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TTC  Video – Yoga for a Healthy Mind and BodyProfessor Heidi Sormaz – Yale UniversityCertified Yoga Instructor About This Course 12 lectures  |  30 minutes per lecture Nearly all of us would like less stress in our lives, a better ability to focus, improved health, and a fitness routine that we truly enjoy. You may be surprised to learn that yoga provides all of these benefits with a system of exercises that can be adapted to any age or level of fitness. Today, millions of people practice yoga, from young to old, from the hyper-athletic to those dealing with chronic diseases. Based on extensive studies, yoga is recognized as one of the most effective activities for achieving a healthy mind and body.While the roots of yoga go back thousands of years, yoga is a relatively new phenomenon in the West, where it has blossomed into a multitude of different styles, each addressing a specific set of issues. For example, yoga routines have been optimized for these goals, among others:• Calming: A practice called yin yoga gently stretches the body’s connective tissues in poses held for several minutes at a time. It is ideal for meditation.• Cardiovascular fitness: Power yoga is a vigorous workout, coordinated with attentive breathing that leaves you feeling both vibrant and centered. edit• Pain relief: Yoga exercises focused on breathing, stretching, and relaxing can relieve chronic pain in the lower back, arthritic joints, and other areas of the body.• Mental healing: Forrest yoga is one of several yoga practices that help resolve addictive behavior, eating disorders, negative thought patterns, and other self-destructive habits.Yoga’s many poses and exercises make it endlessly interesting and emotionally rich, giving you a wealth of options for designing a practice that fits your needs. Isn’t it time to get started—not just learning about yoga but doing it?Yoga for a Healthy Mind and Body is the ideal way to take that first step with a course that makes yoga accessible and the poses doable. These 12 half-hour lectures with acclaimed yoga teacher Dr. Heidi Sormaz will also deepen the knowledge of those already experienced in yoga. No other yoga video program offers such a comprehensive presentation of both the science and practice of the discipline. Discover Yoga’s Many BenefitsAfter covering the history of yoga and its physiological effects, Dr. Sormaz takes you through a diverse set of routines, introducing the basics of hatha yoga along with the more specialized practices of Iyengar yoga, power yoga, yin yoga, Anusara yoga, and Forrest yoga. You don’t just learn how to do the poses; you learn how conscious breathing and a focus on mindfulness can open the door to yoga’s many benefits that go beyond improved physical health.Dr. Sormaz has a Ph.D. in Psychology from Yale University and is an expert on the emotional obstacles that can be addressed by the powerful meditative component of yoga. In Yoga for a Healthy Mind and Body, you practice simple routines that make you feel and move better, and you also learn how yoga can help resolve chronic pain, insomnia, depression, anxiety, and cravings and compulsions. A typical yoga session incorporates a wide range of intriguingly-named poses, such as warrior 1 and 2, cat/cow, side angle, mountain, and downward facing dog. Dr. Sormaz demonstrates how these and many other revitalizing exercises are the building blocks of a yoga routine that can be tailored specifically to your needs.If you are a person who thinks, “I’m not flexible enough to do yoga,” then that’s exactly why you should try this course. Dr. Sormaz shows that there is a practice that will work for you and start you on your road to a healthier mind and body.About the ProfessorYale University Heidi SormazCertified Yoga InstructorDr. Heidi E. Sormaz is the founder, owner, and director of Fresh Yoga LLC in New Haven, Connecticut. She earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in Psychology from Yale University and was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale and the University of California, Berkeley. She taught psychology at Yale, San Francisco State University, and Albertus Magnus College. Dr. Sormaz obtained the highest teaching credentials from both Forrest Yoga and Yoga Alliance.In her academic work, Dr. Sormaz is an expert on the influence of arousal and attention on performance, the effects of anxiety on thinking, stress management, and performance in pressure situations. Her publications include the book Performance under Pressure: Managing Stress in the Workplace, published by HRD Press, and the article “Meditation Can Reduce Habitual Responding,” published in Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. Dr. Sormaz was awarded the Flora Stone Mather Alumnae Award from Case Western Reserve University and the Wilhelm Wundt Award at the Northeast Ohio Undergraduate Psychology Research Conference.In addition to teaching yoga in her own studio, she has presented workshops and teacher trainings at conferences and studios across the United States, including Kripalu and the Esalen Institute. Yoga Journal featured Dr. Sormaz on its list of “teachers who are shaping yoga’s future” from across America.