Yoga for Common Ailments (Common Ailments Series)

This guide helps readers to design a personal yoga programme which fits into their lifestyles. This updated edition shows how a few minutes of yoga every day can improve general health and fitness. There are step-by-step instructions for a basic yoga session, and treatments to more than 35 common ailments. Presented in two parts, the book begins with a comprehensive introduction to the origins of yoga, and the basis of yoga as a complementary healing therapy. Part One, "The Basic Session", provides a general programme to improve health and fitness. This can be tailored, using the chart of exercises, to suit individual requirements and to suit different levels of ability. The exercises are presented step-by-step, each with instructions accompanied by a detailed artwork. The routine starts with warm-up exercises and continues with yoga postures, relaxation techniques and breathing exercises, and includes advice on diet and lifestyle and meditation. Part Two, "The Ailments", focuses on yoga routines to treat over 35 specific conditions, from backache, rheumatism and arthritis, to varicose veins, obesity and headaches.

This slim volume is a good example of what hatha yoga manuals ought to be: attractively illustrated and clearly written (though a novice might wish for a spiral, stay-open binding). The focus is on designing a yogic regimen appropriate to one's own health status. The expert authors, of the Vivekananda school of thought, not only emphasize asanas (yoga postures) that they find helpful for certain illnesses but also caution against ones that could prove harmful to those suffering from hypertension, heart disease, and other ailments. A moderate, sensible approach, this is recommended for public libraries and subject collections.
- Judith Eannarino, Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.