Yoga, Health, and Wellness Articles + Recipes

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

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

What do a person who just recovered from back surgery, a woman just cleared to return to exercise after giving birth, a triathlete, and a dancer have in common? They are all people who can do yoga. Yoga is inclusive and accessible, no matter who you are. There is no such thing as a “yoga body.” If you have a body, you can do yoga. It’s as simple as that. The Father of Modern Yoga, T. Krishnamacharya is credited with creating what we know as Vinyasa yoga. One of his guiding principles was "Teach what is good for an individual." Initially, he taught Hatha yoga to young boys in his school in Mysore, India. For many years, women weren’t allowed to practice or teach yoga. In 1937 this all changed when T. Krishnamacharya, admitted Indra Devi into his school. She was the first woman student and the first Western woman in an Indian ashram.

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy'. They told me I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life.” - John Lennon Each and every one of us has the capacity for true joy and happiness, despite prevailing circumstances surrounding us. We each deserve happiness! Sometimes, when life events challenge us, we can become weighed down with worry and anxiety and dis-ease. If you’re too focused on the past, which cannot be altered, you can sink into depression. If you’re too focused on the future, you can become anxious. Learning to ground yourself in the present moment is key to happiness.

Have you ever felt out of balance: bloated and cluttered, without a clear mental focus? Yoga can help you lighten up and feel more energized and productive. Louise Hay, best-selling self-help author, connects all physical symptoms in the body to underlying emotional causes, and says weight-gain or excess weight, is symbolic of clinging to what no longer serves us. A regular yoga practice doesn’t simply make you look lean and flexible, but also helps you feel that way from the inside out. Don’t worry, we’re not here to tell you to strive for a “yoga body” like the images splashed all over social media. Yogis come in all shapes and sizes. Yoga is for every body and there’s a style and type of practice that works for each individual.

Do you trust your intuition? Take a moment and consider the last few major decisions you made in your life. Did you feel secure following your initial instincts or did you second guess yourself? Learning to believe in your intuition and perceive your world clearly is one of the greatest benefits of a balanced Ajna Chakra or Third Eye. The Ajna Chakra is the sixth of seven main Chakras running along the Sushumna Nadi, an energy channel mirroring the spine. Nadis are part of the Subtle Body, a blueprint of the physical body.

If you can do every pose in a yoga class effortlessly, you're in the wrong class. While it's important to be content with where you're at, it's just as important to keep growing, evolving, and pushing your boundaries. It can be easy to get complacent even in yoga, doing the same poses with the same teachers. However, you may be scared to take the plunge, and are wondering how to move from beginner to an intermediate yoga class. Here’s our top tips on how to move up in your yoga practice. Be Consistent

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and the seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But, there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. - Alan Cohen You’ve probably heard that how we show up on our yoga mats is a reflection of how we show up the other twenty-three hours of our day. This week’s classes will encourage you to check in and evaluate whether it’s time to up level your practice and step out of your comfort zone or if you are right where you are supposed to be today. Okay yogis, it’s time for a little reflection and self-assessment. Take a few moments to ponder your yoga practice over the last three to six months. Make some allowances for the holiday season, but be honest with yourself. Have you settled into a comfortable routine––too comfortable a routine? When is the last time you had a breakthrough in your yoga or meditation practice? Are you fully present for your practice or have you found yourself in autopilot mode, where you’re simply going through the motions as opposed to continuing to grow?

It’s easy to fall into the habit of always taking the same yoga classes and teachers, walking or running the same routes. Suddenly, you find yourself uninspired and unmotivated in not just your practice, but also your life. Remember, your yoga practice mirrors your life off the mat. The key is to stay open-minded and curious and always keep learning. We’re here with some tips to help! 1. Venture Out of Your Comfortable Routine Try a new teacher, new class, or new style of yoga this week. We all know consistency in your yoga practice is crucial, but sometimes we fall into a rut. If you find yourself dragging your feet to get to class, try something outside of your comfort zone. If your go to practice is Vinyasa or Ashtanga, try a Yin or Iyengar class or vice-versa. Even if the class you choose isn’t one that you’ll return to, it will give you a renewed appreciation for your usual choices. And you may learn something new by slowing down or stepping it up.

Happy New Year and Happy New Decade! Now is the perfect time to assess whether your life feels in balance or if it’s time for a few tweaks to your routine. Except what looks like balance today could be very different than it was even a few short months ago. Our yoga practice mirrors what’s happening during the other twenty-three hours of our day. By tapping into yogic principles, you can find the perfect balance for you at this particular time in your life. In our physical Hatha yoga practice, we seek to balance the masculine solar energy (‘Ha’) and (‘tha’) the feminine lunar energy that exists within all of us. By following the guiding principle of Yoga Sutra 2.46, Sthira Sukham Asanam, which means the posture should be steady and comfortable, we are working with the principles of effort and ease. In this way, your yoga asana and pranayama practices will bring your physical body into symmetry and sustain your mental focus. By finding balance on your yoga mat, you can create a sense of wholeness in your life.

How are you feeling today? We’re still in the midst of the holiday season and if you’re like many of us, your typical routines have receded in the rearview. Don’t feel guilty if you’ve abandoned your usual healthy workout routine or eaten a few dozen frosted sugar cookies washed down with crisp champagne. Life is meant to be savored, enjoyed, and lived in the present moment. Sometimes this might be the only chance you’ve got to spend time with family, see old friends, or simply hibernate. But if you’ve abandoned your usual exercise, yoga, and diet, you may be feeling lethargic and heavier than usual. When your body feels bloated, your mind and emotions can also feel slower and foggier. To counteract these weighty tamasic sensations, see if you can carve out some time to recharge your body’s natural cleansing powers. What do you need in this moment to feel more like yourself until you return to your habitual routine?

One of the most powerful ways to manifest change in our lives is by aligning with nature and stepping into its flow. On December 21, 2019, the last Solstice of the decade occurs. In the Southern Hemisphere, it is the longest day of the year and the shortest night. In the Northern Hemisphere, it is the longest night of the year and wherever you live, this momentous day marks the time to pause and reflect and renew our energy. While the world is shifts and transforms, it’s the perfect time to assess how you want to shift and transform individually. Here are 3 ways to harness the power of nature in your own life: 1. Go Outside!

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.

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.

One of yoga’s most beautiful benefits is how it can shift your emotions in a pure, positive way. Even if you come to the practice for other reasons, your emotional makeup will transform, whether you’re trying to or not! Our subtle body, which is a blueprint of our physical body, contains our emotional energy. Through targeted practice, we can enhance how we feel. The subtle body contains the chakras or emotional energy centers. In order to feel more loving, we want to make sure our energy is balanced from the base of our spine or Muladhara (Root) Chakra to our Sahasrara (Crown) Chakra. In order to tap into your own heart and open to more love in your life, you’ve got to be willing to release fear. Yoga practices that create more space in the Anahata (Heart) Chakra will create space in your physical body to experience joy and love. The Anahata Chakra contains the essence of compassion and selflessness and symbolizes when we rise above our egos to care more for others than ourselves. Anahata is associated with the element of air, the color green, the sense of touch, and the thymus gland.

​After a great yoga practice, you’ve probably experienced how your mind feels more clear, calm, and balanced. Many practitioners find the mental benefits of yoga to be the most important, even more than a strong, supple body. Who doesn’t want to be focused, motivated, and able to experience life to the fullest? This week’s classes will release stress and boost your ability to focus and motivate yourself. Interested in why and how yoga does this? Step back about 5,000 years and tap into the wisdom of the Yoga Sutras. Yoga Sutra 1.2 Citta Vritti Nirodhah is often translated as: Yoga is the ability to direct the mind without distraction or interruption. This skill is difficult, takes constant practice over time, but can be achieved! Patanjali outlines a practical how-to manual to reach a state of yoga: the eight-limbed yoga path. The eight limbs are:

Leading a full life is a blessing. Leading a life where you feel you don’t have time to take care of your own well-being is a problem. In order to live your best life, you must carve out time to refill your own well. Balance is key to achieving a joyous fulfilling life. We’re here to help you with four quick powerful classes so you don’t sacrifice your yoga practice! We know you’re busy, so we’ll keep this short. Here are three tips to keep your yoga practice on track, no matter what other commitments you are managing in your life. 1. Schedule your yoga time in your planner: When you write down what yoga class you’re going to take in your calendar, it’s part of your daily schedule. You don’t need to waste time pondering if you have time. You do have time––written out clearly in black and white. 2. Remind yourself of how you’ll feel, even with a short time commitment: You’ll feel stronger, more flexible, more relaxed, and also more energetic. Your sleep will deepen, and your posture will improve. The mental benefits of a quick yoga practice are incredible: you can return to your work day with heightened concentration and a clear mind. 3. Practice first thing in the morning: Prioritize your personal yoga practice and do it first, maybe even before your morning coffee or tea. Set your alarm for twenty minutes earlier than usual if necessary. Unexpected events often arise once your day gets going and can steal your scheduled yoga time. If you take care of yourself first, you’ll be better equipped to handle your day, no matter how busy it is! Have a wonderful week!

How many times have you caught yourself saying, “I’m too busy to…fill in the blank?” Once a week? Once a day? Once an hour? We all want to live a full, beautiful life, but cultivating a balance between action and relaxation is essential. This week, how about adding in a quieter type of yoga to your repertoire? Consider these 5 benefits of taking the time to chill out: 1. Pacify Your Nervous System Slowing down and settling into a relaxing, restorative pose encourages you to step away from stress. For example, in a supported Vipariti Karani (Legs up the wall pose), your parasympathetic nervous system kicks in and calms your stress levels quickly. If you’ve had a tough day, restorative yoga is a way to reset. Soothing your nervous system helps keep your body and mind healthy.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Did you know that the first sense we become aware of as babies is touch? More than sight, smell, taste, and sound, touch is what helps us feel a true sense of connection with the people around us. There’s nothing quite like a hug from a friend you haven’t seen in a while, holding hands with your partner or child, or simply receiving a pat on the back. In certain cultures, kissing on the cheek is a common greeting, while other countries might frown upon even a handshake. Within your family or group of friends, touching could be common or non-existent. No matter the environment, many of us can go through an entire day or days without touching anyone at all. Lack of touch correlates with feeling disconnected, and we’re here with some new ways to change that. Touch is vital for overall health and wellness on a long-term basis.

Did you know that practicing certain styles of yoga is an excellent way to build not only flexibility and balance, but also strength? Hatha yoga, specifically styles of Vinyasa, Power, and Ashtanga work like a functional fitness program with your own body weight. In a well-rounded yoga practice, you work your body in all planes of motion and utilize not just the large muscles, but the small ones too. When you feel strong physically, there’s a direct correlation to how you feel emotionally and mentally as well. It’s all connected. Let’s focus on the physical aspect and how yoga builds strength.