As March comes brings spring, warmth, flowers and many more things including pollen. Following is about 20 minutes yoga workout for better health and allergy free spring.

1. Yoga Stomach Grind:
2. Guided Instructions for Yoga Stomach Grind:

• Sit up with your legs crossed.
• Hold onto your on your knees.
• Grind your stomach in a big circle counter clockwise for half the time of the exercise. Visualize drawing a big circle with your naval.
• Switch after half the time and grind your stomach clockwise.

1. Duration for Yoga Stomach Grind: 2 minutes
2. Benefits of Yoga Stomach Grind:

• Excellent yoga exercise for your digestive system as it gives all your important digestive organs a massage, forcing out toxins and waste into the elimination systems of the body.
• Works on the ileocecal valve insuring the proper direction for the flow of nutrients and waste.
• Warms up and loosens the lumbar area of the back.

1. Practice Tips for Yoga Stomach Grind:

Make sure you are not just leaning forward and back from the waist. You have to arch your lower back forward and back as you make the circle.

 Spine Flex Yoga Exercise: (also called Yoga Camel Ride)

2. Guided Instructions for Spine Flex Yoga Exercise:

• Sit up on your heels and rest your hands on your knees (rock pose).
• Inhale and arch your back forward pushing your sternum out. Exhale and bring your sternum in, arching your back out.
• Continue at a comfortable pace and rhythm.

1. Duration for Spine Flex Yoga Exercise: 2 minutes
2. Benefits of Spine Flex Yoga Exercise:

• Stretches the middle back and spine.
• Opens up the solar plexus promoting better flow of energy between the lower and higher centers of the body.
• Improved emotional balance.

1. Practice Tips for Spine Flex Yoga Exercise:

If you have hard time sitting on your heels you can place a small cushion under your feet/ankles for added comfort.

3. Cat-Cow Yoga Exercise:
4. Guided Instructions for Cat-Cow Yoga Exercise:

• Come onto your hands and knees, placing your hands shoulder width apart and knees hip distance apart.

–Inhale as you arch your back by pushing your stomach down and bringing your head up. Open your eyes and look upward. This is cow pose.

• Now, while exhaling, arch your back up by pushing your stomach up and bringing your head down (like a cat).
• Continue at a comfortable pace and rhythm going between the 2 poses.

1. Duration for Cat-Cow Yoga Exercise: 2 minutes.
2. Benefits of Cat-Cow Yoga Exercise:

• Works on stretching your entire spine and strengthens all the nerve junctions that lie along the spinal cord.
• Give your entire system a glandular tune-up.
• Improves your eyesight and works on the optical nerve.

1. Practice Tips for Cat-Cow Yoga Exercise:

Make sure, you are not rocking back and forth; just your spine (and head) are moving.

4. Yoga Twist:
5. Guided Instructions for Yoga Twist:

• Sit up with your legs crossed.
• Hold your shoulders with your fingers in front and thumb in back.

Your elbows should be parallel to the ground and at shoulder level.

— Inhale as you twist to the left; exhale as you twist to the right. Your head moves with your torso.

1. Duration for Yoga Twist: 2 minutes.
2. Benefits of Yoga Twist:

• Promotes flexibility in the entire back.
• Massages the inner organs.

1. Practice Tips for Yoga twist:

The motion should be continuous and keep the pace at a level you are comfortable with. Slow down if you start to feel dizzy.

5. Yoga Neck Rolls:
6. Guided Instructions for Yoga Neck Rolls:

• Sit up with your legs crossed.
• Open your mouth as if in a half yawn.
• Roll your neck in a big circle going in one direction for half the time and then switch directions for the rest of the time.

1. Duration for Yoga Neck Rolls: 2 minutes.
2. Benefits of Yoga Neck Rolls:

• Releases tension in the neck and shoulders.
• Promotes better blood flow to the brain and higher centers.

1. Practice Tips for Yoga Neck Rolls:

• Spend additional time working on areas, which feel particularly tight or knotted.

Take rest for 3 minutes and after that start with following.

 Yoga Boat Pose

1. Instructions for Yoga Boat Pose for Rock Solid Abs:

• Lie flat on your back.
• Have your arms straight out to the sides with your palms facing in. Keep your legs together and straight out as well with your toes pointing forward.
• Now bring your legs and torso up such that you are balancing on your sacrum. Keep your eyes focused on your toes; this will help you keep your balance. You are forming a V shape, with your legs and torso.

 Breath: you may do with normal breathing or may inhale and hold breath during the pose and exhale as you release the pose.

1. Duration for Yoga Boat Pose:

• 30 seconds – May go up to 11 minutes.
• Take a break for 1 minute and then come into the pose again once you are ready. Do 3 reps (3 times), with breaks in between.

Benefits of Yoga Boat Pose:

• Builds your Navel Center and firms and tones your abdominal muscles.
• Activates and balances the Manipura Chakra.
• Develops core energy and vitality.
• Develops focus and balance.

1. Practice Tips for Yoga Boat Pose:

• To modify the exercise hold on to your knees or thighs. This is a good way for beginners to start.
• Keeping a steady gaze upon your toes will go a long way in helping you keep your balance.

Cobra Push-ups for Upper Body Fitness 

Cobra Push-Ups:

1. Instructions for practicing Cobra Push Ups:

You are lying flat on your stomach with your hands near your shoulders.

• Now come up into cobra pose and inhale deeply as you do so that is raise your upper body and torso up off the ground. The upper thighs should remain on the floor. You back should arch up.
• Turn your head and look, upwards. Stretching your neck.
• Next exhale as you bring yourself up into Plank Pose that is raise your body with the help of hands and toe. For plank pose be sure to keep your body in a straight line; don’t allow the butt to sag and the hands should be directly underneath the shoulders.
• Then lower yourself back down to initial position inhale as you go down. Finally, exhale in this down position and then repeat by coming back into Cobra pose and inhaling deeply.
• Duration for Cobra Push-ups:
• 15 seconds – 7 minutes. Do 30 seconds, then take a break in the down position, and then start again and do 30 seconds more. Keep up this pattern; and do 5 reps.
• Benefits of Cobra Push-ups:
• Excellent yoga exercise for upper body fitness. Good for chest, arms and shoulders.
• Good for training your back and abdominal muscles as well.
• Good for your digestive system and nervous system.

Pranayama – Breathing exercise:

Kapalbhati Yoga Pranayama (Kapal Bhati Breathing Exercise):

To practice this breathing exercise sit up in a comfortable position, cross-legged is best.

• Elongate your spine upwards, lengthen your neck and subtly bring your chin back and in like a soldier at attention. This will align the spine with the back of your head.
• Close your eyes.
• Have your hands in Gyan Mudra. In Gyan Mudra have your thumb tips and index finger meeting, with the wrists resting gently on the knees and the palms turned slightly upwards. Or you may keep your palm open facing upward resting on your thigh.
• Relax your stomach muscles.
• Now expel the air as forcefully as you are comfortable with through the nose. This should cause the abdominal muscles to contract sharply and should draw the abdomen inwards towards the spine (like when you suck in your stomach). Then allow the inhalation to occur completely passively without any additional effort. To repeat, the exhalation is done using conscious sharp force, while the inhalation is just a recoil action bringing the air back into the lungs. All the breathing takes place through the nose. Right after the passive inhalation, exhale again forcefully and continue at a steady rhythm.
• Do a round of 10 repetitions.
• Work your way up to doing 3 rounds, while taking a break between each round.

 Anuloma Viloma – alternate nostril breathing.

 To practice this breathing exercise sits up in a comfortable position. Preferably in a variation of sukh asana (cross legged).

• Elongate your spine upwards, lengthen your neck and subtly bring your chin back and in like a soldier at attention. This will align the spine with the back of your head.
• Fold your index finger and middle finger into the palm of your right hand so just the thumb, ring finger and pinkie are extended. Hold your knee with your left hand.
• Close your eyes.
• Bring your attention to your breathing and take 5 deep, slow breaths though the nose. This will oxygenate your blood and relax you. For the rest of the exercise the attention should remain on your breath.
• Now with your right thumb gently close the right nostril and breathe in slowly and completely through the left nostril only counting mentally from 1 to 4 or 6.
• Now gently close the left nostril with your right ring finger and pinkie and releasing the right nostril breathe out through it only, counting mentally from 1 to 4 or 6.
• Now breathe in through the right nostril only, keeping the left closed, counting mentally from 1 to 4 or 6.

Finally, re-close the right nostril and breathe out through the left only, counting mentally from 1 to 4 or 6. This completes 1 cycle of Anuloma Viloma Pranayama.

• Start with 5 rounds a day and start to add 1 additional round as you make progress. Also, start to add to the count, based on your level of comfort, by 1 for both the inhalation portion and exhalation portion till you reach a count of 12 for each phase.

Fitness Yoga Section 4: Rejuvenation and Assimilation

• Corpse Pose:

Once you have completed the Yoga Set for Full Body Fitness and breathing exercise make sure you relax on your back in corpse pose. For corpse pose just lie comfortably on your back and have your hands out to the sides or on your chest. Just let go during this time and let the Universe take care of you. Have no worries, anxieties or goals, and simply surrender to Infinity.

• Duration: 5 minutes.
• Breath: Relaxed