Yoga, Health, and Wellness Articles + Recipes

​During yoga class, you may have heard that mental and emotional pain can manifest in our bodies as physical pain. For example, an emotional trauma suffered as a child that was never fully processed can show up as pain in the hips and lower back. Samskaras, or shadows of past pain and suffering, exist for all of us. Yoga can assist us in soothing the nervous system and quieting the mind, which helps us process and move through pain. "Practicing yoga has the opposite effect on the brain as does chronic pain." M. Catherine Bushnell, PhD, scientific director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health at the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH) says. What an incredible concept! We can help program our brains to feel better simply by showing up on our yoga mats. In fact, a 2015 study from Harvard Medical School, Annals of Internal Medicine concluded yoga increased mobility for people suffering from chronic low back pain more than the standard medical care did.