Yoga, Health, and Wellness Articles + Recipes

Excellent posture not only keeps your physical body healthy, but also provides the foundation and support you need to maintain emotional and mental balance. Yoga will help you find proper spinal alignment to stand tall and feel your best inside and out. Over the last thirty years, we’ve grown more sedentary as a culture. Many of us spend hours each day sitting, which is the number one contributor to back pain, poor posture, sluggish digestion, and mental fog. To counteract hunched shoulders, tight neck muscles, and lower back pain, take the time to step onto your yoga mat and perfect your posture.

Are you ready to mix up your week with some new workouts that will enrich your yoga practice? We’re excited to share a 6-part bootcamp from Erin Wimert, YogaDownload.com’s top barre teacher, that will have you shaking, sweating, and smiling. If you’re not familiar with this total-body fitness class, barre is a challenging workout that combines elements of classical ballet barre, Pilates, and body-weight exercises. But don’t worry: no dance experience needed. 5 reasons to integrate barre into your routine:

“If the foundation is firm, the building can withstand calamities. The practice of Yoga is the foundation, so that the Self is not shaken under any circumstances.” – B.K.S. Iyengar With the world in a tumultuous state these days, it’s more important than ever to fortify our inner strength and foundation. Iyengar Yoga is an excellent path to create more stability. Along with Pattabhi Jois, B.K.S. Iyengar was one of the two most famous students of the Father of Modern Yoga, T. Krishnamacharya. Both teachers are credited with bringing their interpretation of the Eight-Limbed Yoga Path to the West. If you love Vinyasa Yoga, thank Ashtanga Yoga founder Pattabhi Jois because Vinyasa flow is a derivative of his style. Iyengar went in another direction.

Are you living the life you’ve always dreamed of or do your intentions and goals seem out of reach? In order to manifest our dreams, first we must be clear about what we want. What we focus on expands, so discover what you truly desire and direct your attention toward it, with energy and intention. If you are new to meditation or haven’t meditated in a while, one of the first things meditation teaches you is how distracted your mind is. Usually, we have the same series of thoughts circling on repeat in our brains. If we can learn to quiet the distractions and focus our attention toward what which we wish to manifest in our lives, we can take the first steps to our ideal future.

"People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within." -Elizabeth Kubler-Ross True happiness and beauty come from within and yoga is a powerful tool to help you shine your own light. When the external world feels heavy or hard, it can be easy to forget all the light and strength inside of us. Yoga reminds us our light is always there––we may have to work to shed the layers of darkness to uncover it, but we have the ability to choose positivity, no matter what. We create our own calm within any storm.

Do you ever wish you could pull the plug and reboot your life the way you can reboot your computer? You know those days when your phone or laptop go haywire and you waste hours with minor fixes, but nothing works until you perform a full restart? 2020 has been characterized by dramatic shifts and some unwelcome and shocking changes impacting every single one of us. This week consider committing to a complete reset for your body, mind, and heart with our special Reset Refuge 7-Day Gentle Yoga Immersion with Elise Fabricant. Yoga is one of the most powerful tools we have to navigate the ebbs and flows of change. By concentrating on building our strength and balance from the inside out, we are better equipped to handle whatever comes our way. The definition of “Hatha” is Sun-“Ha” and Moon-“tha.”

You’ve probably heard that the yogic path is simple, but not easy. In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali lays out the eight-limbed path of yoga and emphasizes how it takes consistent practice over time. Just like you vary other types of physical training to keep your muscles and bones in optimal shape, varying the intensity of physical asanas will keep you from over-use injuries. If you practice daily, it’s great to adapt your routine to keep your body healthy. Slowing down can be just as powerful as leveling up. In fact, slowing down offers the opportunity to truly focus on your breathing and the sensations of each asana. The true yoga practice is internal. We use the physical practice to quiet our minds and balance our emotions. Of course, some days you really need to move, to have a vigorous flow to get that yoga buzz. But a gentle practice will also help you approach that place of stillness.

Depending on who you ask, you’ll receive varied answers to whether playing music during yoga helps you get into the flow easier or distracts you. Some people love music that enhances the yoga experience. When teachers offer appropriately energizing songs to boost the students’ mood and complement active asanas or play relaxing, calming music to aid in quieting the mind, the overall class can be just that much more impactful. Of course, there’s an art to creating flow in yoga both in instruction and playlists. Here a few benefits of music and yoga together:

When is the last time you tried something different on your yoga mat? We all have our favorite styles of yoga and it’s easy to find your routine has morphed into a rut. This week, we’re here to offer some variety to help you avoid a practice plateau. There isn’t an identical path for any of us. We’re all unique. Why not branch out and experience something new? Some people claim that their yoga is the “true” yoga and everything else is not yoga. Whose path is the right one? Is there a right one? If the end result is that you uncover your best self, you shed the layers weighing you down and shine bright, isn’t that actually the “right” path for you? What really matters is how you feel during and after your yoga practice.

"Don´t be afraid to fail. Be afraid not to try." - Michael Jordan, one of the greatest basketball players of all time. In order to grow, we must continue to take chances and try things outside of our comfort zones. Now we’re not suggesting you need to go bungee jumping or climb Mt. Kilimanjaro tomorrow! Well, unless it’s on your bucket list. Until you attempt something new, you’ll never know how it could turn out. Yoga can appear intimidating if you’ve never tried it, but with appropriate instruction, it is actually much more accessible than you think. Maybe in the past, you’ve tried some different classes and the teacher didn’t resonate with you or you suffered an injury or illness and are hesitating to return to the mat. Or maybe you are a true newbie and are finally ready to try yoga.

Depending upon in which hemisphere you live, you’ve either just celebrated the Summer or Winter Solstice. Long summer days characterized by sunshine and short nights or long dark nights to rest and recuperate. Wherever you are, take a moment to check-in and ask yourself if you are living your life in the flow right now. When we are in the flow or the zone, we are aligned with ourselves, with our community, and with nature. If you’re feeling in alignment, great! If you need some encouragement and support to find your optimal rhythm, we’re here to help. We’ll work together to find our flow on the yoga mat so we can take our renewed sense of connection off the mat for the rest of the day. Vinyasa flow yoga is an excellent way to create strength, balance, flexibility, and connection.

Are you ready to tap into your superpowers and dedicate time and energy to creating a strong center? Sure, a toned belly, healthy spine, and looking good without a shirt are tangible physical benefits of intelligent core training. But the true benefits of strengthening your center run much deeper than mere aesthetics. Learning to cultivate your personal power located in your Manipura (Navel) Chakra will aid you in burning through layers of insecurity and help you build a true sense of your authentic self. Yoga is an excellent path to access your “inner fire,” and step into your greatest sense of self. Through asana, pranayama, and mantra meditation, you can ignite your self-confidence, self-discipline, and willpower. Kind of like firing up your superpowers! Sound good?

Have you ever received upsetting news and immediately your jaw, shoulders, and neck grow rigid? Were you aware that yogis and psychologists agree that unprocessed emotions become trapped in your physical body? In our current time, many of us are having to navigate an intense collective experience, as well as how everything occurring is impacting every aspect of our own personal lives. Our yoga practice is a tool to alleviate stress and tension and fortify us emotionally, mentally, and physically. This week, join us as we explore some yoga classes designed to not just make you strong enough to handstand like a master but to soften the knots in your neck and the pain in your back.

We've taken time this past week to process, think, listen, learn, and formulate a plan to take definitive action in regards to the #blacklivesmatter movement. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ We always have, and always will, stand in solidarity, side-by-side, with our black brothers and sisters, and vehemently fight against racism in any shape or form. We absolutely will not tolerate it.

What does courage mean to you? The root of the word courage comes from the French word coeur, which means heart. In yogic circles, it is often stated that courage comes from the heart, which contains two dual emotions: love and fear. Being brave doesn’t mean an absence of fear, it means choosing to do what feels right despite feeling afraid. Bravery stems from understanding your truths and trusting yourself to do the right thing. When we are in harmonious times, it’s easy to express our beliefs and our truth. Many of us yogis surround ourselves with like-minded people seeking to live life on a higher vibration. We choose to focus on the positive and live from a place of compassion and love. Practicing these principles on the yoga mat strengthens our resolve to practice them off the mat.

Yoga is an incredible tool for our health––physical, emotional, and mental. Yoga can help manage anger, anxiety, depression, and other common psychological conditions many of us experience. This week, let’s dive into the nitty-gritty of the tangible ways yoga can not just open up your hips, but also positively impact your mental health. Let’s start with exploring that intangible feeling you experience after yoga––calm, clear, energized, and happy. How does mindful breath and purposeful movement translate into a major adjustment in your mind? One of the primary reasons is because deliberate movement and breathing patterns affect your nervous system in a positive manner. Yoga helps us shift from fight or flight or a reactive state to rest and digest, a receptive state of being. When we are reacting from a place of fear, anger, or anxiety, we are operating from our fight or flight response––shallow breathing, accelerated heart rate, and stress. When our autonomic nervous system is out of balance, we have a difficult time managing our emotions. Ever over-reacted and lashed out at a loved one or a stranger for no apparent reason? Ever noticed that response doesn’t happen after a satisfying yoga practice?

"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will."— Mahatma Gandhi One of the best ways to recognize an advanced yogi is by observing their behavior. We’re not referring to gasping in awe when someone wraps her leg around her head or effortlessly floats up into a sustained handstand. Instead, you can judge a yogi by the consistency of their practice on the mat and their actions throughout the rest of the day off the mat. Practice and perseverance are two vital qualities needed to sustain your yoga practice over time. Especially in these uncertain times, when the external world feels different for all of us, we need to dig deep into our own inner strength and willpower. We’re here to support you in your yoga practice, no matter what stage of your practice you’re in today. Perseverance equals power!

You can find santosha and cultivate contentment through yoga. Does your happiness depend upon what is occurring around you or does your sense of joy and serenity arise from within? According to Patanjali’s eight-limbed path of yoga, we can learn to cultivate contentment from the inside out. Santosha, the second Niyama or moral observance, means contentment. Like everything in yoga, the concept sounds simple, but the implementation takes discipline, desire, and focus. With a dedicated practice, we can shift our perspective and learn not to be constantly derailed by what’s happening around us. When we are living in the midst of a global crisis, you might wonder how in the heck to feel content or happy. You aren’t alone. We’re all in this together.

“Only through our connectedness to others can we really know and enhance the self. And only through working on the self can we begin to enhance our connectedness to others.” - Harriet Goldhor Lerner Every day is a perfect one to foster your connections with the world around you. Many places in the world, including the United States, Australia, Canada, China, and Germany, celebrate Mother's Day on May 10th––we know our community of yogis in the UK celebrate in March, but why not celebrate again? It’s a great way to show appreciation and love for your mother or anyone that is a source of support in your life. Practicing yoga together is a wonderful way to spend time with loved ones, whether it is in honor of Mother’s Day or just any given Sunday. Yoga is centered on creating connection or union––with yourself, with others, and with the universe around us.

The question isn’t whether you’ve experienced back pain, but whether you are one of the lucky ones who haven’t. Millions of people around the world suffer from aches and injuries to their backs on a regular basis. The good news is that yoga helps with more than the muscles and ligaments, which may be strained, sprained, or simply unbalanced. Often, the root of the pain is grounded in emotional or mental issues and yoga addresses the physical, emotional, and mental causes When you are hurting, ranging from a mild inconvenience to complete incapacitation, it is important to distinguish between acute pain and chronic pain. Acute back pain is intense and lasts from a few days to several weeks. It’s generally due to a fall, lifting a heavy object improperly, a car accident, and resolves within six to eight weeks. During this stage, rest and apply heat and ice to ease inflammation until you are ready to perform gentle exercise. Walking is an excellent option. Chronic pain lasts longer than three months and is more complicated. Yoga can provide temporary and potentially permanent relief. Our mind and body work together and cannot be separated. Only yoga restores harmony on every level. Physically, in addition to stretching and strengthening the spine, yoga helps you:

On April 22, 2020, the world unites together to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Earth Day. This celebration of a universal commitment to protecting the earth can be embodied in the yogic concept of Ahimsa or Non-harming. Yoga practice, comprised of the earth’s elements of earth, air, fire, water, and ether, naturally honors our planet. Use Earth Day to remind yourself of your connection to it. Fifty years ago, Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator, was shocked at the damage from an oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. The event ignited a fire in him for action to protect our environment. Once people saw how smog, oil spills, rivers so polluted they burst into flames, and damage from corporate waste were destroying the earth, they joined the cause. On April 22, 1970, 10% percent of the U.S. population took to the streets in hundreds of cities to protest environmental and demand change for our planet. Earth Day is the result.

We all want to enjoy the benefits from a regular yoga practice, like a better mood, vibrant energy, and a stronger more supple body. And a consistent daily practice, however brief, can change your life in profound ways you may not have contemplated. According to the Yoga Sutras, practicing yoga is also considered the path to avoiding future suffering. Yoga Sutra 2.16- heyam duhkham anagatam, in the second chapter of the sutras on Sadhana or practice, loosely translated means, “pain yet to come is to be avoided.” What exactly does Patanjali mean in this thread of yogic wisdom? Essentially, we do have the ability to avoid or minimize future pain and suffering through our routine yoga practice. In other words, what we do today can help alleviate our future suffering. Our human experience includes pain, but through yoga you can shift your perspective and what you may have perceived as pain changes.

The world is a delicate balance between light and dark. Yin and yang. At this moment in time, most of us are experiencing a weight we’ve never shouldered before. Feeling overwhelmed with the constant bombardment of news, the new reality we’re living in, and the sense our world is forever changed doesn’t exactly encourage a feeling of well-being. Although many events are outside of our personal control, we do have the ability to manage our personal reactions and find balance. Yoga is an excellent tool to help us lighten the emotional and mental impact of all these changes and shift our perception. We all see the world through a unique lens shaped by our life and personal experiences. Sometimes we need a little polishing of the lens when it appears cloudy or dark. When we move energy through our bodies with certain asanas and breathing techniques, we can release stuck energy and alleviate patterns that aren’t serving us. This week, we’re here to offer some classes to help you lift your spirits.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life." -Prince Life as we know it is different in ways you may never have imagined. At this moment in time, it feels like Mother Earth has hit the pause button for all of us. Nobody is immune to this unprecedented challenge we are facing. Just like Prince sang––we are all here to navigate through this together! And we will make it through to the other side. Yoga teaches us that everything is temporary. Everything. We are facing a choice now: choose to see this moment in time as an opportunity for reflection and growth or as a time to be frustrated and defeated. It’s all a matter of perspective. We’re in it, so why not make the most of this enforced seclusion, which is basically a virtual cocoon? Chose to emerge as a butterfly.

In these unprecedented times, you might be hearing the term “self-care” more frequently. These days, it is more important than ever to take care of yourself and get adequate sleep. Rest and sleep are vital elements in staying healthy. We’ve got a three-week evening wind down yoga program designed to help lower your stress levels and quiet your mind so you can slip off into dreamland to rejuvenate. According to yogic philosophy, the world is comprised of three universal elements: the gunas. An excellent way to relax is through balancing the three gunas, which exist within each one of us as well as all around us in nature. The three gunas are: Sattva (balance, luminosity, harmony), Rajas (the state of energy, action, change, and movement), Tamas (the state of heaviness, darkness, inertia, inactivity, and materiality). Usually, we seek to find balance in a sattvic state, but if you need help winding down at the end of the day, it’s important to encourage more tamas through yoga, pranayama, and meditation.