Happy-Go-Yoga: Simple Poses to Relieve Pain, Reduce Stress, and Add Joy
“highly recommended as a way to create healthy habits for a more peaceful, happy life.”
Happy-Go-Yoga: Simple Poses to Relieve Pain, Reduce Stress, and Add Joy sets out to provide playful, beneficial physical yoga poses, as well as breathing and mental exercises that can be done by anyone, anytime, anywhere. Author Christine Chen accomplishes just that, using short mindful practices to help readers feel better and be happier in our busy modern world.
Happy-Go-Yoga is packed with 81 practices for addressing situations that come up in daily life, such as travel/commuting, workplace antics, traffic stress, home tasks, family time, coping in a crowd, and personal relationships. A number of meditations are included, as are wakeup/warmup movements to start each day.
Chen’s instructions are simple and easy to follow, no matter the fitness level, yoga experience, age, ethnicity, life circumstances, or gender of the practitioner. And that includes skeptics and procrastinators! Traditional yoga poses are presented in a way that fits any reader’s situation or current surroundings. Happy-Go-Yoga is based on yoga philosophy combined with modern science, and it’s demonstrated with illustrations that are whimsical and practical.
The fun doesn’t stop with the illustrations. This real-life guide describes yoga mini-practices with fanciful names that make complete sense and include explanations of Sanskrit names and yogic symbolism. Chen’s language is casual and conversational. Happy-Go-Yoga reflects a contemporary worldview.
Many of the practices in the book are combinations of yoga poses and practices from more than a dozen distinct traditions. They include body postures, eye movements, hand movements, breathing and sounding practices, visualizations, and meditations. Each practice in Happy-Go-Yoga is presented in a two-page spread, with tips for alignment, variations for more challenge or ease, the key benefits of the practice, use of props, and clear instructions with safety tips where appropriate.
Readers learn how yoga enhances physiological and psychological health and how it can support living in community with others. The approach in Happy-Go-Yoga makes it easy to realize the connection between body and mind. The practices are metaphors for life.
Chen delivers all this in an encouraging, delightfully positive manner. The book is easy to look at, read, and understand. Readers discover simple ways to observe themselves and their surroundings in a non-judgmental way, which results in “worrying less about the little things and remembering the big picture.”
Endnotes are thorough: sources are cited for all research and studies mentioned in Happy-Go-Yoga. What’s more, Chen lists what influences she drew from to develop each practice, be they traditional yoga teachings, health experts’ advice, medical research, current knowledge of anatomy and physiology, or her own experience and studies in yoga.
Anyone can use Happy-Go-Yoga to experience gentle exercise and refreshing relaxation. This book is highly recommended as a way to create healthy habits for a more peaceful, happy life.