Another cure for Backache and aching legs due to bad posture – Part six of six
Another cure for Backache and aching legs due to bad posture,
The following breathing exercise added to your daily asanas will help to strengthen weak ankles, improve flabby calves, and soothe painful or fallen arches.
The Arched Foot Breathing Exercise
1. Stand erect, with your hands on your hips. While inhaling slowly and deeply hook your left foot round the back of your right foot with the toes pressing against the ankle of your right foot.
2. At the same time rise up on the toes of your right foot and remain balanced in this position while you complete your inhalation, and hold your breath for as long as you can.
3. When the impulse to exhale appears do so and at the same time slowly lower your right heel to the floor and unhook your left foot. Both heels should reach the floor at the same time.
4. Repeat this exercise with the legs reversed.
The Arched Foot Breathing Exercise taxes your sense of balance but as in all such exercises it can be used as a valuable exercise in concentration. You will wobble about at first but gradually you will be able to remain balanced on the toes of one foot with your hands on your hips, and remain so for as long as your breath allows you. The practice of this exercise will not only improve your balance but fine down calves and ankles that may be a little too heavy for your liking.
Any exercise which tones and stretches the leg muscles and the sciatic nerve will bring relief from aching legs and so do not omit from your daily practice schedule the exercises described in the following chapter on lumbago and sciatica. And if you suffer from that most distressing and common complaint, varicose veins, nothing could be more helpful than the habitual practice of the Shoulder stand.
Also do not omit the simple, leg stretching exercise described in. Remember the basic principle regarding the relief of aching legs and feet. Put them up higher than your head for in this position your legs are not subject to the downward pull of gravity and are therefore being rested. As you lie there with your feet higher than your head try to calm your mind and still your thoughts so that this period of rest becomes a powerful exercise in mind control and mental stillness.
As a general rule people who study and practise Yoga do not worry overmuch about their looks, in fact they have a natural beauty of face and figure which comes from pure living and mental serenity. But if you suffer from bad feet and aching legs, as your condition gives way under Yoga’s gentle persuasion, you will find that your looks will improve in a surprising way.
Those wrinkles of pain, tiredness and discomfort are soon ironed away from your brow and around your eyes and your general well-being cannot but be affected by the improvement of your means of getting about from place to place. It is a constant source of concern to me that so many people neglect their legs and feet yet spend dollars and valuable time on their hair and their clothes. If you want all to be well with your world get to work now on those bad feet of yours and remember the old and wise saying,
”A man’s temper is only as good as his feet’!
Keep coming back here for not just tips on real health issues, but more on the ancient practice of Hatha Yoga, which is now widely accepted in the western world especially in the USA.
Better late than never I say “quote Gaylene Slater”
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