a sexual practice promising longer and better orgasms, increased stamina, and ecstasy, the real Tantra aims to awaken Kundalini, the dormant potential force in the human personality. The Tantra tradition includes a vast range of practical teachings leading to the expansion of human consciousness and the liberation of primal energy. By heightening their awareness to this connective energy, readers will learn to embrace and develop a higher level of intimacy, the heart of tantra. Stiles explains this intimate and life-changing practice with grace, structure, and clarity--an easy-to-follow Tantra Yoga workshop in book form. Tantra Yoga Secrets will empower readers to overcome emotions, gain new knowledge, and live a more fulfilling spiritual lifestyle.