Yoga, Health, and Wellness Articles + Recipes

Can you believe we’re closing in on the end of 2022? December is a time where we’re managing the holidays on top of tying up loose ends at work or school, traveling…doing all the things. With the added busy-ness of the season, some days it’s tough to find time for your yoga practice. If you feel overwhelmed and are tempted to throw in the towel on your yoga or fitness until January 2023––don’t! It's more important than ever during this stressful time of year to carve out time to step onto your yoga mat. No matter if you’re away from home or juggling life’s demands, squeeze in a quick class––quality over quantity is what matters. In as little as ten minutes, like in Claire Petretti Marti’s new Quick Yoga Break, you can feel more clear, flexible, and calm. It only takes a few minutes to shift your mood and quiet your mind.

The holiday season brings with it all sorts of fun and good times, but it's also important to rest yourself for the year ahead. This time of year is always fun and exciting, but it can sometimes be hard to switch off and relax when so much is happening. But it’s important to take some time out to rest in preparation for the year ahead. Over the holidays, there are always plenty of parties and people to catch up with while you take time away from work. But it’s also a time to step back and unwind, which can be hard to do if you find it difficult to switch off. Here are our top tips to take some time to rest over the holidays...

“The holiday season is a perfect time to reflect on our blessings and seek out ways to make life better for those around us.” –Anonymous No matter what holiday(s) you’re celebrating this December, this time of year can stir up mixed feelings and create stress and tension. It’s the perfect time to step back and reflect on all you appreciate in your life and spread some joy to the people around you. We know it’s busy, busy, busy, but it’s even more important to refill your well to manage the hectic pace. If you love this time of year, perhaps you’re going to parties and indulging in tons of sugar and cocktails. If you’re not a big fan of the holidays, perhaps heavy emotions are weighing you down. Either way, you may miss your regular sessions on the mat.

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new” -Socrates How about a little ancient Greek philosophy to start manifesting change and creating the life you desire? If you’re ready to leave 2022 in the rear view mirror and start 2023 with a powerful foundation, we’ve got the perfect solution for you. Our New Beginnings–January 23 Day Yoga Challenge is designed to assist you on your path for your best year ever. December is a busy month with holidays and end-of-the-year deadlines but it’s not too busy to begin mentally preparing to launch your 2023. In fact, it’s a great time to tap into your intentions for the future. In order to move forward, it’s vital to release what’s weighing you down, so you’re free to create your ideal life. Carve out a little time and journal about this year to clarify what worked and what did not. Plant the seeds for your future by focusing on gratitude.

If you work as a manager, firefighter, nurse, police officer, or anything that is fast-paced and comes with high stakes, then you know what it is like to have a stressful job. While you may be honored to have your career and know that you are making a difference, it can still be hard to wake up every day and face another tough shift. Instead of turning to unhealthy behaviors to put your mind at ease, you should consider practicing yoga. Yoga is a great way to settle your mind and get the exercise that you need to take on each new day with gusto. To help you out, we will talk about the effects of stress at work and why you need to make a change today.

Much like for a balanced diet you need a range of different foods and vitamins, for a healthy exercise regime you should try and add variety in what you do to workout. Yoga has many benefits and is a great practice for your overall health, but it can be easy to forget the many other exercise options out there. You may want something more intense, with a higher calorie burn and work up a sweat, or maybe you’re just looking to change it up and do something that feels different from yoga. Here are our top fitness activities that will be able to provide you with anything you feel you’re not getting from yoga - as well as help you hone down your skills on the mat and make progress.

Physical healing is often very straight forward, we rest, we take medications, and follow doctors orders. Emotional healing on the other hand, can be a tricky journey that can be hard for many people. People look for emotional healing after all types of trauma, and growing after these types of trauma can be hard, in fact, we might never be the same as we were before.

Do you ever feel like you are losing focus or having trouble thinking clearly? If so, it may be the result of stress and burnout, and these factors can contribute to the condition often referred to as brain fog. This mental fuzziness can be frustrating, especially when your focus needs to be on your life, work, and family. The good news is that you can remedy this issue by staying active and practicing yoga. Today, we will talk a bit about the reality of brain fog and how you can use yoga to clear your mind and get back to life as you know it.

Worrying happens to the best of us. We all will endure stresses in our lives, whether it's through work, our personal lives, our relationships, or even just irrational intrusive thoughts. This worry can get into our brains and can make our day-to-day lives and daily tasks that little bit harder. It would be great if there was some kind of off switch we can press to turn off these worries, but stopping or reducing worry is a little bit harder than that. However, there are habits that you can bring into your day-to-day life that can help your worries to slip away, freeing you to focus on the positive and productive things in life. Set Yourself Worry Time

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 experienced stress in our lives, when the unexpected happens and we can’t control it! That’s when our brains decide to send out stress hormones - the hormones which trigger our ‘fight or flight’ response. This can cause heart racing, quicker breathing and tense muscles. Our stress responses are designed to protect you in an emergency by getting your body ready to react quickly. But, when our stress responses are triggered too often, it can cause some serious health problems.

Choosing a fitness or yoga routine is very important if you want to maximize results and make the most out of your time. Sometimes people quickly start working out without thinking through what they are looking for from exercise. A full-body workout or yoga practice is a great way to get results all over and maximize the time you have. Here are 10 benefits of doing a full-body workout: Less time commitment

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.

When you think of people who are high-achievers, who are always able to eat healthy, excel at work or school, workout and do everything on time might have some superhuman powers. But while it’s easy to brush this away as something achievable, it is actually all down to habit. And habits can be begun to build in just seven days. People with good habits rarely resist the need to procrastinate, or eat unhealthy food, or skip their exercise. That is mostly because when autopilot takes over, we eliminate any temptation. When we establish good habits, less willpower is required to make the right choices. Sounds great? Well, building good habits takes effort. However, there are a few science and research-backed ways that help you set up good habits. If you try one of these every day, you should be able to start to build a habit.

The latest guidelines by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services say that physically able adults should aim for 150 minutes of exercise every week - a combination of both cardio and strength training spread throughout the week. This could translate into 30-minute workouts 5 days a week, but there are other ways to get your exercise that don’t take up quite as much time every day. Research has shown that actually taking shorter periods of activity can be spread out throughout your day to meet the recommended total. Actually, sometimes quicker workouts can be better for you than one longer workout.

Humans are designed to be connected with nature. And even in our modern world we are still synced to the natural world. If you’re feeling burnt out, tired, or unhappy, reconnecting with nature can help to bring you a sense of calm and refresh yourself. There are a few things that we can do to feel connected with nature, and pause, refresh and notice the world around us. Bring the Outdoors Inside

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’re looking to lose weight, making a few small changes can actually be easier than one or two big changes, and it’s more likely that you’ll be able to stick with it. Making healthy changes can be hard, and it can be made harder if you set unrealistic goals. Small changes means you're more likely to stick to your plan, so here’s our tips to help you throughout the day. Switch to low-fat or non-dairy milk Using a lower-fat milk or milk alternative is a really easy change that you will hardly notice. If you eat cereal or drink a lot of milky hot drinks, you can save many calories in a week, just by switching from whole milk to skim milk for example.

Massage with hot stones is an ancient technique that can fill you with the pure energy of nature. The technique of massage with natural stones is based on the natural reaction of the body to cold and heat. However, the stones themselves play an extremely important role in this mystery. Some say stoned are the oldest inhabitants of our world, absorbing the energy of the cosmos and stars, earth, and water for thousands of years. In the process of stone therapy, minerals transfer the accumulated energy to the human body, healing ailments and soothing the soul. What kind of stones are used for massage?

Lots of guys drive or sit at desks with their wallet or cell phone in their back pocket, but they can’t figure out why they moan and groan in pain when they stand up to leave the car or chair. Here’s the physics: One butt cheek sitting higher than the other can trigger chronic pain in your back, hips and shoulders, and set off foot cramps.

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

Posture is something that most people can stand to improve a little. Our heads, necks, backs, and shoulders get put under pressure every day, and it’s easy to not realize how tight they can become. The easiest way to improve posture and ease tension in the upper body is to make little changes throughout your day, and not even all of them need to be done at once. Here are a few things that could be damaging your posture and upper body, and a few ways to combat it. Slouching on your commute