10 Yoga Poses to Help Relieve Traveler’s Back Pain

Yoga can help.
There are several easy yoga poses you can do almost anywhere to help ease many of the common symptoms of traveler’s back pain. You can do these poses at the airport, in your hotel room, on the beach or at a beautiful outdoor setting when you get to your destination. No mat required – you can use a towel, sarong, jacket, carpeted floor, grass, etc. You will feel refreshed, renewed, and ready to enjoy your trip.

When traveling to Costa Rica, take a yoga class on vacation at Pranamar Oceanfront Villas & Yoga Retreat right on the beautiful Santa Teresa Beach on the southern Nicoya Peninsula. Pranamar Villas specializes in Costa Rica yoga vacations and was named a Top 5 Yoga Retreat in Costa Rica by Travel & Leisure Magazine.
Public yoga classes at Pranamar Villas are held Monday to Saturday in the hotel’s beautiful oceanfront Yoga Shala for students of all levels. See the schedule of upcoming Costa Rica yoga retreats at Pranamar Oceanfront Villas, including the inspirational retreat “Embracing Totality” led by Pranamar Villas’ yoga director and co-owner, Nancy Goodfellow.

10 Yoga Poses to Help Relieve Traveler’s Back Pain

Forward Bend (Uttanasana)

Forward Bends stimulate blood flow to your brain, stretch your hamstrings and lower back, and lengthen your spine. This is perfect for relieving back pain from long periods of sitting and from hefting luggage.






Half Forward Bend (Ardha Adho Makha Svanasana)
This yoga pose opens your chest, shoulders, back, and hamstrings. It is great for easing lower back pain after hours spent sitting on planes, trains, buses or cars.






Standard Hip Opener / Quad Stretch
To help get blood flow moving again in your legs after sitting, stretch your quads and hip flexors with this yoga pose.









Cow-Cat Pose (Bitilasana - Marjariasana)
The gentle up-and-down flowing posture of Cow-Cat pose brings flexibility to your entire spine, especially stretching and lengthening your back and neck. Synchronize with your breath for 7 to 10 cycles, and you’ll start to feel relaxed already.






Child’s Pose (Balasana)
Child’s Pose helps to reduce stress, anxiety, and mental tension. It is a deeply restorative pose that relaxes tightness in the neck and back. You should remain in child’s pose, breathing easily for anywhere between 30 seconds to several minutes.




Seated Twist Pose (Ardha Matsyendrasana) or Supine Spinal Twist (Supta Matsyendrasana)
Twists stimulate your digestive system, help improve digestion, and are cleansing for the body. Maintaining a healthy digestive system when you travel is essential for your well-being. Twists also can relieve lower back pain, a common complaint after long travel days. You can do either a seated twist, making sure to twist (not crank) your spine slowly and comfortably. Or you can do a supine twist lying on the ground, if you have a clean, safe place to do so. Be sure to twist on both sides of your body.


Ear to Shoulder Pose
The ear-to-shoulder pose is easy and can be done almost anywhere. The pose stretches the neck and down into the shoulder and trapezius muscles. You can do this pose sitting or standing, just remember to keep your spine straight. Be sure not to pull your head over; just allow its weight to softly move it down.



Supine Thread-the-Needle Pose
After sitting for long periods, usually your hips and gluteus muscles will feel tight and stiff. This pose helps you to open those muscles and release the tension, including in your lower back. You can also do a seated version just about anywhere – even on a plane, train, bus or car. Your hips, bottom and lower back will thank you.




Legs Up the Wall Pose (Viparita Karani)
Legs Up the Wall pose is a gentle inversion that lets the body fully relax while calming the nervous system and improving circulation, thereby rejuvenating the entire body. This pose also helps relieve mental stress, and can help alleviate headaches, boost energy, and relieve lower-back pain. You can use a folded blanket, towel, jacket, etc. to place beneath your hips for comfort and support. Remain in the pose from 5 to 10 minutes.





Corpse Pose (Savasana)
Also called relaxation pose, Corpse Pose is the most restorative yoga pose because it helps you experience deep peace for your mind and body, letting everything relax. Remain in the pose from 5 to 15 minutes.



Article by Shannon Farley

5 different types of Yoga for you to try this year

The year has just started. You are probably not so stressed right now, but sooner or later you will. As all of you may know, the practice of Yoga is and has been for years, one of the most recommended exercises in order to not let stress consume you and take all over you. For others, yoga is more than plain just relaxing exercises; it´s a lifestyle and a whole new world of ways of living and being simply you.



We will give a little bit more of 5 different types of Yoga for you to know more and, why not, explore.

Hatha Yoga

Being one of the simplest and probably the starting point for yoga beginners, Hatha yoga opens the door to a new world  by letting go and finding yourself through very slow pace movements and breathing exercises, that will maintain your mind and soul physically connected with your inner emotions and the world of opposites. The negative and the positive get together as the sun (ha) and moon (tha) flows in the sanskrit word of Hatha.  With the help of a set of postures called Asanas, the yogi or a yogini, a man or a woman who practices Yoga, will be able to create a well balance between its masculine and feminine aspects all in a self transformation path developing as well a set of scales in strength and flexibility creating only benefits for its body.

Vinyasa Yoga

Synchronizing your breath with movement is what this type of yoga is all about. Also known as flow yoga, Vinyasa yoga will take you smoothly from one pose to another through inhaling and exhaling in a very much like a dance coordination. Vinyasa in Sanskrit means connection, and many yogis describe it simple as the connection between movement and breath.  One of the most famous sequences in this yoga are the sun salutation and the cat-cow stretch, one more simple than the other. Each movement done on these sequences are during inhalation and exhalation.


Bikram Yoga

26 postures Sequence are the ones you have to follow in order to practice Bikram Yoga. Developed by Bikram Choudhury from Hatha Yoga. Born in India in 1946, he started his yoga practice since the age of four and in 1976 opened his own institute for implementing this unique practice. In order to perform Bikram yoga you need to be in a room with a special temperature of one hundred and five diploma Fahrenheit and forty percentage of humidity. The main reason for this is that which such temperature the body becomes flexible in ways you couldn´t imagine it could, and will let you perform the poses without any problem. It also increases your internal organs development as well as their normal functions. This is why Bikram yoga is also commonly known as the hot yoga. All parts of your body are being worked out through the practice of this yoga. It is so beneficial to your body, but remember it must be only practiced under the supervision of a certified Bikram Yoga teacher only.
   
   
Iyengar Yoga

This type of yoga practice is named after its mentor B. K. S. Iyengar. By focusing on the precision and the alignment of postures and breath control is how the yogi can perform the different asanas that complete Iyengar Yoga. Experts describe this practice as the best one for you for releasing the stress after a long day.  With the use of specific and useful props, which make the practice of Iyengar Yoga more confortable, B.K.S. Iyengar has systematised over 200 classical yoga poses and 14 different types of Pranayama (with variations of many of them) ranging from the basic to advanced. Moving from simple to more complex poses, yogis can experience a whole new self being uniting body, mind and spirit for a healthy new you.


Ashtanga Yoga

Developed by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois it engages breath, a series of postures, heat and finally sweat that will detoxify your muscles and organs improving your circulation, in order to bring and provide you with a more stronger body and a calm new you.
Ashtanga, which means eight limbs, must be practiced in a set of pre-organized poses that will take the yogi to obtain his fullest potential of human consciousness through the whole practice. As well as in every of the other practices, Ashtanga yoga requires from the practitioner a correct breathing in order to achieve the desired postures, while gaining control of all its senses and absolute awareness of themselves.

Santa Teresa Costa Rica, near the southern tip of the Nicoya Peninsula , has been named one of the top 10 yoga destinations in Costa Rica. As your host, Pranamar Oceanfront Villas & Yoga Retreat welcomes you with elaborate oceanfront villas and bungalows in lush tropical gardens and gourmet organic cuisine in the Buddha Eyes Restaurant. Designed in exotic Bali-style, our luxury beachfront hotel gives daily in-house yoga classes and spa treatments.

See our selection of yoga retreats briefly described below, and visit our website for more information. We’re sure you’ll find a perfect fit just for you, and we’ll see you soon in our Yoga Shala!


Article by Gabriela Serrano

Giving thanks on a Thanksgiving yoga retreat in Costa Rica

This year, why not spend the Thanksgiving holidays giving thanks for all that is good in life on a revitalizing yoga retreat in Costa Rica.

Imagine taking a break from the busyness of everyday life to relax and restore your energy in the rainforest, with 80-degree warm gulf waters at your doorstep and monkeys, Scarlet Macaws and coatis as your neighbors. This is Playa Nicuesa Rainforest Lodge in southern Costa Rica.

Accessible only by boat, the remote oceanfront Costa Rica rainforest lodge is located on the breathtaking Golfo Dulce across from the famous Osa Peninsula by the Piedras Blancas National Park. The extraordinary Costa Rica eco-lodge was designed for sustainable travel and holds the highest rating in the Certification for Sustainable Tourism Program (CST) in Costa Rica.

Starting Nov. 23, 2014, international yoga instructor Shonna Annapurna Brown and international recording artist John William Bauld will lead a Yoga Meditation and Sound retreat. The retreat lasts five, six or seven nights, depending on how long you choose to stay.

The yoga retreat includes two daily yoga classes, meditation, and evening kirtan concerts with the instructors. Yoga classes will be held on the beautiful yoga deck on the beach (shaded) or at the tree canopy-level main lodge building. There will be classical hatha yoga; Mantrasana Yoga with live music, a meditative hatha yoga class set to live mantra music; and restorative yoga. Kirtan is soothing participatory music using ancient Sanskrit mantras.

The retreat package includes accommodation at Playa Nicuesa Rainforest Lodge, all meals, boat transfers, guided adventure activities, unlimited self-guided hikes in the preserve, and use of kayaks, snorkeling and fishing equipment. To get to Playa Nicuesa Rainforest Lodge, drive or fly (NatureAir or Sansa Airlines) to either Puerto Jimenez or Golfito. Nicuesa Lodge will pick you up by boat and transfer you to the lodge (about 30 minutes one-way).

Article by Shannon Farley

Rain-Sun Yoga Retreats at Portasol Dec 28 April 17 2014

Yoga and meditation are all about breathing deeply, relaxing, and reconnecting with your inner nature. What better setting for this practice than the pure oxygen-rich rainforest of Costa Rica.

Be in harmony with nature around you at a yoga and meditation retreat at Portasol Rainforest & Oceanview Living. The sustainable community on Costa Rica's Central Pacific Coast will hold seven Rain/Sun Yoga and Meditation Retreats in 2013-2014. Retreats will focus on creating new energy for participants with yoga, Qigong, meditation, nature hikes and other creative activities.

Spending time in nature is a way people can reconnect with their inner-selves, explains yoga instructor and retreat leader, Doris Mueller-Weith. Portasol is a perfect place for yoga retreats because participants are immersed in the green beauty of wild rainforest, waterfalls and the crystalline Portalon River that runs through the 1,300-acre sustainable development, said Mueller-Weith, who owns an eco-home at Portasol.  

Breathing in the pure oxygen-rich air of the rainforest helps people rejuvenate, she said.

"In my experience during my life, many diseases that humans have are from cutting off our life energy to the planet. We are not grounded anymore, so we have nervous breakdowns, high pressure, stress, heart attacks, burn outs – because we are not connected with our own nature and the nature that is around us. That is how we get sick," Mueller-Weith explained. "This connection to nature is vital to our lives and our health. Being in nature keeps us healthy, and we create good energy with yoga in nature."

On the retreats, Mueller-Weith leads a gentle type of sequenced Hatha Yoga called Viniyoga. Meditation practice is simple and free of religion. Qigong (pronounced "chee-gung," as in "lung") is the ancient Chinese art and science of using breathing techniques, gentle movement, and meditation to circulate the body's energy, or chi (qi). Mueller-Weith also uses singing bowls, drama therapy, and walks in nature to stimulate inner reflection during retreats.

Yoga retreats at Portasol vary from five to six nights, and there are also short weekend programs. Participants receive meals and lodging at Portasol; accommodation is available in Bungalows, a shared Duplex dwelling, and the private vacation home, Toucan House. There is a maximum of eight persons accepted per retreat, so make reservations early.

The next upcoming yoga and meditation retreat is "Endings and New Beginnings" from Dec. 28 to Jan. 3, 2014. The program involves daily yoga and meditation sessions, walks in the rainforest and by the river, swimming at Portasol's waterfalls, visits to the nearby Matapalo Beach, and other creative activities. Based on interest, the group will go on Jan. 2 to the traditional indigenous "Festival de los Diablitos" (Little Devils Festival) in the village of the Borucas, as an optional activity.

A Yoga, Meditation and Drama Therapy retreat will be held January 13-19, 2014. Drama therapy uses dance and movement, poetry and painting, ritual and fantasy to explore archetypes and inner life, explains Mueller-Weith.

A 5-night Yoga Vacation from Feb. 4-9, 2014, adds local area tours to the program. The March 10-16, 2014 yoga retreat focuses intensively on the seven chakras, working on awareness levels with participants, along with healing yoga and meditation. An April 11-17, 2014 retreat centers on the Easter theme of "End and Renewal."

Two yoga awareness weekends – Jan. 24-26 and Mar. 28-30, 2014 – involve yoga and Qigong classes, meditation, mandala painting, storytelling, and a hike in the rainforest with a biologist.

Portasol Rainforest & Oceanview Living is an ecological community of nature lovers from all over the world. The sustainable residential and vacation rental community is located on 1,300 acres of pure rainforest along the Portalón River, approximately 30 km south of Manuel Antonio and 20 km north of Dominical. The long, un-crowded Playa Matapalo is only a 5-minute drive away.

Article by Shannon Farley