Yoga, Health, and Wellness Articles + Recipes

Everyone feels sad from time to time. Sadness is a difficult emotion to overcome because of it's discomfort. When sadness becomes too intense and continuous, then you might be dealing with depression. While sadness is a common human emotion, it can shift into more long-term depression without even noticing it. But, how can you know that sadness has become deeper and you are on the edge of falling in depression? Here are ten of the most efficient tricks to help you identify and overcome the first signs of depression, so you can enjoy life more and feel happier and lighter, instead of heavy and stagnant. If you're not sure if you're depressed or not, these tips can help you get clear on whether you're just feeling low temporarily, or in a long-term cycle of unhappiness you'd like to change.

We’re all human, and everyone skips a workout every once in a while. And while it’s important to take some time off to rest and enjoy other aspects of your life, it can be very easy to let one skipped workout turn into two, or three, until time on your yoga mat or at the gym is a distant memory. If you’re having a break from staying active, you may wonder, how long does it take to get out of shape? Before we go on, it’s key to remember that taking breaks from your fitness routine every now and again isn’t a bad thing! When you exercise, especially with high impact workouts, there is a high degree of stress on the body, and all good regimes include rest days and days without workouts. There’s also the mental aspect to consider, taking breaks and focusing on other areas of your life will ensure you don’t get too single minded in your fitness goals.

Here’s a mini-quiz for you: In one to three words, how do you feel after sitting for six hours either in an office, plane, car or even after an extended Netflix binge? Now, how do you feel after a long walk in nature, a sweaty juicy yoga class, or your movement of choice? If you responded to the sedentary day with words like stiff, cranky, negative, or anxious, you’re not alone. And if you responded invigorated, happy, positive, or calm to activity, you’ve described how much lifestyle impacts your well-being. Your level of physical activity profoundly impacts your emotions and thoughts. We all experience periods where we aren’t exercising or practicing yoga as frequently as we would like. Sometimes it’s because of injury or illness, but sometimes we fall into a rut and stop moving our bodies enough. And when that’s the case, we often feel heavy, lethargic, fuzzy, and unhappy. According to numerous academic and psychological studies, a sedentary lifestyle negatively impacts your ability to maintain optimal health.

It is so simple to pick up a jar of hummus from a store. But it is almost as simple to prepare hummus yourself and know exactly what has been added. You can do everything from scratch, including soaking and boiling the chickpeas, but I usually don’t feel this is necessary. The chickpeas from a jar, especially if I choose an organic brand, do it for me, but in case you do have extra time you can soak the chickpeas overnight and then boil until tender. It makes sense for me to cook your own chickpeas if you need a lot of them, so I sometimes do this for bigger parties, but if I am just hungry for a quick beet hummus I prefer having it in 5 minutes instead of the next day! However, I do prefer to roast the beetroots at home. I do this quite often anyway, so I usually have leftovers for hummus too.

You are what you eat! Food is the fuel on which our body works. It is the source of various nutrients that are needed to ensure proper bodily functions. Poor eating habits and diet can be closely associated with various lifestyle diseases and even cancer. Eating more healthy and nutritious food is one of the most simple, yet powerful things we can do to keep ourselves healthy. It is important to eat foods rich in fibre and vitamins. By making healthier choice we can reduce the risks of cancer. Along with eating good food, other healthy lifestyle choices can help keep diseases at bay. A balanced diet is an execllent starting place and so is adding some more physical activity. Even strengthening the core of the body further empowers the immune system. One simple first step towards a healthier life is to simply look at and assess your diet. Identify whether the foods that you are eating are fulfilling the needs of your body or not. Do your best to stay away from foods containing saturated fats and high sugar content.

In some ways, every family of yoga postures has their own unique personality and set of benefits. While there are countless poses and variations, there are some overarching categories of yoga poses, or families, and they include backbends, twists, inversions, balancing poses, arm balances and forward folds, amongst others. These families of postures each have their own set of alignment principles and benefits both physically, psychologically and energetically. In simpler terms, each family of poses make us feel a different way. It can be fascinating to not only examine yoga's overall effect of us, but how specific types of poses provide specific benefits. You will feel quite different leaving a class where you've done predominantly twists, versus a yoga class designed around arm balancing. Physically, you'll emphasize and work certain parts of the body more performing certain poses. Energetically, each pose also has a unique effect on our mind and mood. Forward bends, also called forward folds, are yoga postures where you hinge forward at your hips. There are many forward folds, both standing and seated, that are commonly practiced in various forms across all styles of yoga. Common forward folds in yoga include, Paschimotanasana, Uttanasana, and Prasarita Padotanasana. What makes these poses unique? Let's take a closer look at these postures, and their power to transform our bodies and mind.

In yoga practice, as in life, it’s vital to create a healthy foundation if you want to be strong. Without a fortified and solid base, it’s impossible to progress to higher levels. Consider if a skyscraper or even a two-story building is built without properly preparing the soil beneath it: any shift in the earth, excess of rain, or other changes can cause the structure to collapse. Just like an architect plans a safe, strong building that will withstand the test of time, yogis need to create strong bodies, resistant to injury, from the ground up. A good yoga instructor will teach standing yoga poses beginning with the position of the feet and legs. Without the feet in proper alignment, the knees can be stressed, the pelvis misaligned and the spine compromised. Standing poses are excellent for creating strong flexible legs and creating the proper balance of stability and mobility in the hips and pelvis.

These type of cakes are often called vegan cheesecakes, but I call these cakes strawberry cakes, because that’s what they are. The preparation of the cake is relatively simple, but you need to be patient because you need to wait for the cashews to soak and then the cake to set. You also need a very good blender to get the consistency nice and smooth. Once you have the cake ready, you can just keep this in the freezer and thaw it whenever you have unexpected guests or merely overwhelming feeling that you want something sweet. And as far as the sweets go – for the cake it is healthy too! Vegan Summer Strawberry Cheese Cake

I remember the days when I was working in an office for 40+ hours per week. I would be completely exhausted in the evening, and know I needed a good night’s sleep so I could rock at life the next day. Since I felt too tired for evening activities much of the time, I would pop on some Netflix and binge out on my favorite TV shows, which would lure me in, and the next thing I knew it was 1 AM when I needed to wake up at 6! Sound familiar? I’m pretty sure most of us have been there. Well I’ve gotta tell you what I've discovered through many of my own struggle days. My nighttime routine makes all the difference!

Decluttering and adopting a minimalist lifestyle is a great way to bring calm into your life. However, deciding to become more minimalist is a lot easier than actually doing it! It’s not as easy as simply decluttering - minimalism is a lifestyle change that can affect all aspects of your life. Here’s our top tips to start on the minimalism trend. Have fun with exploring these. Remember, there is no correct way to be a minimalist. It will look different for everyone, so be open in finding the lifestyle adjustments that work best for you. Get clear on why you want to be a minimalist Make a list of all the reasons why you want to become minimalist.

It’s universally acknowledged, that life feels too busy these days. While technology, growth, and progress are the way of the world, the acceleration of the daily pace of life can be exhausting. Between work, family, and fun, we’re often juggling a zillion tasks a day in order to “get it all done” or check off the boxes on our to-do lists. Slow down for a moment and see how you feel right now. Are you peaceful, joyous, and focused or frazzled? Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra1.2, Citta Vritti Nirodha, is the premise around which the entire Yoga Sutras are built. Yoga is all about calming the fluctuations of the mind or about learning to direct your attention where you want it to go. In our daily life, if we are slaves to the cult of “busy,” we’re at the mercy of distractions and lack of focus. Stepping onto your yoga mat is the first phase of eliminating distractions and slowing down those crazy thoughts careening around in your head

We love a fresh start. Any chance we can get to clear out the old and bring in the new is an opportunity to celebrate. After all, that’s what cleansing is all about, isn’t it? Recently I’ve found myself organizing and refreshing just about everything I can get my hands on…all my tax receipts are all in order (hooray!), my kitchen knives are all sharpened, I’ve donated a large box of toys and books that my kids are no longer interested in, I bought a bunch of new bins and have taken charge of a messy closet…and let me tell you, it feels good! Really good!

It’s been scientifically proven that meditation helps improve well-being physically, mentally, and emotionally. For me, it feels like meditating connects me to the parts of myself that are powerful and clear, and lessens the parts of myself more prone to struggle. However to get the benefits of meditation, one must actually mediate. The form, format, duration of one’s meditation is less important, than the action and consistency of actually meditating. You don’t have to be on a certain cushion, or in a certain place at a specific time of day, to make this practice a consistent and powerful part of your life. Unfortunately, many don’t meditate because of a lack of time, or not having enough alone time. Luckily, you can meditate more easily than you might think in some unexpected or public places. Oftentimes, you can do it discreetly without anyone noticing!

Yoga has been said to have a wealth of health benefits, one of which is it’s detoxifying ability. But can yoga really help you to detox your body, through twisting poses and deep breathing? The answer is yes - but not alone. Your body already has its own detoxification system running and in place, and practicing yoga can only help this along. However there are some myths the come along with talking about yoga and detoxing, but here’s how yoga practice actually aid detoxification. As with all physical exercise, yoga will help the body’s natural detoxing systems function the way they’re supposed to. These natural detoxing systems consist of the body’s lymphatic system and blood flow, and digestive organs.

When you’re feeling heavy, congested, or blocked, nothing helps you rejuvenate as quickly as a few cleansing yoga twists. How can simple yoga postures help you clear your mind and get your digestion and circulation flowing? Twists help restore and maintain your spine’s range of motion, improve flexibility and mobility, and encourage your liver and kidneys to work at their optimum levels. All of these benefits combine to help you clear out what you no longer need and create space for what you do want. Physically, our spines are designed to work in three different ranges of motion: front to back (sagittal plane), side to side (lateral plane), and rotation (transverse plane.) The odds are you don’t do a lot of twisting throughout the course of your day. Ignoring this vital spinal movement can lead to imbalances in your muscles and connective tissues and create back pain and general stiffness and loss of range of motion of your spine. Twisting more frequently encourages a healthy spine, supple muscles, and massages internal organs.

There must be thousands of banana bread recipes out there in the world, but I still feel the need to share another one. I have been looking for a good plant-based recipe for a long time, but all the recipes I found always contained a load of added sugar or preparing a flax egg or something third I didn’t like, so I figured out that I don’t follow any recipes and figure out my own recipe instead. This is not the first time I just decide to wing it, and I must admit that I am not very good at following other peoples’ recipes anyway. Even if I choose to follow a recipe, I still somehow manage to switch up half the ingredients and change all the amounts. This is also, why I decided to get blogging years ago, to keep track of the recipes that work for me – with all the changes I always made I wasn’t able to remember anymore which changes I had made and which ones actually worked. Because not all the changes work, especially when baking. Back to winging it – this doesn’t necessarily always work either.

Glass half empty or half full. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Life is what you make it. A silver lining, a blessing in disguise. Seeing the positive in life has been a constant struggle for me. I was that melancholic child, that broody teenager, and that unpredictable young adult. With an artistic temperament, even as an adult I’ve appreciated the existential tenderness of darkness and despair. And it’s true that there’s much darkness in our experience on earth. A lot of shitty things happen to a lot of people. We can’t change this fact. But we can change the meaning about what happens to us and others. This is called Reframing. Reframing is about changing the meaning of an event or experience, essentially putting a new frame around it. Reframing causes a perspective shift, and the practice can lead to greater empowerment over a situation that once felt disempowering.

Yoga twists can have a wealth of benefits for your core, posture, and organs. These yoga poses can vary from the simple to the advanced variations, and although advanced twists can be difficult to work up to, they’re worth it for the health benefits alone. Twists are yoga postures that move the shoulders to face the opposite direction of the hips. Different twists target different areas, such as the upper, middle or lower sections of your torso, and each advanced twist has their own benefits. Here’s a low down on the benefits of advanced twists, and some tips on how to get there. Improves digestion

What does it mean to live your life in alignment with your own truth, your soul’s purpose, and the world around you? When you’re truly living in a state of alignment, it means you’ve taken the time to slow down and pay attention to how you are experiencing life. Really pay attention. If you’ve examined how you are feeling in all aspects of your life, you’ll know if you are living a life disconnected from the real you. Living in alignment with your authentic self means you feel comfortable in your skin. It means you feel energized and excited about the work you’ve chosen to do, about the people you’ve populated your life with, and about the way you inhabit the world. Close your eyes and tune into how you’re feeling right now. Well, close your eyes after you’ve read this paragraph, that is. Ask yourself: are you surrounded with people who inspire you or people who drag you down? Are you in a career that lights you up and fulfills you or do you dread going to work? What about your personal relationships with others and yourself? Signs like anxiety, boredom, lethargy, and even anger point to living your life for reasons other than your fulfilling your desires. If you can’t honestly say you’re living your best life today, take a moment to explore how you can achieve it.

Summer is here and we’re well into the growing season here in Colorado, and we LOVE all the amazing fresh veggies we can find locally at our farmer’s market and CSA. Signing up for a CSA (community-supported agriculture) is a great way to eat based on what’s in season and try new fruits and veggies you might not be familiar with. Most CSAs provide their members with a weekly or bi-weekly selection of their most recent harvests, so you know you’re getting the freshest veggies available. Plus, the selections are solely based on what’s in season right now, so you might discover a new favorite veggie! That’s how we ended up creating this recipe! Our most recent CSA box included these beautiful Japanese Hakurei turnips, and we knew we needed to come up with a recipe to feature them.

Pregnancy is one of the most amazing experiences women go through. However, it is also an experience that takes a huge toll on your body as you go through drastic changes that no one could prepare you for. Having a healthy pregnancy and delivery is dependent on how well you take care of yourself during the nine months you carry your little one in your belly. Staying fit and active is one of the ways that pregnant women are advised to try in a bid to have a healthy pregnancy. Truth be told, there will be days your fitness game will not be on; either because you don't feel so well or you simply don't feel like it. Also, you may not want to engage in any exercises out of the fear that you could harm the baby in your tummy.

Depending upon where you live, breaking out into a sweat when you step out your front door may happen regularly or never. If you reside in a hot, humid climate, you probably are accustomed to glistening and glowing. Sweat’s primary purpose is to help you maintain your body temperature as close to 98.6 as possible. Put another way, sweat is your body’s built-in air conditioning system. Sweating is beneficial for many reasons above and beyond cooling you down. When you engage in a vigorous workout or power Vinyasa class like the ones featured this week, one of the benefits is kick-starting your circulation and ensuring efficient blood flow to oxygenate and fuel your muscles and organs. Increased blood flow and heart rate work to maintain a healthy metabolism and optimal level of fitness. When your vital bodily functions are moving efficiently, your immune system gets a boost. Often, sweating is touted as a method of detoxification.

Many people aren’t aware that sweating is actually good for you. Working up a sweat can release built up tension, refresh your skin, boost your endorphins, and release toxins from the body! There’s also other more unknown benefits such as health benefits and decreased recovery times. We’ve put together some of the scientific benefits of sweating to encourage you to build up a sweat this week! What is Sweat? The human body contains around 4 million sweat glands! These excrete a mix of water, salt, proteins, amino acids - aka sweat. The composition of this can change based on a number of things, such as hormones, bacteria and viruses in the body. Sweat can tell us a lot about our health, and how our sweat glands function. We sweat mainly to regulate temperature, to cool the body in heat and in stressful situations. This can be triggered by anxiety, elevated body temperature and working out. Sweat also detoxes the body. The Benefits of Sweating

Have you ever met somebody who does not like chocolate? I remember meeting one girl who was not fond of it years ago, but this is also the only time I have seen anybody who does not like it. As a general rule, every dessert that has chocolate in it vanishes from the table within minutes. Chocolate in itself is not unhealthy at all. Having a little square of dark chocolate a day even has proven health benefits. However, the chocolate really needs to be dark to be healthy. Most of the chocolate bars, loaded with sugar and different additives, do not qualify as healthy. I usually choose the chocolate that contains at least 75%, sometimes even more than 90% of cocoa! The chocolate mousse, usually, is full of everything unhealthy – heavy cream and white sugar. But here is good news – the recipe I share with you today only contains ingredients good for you and I let you be the judge of the taste, but in my humble opinion, it is just perfect.

I recently bought myself a new computer and became so caught up in the frustration of trying to transfer information from the old to the new that I almost found myself in tears. I am mostly a calm and balanced person, who does lots of yoga and uses breathe to get through life’s tougher times and yet when a little piece of technology doesn’t play according to plan, all that practice seemed to go out the window. Feelings of frustration and lack of control ruled as I did what the manual said to do, waited hours, and the desired effect never came. What did come, was clenched fists, shoulders around my ears, a sore jaw from clenching, back stiffness from sitting too long and a very agitated mind and mood. I felt jumpy as I lost connection with my breathe. I then got annoyed when I tried to breathe perspective back in and moments later lost the awareness. Does this sound familiar to any of you, when technology seems not to work how we want it to? I was so far from the grateful girl I try to be. Hours spent scratching my head from my computer malfunctioning, certainly was not going along with the idealistic plan that I had created of my perceived future. Rather than being present, letting go of the ideals and attachments and accepting the truth of the situation, I was going into a tailspin of frustration. Then, I started to see things began to work technologically, and I started to have lightbulb moments about what computers can teach us as humans.