BellaOnline Forums Health and Fitness Yoga Yoga for Stress Relief DVD

A few days ago I got my DVD order for Barbara Benagh: Yoga for Stress Relief.

The DVD shows the same lovely beach in Half Moon Bay, but in this one, there is also very soft, gentle guitar in the background. You can barely hear it and it does not drown out the sound of the waves. so that is nicely done.

Barbara also has a rather longish interview where she talks about modern life being overloaded, and how yoga will help slow things down. And about how hard it is to slow down at first. LOL! Tell me about it!

This DVD has such a wealth of options in it, and all for helping with mental and physical conditions: headaches, shoulder/neck tension, opening your heart, digestive ailments, lower back pain, hip pain, anxiety, some AM and PM routines, an insomnia set, mood uplift, serenity work...

So far i did the:

Easing Neck Tension, passive variation (20 mins) - Soft spanish guitar music, everything lying down, body twisting mainly. Very sweet and restful.

Restorative Poses for Relaxation (15 mins) - soft new agey music, three supportive poses: cobblers, heart opener and legs up the wall. Pretty much the same set as on Barbara's Yoga for Beginners DVD (the rejuvinate one) but without the centering/breathing part. Also, this one suggests more uses of the blankets and having an eye bag. As I got an eye bag as a gift, I was prepared. But you only really need three blankets/pillows for this section.

Since I have my period today I will try the Lower Back Pain and Hip Pain ones to try to stave off the cramps. I will also watch the opening interview with the Dalai Lama (it's a rainy, stormy day so indoor stuff is appealing!)

Lower Back Tension (35 min): This was the best one yet. With my period cramps it was incredibly soothing to my lower back/stomach area. We used a blanket, strap and eye pillow for this set. A bit more active than the two I tried above, this has locus pose and a great let stretch with the strap.

Oh, and it eased my cramps but not totally. I think the hip stuff might be more the thing.

Just did the Hip Pain section(35 min): It was essentially the same routine as the Lower Back Tension one (see above post), but with two changes. One was the reclined half lotus and the other was something where you sit on your knees, then spread the hips wide, and lean your head forward to the floor. These were very nice poses for my cramping and this session took away the lingering pain I had.

Other than that, the footage is just sliced from the back pain one, with the same modified down dog, locust, hamstring stretch with strap.

We used a strap, and eye bag in this one but no blanket was needed.

New agey music, very gentle, as in the back pain one. You can still hear the ocean and even some birds.

Jilly that is AWESOME that you are finding natural ways to handle your cramps!! If only they taught all teenage girls these things as a normal part of health / gym class!!

My period should be starting soon so I'll do some and see how I feel

I know, totally, about teaching this to teens! Not sure if most teens get cramps, though. I didn't start to get cramps until my 20s.

I wonder if schools offer yoga as part of gym nowadays?

Hmm, let me pull up the thread about yoga and cramps and i will list the poses that helped me the most.

They should have yoga in gym

I just got my DVD in today! I'll have to try it out soon

Yay! I have some neck pain today so i will do the neck tension "active" one this afternoon.

Also, here is the thread where i list all the poses I found useful for cramps, in case anyone is looking for it:

BellaOnline ALERT: Raw URLs are not allowed in these forums for security reasons. Please use UBB code. If you don't know how to do UBB code just post here for help - we will help out!

More notes:

The interview on meditation by the Dalai Lama contains great information and HH's soft, gentle humor. It is hard at times to understand what he is saying and one requires a slight bit of patience to understand some of this section.


Serenity in Stillness (35 min) - lovely section that really opens the sacrum and relaxes the entire body. There was quite a bit of repeats from the back pain and hip pain segments, including the reclining half lotus, but it all came together well. The supported backbend at the end requires a yoga brick. I really enjoyed this pose. New Agey music with a vaguely Hawaiian theme.

Overall this DVD has an incredible wealth of options, all presented in a lovely beach setting and accompanied by Barbara's soothing, healing voice.

Highly recommended for yoga practitioners to use (as needed) for various physical/mental ailments. There are also a few AM/PM type routines in this disc, as a bonus for anyone wishing to add this DVD to their regular yoga rotation.

That sounds so great! My living room is finally clean, so now I just need the free time to do some yoga - a few more days!