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Want to make your pregnancy and childbirth a healthy and easier experience? Pregnancy yoga poses can really be helpful.
Be more aware of your bodily changes and feel more connected with your little one by adding pregnancy yoga to your fitness regime. Moreover, it relieves the pregnancy pains, stretches your body, increases flexibility and reduces stress. While I have some useful suggestions here, consult your doctor or prenatal expert to know the safe pregnancy yoga poses you can opt for.
Here are some of the the commonly practiced pregnancy yoga poses and their benefits.
This asana relieves lower back pain, which is often a problem for women during pregnancy.
How to: Kneel on your hands and knees, with your knees wide apart. Align your wrists with your shoulders and knees with your hips. Centre your head in neutral position, gazing downward. Now inhale, gazing up towards the ceiling and dropping your belly towards the mat (cow-pose). Then, exhale rounding your back towards the ceiling, gazing the floor, and drawing your belly towards the spine (cat-pose). Repeat this for 5-10 breaths.
This asana strengthens your muscles in the thighs, hips, and back, and tones the knees and ankle.
How to: Stand with your feet, hip distance apart and arms by your side. Slowly start spreading your feet till they are 3.5 to 4 feet apart. Now, turn your right foot outwards at a 90 degree angle and keep your left foot slightly inward. Raise your arms outward on either side parallel to the floor. Start inhaling, and as you exhale bend your body from the hips, to the right placing your hand on the right shin. Bend till the line of your arms form 90-degrees with the floor and stretch as much as you can. Hold the position for several seconds while breathing in and out.
There are many kinds of side stretches in Yoga, but this one of the simpler ones that helps to stretch your waist, pelvis as well as the hips, all of which can help during delivery.
How to: Sitting in a cross-legged position, place your right palm on the floor near your right hip. Start inhaling while raising your left arm out to the side and up above your head. Then, exhale and bend towards right. Slide your right hand across the floor as you bend and stay bent for 6-8 breaths. Return to upright position as you inhale.
This asana calms the brain, reducing stress and fatigue.
How to: Kneel on the ground, your big toes touching, and with the top of the feet against the floor. Widen your knees hip-width apart while pressing your hips back towards your heels. Slowly bring your chest towards the mat, aligning your body between your legs and rest your forehead on the mat. Lay your arms alongside with palms facing up. Inhale and hold the position for 5-to-10 breaths.
This is a pregnancy yoga pose for all trimesters to perfects your posture, prevent neck strain and headaches.
How to: Spread your feet hip- width apart, toes pointed straight ahead and knees slightly bent. Bring your hands across the chest, palms joined near your heart. Inhale as you stretch your arms out and overhead, while bending back slightly. Exhale and stand upright, returning your hands to the heart-centre. Repeat for 10 full breaths.
Practice these poses to stay fit and relaxed during your pregnancy.
An engineer by profession but a writer at heart, I try to seek happiness through my writing. I am an avid reader, a blogger, and I like to write about books and my reflections on read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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