The holiday season can be tricky to navigate as a Conscious eater when faced with the temptation to overeat or skip meals in preparation for the big healthy family feast. That’s where this recipe comes in!
During the holidays, we often eat around 4 or 5 pm, so it’s nice to have something light earlier in the day. This way you avoid being too full for the family meal and you don’t make the mistake of skipping lunch and then binging at dinner because you haven’t eaten all day.
This soup is packed with nutrients and high in protein to help you power through your holiday meal prep without weighing you down. It’s super easy to make and eat; if you’re pressed for time, you can make it ahead of time and freeze it until you’re ready to eat, and since it’s puréed, you can even sip it from a mug to make it more convenient.
This soup can also be a great recipe to modify! Simply leave out the beans and sip up all that green goodness.
Do you have a favorite family tradition or healthy ritual for the holidays? Share with us in the comments below!
With love and family traditions,
Grammy’s Greens & Cauliflower Soup
Yield: 10 cups
Ingredients:
1 TB. olive oil 2 cloves of garlic, chopped 1 cup leeks, chopped and well washed 1 head cauliflower, roughly chopped 5 1/2 cups veggie broth 1 15 oz. can white beans, drained and rinsed 8 chard leaves, stems removed and roughly chopped 1/4 cup chopped dill plus more for garnish Pepitas for garnish (optional) Freshly ground black pepper to taste Sea salt to taste
Instructions: In a large pot over medium heat, heat oil, add leaks and cook for 4-5 minutes or until soft. Add garlic and a pinch of salt and cook for 3 more minutes. Add cauliflower and veggie broth. Pour veggie broth so that it’s just below the top of the cauliflower. Bring mixture to boil. Add 3 tablespoons of dill. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes or until cauliflower is tender. Stir in the chard and beans and simmer for 5 minutes.
Allow the soup to cool for a few minutes and then add remainder of the dill. In a high speed blender, puree the soup in batches. Add more veggie broth to reduce thickness if desired. Add soup back to the pot to reheat. Add salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with more dill and pepitas (spicy or salted) and drizzled with olive oil (optional).
Jo Schaalman and Jules Peláez are co-authors of the book The Conscious Cleanse: Lose Weight, Heal Your Body and Transform Your Life in 14 Days, a best-selling, step-by-step guide to help you live your most vibrant life. Together they’ve led thousands of people through their online supported cleanse through their accessible and light-hearted approach. They’ve been dubbed “the real deal” by founder and chief creative director Bobbi Brown, of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, beauty editor of the TODAY show.
Do you get worried you might be getting out of shape as you move further into adulthood?
We sometimes take for granted the beauty of having massive loads of energy experienced during youth. It's not uncommon for people to feel like they've let themselves go as they move into middle age, or that their midsection is getting more robust. However, it's never too late to turn things around, and even simple lifestyle changes can help keep you healthy and feeling in top shape, even if you've been feeling like you've gotten out of shape.
The very fact that you’re scanning the internet for fitness ideas is an indication that you are on the right track. Be kind to yourself wherever you are on your fitness journey right now, and implement some of these simple tips to stay or get into better shape in the coming year.
1. Wake Up and Drink Warm Water
People are often surprised when fitness articles start with mundane instructions like drinking a glass of water in the morning – but it’s actually simple things like this that make digestion easier and enable your metabolism to burn extra fat. If the water is lukewarm then it won’t be too much of a shock to your system, and it will keep your fat-burning machine in high gear for the rest of the day.
2. Join a Training or Yoga Group or Find a Workout Partner
The benefits here are obvious. A workout partner is even more important if you are likely to lose morale halfway during a workout. A good indicator of this is when you try multiple fitness programs but keep dropping out for personal reasons or because you don’t see any progress. Having someone beside you can help keep your mind on track, and that will be very beneficial to you both. Accountability works!
3. Walk More
I never really appreciated how calming and refreshing a walk can be until I started to see the impact it had on my mental state. Not only does it help by exercising the joints and muscles, but walking also has a profound impact on your mental health as well; and as we all know, managing stress and being centered is as important as being physically fit. Walking will increase your awareness; and if you are close to nature, that’s even better.
4. Fuel Up for Better Fitness
Eat a variety of fruits and vegetables as these will keep both your brain and body active. Another important thing to have is a good protein source. Some options here are eggs, chicken, seafood, nuts, and beans. Speak to a nutritionist about a high-energy diet, and use this energy by staying active.
5. Stay Active Outside of the Gym or Yoga Mat
We mentioned walking earlier, and that is just one of the many activities that you can take up to stay healthy outside of the gym or yoga studio. Swimming is an excellent activity for the whole body; and if that’s not for you, the find some other activity that you enjoy, and spend more time per week doing it for added strength, and for the impact on mental and physical health.
6. Avoid Smoking and Drinking
Cigarettes and alcohol are depressants and they have a destructive effect on human health if overdone. But course this doesn’t stop millions of people from indulging. Balance is the key here. If the health warnings don’t faze you, then think about the fact that you’re probably going to gain weight and have a very hard time losing it if you prioritize smoking and drinking more than fitness. In addition to getting larger, you won’t last as long in bed. Cigarettes will also age your teeth quicker.
7. Get Enough Sleep to Rest and Recover
Sleep is always an integral part of our health, and this might actually be more important as we age, because the body needs more time to repair itself and metabolized food to generate energy. Failing to get enough sleep not only reduces your energy levels, but it sets off a series of damaging effects in your body. For instance, your immune system will start misfiring, and you can forget about hormonal balance– which is far worse if you drink or smoke a lot also. Cognitive function is severely impaired, and you’re likely to experience tremors all over from lack of sleep. To avoid all this, set a proper time for sleep, and keep a regular routine to allow alignment of your circadian rhythm. Final tip
If you don’t already have a practice to help you detox from time to time, start adding something to your routine. Cabbage juice and lemon water are common methods; as is eating raw garlic cloves. But maybe you don’t need an extreme method, so just start with water, and then see how it goes. Eight glasses per day should be fine. Good luck!
By Kelsi Burley
Ready to get into shape now? Try either of these programs to get toned or start detoxing and making healthy lifestyle changes.
Those cookies are healthy enough to be breakfast. They include all the ingredients used for sweet oatmeal, just in a different way.
I must add that I don’t like sweet oats – I always have my oatmeal with butter or extra virgin olive oil and sprinkled with salt. Even adding berries or milk makes the oatmeal too sweet for my liking. However, take all the same ingredients and bake cookies out of them – a very different story, and I have made already three batches this week.
Luckily, most of them I have given away as a present for my yoga students. I say luckily, because even if they are healthy – eating a full tray of these babies as an evening snack is probably not the best idea.
The cookies are not super sweet, so if you prefer sweeter treats, feel free to add more sugar. All the ingredients are edible raw, so feel free to taste the dough before baking it and add sugar if you feel like it. My partner thought they were not sweet enough, I find the sweetness to be just enough, so I kept the recipe as I prefer it.
These cookies are a perfect healthy treat to give as a gift over the coming holiday season, but I do need to warn you that if you plan to transport them, then it is better to keep them in one layer be careful transporting them. I once was carrying a box of cookies with me for about 6 hours before my class. By the time for after-yoga snack, most of the cookies were broken in half or even quarters. Tasted good anyway, and several people asked me for a recipe, so at least it proves that they must be good no matter what they look like.
Healthy Sugar-Free Chocolate Cookies
Yields: 12 cookies
Cooking time: 30 minutes
1 tbsp ground flaxseeds
¾ cups cashew milk
1 ¾ oz coconut oil
2 oz coconut sugar
2 ½ oz peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla paste
7 oz oats
1 oz cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
3 oz dark chocolate chips
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 360 F and line a tray with baking paper.
Mix the first 6 ingredients and set them aside.
Add the oats to a blender and pulse until you have a coarse flour. Then add cocoa, baking powder and salt, and blitz for few more seconds.
Add the dry ingredients to wet ingredients, add in the chocolate chips and mix with your hands until it’s nice and smooth.
Roll into 12 balls, and press the balls down on the parchment paper.
Bake for 13 minutes, take the tray out of the oven and let the cookies cool for at least 10 minutes before enjoying them.
By Kadri Raig
Kadri is a food blogger and yoga teacher from Estonia. She loves healthy food and cooking and for her, these two are often the same thing. Cooking meals from scratch, you know exactly what goes in it and even without holding back with sugar or fat we end up using a lot less compared to ready-made frozen stuff from the supermarket.
She does love to spend time in the kitchen, but most of her recipes are simple and don’t take more than 20 minutes of active cooking time. She thinks that everybody can find time to cook healthy food at home, it is just a question of planning. "I work in an office full time, teach yoga 7-8 hours a week and write a blog. So if I manage to cook most of my meals, then so do you!" Connect with Kadri and enjoy many more of her delicious healthy recipes on her website here: http://www.kahvliga.ee/.
Practice this free yoga class before or after enjoying these delicious cookies!
Slow Yoga Reset with Jackie Casal Mahrou
When we are considering different things to pair together, it is always a subjective matter. For instance, there might be people who love salted chocolate, while others want salt nowhere near their chocolate!
The same can be said about adding music to your yoga practice. Some people love vibrational support and melodic inspirations when they are flowing from one pose to another and find it improves their practice. Others revel in the silent internal waves of just their breath and prefer yoga without any music. There’s no right or wrong answer here, it’s simply a matter of preference. Regardless of yours, music has become increasingly popular to complement a yoga practice and seems here to stay for those who like this combination. Because of this, there are people who are always looking for new excellent music choices for their yoga practice.
If you’ve been moved by music during a yoga class, you can appreciate the beauty of this combination. Music can add another layer to a deep, rigorous flow and can support you in the challenging moments of a class, or keep your mind from wandering. Many have opened to new music artists and styles of music from tracks they discovered that moved them while on their mat.
What Is Yoga?
Before we dive deep into the possibilities between the collaboration of music and yoga, let us get some basic idea about the yoga practice as a whole. The meaning of 'yoga' is 'union.' In the etymological form, it is connected to the English word called Yoke. The meaning of the word means union with your divine self and the universe you’re a part of.
Yoga is a spiritual, mental, and physical practice that originated in ancient India. By the end of the 20th century, it gained real popularity in the West. The yogic practice has been observed for thousands of years in a variety of forms that continue to evolve.
During this time, many different elucidations have urbanized about what yoga is all about. Each type of yoga discipline has its own unique techniques and emphasis.
In the West, yoga is often associated with the physical practice of the asanas, especially the stretching exercises that relax the body and build flexibility. Yoga poses also builds stamina, balance, coordination, and strength.
However, asana, the physical practice of doing yoga poses, is just one of eight branches of the practice, according to several sacred texts on the philosophy of yoga, such as Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, written almost 2,000 years ago.
These eight limbs include Samadhi (Liberation), Dhyana (Meditation), Dharayana (Single-pointed concentration), Pratyahara (Withdrawal of the senses), Asana (meaning Self and refers to the physical posture of the body), Niyama (Five inner observances), and Yama (Outer Observances).
Additionally, there are several different paths of yoga-like Jnana Yoga, Karma Yoga, and Bhakti Yoga. However, they are all rooted in the Niyamas and Yamas and have the same ultimate goal of Samadhi, or liberation from suffering and experiencing presence.
Yoga is thought to be therapeutic for many mental and physical conditions. Studies have been conducted that demonstrate the effectiveness of yoga as a treatment for schizophrenia, stress, and back pain. There are even more targeted and specific kinds of yoga emerging, like face yoga asanas that help the muscles of your face to relax.
The Connection Between Yoga and Music
If you listen to a deep house beat, you know there can be a feeling that you are sinking into a state where your breath and body can align in perfect timing. Your body is in a perfect groove, lost in space, flowing in rhythm, and along with the timing of the music. Your body becomes an instrument that is in sync with the tempo of the metronome.
The extensive physical benefits of yoga have been studied for a long time. However, not all yoga teachers encourage the use of music along with yoga. But if you can select the music carefully, a well-curated playlist will be able to spark your peaceful moment in your practice for yourself or for students.
Yoga, Music, & The Flow State
Performing yogic practices and listening to music are inherently similar activities, despite their apparent differences. In simplest terms, both can enhance our well-being and make us feel good. Both are the universal languages of love. It can be said that music is as old as the human race itself and has remained constant all through the evolution of the human race and culture.
Similar to yoga, music also offers a lot of physiological benefits. It has been studied that music can effectively lower cortisol and decrease anxiety levels better in patients who are about to undergo surgery than those who take anti-anxiety drugs.
New science continues to explore the medicinal properties of music as well. Recently, it has also been studied that music allows a person to enter what is known as the 'flow state.' It is a term for the optimal state of consciousness where we are at our best.
For a long time, artists, musicians, and even athletes have been utilizing the creative flow state, even before the term was coined. When the flow state is reached, the brain switches to the borderline state between the alpha waves; this phenomenon is commonly associated with REM sleep, hypnosis, and daydreaming.
When you reach this state, it means that your brain has temporarily stopped projecting beta brainwaves (which are part of your waking consciousness). This action also deactivates the part that identifies with our sense of self, the prefrontal cortex. In short, you lose yourself to the moment.
Pairing yoga with music makes it easier for some to experience this flow state, while on your yoga mat.
How Certain Types of Music Work for Yoga
Here are some popular music genres to listen to when practicing yoga. We've listed some of the most popular and important ones and will look at how each genre of music can enhance your yoga practice.
The thing to remember is that there are no rules on what music you can or cannot listen to while practicing yoga. If you’re continuing to explore adding music to your yoga practice, you are not confined to just these styles below. Each style will bring a different feeling and set of benefits, much like the music or different styles of yoga themselves.
Meditation Music
A majority of people who practice yoga frequently prefer listening to meditation style music while practicing. People prefer listening to this kind of music because yoga is commonly related to peace of mind, relaxation, and meditation. Meditation music is linked to all of these and hence is amongst the most widely listened to style of music by yoga practitioners.
Classical Music
Classical music is another popular music genre among yoga enthusiasts. On average, a yogic workout can last somewhere between 30-75 minutes, which is more than enough time to listen to a lot of different and advanced pieces of classical music. Classical music is appreciated because it improves the peace of mind and relieves stress. Some famous traditional artists include Beethoven and Mozart.
Pop
Not a lot of yoga practitioners listen to pop music during their workouts, but it is continuing to grow in popularity. Artists like Rihanna, Beyonce, and Lady Gaga give some people a lighthearted boost during their yoga sessions, and help make yoga more fun and less serious. Pop music during yoga can help classes that involve fast-paced and eccentric moves.
Folk
Folk is a less common musical genre when practicing yoga. However, for some who seek refuge, solace, and peacefulness in their yoga practice, simple acoustic folk music, helps calm them down. Furthermore, a lot of people go onto their mat to work through emotional challenges, and inspiring lyrics that provoke a deeper range of emotions can help some. It can be common for people to have folk in the beginner or end of a class, and switch to more upbeat styles in the more high intensity parts of a session.
Electronic
Electronic music is a musical genre that is enjoyed all over the world and continues to gain popularity. Note that this is a broad genre with various subgenres. Some work better for yoga than others.
Forms of House and Deep House, seem to be most popular to pair with yoga, as their upbeat and happy sounds help keep students uplifted during class. Some prefer heavier and darker Techno beats with their yoga.
For faster practices, electronic music is an excellent choice and also for larger class sizes, to get everyone moving together in a flow. There are even forms of electronic music explicitly made for a yoga practice.
Conclusion
The debate between the connection between yoga and music has been going on for a long time. But now, a few scientific studies have emerged that confirm that yoga and music can go hand-in-hand and your exercises can be more in sync when you are listening to music. Have fun exploring which works best for you.
Let us know your favorite music styles to practice yoga with, in the comments!
By Scott Pine
Italian-American millennial who lives in Los Angeles. Runner. Scott wrote for various publications as a blogger and journalist for a Top Mom site, before finding refuge in yoga. He is currently building a program to help other people know more about yoga and implement the concept into their lives.
Enjoy a wide collection of yoga music to choose from, here in YogaDownload's extensive music collection HERE and this free gentler yoga class, suitable for all levels.
When you’ve been practicing yoga for a while, you might have built up a bit of an ego. You might be seeking out the most advanced poses and classes, with the toughest teachers, and you might be pushing yourself as far as you can. Sound familiar?
Pushing yourself too far in yoga can get you into sticky situations, especially if you try poses that are too advanced before you are ready for them. This is why going back to yoga basics every once in a while can be immensely beneficial to you, even if you’re not a beginner to the yoga mat. A basics yoga class can be so much better than pushing yourself into advanced practices, and perhaps injuring yourself.
Here’s a few simple reasons why going back to basics can actually help you on the way to becoming more advanced at yoga, and a few basic poses to go back and master.
You can appreciate your abilities
Sometimes, it's good to take stock of how far you’ve come in your abilities, and take some time to appreciate all the skills you know and how much you’ve learnt since your first ever yoga class. There’s nothing like a basics class to help you remember those first ever yoga poses, and how easy you might find it now compared to then.
If you only ever push yourself, you’ll never have many of these appreciative moments, so as you develop more advanced skills and techniques, go back every now and again to practice the easy stuff. You’ll come across poses you once found difficult, that are now easy to do and much more understandable.
Going back to basics is a great way to prove to yourself you can do anything if you put your mind to it, and give you the confidence in your abilities with some trickier poses.
You’ll perfect what you know
Going back to basic poses and practices gives you the space to perfect what you know and learn more about alignment. All the questions you may have about any pose that you’ve been too shy to ask, will probably be answered in a basics class, as the idea is to teach students trying them for the first time.
The nitty-gritty alignment details might be glossed over in more advanced classes, but you can really hone in on it in a basics class. Keeping things simple in the basic variations of a pose might help your understanding of the mechanics of the pose in its purest form, and help you in your more advanced classes in the future.
You’ll learn new skills
Yes, even the most advanced yogi can learn something from a basics class. Yoga offers lots of pathways to poses and techniques, and revisiting the basics with a fresh pair of eyes can help you learn something new. Going back to a beginners mindset can open your mind up to learning, and you can actually learn to advance your poses through going back to the start with them.
Basic poses to revisit
1. Mountain Pose
Mountain pose is your base for all yoga standing poses. It allows you to learn how to properly ground your feet and feel the earth under your toes. It’s a lot more than just standing! Stand with your feet together and press down through all your toes and spread them open. Engage your quadricep muscles, which will help to lift your knee caps, and lift through your inner thighs. Hold your abs in, lift your chest and press your shoulders down.
2. Downward Facing Dog
Downward facing dog is a staple in most, if not all yoga practices and classes, as it stretches and strengthens your whole body. If you come onto all fours, keeping your wrists under your shoulders and your knees under your hips, them tuck your toes under, lifting your hips up off the floor. This will help to stretch out your body, and if you try and straighten your legs you will give an extra stretch to your hamstrings.
3. Plank
Plank is a great pose that not only comes up in yoga classes but also in other fitness classes. This pose is a great way to balance on hands and using your entire body to support itself. It also creates great abs, and uses breath work to endure this hard pose!
Plank teaches us how to balance on our hands while using the entire body to support us. It is a great way to strengthen the abdominals, and learn to use the breath to help us stay in a challenging pose. From all fours, tuck your toes under, and lift your legs up, sliding your heels back so you’re one long line. From here you can engage the abdominals and draw your shoulders down from the ears.
4. Tree
Tree pose is a great posture to practice your balance and work on your focus and clarity, and learn to breathe while standing and keeping balanced. Stand with your feet together and place one of your feet on your inner thigh. Press your hands in prayer and hold a steady gaze.
5. Child’s Pose
Child’s pose is a great resting pose, not just for beginners but for practitioners of all levels. It’s a good pose to have in your arsenal to use when you feel fatigued in other poses, before you go to sleep, or even when you need a little mental break or some stress relief. Start out on all fours and bring your knees and feet together, sit your bottom back to your heels and stretch your arms forward, lowering your head to the floor and simply release!
By Amy Cavill
Practice one of these back to the basics yoga classes, right now!
Fine Tune Your Forward Fold with Ellen Kaye
Foundation Flow with Kristen Boyle
Are you seeking to find your best yoga practice?
Often, the most powerful way to manifest transformation in your life and your yoga practice is to stop wherever you are and assess the strength of your foundation. Just like you can’t build a home that will last for generations on unstable soil, you can’t build a sustainable yoga practice by focusing only on how it looks or feels on the surface. This week hit the pause button and dig deeper to ensure your foundation is solid.
If you’ve been rolling out your yoga mat for a while, it’s easy to fall into a pattern of just focusing on learning new skills or taking every asana into its most advanced variation. Practicing this way isn’t necessarily the path of becoming an advanced yogi.
In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, cultivating an enduring yoga practice was compared to being a gardener or a farmer. Planting seeds and tending the soil on a consistent basis is key for successful growth. A healthy lifelong yoga practice at times isn’t apparent from looking solely on the surface. The strength stems from the roots, beneath the soil.
Perhaps by trying a more basic level yoga practice or a class from an instructor, you don’t usually practice with will fortify your roots and give you new insight. It’s also an excellent reminder to step out of ego and recognize there may be more than one way to move or breathe or meditate. Different teachers instruct alignment in a different manner. Yoga Sutra 2:46, Sthira Sukham Asanam, states the posture should have both effort and ease. Keep an open attitude and return to the beginner’s mind when you were open to trying new techniques. Practicing familiar postures in an unfamiliar manner can keep your practice fresh and exciting.
By slowing down, you can refine your knowledge and polish your current practice physically, emotionally, and mentally. Slow down and check in with how your perspective has shifted over the lifetime of your yoga practice. It’s a great opportunity to confirm how far you’ve come since you were a true beginner. Look at it as planting new seeds in order to grow your practice.
Whether you're brand new to yoga or a yogi with many years of experience, we can all benefit from going back to the basics once in awhile. This week, check out these four classes that will aid you in honing healthy alignment and a strong foundation. Enjoy!
Try these back to the basics, yoga classes right now, from anywhere!
1. Kristen Boyle - Foundation Flow
2. Ellen Kaye - Fine Tune your Forward Fold
3. Jackie Casal Mahrou - Foundations of Yoga
4. Desiree Rumbaugh & Michele Marchildon - Find Strength through your Feet
Scalloped potatoes are a classic Thanksgiving dish, but are traditionally loaded with heavy cream, cheese, and flour. Our recipe is an up-leveled version that tastes just as good as you remember grandma making. This recipe falls under our 80:20 eating, as we keep potatoes, yeast, and goat cheese off our plates while cleansing. However, this recipe could be easily modified to be more cleanse-friendly by leaving out the yeast, substituting our Vegan Cashew Cheese for the goat cheese, and swapping out the potatoes for another tender root veggie, like rutabaga, turnips, parsnips, or even golden beets – or mix it up with a combo of your favorites!
Do you have a favorite holiday recipe you’d like us to give a Conscious Cleanse makeover? Let us know in the comments below. We love hearing from our community!
With love and gratitude,
Goat Cheese & Sage Scalloped Potatoes
Yield: 8-10 servings
3 medium shallots, minced 1 ½ pounds Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced 3 large parsnips, peeled and thinly sliced 3 TB. ghee + 1 TB. to grease the pan 3 TB. arrowroot powder 3 cups unsweetened cashew milk 1 TB. nutritional yeast ½ tsp. garlic powder 2 tsp. Dijon mustard 1 tsp. sea salt ½ tsp. ground pepper 3 TB. fresh sage, finely minced 2 ounces goat cheese, crumbled Sprinkle of paprika
Instructions: Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. In a small saucepan melt the 1 TB. ghee. Pour the ghee into the bottom of a 9”x 13” baking pan coating the bottom and halfway up the sides.
In a medium-sized saucepan melt the 3 TB. ghee. When melted add the 3 TB. arrowroot and whisk until smooth. Cook for about 1-2 minutes over medium heat. Slowly add the cashew milk (approx. ¼-½ cup at a time) whisking to avoid lumps and to create a creamy sauce. Add the nutritional yeast, garlic powder, dijon mustard, sea salt, and pepper. Continue to cook until it comes to a simmer whisking the entire time.
Layer the potatoes alternating with the parsnips until the bottom of the pan is covered. Sprinkle with half of the sage. Repeat the process one more time. Pour the cashew milk cream sauce evenly over the potatoes and parsnips. Sprinkle the goat cheese crumbles on top. Dust the top of the potatoes with paprika. Add whole sage leaves on top as a garnish if you desire. Cover the pan with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake until the top is golden another 20-30 minutes. Let sit for 20 minutes before serving.
Want to try yoga after your Thanksgiving feast? Try YogaDownload's Yoga for Detox from Overindulgence to get back in shape!
A yoga retreat is a nice opportunity to take a step back from the distractions of daily life. They also help you focus on and immerse yourself in your yoga practice, while also experiencing new places with new people.
As rejuvenating as this experience can be, many find the idea of a retreat slightly intimidating. Yes, for some, even a retreat may seem daunting at first, as many wonder if it's really a relaxing vacation or a challenge that puts you too far outside your comfort zone.
Here are a few handy tips and tricks to help you get the best out of a yoga vacation and feel ready to immerse yourself in yoga and travel.
Pick the right retreat for you
Your experience all depends on the retreat you choose, as different retreats have different areas of emphasis and intensity. Some are more yoga focused, some have more time for sightseeing and others are more about delicious food. Others incorporate other things like meditation, reiki, time in nature or even wine tasting and cooking classes.
Some are more of a vacation and others are more serious about yoga. If you're craving discipline and practicing multiple challenging yoga classes each day, there's a retreat for you. If you want a vacation on the beach with nice relaxing yoga class as an addition, there's a retreat out there for you also.
Make sure you look around and find the yoga retreat that suits you best. Some are more of a vacation and others are more serious about yoga. At most retreats, all classes and activities optional, which means you get to choose your own adventure and are not confined to a strict schedule either.
Practice
Before signing up for a yoga retreat, it can be helpful to make your yoga practice more consistent leading up to it, although it's not necessary. Go to classes or start practicing at home a little more. This will help prepare your body and mind for more yoga than usual that you will have available at most retreats, especially if you're not used to practicing multiple times per day.
Your retreat can also be your time to practice, so if you don't have the time to make it to your mat more beforehand, don't worry, you'll still get the benefits of the yoga on the retreat.
Pack lightly & appropriately
An important part of prepping for any vacation, yoga or not, is the packing! Make sure that you pack light so you can stay relaxed and stress-free getting to and from the retreat. Think about what you will really need at the retreat to make things easier. You'll probably need more yoga clothing than other vacations you've gone on, but it is also okay to repeat a few outfits if you need to - nobody is going to judge you.
Yoga vacations can be a time to focus more on simplicity. Too much primping and preening is something to worry about less on a yoga retreat. It's not to say you can't look and feel your best, but it's a good time to worry less about that stuff. Also, make sure to pack according to the weather at your destination and the demands of your itinerary, so you're comfortable.
Research the destination
Sometimes the location of your yoga vacation is just as exciting as the retreat itself. Few things can match the thrill of heading to a new city, or a new country, and discovering its heritage, culture, and sights. So before you head off into the unknown, take some time out and do your research on where you are going.
It's good anytime you go to a foreign country to know even a few things about the culture there, or a few words in the language. You can also get an idea of which excursions and activities you might be excited about. If nothing else, do the research to get yourself excited about the vacation and give yourself something to look forward to.
Eat healthier
Some, but not all yoga vacations involve a change of diet for many. At some retreats, the food offered is simple, healthy, and usually vegetarian. Some have no caffeine, alcohol, meat, or processed foods. So if your eating habits include a fair amount of wine, coffee, or chicken and you're heading to a vegan yoga retreat, you might want to try cutting back on processed food a couple of weeks in advance to avoid shocking your system from a drastic change in diet at the retreat. Other retreats have gourmet food and many are not focused on a strict diet and have coffee, alcohol and meat available.
Leave peacefully
Now that the rest of the preparations are complete, all that's left is to set out for a rejuvenating experience. But wait! Before you go in search of peace, you need to make sure that you are able to leave peacefully as well without anything you need to worry about back home.
The last step to preparing for a yoga vacation involves making sure that you can focus entirely on your mind and body, without too many distractions from back home or at the office. Make arrangements to delegate tasks, set "out-of-office" responders, and transfer your calls. Inform your loved ones in advance so that your time away can be spent as "unplugged" as possible.
These are a few simple steps that will help you prepare well for that long-awaited yoga break. Keep your mind and heart open to these revitalizing experiences, and you will be amazed at how uplifting making your next vacation a yoga retreat can be for you.
By Nisha Baghadia
Nish writes articles on yoga, fitness, wellness, remedies, and beauty. She is a regular contributor to StyleCraze.com & other lifestyle websites.
Ready for your own yoga vacation? Join YogaDownload instructor Pradeep Teotia in Morocco whether you already know you love yoga retreats or have always wanted to go on one!
We’ve all experienced stress once or twice (or more) in our lives. It’s a natural physical and mental reaction to life's experiences. Anything can trigger stress, from work responsibilities to serious life events or external factors. For in the moment, short term experiences, stress can actually be beneficial to your health, by helping you cope with some potentially serious situations. Your body responds to feeling stressed by releasing stress hormones, which increase your heart rate, your breathing rate and gets your muscles ready to respond.
However, as healthy as a good dose of stress can be - good things come in small packages. Feeling stressed for long periods of time - more than is necessary for survival - can take its toll on your health. Chronic stress and stress conditions can cause a number of physical symptoms, and affect your overall health.
Here are just some of the ways stress can impact you and your health negatively.
Central Nervous System
Your central nervous system is in charge of your fight or flight responses. When this gets activated, your hypothalamus in your brain sends a message to your adrenal glands to release adrenaline and cortisol - stress hormones. These are the hormones which speed up your heart beat, send your blood rushing. Now, when the fear is gone, your hypothalamus should tell the Central Nervous system to go back to normal. If this fails, all these stress responses will continue.
Cardiovascular Systems
Being stressed can also affect your cardiovascular and respiratory systems. When you feel stressed, you breathe faster in an effort to distribute oxygen around your body. If you have any breathing problems such as asthma, this can make it even harder to breathe properly.
Chronic stress can also make your heart overworked. This is because under stress, your heart pumps faster, as the stress hormones make your blood vessels constrict and divert oxygen to your muscles - so you have more strength to take action. However, this raises your blood pressure. If this happens often, you raise your risk of having a stroke or a heart attack.
Digestive System
When you feel stressed, your liver produces extra blood sugar, or glucose, to give your body a much needed boost of energy. If you’re under more stress than usual, your body might not be able to handle all this extra sugar flowing through your body, and you can run the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Another disruption to your digestive system can come from the symptoms of stress - hormones rushing around your body, heavy breathing and faster heart rates can cause acid reflux and heartburn, due to an increase in stomach acid. Stress can also increase your risk of stomach ulcers.
Muscle Pain
In order to protect yourself from injury, your muscles tense up when you are feeling stressed. Once you relax, they release once more - but if you’re constantly feeling stressed then your muscles might not get the change to relax at all. Constantly tight muscles can cause headaches, back pain, shoulder pain, and overall body aching. Over time this can severely affect your health and mobility and can stop you from being active.
To avoid becoming overwhelmed with stress and anxiety, there are a few tips to help manage stress and avoid these physical symptoms.
Get Enough Sleep
When your fighting stress, your body really needs rest and a full night's sleep - at least eight hours! Having enough sleep can help to improve your mood, help you think with clarity, and allows you to handle stressful situations better when you’re sleep-deprived.
Work Out
Being active can help you to alleviate symptoms of stress, as well as anxiety. Exercise can help to release endorphins and other ‘happy’ hormones, which makes you feel good. The results of working out can also boost your confidence and self-esteem. Try 30 minutes of moving a day.
Eat Well
When you’re feeling stressed out, fast food or sugary treats can be an easy coping mechanism. However, overindulging can leave you feeling sluggish, tired and more stressed than you were to begin with. To combat stress, stock up on brain foods such as fish, eggs, and vegetables to boost your brain health and improve your mood.
Learn Your Stress Triggers
If you’re noticing that your stress is brought on by specific situations, whether it’s something at work, something personal or something completely different, try to identify the patterns in how you’re feeling and write them down. This can be useful to find out what exactly is triggering your stress and can make it easier to handle and reduce the stress response in your body.
Deep Breathing Techniques
Learning deep breathing techniques can help to reduce stress symptoms such as rapid heartbeats. When you take a deep breath, the extra oxygen can help to ease your mind and gives you time to collect your feelings and thoughts. Try yoga, or meditation which promote deep breathing and can help to reduce stress.
Need some extra help in reducing stress? Sometimes stress can get the best of us. Give yourself an antidote to stress this week, with four classes designed to help you unwind, relax, and reset.
Yoga helps you fight stress and stay healthy. Try these stress-relieving yoga classes, now!
1. Josey Prior - Settling into Pigeon
2. Keith Allen - Evening Stress Relief Yoga
3. Tana Pittman - Kundalini: Be Radiant & Stress-Free
4. Kylie Larson - Yoga to Unwind
We’ve all been burned out and exhausted and not sure how to cope at some point in our lives. Whether it is looming deadlines, emotional demands, climate change, political battles, family drama––the result is the same. Sometimes juggling all the challenges and all the wonderful gifts in our lives can feel overwhelming and we’re not sure how to feel better.
Here’s how: Yoga can help lower your stress levels and your blood pressure because it’s an excellent practice to calm your nervous system.
By combining physical asanas or postures with Pranayama or controlled breathing techniques, yoga can have a profound impact on your nervous system. When we are stressed out, our adrenal glands are working overtime and we’re often in a state of “fight or flight,” which doesn’t allow for adequate rest and recovery. Over time, if we fall into this type of pattern of constantly being in heightened over-active mode, our bodies and minds begin to suffer.
As you’ve heard over and over, yoga offers a three-pronged approach to improving your life: physical, mental, and spiritual. While taking your usual sweaty Vinyasa or Power class will definitely impact your mind and heart, sometimes slowing down a bit and taking a more mellow class can give you more of the mental stress relief you’re craving.
Our parasympathetic nervous system is designed to soothe and lower our stress levels. Certain styles of yoga, like Yin and Restorative, emphasize postures that can reset your nervous system in minutes. Gentle Hatha classes also focus more on unwinding and relaxing you. Of course, you’re releasing tightness and tension from your muscles, but you’re also soothing your brain.
Asanas like Vipariti Karani (Legs up the Wall) and Paschimottanasa (Seated Forward Fold) are effective in creating a relaxing effect. Any poses where your legs are extended up overhead or where you’re in a forward fold, encourage not just self-reflection, but also quiet your mind quickly. Signals travel to your brain and impact your body, mind, and heart.
This week, we’re bringing you four classes designed to help you unwind, relax, and reset. These slower classes will give you your yoga buzz and also help you sleep better, manage anxiety and stress throughout busy days, and allow you to shift your system back into balance. Remember, rest is just as important as work!
I love mushrooms. LOVE!
All kinds of mushrooms, but especially those I can pick myself from woods. In Estonia, we have a lot of forests, and unless the area is marked as private property, we are allowed to forage for whatever you like, as long as you act responsibly and do not leave any rubbish behind. I know that this is not the case all over the world, so I consider myself extremely lucky.
For this year, the season of fresh mushrooms is, unfortunately, over, but simple button mushrooms work just perfectly for this recipe.
This delicious soup takes very little time to prepare and does not contain any fancy ingredients, so it is a perfect dinner for busy evenings. I kept in very simple and entirely plant-based, but if you like, then you can also add some cream cheese or heavy cream to the soup.
For serving, I always slice up some extra mushrooms and fry them until crispy, and I also love crispy barley instead of croutons but feel free to choose whatever toppings you like.
Plant-Based Mushroom Soup
Serves: 2
Cooking time: 20 minutes
1 small onion
1 stalk of celery
1 tbsp oil
15 oz button mushrooms
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 cups vegetable stock
Salt and pepper
To serve: crispy barley, croutons, fried mushrooms or toasted sunflower seeds
Directions:
Chop up the onion and celery and sweat them off for 5 minutes on low heat.
Until the veggies soften, cut the mushrooms to quarters, then increase the heat and add the mushrooms to the pot. Sautee, occasionally stirring for 5 more minutes.
Season strongly with pepper, add soy sauce and stock, let it come to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
Take the soup off the heat and blend it until smooth with a stick blender. Careful, it is hot!
Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.
Serve with whatever crispy toppings you like.
Practice this rejuvenating FREE 25-minute yoga class, suitable for all levels, before or after eating this delicious soup!
Head Up, Heart Strong with Christen Bakken
Those that have office or desk jobs may have to spend much of the day in the same position sitting at a desk. It can be too easy to ignore our bodies’ need to move regularly and experience stress and tension because of how we have sit to work. Repeating the same cycle for weeks, months, and years can lead to more serious responses from the body, causing the immune system to continually be on defense and increasing poor posture. This pattern worsens as time passes unless you are proactive and take preventative measures, like yoga.
The best way to break this cycle is to start making small changes. While there are several ways to start having a healthier and more positive routine at the office, this can be done from the comfort of your desk or chair. Below, you will find 4 of the best poses that you can do while at work and create a more stress-free workday and future.
These poses can be done alone, targeting more specific areas as needed or done together for a quick in-office practice. Choose your desk or an area of the office that is quiet or further away from others.
Standing Seal Pose
This is a great stretch for both the spine and the legs. Doing this pose is ideal for those that sit a lot throughout the day, giving the back, shoulders, spine, and legs a chance to stretch. This pose is also known to increase the connection between the heart and the mind, making it the perfect stretch to do when you can feel the stress coming on at work.
How to do it at work:
Stand straight with your legs a little wider than hip-distance apart. Clasp your arms behind your back and interlace your fingers together. Take the gaze up and then dive the heart forward bending over the thighs and bringing the arms up as high as comfortable. When coming up, do it slowly to prevent any dizziness that may occur.
Chair Pigeon
We carry emotions in our hips. Stresses at work can lead to more tension in the hips. Pigeon is a deep hip opener and chest opener, giving you a chance to let those emotions go and continue on with your day feeling lighter.
Sit straight up in your chair, place one leg at a 90-degree angle above the other. Be sure to keep the foot flexed to avoid knee injuries. You can stay here or opt for a deeper stretch by reaching through and gripping your thigh, shin or ankle. Stay here as long as you like and breathe.
Desk Upward Dog
Upward Dog is an amazing chest opener, helping you thrust forward your heart and is a good antidote to the posture of prolonged sitting at a desk. Use this pose to get a quick burst of energy as it lengthens your spine and brings blood and oxygen to the brain.
Clear off a spot on your desk keeping your arms, hips, and chest forward. Step your feet, balancing your weight between hands and feet. Breathe in deeply and extend the head, neck, and chest upward, while keeping your gaze on the ceiling.
Eagle Arms
This pose has a lot of good benefits, especially for those that do a lot of typing. This is a deep wrist and arm stretch helps tendons and ligaments stay strong and flexible.
In your chair, make sure that enough space is cleared in order to fully stretch your hands around and above the head. Starting from the center of your heart, breathe hands up and around swinging one elbow under the other. Breathe deeply and lift the elbows as far up your face as you can; deepening the stretch the further up you go.
For all of these poses, breath is the most important thing. Make sure that while you are doing any of these poses you are taking really deep inhales, then emptying the lungs for the next big breath to enter and nourish the organs.
It can be best to try and make these moves a routine, attempting to create a more positive mindset at work. By doing these moves even once a day at work you may see a big decrease in stress levels. Most of these poses are targeted to deliver oxygen and blood to the brain; clearing mind fog and helping you be the best and most productive version of yourself at work. Put your best foot forward, smile, and make your way through your workday positive and happy, with the help of yoga.
By Akash Bhowad
Akash is a Content Writer at Diet Chart which is a leading Nutrition, Diet, Health and Fitness Blog. He is passionate about connecting human hearts through words and sharing resourceful knowledge, health and wellness tips. Through his work, he aspires to serve people, educate them and help them understand the significance of Diet, Yoga, Nutrition and Exercise to lead a healthy and fulfilling lifestyle.
Want to experience the benefits of yoga at your desk for yourself? Try YogaDownload's Yoga for Desk Jockey's program.
If you have more time and space to move, the 2-Week Lunch Break Yoga Challenge can also improve your workday.
Those who practice yoga often know the importance of balance on the mat, be it balance in the body, balance in tree pose, or balance between the breath and the movements. But not many of us transfer this balance into our day to day lives, especially our work-life balance.
Yoga can help us practice so much more than the physical movements and poses. It helps us practice things like our breath, calming our minds, pushes us outside our comfort zone and allows us to grow and self reflect. This self-reflection will ultimately help in maintaining a strong work-life balance, as understanding patterns, strengths and weaknesses are essential in setting the boundaries we need to balance our lives. In layman's terms, a work-life balance is how you maintain the time you dedicate to working vs having fun and living your life.
Finding a balance that works for you requires work and self-reflection. There are many ways yoga can help you improve your work-life balance.
Yoga helps you study yourself
Yoga practice turns your mind and back in yourself, and helps you in the practice of self-study. This is vital in finding that balance in your life, especially to help you find your work-life balance. While you practice yoga, you often think a lot about who you are, and calm your mind, letting you discover what your priorities are and what work-life balance means for you. Over time, once you self reflect more and more, you can start to shape your life based on your needs, wants, and the type of person you are.
Yoga helps you discover your habits
Your daily habits and the patterns you repeat every day can have a big effect on how you achieve a work-life balance. Things like unconscious behavioral patterns shape our days, such as getting into the habit of a morning coffee, or a mid-afternoon snack. Sometimes these habits and patterns are healthy, sometimes they are not. Yoga helps to increase self-awareness and gives us the time to think about these patterns, and helps us to establish good habits - giving us time back to maintain that work-life balance.
Yoga helps you establish your limits
Everyone has their limits, especially when it comes to being overworked. Yoga can help you to explore your limits by practicing physical poses and movements and tracking your progress. Through your yoga practice you can learn the ability to recognize and acknowledge your limits, as well as finding ways to grow. It’s important to recognize and stick to your limits and keep them in balance.
Yoga helps to beat stress
If you’re stressed out and can’t relax - maybe you’re even so stressed out you can’t sleep - your work-life balance is sure to suffer. Mental and emotional stress are some of the highest reasons that can affect your health as well as your productivity, and it can also make you sick by aggravating illness and health conditions. Yoga can help to alleviate stress, by practicing poses daily, regulating your breathing and releasing tension in both the mind and body. Less stress = more productivity, which is sure to improve your work-life balance.
Yoga helps to improve your concentration
Staying focused at work is a great way to improve your work-life balance - if you get your work done, it’s easier to leave on time on focus on fun things. Yoga can help to improve your concentration, by allowing you to practice meditation and deep breathing exercises, which are helpful if you ever feel overwhelmed. Yoga helps to regulate your oxygen in your blood, making you more alert and able to handle your workload.
Yoga helps your physical health
If you’re in good physical health, it’s easier to fully enjoy your time off work, and enjoy the ‘life’ part of a work-life balance. These days, work can have an impact on your health, especially if you work a desk job which doesn't keep you physically active. Starting at a screen hunched over a desk can affect your posture, your eyesight, and your physical health - which can not only affect your fun time but also your productivity. Yoga can help to keep these physical ailments at bay, by allowing you to move your body.
Yoga helps to increase energy and helps you feel positive
If you have more energy, you have more time to commit to the activities you like to do. Working every day can lead to fatigue, which can build up over the days and weeks. Taking some time out to practice yoga and some mindful meditation can help to decrease fatigue and give you higher energy levels. Yoga also helps you feel your best, in more ways than one. It can help you feel better physically, mentally and emotionally. This can improve your confidence and help you in setting your boundaries for a healthy work-life balance.
Want to reap the benefits and improve your work-life balance? This week's Lunch Break Yoga Challenge, will help you improve your work-life balance, so take some time out from your busy work schedule during your lunch break, to enjoy practicing yoga.
Eggplant is one of my all-time favorite vegetables. Added to curries, baked to moussaka, in baba ganoush or filled with all kinds of things from goats cheese to vegetables. Bring it on!
I love it in any shape or form! Today I am sharing one of my favorite eggplant recipes with you. The recipe is vegan, but it is loaded with protein – both chickpeas and peanut butter help out here, and the spices add a nice kick too.
Not all people love eggplant. In fact, at home, I have one vegetarian who does not like this vegetable at all. In fact, he doesn’t like most vegetables, but that’s a different story!
Anyway since I am the one who does the cooking, we are still using eggplant quite often, and this recipe here is one of the approved ones. The creaminess from the peanut butter and tanginess from the tomato sauce are just so delicious together.
One thing worth mentioning with eggplant is that it soaks up everything it touches, so it makes sense to act as quick as possible when brushing it with oil – otherwise, you might end up adding too much of it and load the dish with unnecessary calories.
Chickpea Stuffed Eggplant
Cooking time: 35 minutes
2 smaller eggplants
1 tsp oil
13 oz canned chickpeas
1 spring onion
½ tsp turmeric
½ tsp paprika powder
1 red chili
1 tbsp smooth peanut butter
1 cup tomato sauce (I used homemade one, but feel free to use store-bought)
Salt
Preheat the oven to 400 F.
Slice the eggplants to half, brush lightly with oil and season with salt. Bake for about 20 minutes.
In the meantime, mix the rest of the ingredients – chickpeas, chopped spring onion and chili, spices, peanut butter, and tomato sauce.
As soon as the eggplants are tender, take them out of the oven, carefully scrape out the soft inside, and mix it with the rest of the filling.
Fill up the empty eggplant halves and bake them for about ten more minutes until they are warmed through.
Practice yoga before enjoying this delicious and healthy dinner recipe very quickly with this shorter class, here:
25-Minute Full Body Yoga with Keith Allen - FREE Class
We’ve got an invigorating new yoga program designed to fit in during your lunch hour. This collection of 10 short, dynamic classes will give you the structure to stay consistent in your practice. Here are 3 reasons why you should take the challenge to not just improve your strength and flexibility, but also achieve peak performance at work.
1. Improve your mental focus and clarity all day: After a busy morning working or studying, your brain can feel foggy and dull. When you’ve got another several hours at work, you need to reset and find a way to hone your focus and be productive. By shifting your attention to breathing and moving on your yoga mat, you give your busy mind time to rest and settle. Even a short class will provide you the opportunity to feel refreshed. You’ll return to your project with increased clarity and focus and maybe even finish up early!
2. Boost your confidence: When you take the time to step away from whatever is happening at work and reset your thoughts, you are reinforcing your inner strength and confidence. No matter how your day began, pausing to take time for yourself and reset gives you the confidence to proceed with the rest of your day. Time on your yoga mat is an opportunity to look within and recognize just how powerful you already are. By choosing to practice yoga each day, you are choosing to be the best version of yourself and others see that as true confidence. Enhance your self-worth by recognizing that taking time for yourself will make you stronger and more effective at whatever you do.
3. Manage Stress and Anxiety: Many of us struggle to cope with stress at work. Whether you’ve got a tough boss or co-workers, a project that doesn’t want to cooperate, or whatever issues pertain to your particular career, anxiety can hinder your performance. Getting out of your head and into sensation and breath for a short period can soothe your nervous system, release endorphins, and calm you down. After some vigorous movement, often the looming stresses don’t seem so formidable. Add in some mindful breathing or Pranayama and you’ll shift into a feeling of calm.
If you already have an established yoga practice, you recognize all these benefits. Try shifting to a mid-day practice for a few weeks and see how it impacts your day in a different way. We believe you’ll love the results!
Yoga has long been known as an effective means of increasing mental and physical well-being. The focus on breathing and poses help increase one’s mindfulness and focus. Yoga has seen a recent surge of popularity in the West due to these mental and physical benefits.
However, some are saying CBD can increase the benefits you can get from yoga. CBD yoga has become increasingly popular in recent years and combines the therapeutic effects of yoga with the therapeutic effects of CBD. Several anecdotal stories from users recount how CBD dosing has made their yoga experience more effective and beneficial.
However, there is still a lack of clinical scientific evidence on the matter, so it's very important to educate yourself to understand if trying this combination is right for you. In this article, we will talk about how CBD and yoga can work together to relax the mind and body, precautions, and what CBD is.
First off, what is CBD?
CBD (also known as cannabidiol) is a cannabinoid compound that is found in the cannabis plant. CBD, along with THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) are the two main active ingredients in marijuana and industrial hemp. Unlike THC, the chemical that makes you feel high from smoking marijuana, CBD is not known to produce any psychoactive effects.
CBD merely stimulates the activity of cannabinoid receptors in the body and brain, instead of fully bonding to them like THC, so it is associated with a different profile of physiological effects. There is a growing body of evidence that suggests CBD plays an integral role in regulating many important processes in the body, including hormone production, fertility, pain signaling, and sleep.
Also, unlike THC, the manufacture and the use of CBD compounds are generally not regulated and CBD is more or less legal in all 50 states, under certain restrictions. This means that you can legally buy and use CBD without fear of legal repercussions. CBD can be administered by several methods; smoking, vaping, ingestion of tinctures and edibles, as well as topical lotions and salves. Lastly, CBD has not been shown to create any physiological dependencies, so it is safe to use. How Are Yoga and CBD Similar?
Although yoga is a practice and CBD is a drug, the two are more similar than one may think. Specifically, yoga and CBD are similar insofar as the effects they produce on the body. Both yoga and CBD have been independently shown as an effective means of reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression and for managing nociceptive and neuropathic pain from injury or neurological conditions.
Moreover, CBD consumption has been shown to increase brain activity in areas associated with emotions, goal-setting, self-control, and motivation, while the practice of yoga has been shown to have similar effects on cognition and emotional awareness.
So it should come as no surprise that many people claim the combination of yoga and CBD have a reciprocal effect and can increase the benefits of both.
How do CBD and Yoga Work Together?
In short, CBD helps the practice of yoga by making it easier to get into the mindset necessary for effective yoga practice. On the flip side, yoga can help get acclimated to CBD by teaching one to be more in touch with their body and mind.
Let’s give a simple example of this positive feedback loop. It is well known that CBD is an effective anti-inflammatory agent. CBD interacts with the T-cells in the body’s immune system to reduce the production of lymphocytes, the things that cause swelling and redness surrounding the site of an injury. Likewise, the physical exercise of yoga is effective at working out kinks in the body and reducing pain. So the cycle works like this: CBD reduces pain, which makes it easier to get deeper into yoga poses. Similarly, yoga itself is effective at managing pain, and CBD makes it easier to reap these yoga benefits.
This positive feedback loop applies to the mental benefits of yoga and CBD. CBD can reduce anxiety, which in turn makes it easier to cultivate the qualitative state of awareness necessary for effective yoga practice. Yoga itself can also reduce symptoms of anxiety, which compounds the anxiolytic effects of CBD.
In other words, yoga and CBD usage can feed into each other as the physical and mental effects symbiotically influence each other. While each method is effective on its own, the combination of the two can increase the benefits of each.
What Does Combining CBD & Yoga Look Like?
A CBD yoga practice can begin by each participant taking some CBD drops and initiating meditation for a few minutes.
We recommend you try gentler classes when trying to combine CBD and yoga at first. If it feels good you can move into more physically intensive yoga styles.
CBD yoga is not necessarily focused on physical fitness, but physical and mental unity. There is a strong focus on relaxation and becoming attuned to the body’s senses, emotions, and thoughts. You can also use CBD salves and lotions to treat strained muscles after your yoga practice.
Are There Any Downsides to CBD & Yoga?
Despite its professed benefits, CBD is not for everyone. First of all, there is not enough evidence to show that CBD is safe for pregnant or breastfeeding women. Second, taking CBD can cause a drug test to come back positive, so people who are drug tested for work should probably abstain.
Additionally, CBD does have a mild blood-thinning effect, which can affect physical performance, especially in people who have blood pressure issues. As with any new medication, make sure to consult your primary care physician before taking CBD.
Is CBD Yoga Right for You?
The combination of CBD and yoga can be an excellent way to augment the benefits of both. To be clear, CBD is not a cure for anything and is best used to manage symptoms of conditions. However, a consistent regiment of CBD and yoga can go along way towards promoting mental and physical well-being if it is a good combination for your unique body and mind.
By Kimberly Torres
Kim Torres is one of the voices behind SundayScaries blog. At the same time, she handles content partnerships. She wants to inspire people to be actively fit and be the best version of themselves. Her tip is to avoid stress and anxiety, and only focus on life’s wonders.
If you want to practice yoga to reduce anxiety, try one of this FREE, relaxing yoga class!
"Feel the fear, and do it anyway." - Susan Jeffers
Sometimes fear actually works in our favor and motivates us, however, most of the time things that scare us are based on nothing more than a story of thoughts. However, we have the ability to ignore, quiet, and overcome any fears if we're brave enough to and yoga can help.
Sometimes fearful, made up stories of the future can hold us back from experiencing some of the magic that life has to offer. We have to be brave and get out of our comfort zones to take chances, have new experiences and greater satisfaction. It can be easier to stay and feel stuck and safe, instead of choosing to be brave though. For most, the familiar is more comfortable than the unknown, and it's preferable to stay within the boundaries of what you know, instead of diving into unknown possibilities.
While there are no guarantees, some examples of being brave that could pay off are: leaving a stagnant or dysfunctional relationship and feeling liberated and happy afterward in your single life, or in a more harmonious relationship. Taking a chance and moving to a new city or country because you've always wanted to experience life outside of your hometown at least once. Overcoming your fear to come out of the closet and live as your authentic and fabulous gay self, instead of pretending to be someone you're not. Quitting a dead-end job and starting your own lucrative business doing work you love successfully. Being brave enough to finally speak up and let someone know that thing they always do or say actually bothers you, and never having to deal with it again.
You get the idea. While there are never any guarantees, often when fear beats bravery, the liberation, joy and relief that result from your courage to make changes, are so much better than staying scared in unsatisfying, but familiar circumstances. Usually, when we're able to be brave, the previous fears that held us back seem ridiculous in retrospect as well.
Fortunately, being brave is not an inherent trait that some are born with and some are not. It's something that can be practiced and we can get better at. It's a choice and a skill that can be strengthened.
To become braver, it's important to do things that make you feel courageous. There are different activities for everyone that invoke these feelings, and for many, yoga can strengthen this bravery muscle.
While many physical benefits are well documented, you might be wondering how yoga can make us braver?
Here's 6 reasons why yoga helps you become braver!
1. You went to your first yoga class once
It might seem second nature now, but walking into a yoga studio for the first time takes courage. It's a reason that some people never try yoga.
It's easy to feel self-conscious and like an outsider the first time going to a class, with no idea what the normal etiquette in a studio is, what to do, or how to practice the poses. Over time, the fear disappears, and the benefits of yoga win out and get to be experienced.
Imagine never getting to enjoy the array of benefits yoga brings, because you chose to stay scared of walking through the door?
2. Some of the poses are naturally brave shapes
Think of Warrior 2 for example. There is nothing about the human body in that shape that says, "I'm scared." The warrior poses are common and obvious examples of expansive and brave postures. The energy of a warrior, is confident, centered, and strong and you embody that when you put your body into such a shape.
The body and mind are connected, and the idea in yoga, is that putting your body into symbolically brave shapes, also makes your mind more brave. We get good at what we practice, and if you practice being courageous on your mat, you'll gradually start to feel more courageous in the world.
3. You meet your perceived limitations (and move through and past them)
Achieving a big posture in yoga, is great and all, but why? Being able to stand on your hands, or put your leg behind your head, does not make you a happy, successful, or brave person.
However, putting your body into a position that at one point you probably felt would never be possible, has mental and emotional benefits that, surpass the physical benefits of the poses, in teaching you to move past limits in your mind. Doing a yoga pose you once thought was impossible, keeps you in the energy of believing that anything is possible. When we are in the headspace of 'anything is possible', it's much easier to take chances, believe in yourself, and be brave.
Take handstand, or wheel pose as examples. These poses, believe it or not, are attainable with consistency and practice (and a sense of humor helps too). For someone who once saw these poses and thought 'no way I'll ever be able to do this', getting there one day can make other perceived obstacles in life feel smaller and attainable.
4. More Confident Body Posture
When you're scared, the body gets small physically and your body language closes. When you feel brave and steady, you hold yourself in a different way. If your body has been in patterns of being tense and maintaining poor posture, yoga helps us to become open, grounded, and strong.
The body and mind are connected and when you practice yoga you open your body, release stress, and get stronger both physically and mentally.
5. Calmness is confidence
Yoga helps us chill out when we need to. It's easier to be courageous when we have a sense of steadiness and are better able to stay in the present moment instead of giving into any scary stories of what could go wrong.
If you get stuck worrying about the future, and that's what holds you back, the calmness a yoga practice can bring, can help you find your center when things feel scary. Certain yoga poses also activate Manipura chakra, the confidence energy center in the body.
6. Yoga makes you leave your comfort zone
Growth often happens outside of the comfort zone. Yoga poses, also physically put your body outside of your comfort zone. When you get comfortable in exploring uncomfortable shapes on your mat, you can start to feel more comfortable putting yourself in situations outside less familiar situations in life. Of course, this doesn't mean you put yourself in situations that are harmful, but the ones you've desired and may have felt too scared or small to experience.
Wherever you are on your journey, feel gratitude for where you're at. If you know there's more you desire, but feel scared to try, be brave and go for it.
By Keith Allen
Practice these classes with Keith and another yoga teacher Kristin Gibowicz teachers, to feel braver right now!
25-Minute Full Body Yoga with Keith Allen: FREE CLASS
Courageous Flow with Kristin Gibowicz
Humble Warrior Flow with Keith Allen
What scares you? For some people, it’s heights or public speaking or spiders. Halloween celebrates thrills, chills, and things that go bump in the night.
While Halloween tends to be a fun holiday defined by disguising our true identity with make-up and costumes, it echoes how many of us deal with our fears the other three hundred and sixty-four days of the year - hiding behind a mask. Yoga provides a safe space for us to examine our fears and offers tools to become more courageous.
The Yoga Sutras state that the fear of death is the biggest fear we face and is the basis for all other fears. In the second pada, Patanjali refers to this concept as abhinivesha. Learning to live in the present moment is a powerful way to stop worrying and being scared of the future. Fear can only exist in relation to what you anticipate happening.
Fear doesn’t exist when you are in the moment. Every minute of your day is an opportunity to move from a place of courage or from a position of fear.
Often in our lives on and off the mat, our primary desire is to protect ourselves from pain. If your heart has been broken or you’ve suffered physical or mental pain––and who hasn’t––you could be holding yourself back.
Of course, you don’t want to be dangerous and reckless, but are you restricting yourself too much?
Yoga can help by giving you space to examine your thoughts and feelings on the mat and encourage you to step out of your comfort zone in a safe space. When you recognize what feels scary to you, you may realize your fears aren’t as deep as you assumed.
Through the process of self-analysis, you develop a stronger sense of your strengths and weaknesses. The more we understand ourselves, the more comfortable we are shedding the masks we’re accustomed to don for protection.
This week, in celebration of Halloween, we invite you to four classes that might scare you for their intensity, or encourage you to be fearless and courageous.
1. Carson Calhoun - Rocket Yoga 1: Yogi Leg Day
2. Keith Allen - 25-Minute Full Body Yoga (FREE class)
3. Rob Loud - Birds of Paradise
4. Kristin Gibowicz - Courageous Flow
One of the foods our cleansers struggle with giving up most is SUGAR. Added sugar is everywhere, even hidden in your favorite salad dressings or condiments, which makes it particularly hard to avoid, and the more you eat it, the more you become reliant on it.
Sugar can lead to health issues such as chronic weight gain, an overgrowth of candida, blood sugar imbalance, depression, anxiety, insomnia, and more. It’s also been linked to an increased risk for more serious health concerns like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
During the Conscious Cleanse, you’ll give up added and refined sugars completely, but if you think you might have a sugar sensitivity, you may need to do even more to tame your sugar cravings (take our Sugar Sensitivity Quiz here). Many fruits, grains, and other healthy foods still have naturally occurring sugars that can sabotage your health if you’re sensitive to sugar.
We both know how difficult it can be to give up sugar; Jo went from snacking on chocolate candy to “healthier” sugary treats like dried dates and other fruit, while Jules loved high-sugar fruits like bananas in her smoothies every morning. After having kids, not sleeping, and our hormones having changed, we realized that we needed to cut out even the natural sugars if we wanted to feel our best.
That’s why we’ve included a Low-Sugar plan as part of our Conscious Cleanse On Demand program to give you even more support in giving up sugar for good. You’ll have access to a daily Meal Planner of low-sugar recipes to help with meal prep, a Resource Library full of helpful tips for cutting out all types of sugar, and a Food Journal where you can track your food choices. You can reach out to one of our expert health coaches at any time with any questions or concerns, or send us your Food Journal so we can look for patterns and help you identify a sugar sensitivity.
When we realized we needed to cut out high-sugar fruit and other sources of natural sugars from our diets, we weren’t sure how that would affect our morning smoothie ritual. But with a little tinkering, we were able to come up with a way to enjoy green smoothies without the extra sugar – low-sugar green smoothies! Some of our favorite low-sugar green smoothies include our Lemon Blueberry Smoothie and our Fruit Free Green Smoothie. If you’d like to make your own low-sugar smoothie, here’s our go-to guide for making the perfect low-sugar smoothie.
How to Make the Perfect Low-Sugar Green Smoothie
Choose a liquid: 2 cups of unsweetened nut milk or water.
Add 1 piece or about 1 cup of low-sugar fruit (optional): blueberries, raspberries, ½ of a lemon, 1 pear, cherries, cranberries are all great low-sugar options.
Add lots of greens! About 2 cups of spinach, kale, collard greens, Swiss Chard, Romaine lettuce, or other leafy greens.
Top it off with 1-2 superfood add ons: 2-3 TB. hemp seeds for protein; 1-2 TB. unsweetened raw nut/seed butter, 1 TB. chia seeds, or olive or coconut oil for energy from healthy fats, 1 tsp. Ceylon cinnamon to help stabilize your blood sugar and add sweetness – all these can help with sugar cravings.
Blend in a high-speed blender and enjoy!
With love and low-sugar smoothies,
Turmeric, the powerful golden root that makes our favorite golden milk lattes, is most commonly known for its anti-inflammatory properties. Since I was a young child, my mom taught me how to replace taking ibuprofen and other pharmaceutical anti-inflammatory drugs by instead drinking turmeric tea, or even soaking the desired body part in hot turmeric water. What I didn’t know my whole life, was that turmeric does so much more for the body than simply reducing inflammation and making delicious lattes.
Here are 8 benefits of turmeric you might not have known before:
Cures and prevents some cancers
Could Turmeric be a new cure for cancer? Although there aren’t too many studies out there yet, Curcumin (the active ingredient in turmeric) has been shown to inhibit proliferation, invasion, angiogenesis, and metastasis of different cancers through interaction with multiple cell signaling proteins. Additionally, Turmeric has been shown to prevent the growth of cancerous cells and prohibit growth as seen in different testing. Increases breast milk supply
Turmeric has been used in India and other Eastern countries as a galactagogue, which is a substance that helps increase milk in breastfeeding moms. While it is not scientifically proven, many moms swear by supplementing their diets with Turmeric to increase milk flow as well as milk quality. Strengthens your immune system
Good news! Drinking golden milk lattes can be your new go-to cold medicine. Turmeric has antibacterial, antiviral, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory properties that help boost your immune system and prevent future sickness. Makes you happy
For sure sipping golden milk lattes does make me happy, but turmeric increases your mood because it also acts as a natural antidepressant. In fact, Chinese medicine practitioners have been treating depression with Turmeric for thousands of years! Turmeric is thought to contain compounds that increase dopamine and stimulate the nervous system. Studies also show Turmeric may even ease depression by relieving inflammation and oxidative stress in the brain.
Reduced risk of mastitis
Turmeric’s anti-inflammatory properties may help prevent swollen breast tissue and clogged ducts, which can lead to mastitis.
Improved digestion
Turmeric can help get your digestion back to normal by helping stimulate the stomach to produce more gastric acid, which is needed for proper digestion.
Natural painkiller
Turmeric can help reduce inflammation that causes pain, especially in joints. Like I mentioned earlier, you can replace your ibuprofen with Tumeric tea, or even soaking the inflamed area in warm turmeric water. I have used this technique multiple times, specifically for sprained and swollen ankles. Watch as your inflamed joints reduce as if by magic!
Helps with Arthritis. Due to its anti-inflammatory properties as I said above, it makes natural sense that turmeric helps with arthritis as well. According to a study, Curcumin was found to be more effective for people with rheumatoid arthritis than an anti-inflammatory drug,
Improves Brain Health
BDNF is a growth hormone in the brain that when decreased, can lead to brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and depression. Interestingly, curcumin has been shown to increase levels of BDNF, reversing brain diseases and improving overall brain function.
As we study more and more about turmeric, the more amazing things we find out about this herb. There is still so much we don’t know about turmeric, but what we do know is it helps us feel amazing, and it’s delicious too! Add turmeric to your daily diet, whether in tea, curry, or (obviously my favorite by now) a golden milk latte. Cheers!
By Brooke Nally
Brooke is a freelance writer who has been living internationally and traveling the world for about two years ago, teaching yoga everywhere she lands.
Ready to get into optimal health? Try one of these yoga programs whether you're experienced or a brand new beginner!
Many people shy away from fear and see it as a negative, a danger and something to be avoided. However, fear can sometimes be good for you! Fear can keep you on your toes and help you experience new things.
Here’s our top 10 reasons why a dose of fear every now and again can be good for you.
Fear keeps you safe
The fear instinct is the bodies’ internal danger alarm. The feelings of fear compel you to take action against danger. Without the fear instinct, you wouldn’t have an awareness of threats around you - so you wouldn’t be around very long! Fear gives you the flight or fight reaction to make decisions when you may be unsafe - such as if a car drives towards you when you’re crossing the road. Without fear - you wouldn’t be able to make a decision to help you stay safe.
Fear keeps you fit
Feeling scared and fear can help you burn more calories than when you are relaxed and not afraid. This is because when you feel scared, your pulse quickens, and your body receives a huge surge in adrenaline. This kick starts your metabolism into high gear, burning sugar and fat in your body, and your heart beats faster to get energy to your muscles. In fact, one study found that people watching horror movies burned 113 calories during the viewing!
Fear keeps you healthy
As well as keeping you fit, a dose of fear can also boost your immune system. Another study that utilized scary movies found that after watching a horror film, participants had a higher white blood cell count. This was proven by taking blood samples both before and after the film, and the physiological fear responses caused the film watchers to experience a lift in white blood cells. These cells enable your body to fight disease and infection, and boost your immune system.
Fear is exciting
A healthy dose of fear can be fun! Just like people love to watch scary movies, or ride roller coasters - or even do something a little more daring like skydiving - this is because that feeling of adrenaline can be exciting and makes you feel alive. When you feel fear, you generate excitement which can help to relieve depression - by increasing adrenaline. This also increases arousal and energy. A small dose of fear is a great way to inject some fun into your life!
Fear empowers you
Feeling fear can give you a natural sense of empowerment. As well as adrenaline, other chemicals are released when you feel scared, such as endorphins, serotonin, oxytocin and dopamine. These chemicals actually help your brain work more efficiently. This is partly due to the fact that when you’re facing something scary, it's unknown and your brain has to work harder and focus. Coming through these challenges creates a natural biological high and feeling of empowerment.
Fear relaxes you
It may seem counterintuitive but feeling scared can actually relax you. Stress is fundamentally fear based. As you worry and stress, your body physically bombards you with adrenaline and dopamine, speeding up your heart rate and increasing your blood pressure - this activates the fight or flight response and floods your muscles with oxygen - helping your brain quieten down and helps you feel calm.
Fear helps you focus
Fear can stop you getting distracted and help you to focus. If you’re feeling scared or anxious about something in the future or something unknown, you can use that fear to help you focus on the present. When adrenaline is released through feeling afraid, another hormone called norepinephrine is released, which helps you to focus instead of panic. This hormone allows you to think clearly under stress, and it’s used in antidepressants.
Fear socializes you
When you’re afraid, the body releases oxytocin, which is a hormone that makes you seek out comfort in other people. This is due to the brain’s survival instinct, which is to pair with other humans to increase survival chances.
Fear opens up your life
When you’re fearful of something, sometimes the best approach is to face it head on and overcome your fear - rather than letting it stop you and limit you in life. Being afraid of something and overcoming it can expand your life to so many more opportunities. When you notice a fear, you’re altered to something in your life that could be limiting you - and it gives you the chance to expand your life.
Fear alerts you to the important things in life
If you’re fearful about something important to you, feeling afraid can alert you to the priorities in your life, and help you to understand how to nurture these aspects of your life.
Want to face some fears? Practice some arm balance and inversion yoga classes and learn to be braver!
Michelle Marchildon - Balance your Way to Bakasana
Kylie Larson - Tittibasana Flow: Balance and Fly
Need to make a major shift in your perspective or boost your confidence?
We’ve got you covered this week with poses designed to help you feel strong, focused, and humble. Whether you love to balance on your hands and take flight or if you fear falling on your face, this week we’ve got four classes for you to get engaged and turn your world upside down. These practices are empowering and invigorating.
Regardless of how you feel about inversions, these postures are excellent for your circulation, mental focus, and overall mood. It’s helpful to use your full yoga practice to keep your spine flexible, your hips open, your core and upper body strong, and your attitude positive. You may have heard yoga called the 'fountain of youth', and often going upside down is what helps keep your skin glowing with the boost of fresh blood from the heart to the head.
If you’re one of the students who avoid inversions, we challenge you to wipe the slate clean and try again this week. Arm balances are accessible, as long as you’re physically healthy and listen to your body. Usually, our reservations revolve around our fear of falling or looking silly. As long as you can perform chaturanga, you’ve got the upper body strength. A strong core is important for playing with gravity. A willingness to be playful and view the postures as an opportunity to have fun helps immensely. Also, don’t be afraid to use props like blocks, straps, or a wall.
For those of you who wish every class was full of handstands and dragonflies and flying pigeons, good for you. Sometimes we fall into a rut of repeating our favorite postures in exactly the same way or not practicing others at all. We challenge you to try these classes for variety and to enhance your current knowledge and either confirm what you know or learn a new or different method of entering or exiting a pose. Try your beloved arm balances with a beginner’s mind.
Each of this week’s classes offers a different take on these powerful and graceful postures. We've picked four of our top arm balance classes, each highlighting a different arm balance, to keep you engaged in your practice this week. Get ready to boost your endorphins, gain a new perspective, and have fun!
1. Kylie Larson - Tittibasana Flow: Balance and Fly
2. Kristin Gibowicz - Fly Like an Eagle
3. Kristen Boyle - Staying Power: Flow into Eka Pada Koundinyasana II
4. Michelle Marchildon - Balance your Way to Bakasana
I have had a problem for a few months already, but it is one of those good problems – how to eat all the beautiful produce I get?!
In Estonia summers are rather short, which means that most of the crop is at its best at the same time – zucchini, tomatoes, cucumber, kale, you name it! And, even if I have my rooftop garden, my mother’s garden, and my grandmother's garden, I still also like to go to the farmers market too, because, well, I love going to the market to look at the abundance of produce. I do need to hold myself back with shopping, though.
I hate throwing away food and always try to eat everything from root to leaf, so I always try to make the most of everything I have. Oh, I wish I could somehow spread the harvest over the whole year! But I can’t, so this time of year my 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day is easily 15 or 20 portions of fruit and veggies, and everything else has to wait until I run out (although I do miss lentils and pasta already).
This soup here is a wonderful way to use up tomatoes. I used ripe sweet yellow tomatoes, but you can do this soup also from the underripe storebought tomatoes because cooking turns them more delicious anyway. I love the spices in my tomato soup, and adding these makes it a perfect autumn soup. Imagine the pouring rain and then you enjoying your hot bowl of soup inside. It's nice!
Oh and by the way – tomatoes are even healthier once they are cooked because the lycopene content in them increases once cooked!
Lightly Spiced Tomato Soup
1 large onion
1 tsp ground coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin (I used whole, but ground is ok too)
6 large tomatoes
7 oz (vegan) cream cheese
Herbs to serve
Peel and chop the onion, heat oil in a bottom of a saucepan and sweat the onions with a tiny bit of salt for 5-7 minutes on low heat.
Then add spices to the same pot and heat a few more minutes until the whole kitchen is fragrant.
Chop the onions. I used beautiful ripe yellow tomatoes from my grandmother's garden, but use whatever you happen to have – even slightly under-ripe vegetables work for this recipe. Add them to the pot with the rest of the ingredients, cover with the lid and forget about them for 10 minutes.
Turn down the heat, add cream cheese, and blend with a stick blender. If you happen to have a blender with a glass jug that takes the heat, you can use a normal blender too. Anyway – be extra careful since this is one of the hottest things on earth.
Once blended season with salt and pepper, have a taste and adjust the seasoning if needed.
Serve with your favorite herbs. I used cilantro, but parsley, basil, and even spring onions work well too.
Want some yoga to enjoy before or after your delicious tomato soup? Practice some of these top-rated FREE yoga and meditation classes, now!
Intro to Yoga Nidra with Erin Wimert
Sweat, Sweat, Sweat with Pradeep Teotia
Addiction is a threefold disease. It affects the mind, body, and spirit in various ways. While there are many traditional methods of treating addiction with behavioral therapies, more and more programs are beginning to incorporate holistic methods into their treatment programs.
By taking a holistic approach to treating addiction, the healing process occurs on the mind, body, and spirit. As a result, individuals in recovery are given tools to achieve and maintain lasting recovery.
One holistic method that is becoming increasingly popular in the treatment industry is yoga. It is a safe, healthy, and natural medicine that can greatly enhance the recovery process. Since addiction affects the whole person, the whole person must be treated. Yoga allows people to learn how to connect the body, mind, and breath to focus their attention inward and gain self-awareness.
Why Yoga?
With all of the different holistic methods of therapy available, you might be asking, “why does yoga in particular aid in addiction recovery?”
There are many reasons. One of the wonderful things about this practice is that it doesn’t require expensive equipment, it can be done nearly anytime, anywhere. The connection with the body and breath in yoga encompasses the mind, body, and spirit, to bring them into unison.
In addition, many 12-step recovery programs encourage spirituality. Although these are not religious groups, some members struggle with the idea of spirituality or a higher power. Yoga can help those who struggle with their spirituality, as it helps promote and enhance spiritual growth by increasing the connection of mind, body, and soul.
One aspect of recovery is taking care of one’s health. After all, many people who suffer from addiction will neglect their physical, mental, and emotional health before making the decision to get sober.
Some health benefits that yoga carries include:
Higher energy levels Better sleep Stress relief Anxiety relief Increased strength and physical stamina Healthier eating habits Improved self-confidence and self-image Pain relief Emotional healing
Yoga and the Brain
If drugs and alcohol are abused for an extended period of time, the communication pathways of the brain are altered. The ways in which people feel pleasure, make decisions, regulate emotions, and control impulses are all affected. When a person stops taking substances suddenly, they will often feel immense stress and anxiety. However, after a period of sobriety, these pathways begin to heal and it becomes easier to regulate emotions.
Yoga can aid in this healing process by helping to regulate the stress response. Yoga helps balance the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline, which cause heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, and body temperature to increase when elevated under stressful situations. Similarly, yoga helps increase levels of GABA in the brain which is the chemical responsible for managing stress and anxiety. With lower levels of stress hormones and higher levels of GABA, stress and anxiety can be more effectively managed.
Mind-Body Connection
Yoga is a natural method of balancing parts of the brain that are often impacted by drug or alcohol abuse. When practicing various postures, individuals become more attuned to their own bodies. They also learn how to regulate their breathing while listening to the demands of their bodies. This can help heighten self-awareness in a nonjudgemental way by increasing understanding of how certain circumstances make a person feel.
When energy is focused inward, individuals are able to take responsibility for the way they feel, think, and act. By gaining this awareness, individuals have an opportunity to become more self-confident and self-reliant. Being able to recognize emotional triggers and cravings is important in recovery - and yoga can provide the skills needed to observe these thoughts without judgment and allow them to pass. As a result, yoga can become a crucial coping mechanism for emotional reactions and triggers.
Energy levels, eating habits, and quality sleep are often disrupted during early recovery while the mind and body are adjusting to a life without substances. However, yoga is known to improve these aspects by boosting energy levels, promoting better sleep, and encouraging healthy eating.
When people take care of their bodies by eating right and getting enough sleep, they feel better overall.
This means less irritability, a clearer head, and lower stress levels. Without these unpleasant feelings, individuals are able to focus more on their recovery than on stress or agitation.
Lastly, yoga helps improve the mind-body connecting by incorporating mindfulness into the lives of practicing individuals. Breathing techniques and mindfulness meditation can help quiet down racing thoughts, anxiety, and external influences so that individuals can spend time in self-reflection. Although these techniques take time, many people may gain insight into what needs to be changed in their lives in order to find inner peace.
The Healing Power of Yoga
When it comes to addiction recovery, yoga is so much more than stretching. It helps repair damaged neuropathways, raises self-awareness, and promotes spiritual and emotional growth. As a practice of self-reflection, mindfulness, and overall wellness, yoga helps heal the mind, body, and soul that is ravaged by drug and alcohol addiction. When used simultaneously with traditional treatment methods, yoga can be a beneficial asset to those seeking to achieve long-term sobriety.
By Cassidy Webb
Cassidy Webb is an avid writer who works with JourneyPure to spread awareness around the disease of addiction. Her passion in life is to help others by sharing her experience, strength, and hope.
Practice yoga now for healing and recovery. Even if you've never tried it before, with this program for beginners you can practice anywhere at any time.
Love, it makes the world go round. All you need is love. It’s so simple right?
Actually, maintaining and nurturing loving relationships in our lives can take effort and practice. However, showing your love to others, as well as yourself, can make a huge positive impact on our lives. Love comes in many forms, from our significant others to family, to friends and even pets.
Feeling loved can harbor a sense of caring, and inspires you to make others in your life feel good. It’s really quite contagious, so here’s our top ways to help you show love to others (and a few to show some love to yourself too).
Listen to others
People have a need to be heard. It makes them feel like what they have to say is worth listening to, and like their voice is important. When you listen to the people you love, you make the other person feel seen and understood, which helps them feel loved and appreciated.
Keep your promises
Promises you make to the people you love are important, and you tend to go above and beyond to keep promises you make to those you love. Show your love to people you care about by keeping your promises and working hard to show them that they’re a priority for you, and deserving of your time and resources.
Try new things together
Even the most love-filled relationships can benefit from a change in routine, and trying new experiences together is a great way to spice things up and do something exciting with people you love. Doing new things creates excitement, and can take you out of a monotonous routine, letting you discover new things about each other, which can create a feeling of being loved by one another.
Do something useful
One of the simplest ways to show your love for someone, is to do something useful for them. This can be doing something when they are asking for your help, taking this opportunity to be useful and help without complaining or seeing it as an inconvenience. You can also offer your assistance when you haven’t been asked, but your loved ones are struggling and may need your help regardless.
Keep eye contact when they are talking
When you don’t keep eye contact when someone is sharing something with you, you could be sending the message that what they’re saying isn’t important, and that your attention isn’t fully on them. If someone feels they are not important to you, you become less important to them. Keeping eye contact is an easy way to express that you care about that person and what they have to say.
Ways to show yourself some love
Accept and appreciate yourself
Showing love to yourself always starts with acceptance. If you accept yourself, you’ll be on the way to loving yourself. When you realize that you are enough, and give yourself value it’s a great way to accept yourself and show some love. You don’t need to do anything to give yourself this value - remind yourself that you are enough as is! A good way to do this is to stop comparing yourself to others. This can foster feelings of not being good enough.
You can also start to appreciate yourself, by thinking about the qualities you admire in yourself, and expressing gratitude for these things.
Set Boundaries
To have a good relationship with both yourself and others, you need to set boundaries and respect yourself to keep them. Healthy boundaries are a good thing that stop people taking advantage of you, and help you to love yourself by maintaining the level of what is and isn’t okay for you. Don’t be afraid to say no if you mean it, or call people out if they’re crossing a boundary.
It’s important to give yourself trust to look after your own best interests, and this means not sacrificing your own needs for the needs of others around you. Prioritize the commitments you make for yourself, and enforce your boundaries in a healthy way.
This can also mean to set some boundaries in order to have some quality time to yourself. Time and space to yourself is a simple way to show love to yourself - take some time to enjoy the things that really feel good to you.
Communicate with yourself
Take time to check in with yourself and listen to what you really want and need. You can’t give yourself the things you need if you don’t know what they actually are. Stop and think about what it is YOU really want, without thinking about other people ahead of yourself. Speak to yourself in a loving way, and listen to the answers that come up.
Meet your own needs
Once you know what your own needs are, it's important to meet them, and not disregard them. You must make sure your needs get met in order to show love to yourself, whether that's more time to yourself, a secure job, a holiday. Think about the ways you can give yourself what you need.
Be kind to yourself
Finally, make sure you’re kind to yourself. Treat yourself with compassion and appreciate the ways you show love to yourself. Kindness is one of the ways to show love - so be kind to yourself every day!
Show some love to yourself and others by practicing these partner yoga classes from your own home, right now!
BFF Yoga with Michelle Marchildon
Partner Restorative Yoga with Kristen Boyle