Mountain Views News          Saturday, November 15, 2014

9

HEALTHY LIFESTYLES

Mountain Views-News Saturday, November 15, 2014


THE JOY OF YOGA

ASANA AS PREPARATION 


In today’s culture, we see much emphasis on the physical practice 
of yoga, or asana. Some say there’s too much focus here, and we 
need to put our attention into the deeper practices of pranayama 
and meditation. This is true, however, our asana practice is 
important. It’s the gateway toward deepening our practice 
and helps prepare us for more advanced internal practices. 
It’s in the asana practice that we learn awareness, practice 
pranayama, and learn more about our own bodies. Practicing gives us the perfect, natural 
forum to generate heat and create focus. We are given many cues by the teacher during class: 
attention on the breath, point-of-focus for the gaze and posture adjustments. There is always 
direction given to “check-in” on how we’re doing. All this work is preparation for deeper practices. 
How are we to sit in the stillness of our meditation if our body is restless and the mind is busy? 
What about our sitting position for pranayama and meditation? There’s asana we use to open 
our hips and poses specific to strengthening the back to make an extended sit time possible. Not 
only does our asana practice prepare us physically for stillness, but our energetic and mind body 
receives the necessary grounding as well. It’s a wake up and warm up, igniting our inner flame. 
There’s nothing like an efficient, introspective and tapas (austerity or inner heat) 
building yoga class. Tapas, or transformative heat, enlivens and purifies us. This 
enlivenment allows our beautiful inner light to shine through. We use this experience 
as a vehicle to get still, nourish our body and mind and live in that radiant inner light. 
Cheers to Asana! P.S. It’s fun too.


Namaste,

Keely Totten

Teacher at Yoga Madre 


NEW RESEARCH, MILK DOESN’T 

DO A BODY GOOD?

We have all been told 
to drink our milk to 
build strong bones and 
reduce our chances of 
bone fractures. New 
research published 
last week in the British 
Medical Journal 
suggests that a diet 
rich in dairy products 
does not mean a lower 
risk of bone fractures. 
Instead, dairy may 
be associated with a 
higher rate of fractures 
and even death. 

 One reason 
for this is because dairy is composed of high 
levels of sugars, mainly lactose and galactose. 
These two sugars have been shown to increase 
oxidative stress and chronic inflammation in 
animal studies. 

 A research team in Sweden set out to examine 
whether high milk intake may increase oxidative 
stress, which, in turn, affects the risk of mortality 
and fractures. This study tracked over 100,000 
men and women for over 20 years. Analysis of 
the data collected showed a positive association 
between milk intake and biomarkers of oxidative 
stress and inflammation. They concluded that a 
higher consumption of milk does not lower ones 
risk of fracture and instead may be associated 
with a higher rate of death. 

 Women in this study did not benefit from 
drinking milk at all, in fact, three or more 
glasses per day was actually associated with a 
much greater risk of bone fracture. For men and 
women both, the more milk they’d consumed, 
the greater the risk of death. Milk drinkers were 
associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular 
troubles, higher blood pressure, lower high-
density lipoprotein cholesterol levels (HDL), and 
higher insulin resistance. 

 This study was extensive. It followed a lot of 
people over a long time. It definitely should tell 
us that this topic needs much more independent 
study. And from researchers not associated to 
the dairy industry.

Dr. Tina is a traditional 
naturopath and nutritionist 
at Vibrant Living 
Wellness Center


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