Yoga, Health, and Wellness Articles + Recipes

What is discipline, really? Discipline is a tricky little devil. Ideally, it can be the fire that gets us on the mat so that we can strip away the illusions and misidentifications that cause us to suffer. As Iyengar explains, “wood must be heated to ignite it and bring out the hidden fire within.” Not so ideally, it can also be a confusing agent of self-hatred and punishment. When we commit ourselves to a disciplined daily practice (and since there is no need to preach to the converted, we know this has benefits) we can also be mistakenly committing ourselves to a desire to achieve aesthetically based fitness goals and an addiction to the ability to perform complicated party-trick asana. When I miss a practice or feel that I’ve just sort of lazily stretched for an hour, a niggle in the back of my mind warns that perhaps I’ll soon slip back into adolescent pudginess and its maelstrom of related emotional entanglements if I don’t step up and get myself back into shape. I have to remember that there is a balance of health to be maintained between body, mind, and heart – which of course are fundamentally intertwined – while on the sometimes difficult and circuitous path of yoga. A path that we hope leads us through a life liberated from cycles of suffering.

A sedentary person also termed a couch potato, is someone that leads a lifestyle with irregular or no physical activity. Couch potato's spend most of their day sitting watching TV, working on a computer, reading or playing video games. Excessive sitting contributes to many chronic health issues including anxiety and preventable causes of death.

So this recipe is freaking awesome. I totally don’t mean to toot my own horn here, but I was rather ambivalent when constructing it, and thus my mind was blown when I actually tasted it. Granted, I realize that I could be setting myself up for failure here, as you now have extremely high expectations, and when juxtaposed to my low expectations, who knows where your reaction will end up landing. It doesn’t matter though, because this recipe is yummy no matter your expectations, AND it’s the perfect intro to fall dish, AND it’s super easy, AND it can be sweet or savory. I’m calling this a win.

I’m going to share something straight-up and simple that’s transpiring for me lately. Here goes: As the working mom of a preschooler with a husband who travels constantly, I can say that unequivocally, it’s my practice that keeps me sane and balanced. (Can I get an “Amen!”)

I recently received an e-mail for a personal essays project. I was so excited that I responded with my pitch: “I was thinking about writing about how my anxiety has made me a kinder person. While I can't always control how I feel, It makes me think twice about other people and the struggles they might be going through.” I was so glad when I heard back that I would be able to share my experience, but now comes the tough part, writing this. So here goes nothing.

Full disclaimer: when it comes to the morning, I’m a coffee first kind of guy. Yoga is a close second. But, it’s second nonetheless. It wasn’t always this way, but nothing is permanent. So, if you’re like me and you prefer some liquid inspiration to get yourself on the mat first thing, don’t judge yourself. Once you’re ready, here’s a solid, get-up-and-go practice.

Raw, vegetarian, 80/10/10, paleo, pescetarian- call it what you want, it seems there’s always a new diet to jump on board with that will ‘change your life.’ These innovative ways to eat have revolutionized the way that we live. From sourcing our ingredients locally, choosing organic or abstaining from meat, every day we make a choice about what to put in our bodies regardless of the label.

A yoga retreat provides the perfect health and wellness balance to travel the world, eat delicious food and deepen your yoga practice. 62% of 36 million of American practitioners of all levels have the desire to go on a yoga holiday, reports the 2016 Yoga Journal study.

For many years, the practice of yoga was learned by dedicated students taught by their guru. Students learned yoga from one teacher or lineage and then either taught those same teachings or continued to study and live life. Today, when we read texts about how to learn yoga, you will always find a statement about the importance of finding a teacher. Presented as fact, this statement leads aspiring yoga practitioners to believe they indeed need to find their “guru.” An ideal of the guru is romanticized and categorized in the minds of many as an “if-then” statement — if I find a guru, then I will become enlightened. The problem with this dichotomy is that the student becomes disempowered by the notion that she can never find success on her own. Students are unable to progress in the true practice of yoga when this idea of the guru guiding practice becomes all-encompassing.

I'm going to take you back to an Italian-American family on the east coast (mine) in the 1980s…those were the days when carbs where king and fat was the enemy. What did we eat back in those days? Do you remember the nation’s obsession with Snackwells and pasta? Well, we ate lots and lots of pasta.

Question for you: Do you have any healthy habits you are trying to create this year? Or maybe some you would rather not have by the end of the year? (Like eating an entire jar of almond butter because you forgot to eat lunch or just... because?)

My first yoga class was in the NYU gym. I was 18 and on the bagel, pizza and cereal diet of a student. Holistic wellness wasn't necessarily on my radar and I went to class mostly because I wanted a bohemian experience that would fuel my assumed New York artiste persona. That was the same year I pierced my ear, wore yellow tinted glasses, and sported a beret on occasion. Yoga was to be another fashionable accessory.

Your life… akin to a hands-on interactive museum with multi-sensory opportunities. A vast space with large walls ready to display and enjoy a life you choose. A potential challenge for many of us to curate our lives of desire when our DNA, upbringing, perceptions, and expectations seem to be locked into our current life’s mural seemingly unable to modify.

Is there a difference between loving your body and being in love with your body? We are presented with this notion that we need to love ourselves-- that our love must exist as this unquestionable force of worship, one that sustains and thus bestows wholeness upon us. This approach has always felt flat to me. As a surface stripped bare of footholds. A richly rough and complicated concept made smooth by the dogmatism of devotion. Love yourself.

Overbooking my schedule since returning to California has left me tired and overwhelmed. I can never turn down an opportunity, so now I never stop-- I leave the house at 8am and come back at 10pm. What have I done to myself?! It’s in these moments that I appeal to my yoga values. Yoga, in its non dogmatic form, is the only philosophy whose moral codes I was able to identify with and slowly make my own.

Over the past six months, due to personal and professional reasons, I found myself traveling and moving from one place to another— from point A to B then to B to C then C to A or B. And it feels like I’m still going and coming to unknown destinations.

We had amazing food at this year’s retreat to the Lumeria Maui. And when you’re on a yoga retreat, doing many hours of yoga each day you really need a great dessert. This Avocado Chocolate Mousse was, hands-down, the group’s favorite, because hello, chocolate?

No need to play off of false pretenses here. This is a safe place. I’m no dainty flower. I am, in a lot of ways, mostly talking about gluten and caffeine consumption. But in how I present myself - decidedly less dainty. And you know what, sometimes a lady wants to feel sophisticated and flowery and perhaps a hint of dainty. Hence why I love to add lavender to anything and everything.

I’ve been practicing yoga for a few years, and have learned an awful lot about myself through my practice. Mostly about parts of me that haven’t healed. It’s been a process of taking down the walls I have built around my heart during my life – most notably, emotions and fear.

I know back pain. I’ve dealt with varying degrees of back pain—from mild to severe—for more than 20 years. I’ve also worked with hundreds of students that have similar challenges. In fact, many students turn to yoga when they’re facing lower-back problems.

“Ditch social media and my T.V. for a week... What?” Depending on who you are, and how much you use technology in your daily routine, a digital detox might seem either insane or too easy. It’s not until you begin to experience the highs and lows of a digital detox rollercoaster that you realize just how addicting social media and television really are. No matter who you are, if you’re living in this developed, 21st-century country, chances are you probably need a digital detox.

The recent Harry Potter yoga class took the Internet by storm, with participants pictured holding a wand as they practiced different yoga poses. They also had a sorting hat and listened to passages from the Deathly Hallows! While we might find it hard to find or attend a Harry Potter class, we can certainly bring some magic into our own home yoga practice. The Griffyndor wizards at BooKYogaTeacherTraining.com have just the right tips for you to work your magic into your own practice!

How do you energize? There isn’t a shortage of energizing yoga classes or sequences, but I often wonder what we are actually asking of our students and ourselves when we practice with this goal. Often an energizing yoga class is just fast and hard. When done a bit more mindfully, it can focus on poses or breath patterns that stimulate and excite the nervous system into a more focused, instead of frantic state. My essential energizing poses, which find their way into my energizing classes, tell the chest to expand and invite an empowered inhalation. They connect me to the ground but suggest a rise of vital energy or prana upwards.

Fitness trends come and go all the time. Crossfit had its time in the spotlight, as did rail running and P90X. However, as studies are published across the fitness and medical industries, telling us which exercises will really get us into the best shape of our lives, there is one form of fitness that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Which one is it? You guessed it: yoga.

I was recently hanging out with some old friends and mentioned that I’m living a nearly refined-sugar free life. (I say nearly because I believe in balance and, on occasion, sharing a chocolate croissant with my family is worth it.) They gasped. While I’ve always attempted a clean diet, it was shocking for them to imagine their former fro-yo lovin’ friend off of sugar. I chalk it up to one of the things that a breast cancer diagnosis did for me – scared me straight off the sugar crack.