Yoga, Health, and Wellness Articles + Recipes

Your routine in the morning can set the tone for the rest of your day. It’s important to set good habits that you can use to help create a morning routine that will eventually set you up for success. If you start your day off stressed, and do things like snooze your alarm, skip breakfast and rush yourself to start your day, the rest of your day can seem chaotic and stressful as well. Your morning sets off your day, so when you form healthy morning habits, you’re setting yourself up for success.

Sometimes in life we can feel a little lost and misguided, and it can seem like nothing good is ever happening. It can be easy to feel very overwhelmed and powerless when times like these come around, and we can get stuck in bad moods and bad habits. This is why it's so important to take on healthy habits to nourish your mind and body, to help you get out of bad situations and overall make your life a lot easier in the day-to-day. Here are some of the best ways to nourish your mind and body:

There sometimes can be a stigma to doing things alone. Going out for dinner or catching a movie, you can sometimes feel like people are watching you or judging you for being anti-social or lonely. But that is totally wrong! Spending time by yourself is really important - after all, the relationship you have with yourself is the most important and long lasting one you’ll have in your life. Having more me time has benefits like increased productivity, happiness, empathy and gratitude. It doesn't matter how you do it, but here’s some of the benefits of me-time.

“Our life is shaped by our mind, for we become what we think.” - Buddha The way that you start your day can determine how the rest of it unfolds. Getting up in the morning can be challenging, and finding ways to get motivated and excited for the hours ahead isn’t always easy. If this resonates with you, know that it’s completely normal and you're not alone. But there are ways to change the way you feel for the better. One of the most effective ways to bring the right energy into your morning routine for a calm, happy, and flowing day is through mindfulness.

We’ve all heard the phrase - in order to love others, you first of all need to love yourself. And, it’s actually true. It’s so important to show unconditional love to yourself, without that you can’t allow others to truly love you back. The problem - these days our lifestyles are so focused on achievement and comparing ourselves to others and a motivation to push ourselves constantly to do more. The result of this is that we’re so critical of ourselves these days, and we focus on the things we’ve done wrong or haven’t done rather than our successes and achievements.

If you want to lift heavy things physically, you need to increase your physical strength. Strong, big muscles go a long way in helping you to be able to carry more. Well, the same can be said for your mental muscles. If you struggle with tackling big challenges and overcoming more obstacles, you need to increase your mental strength. Just like going to the gym to work out your body - your mind needs a good workout too. Here are some exercises to help you to develop your mental strength and help you achieve anything. Reframe Negative Thoughts

If you are trying to be healthier, you might find that a quick fix or a fad diet never lasts and you find yourself slipping back into old habits. This is because as humans, we are creatures of habit, and if we want to see and make long-lasting positive changes in our daily lives, we need to work on improving habits one at a time. However, this way to a healthier and happier life doesn't need to be difficult or overwhelming. Making one small change every day for two weeks can be the secret to transforming your habits. Here are 14 simple habits you can add to your day, over the course of two weeks. Feel free to add these daily intentions to your daily yoga, in YogaDownload's upcoming FREE 2-Week Yoga Challenge: Root and Rise.

People are endlessly seeking happiness and motivation in their lives, trying all sorts of tricks to achieve them. While there’s no single secret to happiness and motivation, there are some academic insights you can implement into your own life to bring about a greater abundance of the two. This article dives into the concepts of hedonia, eudaimonia, engagement, and their impacts on your happiness and motivation. Psychological and social research has led to the development of these concepts that have their roots in ancient philosophy but still bear fruit in the present day. The Meaning of Hedonia

Stories pass wisdom. Many religions base longevity and education on storytelling, as storytelling explains the unexplainable. We all have our own stories about our own journeys, and they are ongoing in nature. No finite end or distinctive start. Life goes on and so the story within us deepens, is added to and takes twists and turns. The style changes as romance, humor and thrill are added or removed. What is your story? What is the story of your friends, lover, family and peers?

The New Year is a great time to set intentions for the year ahead, and set intentions for success. Intentions are a great way to tackle areas of your life that you would like to improve. It’s important to spend some time thinking and setting intentions with purpose, as this helps in ensuring that they’re successful. Here are our top 10 tips to set intentions that will actually stick: Think about what isn’t working

Depression can be a detrimental part of one’s life. In fact, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), 3.8% of the world's population suffers from depression at some point. But how bad is depression? And how can someone overcome bouts of depression? This brief overview will explore depression whether you get seasonally depressed in the winter, or at other times in the year. There are a handful of ways that you can effectively reduce its hold on you. Just keep in mind, to do what works best for you.

Avoiding stress in the 21st century is quite the challenge. We’re still going through a global pandemic and even without that, there can enough things in our lives that cause us to be stressed — personal relationships, work issues, finances, etc. Life can feel like a rollercoaster of things that affect our balance, which leads to us having less energy and being less happy than we can be. Just like avoiding stress completely, having control over the outer world and its chaos is impossible, yet we can do things to make sure our mental health will not suffer from the challenges of our daily lives. There are regular habits that we can take to protect ourselves from stress. What Is Stress?

You might think that big, sweeping lifestyle changes are the only way to improve your health drastically. Think of all those huge promises we make ourselves, especially at the start of the year- quitting smoking, losing weight, working out every day. While bigger health goals are important, some of the biggest changes come from the small steps we can take to improve our health. There are numerous smaller steps you'll take that will help progress your general wellbeing and quality of life - and they’re all things that are easily incorporated into your day-to-day life, so you can keep them up in the long term. Some will only take a few minutes each day but have a huge impact on your health. 1. Destress

Statistically, women live longer than men. And I have a theory as to why this is true. Around the world, women do the yeoman's share of the cooking. And around the world, women do that cooking together. If you've ever had the good fortune of working in a kitchen with kindred folks, you know what a curative experience it can be. And if it was a volunteer group effort, I tell you, this joy is like no other. Here's the research explaining why.

I've had days where the thoughts coming in and out of my mind were all fear-based, all about future worries, and how and when things will work out. I do not like waking up like this, I guess no one does, to be honest. Having your morning starting like this has a huge effect on your whole day, on your mental health, on your self–esteem, on your productivity, and on everything basically. Things can get worse and worse if you are not conscious or aware of what your mind is actually doing to you. Because this is what spiraling negative thinking is, simply your mind’s game. Your mind is constantly creating thoughts. Some of them are better ones that you like hearing, feeling, and thinking and there are some of them that you are less likely to feel so nice about. That is why your mind can be your biggest friend and your worst enemy. This is also why being mindful and having the right mindset is so important. Because when you are awakened, when you notice immediately what is happening in your head, you have the power and the ability to transform these unwanted, fear-based, negative, untrue thoughts into ones that are going to help you to change your day around and that are going to have a positive influence on your mental health and mindset.

All of us, even the most motivated of people, can feel unmotivated from time to time. All the amount of planning and thinking about doing things can’t help if you’re feeling in a slump and finding it difficult to make positive changes in your life. However, there’s a few small ways you can help yourself find motivation and get started with positive changes. Stick to One Goal

Holding on to negative emotions like pain, stress, and anxiety sometimes can’t fix anything. Remembering the past and bad things over and over can’t change what has happened, and wishing things were different can’t make it so. Most of the time, especially when it comes to past events, the best thing to do is to accept what you’re holding on to and let go. If you hold onto the past, you are hindering yourself from growth and creating a stronger sense of self, based on who you want to be. Painful emotions can be strangely comfortable if you are used to holding onto them and letting go of pain and negative emotions can be hard and uncomfortable. However, there are some things you can do to help yourself let go and move forward. Accept other people for who they are

Every person needs to rest. Even the computer, at which you many eight hours or more per day, periodically needs to be recharged. It is important and valuable to know which are the best ways for you to switch gears switch between work mode to and rest and leisure. With many working from home, the lines between work and home life are blurring. Smartphones that allow us to be in touch 24 hours a day and constantly trying to notify us can make it more challenging to switch out of work mode and into leisure mode. Do you still remember those distant days when the work was not urgent? While work can seem urgent and like the top priority, it's important to remember that friends, family, children, hobbies and your life is urgent and important too.

Developing positive habits in your home life can impact your mood and overall well-being. Here are some positive household habits that will help you build a framework for a happier life. Building and maintaining good habits can provide our lives with a positive framework, but these habits don’t simply happen by chance. It’s pretty easy to fall into bad habits that impede life around the house. A happy routine can support a happy mood, so if we stick to positive routines around our homes, we stand a good chance of keeping negative slumps at bay.

Yoga can be a magnet for you to attract the things you dream of. Unfortunately, it is not a fairy dust you can sprinkle on your mat. The shifts do not come overnight. And, you cannot simply mutter a Sanskrit mantra for your hopes to manifest. It is a journey of work, of love, and of intense self-reflection. It takes tapas - the yogic ethical concept of discipline and austerity. For many people yoga is nothing more than a fancy workout, or maybe a few calm moments of de-stressing or elaborate stretching. However, yoga is much more. It is a science, a wellness system, a lifestyle, a philosophy, and more than anything a path to clarity and joy. The beauty of yoga is that is flexible to your life and needs. There is an infinite number of ways to practice as there is to interpret the meaning of the word. The word yoga is derived from a word meaning to yoke or to unite. One encompassing way to conceptualize this is to think of uniting the self with all - to connect with the source of all possibilities. The true magic of yoga can happen with the sincere realization of the concept "Namaste" - the light in me recognizes and honors the light within you."

Kindness is the reason! A universal thread in all yoga practices is learning to embody loving kindness. How you treat yourself has an effect on you and how you treat others has an effect on you. When you are kind, your behavior impacts others around you in a positive manner and helps them feel more content. Learning to be compassionate and kind regardless of circumstances is one of the key principles of the eight-limbed yoga path, as expressed in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Ahimsa, the first of five Yamas contained in the first limb of yoga is at its root is all about kindness. Ahimsa translates to the absence of, or the freedom from violence, killing, judging, or harming. Ahimsa is avoiding all forms of violence to yourself or to others. It is less about physical violence and more about thoughts and feelings.

Bad days can happen to anyone, even the most positive of us. Anything from a stressful day at work, something you love breaking, getting caught up in traffic - somethings, things go wrong and we feel like life just well, sucks. While we can’t manage absolutely everything in the world to ensure we never have a bad day, we can do some small things everyday to boost our mood, no matter what life throws at us. Start the Morning Right If you don’t start you first 20 minutes of the day by getting up and doing something, it’s been said it can have an impact on the entire rest of your day. To avoid your whole morning, afternoon and evening being an uphill battle, try and do something productive in those first 20 minutes, if its meditation, going for a walk, making a healthy breakfast, or catching up on some positive news, it will boost your mood and start you right for the rest of the day. Drink Water Drinking water can help to energise your body, support healthy weight, improve your brain function and also improve your sleep. Sounds great! Try and drink between 2-3 litres of water a day, and try and drink some first thing in the morning - yes this means before your morning coffee! Top tip - try to drink room temperature water to help it be absorbed more quickly to rehydrate you faster.

Want to know my new secret to success and well-being? Hot and cold contrast showers! Yep! Contrast showers, or hydrotherapy, are actually not a new trend, but rather have been used around the world for centuries as a healing modality. This technique, generally used by athletes to improve recovery between training sessions or post-competition, involves alternating between hot and cold water multiple times. I always start my shower with warm water for a couple minutes, then switch to icy cold for a couple more minutes. I do about three intervals of switching back and forth between hot and cold, always ending with water as cold as I can stand. (And learning about what I can “stand” is a meditation in itself. Hint, it helps to breathe!)

For many of us, taking time and doing things that help to clear out the stress and tension is essential to feeling vibrant. Most of us carry a lot in our minds every day, more than we might realize or give ourselves credit for. Every single human is balancing some combination of work, relationships, finances, emotions, in their minds. It can be a lot of keep track of or feel relaxed about. It can be easy to forget that things can be simple, life can feel good and there is so much wonder and beauty in this temporary human experience. It's vital to have experiences and practices that help you embrace life more fully. If we don't give ourselves time to go inwards to recharge, reset, and clear things out, we can accumulate tension, burn out or not feel so excited about life.

“For a star to be born: a gaseous nebula must collapse. So collapse. Crumble. This is not your destruction. This is your birth.” – Zoe Skylar Recently, I wrote about the importance of play. Today, through my sugar hangover, my attention turns to decay, decomposition, and death. I wrote this around The Day Of The Dead, All Souls Day, or Dia De Los Muertos, when we honor not only those who have passed on from this lifetime, but also the natural passage at the end of all lives. Here in Denver, the once juicy green leaves have dried, withered, and fallen, now are starting to emit the rotten Autumn scent, reminding me that everything must come to an end. Unpleasant though it may be, the fact is that death can come at any time, at any age; after a long or short illness, due to violent crime or an inexplicably tragic accident.