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 fact, the World Health Organization named physical inactivity as the fourth leading risk factor for global mortality. Living a couch potato lifestyle might not kill you, but it will definitely impact your physical, emotional, and mental health.
On the physical level, exercise helps keep your bones strong, your muscles toned, and your heart healthy.
Whether you choose to clock ten thousand steps a day or practice yoga regularly, you’re benefitting. Maintaining a regular fitness program helps keep your weight in check, helps balance blood pressure, and boosts your serotonin levels, and feel more positive. If you’ve practiced yoga, even for a short time, you’re aware how much physical activity impacts your moods and thoughts.
Yoga is about tuning into physical sensations and learning to listen to your body. When you’re consciously connecting your breath to your movement, you create a meditative effect where you become more aware of the sensations in your body impacting you on every level. If you’ve lost your motivation to move lately, see if you can rekindle it with one of new classes this week.
1. Pradeep Teotia - Move your Asana
2. Mark Morford - Yoga Alchemy: Coffee, or Else
3. Erin Wimert - Moving with Presence
4. Josey Prior - Hummingbird Flow: Grace and Ease
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. To roast the beetroots, I wrap them in foil and bake for an hour at 200°C (about 390°F). Then I leave them to cool and rub the skin off. If you want a shortcut on roasted beetroots, you can use the boiled ones straight from the supermarket.
After you have all your ingredients ready, the actual hummus-making process takes around 5 minutes. This beet hummus is delicious slathered on everything from sandwiches to salads, enjoyed with fresh veggies or just plain!
Simple Beetroot Hummus
Cooking time: 5 minutes!
Ingredients:
1 jar of chickpeas
1 larger roasted beetroot (or leftover pieces from yesterdays dinner)
Juice of ½ lemon
1 tsp ground cumin
¼ cup good quality olive oil
Salt, to taste
Instructions:
Add the chickpeas and beetroot to the blender, squeeze over the lemon juice and add most of the olive oil. Blend until smooth.
Season with salt and cumin, blend some more and have a taste. Add more of what is needed. If the hummus is too thick, you can add a little bit of water.
If ready, then serve with fresh veggies, use on a sandwich or add to salads.
By Kadri Raig
Kadri is a food blogger and yoga teacher from Estonia. She loves healthy food and cooking and for her, these two are often the same thing. Cooking meals from scratch, you know exactly what goes in it and even without holding back with sugar or fat we end up using a lot less compared to ready-made frozen stuff from the supermarket.
She does love to spend time in the kitchen, but most of her recipes are simple and don’t take more than 20 minutes of active cooking time. She thinks that everybody can find time to cook healthy food at home, it is just a question of planning. "I work in an office full time, teach yoga 7-8 hours a week and write a blog. So if I manage to cook most of my meals, then so do you!"
Connect with Kadri and enjoy many more of her delicious healthy recipes on her website here: http://www.kahvliga.ee/.
Live with more energy and vitality. Eat healthy with recipes like these, and practice yoga to keep your body and mind in optimal shape. Never tried yoga before? Explore with this entry level 5-class Beginner Yoga 101 series!
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 optimal physical function. 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 choices regularly, 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.
While there are various causes of disease, evidene and studies continue to discover that certain foods, can increase the risk of cancer, while other foods can reduce and help prevent cancer.
Here are 10 foods that can help decrease and prevent the risks associated with cancer.
1. Soy • Soy is one of the major sources of amino acids which are needed by the body for producing proteins. • They contain good proportion of calcium, potassium, magnesium, fibre. • Phytochemicals present in soy has the potential to reduce the chances of spreading of a tumor. • Intake of soy also helps in regulating the growth of cell and destruction of cancer cells. • Eating soy based foods promotes the intestinal system and reduces cholesterol.
2. Flaxseeds • Flaxseeds are a rich source of protein, fibre and omega 3 Fatty acids. • They contain lignans, which gives the flaxseeds their antioxidant and estrogen properties. • Helpful in preventing breast and prostate cancer. • High fibre content boosts metabolism and prevent constipation. • Source of Alpha-Linolic Acid (ALA), which is a type of Omega 3 Fatty acid. ALA is not produced by human body. Hence, flaxseeds fulfil the requirement of ALA needed for the systems of the body. • Nutritional values of flaxseeds are also helpful in treatment and preventions of chronic diseases, cholesterol, heart diseases.
3. Carrots • Carrots are good source of fibre, Vitamin K, Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2 and Vitamin B3. • They are beneficial for cardiovascular health and keep the heart healthy. • Carrots get their anti-cancer properties from polyacetylenes. • Antioxidants in carrots helps in reducing the risks associated with cancer and cardiovascular diseases. • They also contains beta-carotene, which protects cell membranes and decrease the growth of cancer cells. • Regular intake of carrots improves digestive health and controls blood pressure and diabetes. 4. Green Tea • Green tea is known to be the healthiest beverage and contains ample amount of nutrients required for boosting the systems of the body. • A healthier alternative to regular tea and coffee, it improves digestion and assists in fat burning. • Green tea contains antioxidants in abundance and can play an important role in prevention of cancer. • Antioxidants in green tea reduce the damaging cells of the body and hence control the production of cancer cells. • Including a cup of green tea can prove to be beneficial in maintaining the overall health. 5. Turmeric • Turmeric is known for its medicinal and healing characteristics. • Curcumin gives turmeric it anti-inflammatory properties and is one of the most bioactive ingredients in turmeric. • Turmeric can slower the pace of angiogenesis and hence, controls and decreases the growth of cancer cells in the body. • Anti-oxidants found in turmeric boosts the immune system and gut health. • Intake of turmeric in required proportions is helpful in preventing risks associated with brain diseases. 6. Onion and Garlic • Onion and garlic are not only used to enhance the taste of the food but also has medicinal properties. • Including onion and garlic in the routine diet increases the infection fighting ability of the body. • They are great sources of healthy sulphur compounds. • Garlic contains compounds known as saponins which shows anti-tumor activity. • Onion and garlic reduce tumour growth and restricts spreading of tumor to various parts of the body. 7. Citrus • Citrus fruits like oranges, lemon, limes, grapefruit etc. are abundant in Vitamin –C. • Being good source of fibre, they provide enough roughage to the body which helps in improved bowel movements. • Citrus fruits helps the body to absorb necessary nutrients and increases the production of red blood cells. • Citrus fruits contain Nobiletin and vitamin C which have antiangiogenic properties reduces the growth and spreading of tumours. • The water content in the citrus fruits keep the body hydrated and keeps the bodily functions work properly
8. Spinach • Known to be a superfood, spinach is one of the natural energy boosters. • Spinach is a rich source of iron, magnesium, potassium and calcium. • Like Flaxseeds, Spinach also contains ALA which controls the glucose levels and stress induced changes in patients with diabetes. • Intake of Spinach helps in managing diet and maintain a healthy weight. • Chlorophyll present in spinach is helpful in blocking and reducing the production of cell growth. • Abundance of Vitamin- A, helps in growth of tissues and also contributes in maintaining healthy hair and diet.
9 Grapes • Resveratrol, a phytochemical found in grapes is known for its anti-cancer properties. • Grapes are rich in Vitamin C, Vitamin K and antioxidants which help prevent chronic and heart diseases. • Grapes has anti-inflammatory properties which block the production of cancer cells. • Grapes are abundant in compounds that help enhance retention power of memory and uplifts mood.
10. Broccoli • Broccoli, coming from the cabbage family, contains dozen of nutrients. • Broccoli contains significant amount of Omega- 3 Fatty acids which give anti-inflammatory properties to it. • It is also a powerful antioxidant with significant concentration of vitamin-C. • High level of calcium and Vitamin K also helps in maintaining good bone and heart health. • Broccoli is suitable mainly in prevention of breast and uterus cancer, due to its immune boosting characteristics. • It also has properties which decreases estrogen which is one of the causes of cancer in the body.
By Garvita Arora
Dr. Garvita Arora is a qualified dental surgeon and an avid writer. With 500+ articles and medical blogs, she has written on a variety of topics, which have been of immaculate interest to her readers. Exploring new domains, she has now collaborated with CancerBro as a guest writer and is immensely dedicated to her work.
If you're on your way to getting healthy again and recovering from cancer, practice Yoga for Cancer Recovery, from cancer survivor, yoga teacher, and author, Claire Petretti Marti.
Yoga for Cancer Recovery 2 with Claire Petretti Marti
In some ways, each 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 groups of postures each have their own set of benefits physically, psychologically and energetically.
Each family of poses make us feel a different way.
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 work certain parts of the body more and 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.
There are certain effects that forward folds are better at achieving, than any other type of yoga pose. Let's take a look at why this family of yoga poses is special.
1. Open the Entire Backside of your Body
Physically, forward folds stretch, strengthen, and benefit the entire backside of your body from your heels to your scalp. The back of your legs, the back of your back, and the back of your neck and head, get the spaciousness and release they crave, when you spend several breaths in a deep forward bend.
While backbends open the frontside of your body, forward bends open the backside and generally create length throughout. Physically, this improves posture and helps you stand taller. Your back is the receptive side of your body, so opening here can make you more receptive to the things you desire to receive in life. Treat yourself and bow inwards toward yourself in these potent yoga poses.
2. Take a Look Inside
Energetically, forward bends are about looking inwards. You can see this symbolism, by simply looking at the shapes. You literally gaze in, towards yourself, when practicing a forward fold in yoga. These are all postures where you're also looking inwards and your mind has a chance to examine itself.
The personality of forward folds, is introverted.
Poses like backbends are more extroverted (think about the body opening and expanding, versus folding in). Their cooling, calming effect, complements the sometimes chaotic pace of modern life where we're often responsible to attain to things outside of ourselves like family, work, and home space, to name a few.
3. Calm Down: Anxiety relief
Forward folds calm you down. They are cooling, reduce anxiety, and have a calming effect on the mind. If you ever feel stressed out or anxiety is getting the best of you on a given day, give yourself even 1-minute to relax into a forward fold, and you may feel a welcome reset.
Your nervous system gets a soothing effect from a forward fold. Remember to take deep breaths while practicing these bends to combat anxiety and create space for more calm.
4. Relieves Back Pain
Back pain in the lower back is often caused by tightness in the hamstrings. Opening both your legs, and your back, in these yoga poses has double the effect in preventing and alleviating back pain. Even one forward fold per day, can make a massive difference in healing your back pain.
If you suffer from back pain, be sure to keep your legs engaged and strong while performing a forward fold, to most effectively release your hamstrings and lower back. If you feel tight in your legs and lower back, be patient, go slow, and use props, like blocks, to support you as your body is ready to open into these shapes.
5. Healthier Organs
Various standing forward folds are partial inversions (seated ones generally are not). These are postures where the head and heart are in a position lower than the hips. Going upside down and reversing the flow of gravity on your most vital organs, gives them an energetic flush and can increase their vitality. The heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, and intestines all benefit, from having gravity reversed on them, via an inversion.
The simple forward fold, Uttanasana, is a perfect pose to take 5 breaths in, and give your organs a boost in their efficiency. To emphasize this benefit more than the effect on your legs and take a more passive approach, bend your knees for a ragdoll expression of a forward fold.
6. Throat and Neck
Neck pain is becoming more common in the age of computers, driving, and texting. Relaxing your head and neck in forward bends, creates space in the neck and brings it back into optimal alignment. Putting your body upside down, gives your head and neck a chance to lengthen and unwind.
7. Patience
Progress in forward folds, takes time. Sometimes a very long time!
If you feel like you've been practicing yoga for years and can barely touch your toes without struggling, you are not alone. Your body opens at the pace it wants to. Forward folds teach us to be patient, and enjoy the journey. Breathe, be patient, and relax more into postures, instead of trying to force yourself. Being patient can make life more enjoyable, so yoga's a good place to start practicing this trait.
8. Getting Comfortable in Discomfort
The lessons from practicing yoga poses, are often fitting metaphors for life. Forward folds are not always the most comfortable poses, but reap tremendous benefits.
Sometimes to grow in life, we need to make ourselves uncomfortable. Sometimes, scary things like a new job, a new relationship, a big move, or anything else that puts us outside of our comfort zone, can feel unwelcome at first, but end up being the best things we could have done.
Getting uncomfortable and leaning into the unknown in life, is sometimes a recipe for change, adventure, and progress. Same with spending 10 breaths in a deep forward fold that doesn't exactly feel comfortable. It might not always be easy, but you may discover new things about yourself in the process that have true value.
9. Reduces Wrinkles
Inversions reduce wrinkles in your face by reversing the flow of gravity. While your skin is technically an organ and related to benefit #5, this benefit is so good, it deserves it's own category. Since forward folds are partial inversions, spending time with your head upside down, is your fountain of youth and will keep you looking younger.
Whichever of these benefits excites you the most, know that even one forward fold per day has the potential to create positive change in your life. Find out for yourself, and practice yoga for your legs, hips, spine, and mental health.
By Keith Allen
Keith is a teacher on YogaDownload.com and teaches yoga internationally. Connect with him by practicing his yoga and meditation classes on YogaDownload, or connecting with him on Instagram or his website.
Practice forward folds and hip openers right now with Keith!
Hip Opening Heaven with Keith Allen
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.
Beyond the observable physical benefits of more powerful muscles, stronger bones, and healthy joints, yoga benefits the subtle body, or the blueprint of our physical body. Seven main chakras, part of the Nadis or energy channels running throughout our system, are located along the spine. Focusing on the lower body benefits the Root or Muladhara Chakra.
Located at the base of the spine, Mulahdhara is associated with the element of earth and satisfying the basic needs such as food, shelter, safety, family––survival. If basic needs aren’t handled first, it's easy to remain stuck in a pattern of simply surviving, as opposed to progressing and elevating yourself to your highest potential.
How can you worry about enlightenment when you don’t know where your next meal is coming from or where you’ll sleep tonight?
Strengthening your legs and hips has the corresponding benefit of creating a strong, balanced root chakra. Letting go of stress and tension tied to your lower body will not just increase your physical strength, but will also help you resolve unresolved emotional issues.
Try one or all of this week’s classes and flow into your most powerful self.
1. Dana Hanizeski - Iyengar Yoga: Deep Release for the Hips and Legs
2. Becca Riopelle - Legs for Days
3. Christen Bakken - Hanuman: Leap of Faith
4. Ellen Kaye - Align & Flow: Hanuman Flow
These type of cakes are often called vegan cheesecakes, or you can call them simply strawberry cakes, because that’s what they are.
The preparation of this vegan 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
Serves: 6 people
Cooking time: 20 minutes active time + chilling
For the base:
3.5 oz almonds
3.5 oz prunes
For the filling:
7 oz cashews
7 oz fresh strawberries
2 oz cacao butter
1 oz agave syrup
Fresh strawberries, to serve
Start the recipe by soaking the cashews the night before. If you are in a hurry, use hot water and soak them for at least 30 minutes.
For the base, crush the almonds. It is simple to do with the stick blender. Then add prunes and pulse a few more times until you have a coarse crumb.
Push the mixture to the bottom of one larger or 6 small tins and set aside for now.
Melt the cocoa butter with agave syrup. On a warm day, the sun might be enough to melt them. If not hot enough, heat them on low heat.
Crush the strawberries in a blender. Drain the cashews, add them to the blender and add them to the blender with melted cacao butter and agave. Blend until you get a very smooth consistency.
Pour over the base and let set in the freezer for at least 4 hours.
Before serving, let the cakes slightly melt and serve with fresh strawberries.
Enjoy some yoga before or after enjoying these delicious strawberry cakes!
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 got to tell you what I've discovered through many of my own struggle days. My nighttime routine makes all the difference!
Think about it. At night, after work, how do you usually feel? How do you go to bed in the evenings? What are you doing for the hour leading up to your bedtime?
The more I think about it, the more I think we're really just grown up babies. We work well with a routine and a regular bedtime.
Babies can't just go straight to bed and be expected to go to sleep. Just imagine if you gave a baby a screen and said, "Go to sleep when you're done watching YouTube okay?" What a nightmare that would be! That baby would never go to sleep, and would be very cranky the next day.
Since we're like grown up babies, I guess that means we need to be bathed before bed, and lulled to sleep by a bedtime story, lullaby, or something of the sort. Doesn't sound so bad actually.
Come to think of it, I do like to bathe before bed, rub myself down with some yummy moisturizer, and then go to sleep with a literal bedtime story (so glad those are back!) Could it be that easy? That we just need to go back to the crib days?
Want to know how to simultaneously revert back to an infant, while parenting yourself beautifully? I thought so!
I recommend starting in your journal.
Write down all the things you could choose to do during your nighttime routine that would set you up for success the next morning. I'll give you a list of ideas, and you can pull from the ones that resonate with you the most. Perhaps you want to start with one thing that appeals to you first, and go from there.
Come up with a consistent time for your evening routine
You can shape your evening routine in many ways, but for some, the consistency of performing their evening tasks at the same time each night is the most important thing. What time would you like to start in order to maximize results? No worries if scheduling isn't your jam, just come up with a game plan that feels comfortable for you.
Make your morning life smooth & easy
Some ideas:
Lay out the clothes you’d like to wear
Pack your bag
Prepare what you’ll eat or drink for breakfast and/or lunch
Schedule in priorities (perhaps 3 goals for tomorrow)
Plan your self care for the morning
How can I make tomorrow morning the most pleasant and inspirational experience for me?
Be still, meditate, and breathe. Map your plan the night before, and queue up guided meditation, music, or bath oils. Exercise is always an excellent plan for self care. A nice shower, self massage, affirmations, free form journaling, and diffusing essential oils are also ideas.
Bedtime Journaling
Journal in the evening. Write down 3 ways you made a positive impact today or 3 things you’re grateful for.
You could also visualize and write how you’d like tomorrow to go. You can go down to the tiniest detail. What will you wear? What will happen? Who will you meet? Where? How will you feel? What will you eat? How will it taste? How will you celebrate your victories?
Winding Down
Here’s where you prepare your body and mind to have the most restful sleep. Do something relaxing like taking bath or drinking tea. You can also diffuse your favorite nighttime oil, light a candle, or do some yin yoga. Meditation is also an excellent wind down ritual and can help you have better sleep.
I’ll give you an idea of what my evenings look like:
At around 8 or 9:00 I start to think about tomorrow.
I put my 3 top priorities for the following day in my calendar.
I meditate and write down a free flow of grateful moments.
If I’m on top of it, I’ll lay out my clothes and pack my bag.
I’ll decide what I’ll eat for breakfast the next day and make sure I’m prepared for it.
I do some gentle stretches while reviewing what went awesomely about today.
After all that, I pop some lavender oil in my diffuser, turn on my sleepy time meditation and prepare to dance with the stars. I’m ready to hit the hay and am super excited to wake up in the morning with a fresh sense of inspiration and purpose.
I notice a night and day difference when I take the time to do my evening routine.
It’s like I wake up a different person, without the stress and ready for a smooth sailing kind of day. In the end, you are the one who knows best what you need. Trust yourself and remember that you deserve to have sweet dreams and happy mornings.
Your Soul Therapist,
Dia Michelle Smith
If you feel like you could use a revamp on your evening (or morning) rituals and want some support and guidance toward your inner inspiration you can schedule a free consultation with Dia!
Treat yourself to meditation with Dia or some evening yoga!
Yin Yang for Inspiration
Embracing Impermanence: A Death Meditation
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. This can be anything - not just decluttering. Perhaps you want more free time to spend with your loved ones, or you want less stress as it’s starting to affect your health. Put it all down on a paper list, even the more outlandish and out there reasons. This will be your motivation when you’re finding things hard, or want to stop. This list will help you remember the things that are important to you.
First step to declutter: one of each thing only
The first step to declutter is to get rid of anything in your home that is duplicated. You don’t need two of the same things! This goes for books, kitchen equipment- literally anything in your house that there is more than one of. Put all the additional items in a box hidden away - if you haven’t had to go back and retrieve anything for over a month, you can get rid of it.
Introduce clutter free zones.
One area at a time, choose a zone that will be your clutter-free zone. This can be any area - your bedside table, a dresser drawer, or your kitchen table. Try to keep it clutter free at all times. It will become easier as time goes on, and you can introduce more and more zones, until an entire room is clutter free - next will be your entire home!
Travel light
On your next vacation, try to adopt the minimalist lifestyle. Pack your bag usually, then try to take out half of the things. A good way to do this is to pack for half the time that you are going away for. Remember that you can wash your clothes if you need to when you run out of things to wear. It will feel great to carry a smaller bag.
Try a capsule wardrobe
Try to declutter your wardrobe by trialling a capsule wardrobe. A good way to adopt this is to try to dress with only 3 items for 3 months. This includes clothes, shoes and jewellery, so it can be hard if you’ve got an overflowing wardrobe full of different outfits. However, scaling down your outfit choices can actually make your life easier, and you’ll find you have more time in the morning with less options to choose from.
Meal plan
Setting a meal plan is a great way to take the stress out of deciding what to eat last minute, and walking around the supermarket feeling overwhelmed by options. Set a meal plan, and try to limit it to a few choices that you can alternate by day and meal. This makes planning your food much simpler, and you’ll find you have more time to focus on other aspects of your life.
Cut down on TV
As well as being a good distraction from other things in our life, watching too much TV can actually encourage you to buy more - through advertising between programs. Try to cut down on how much time you spend in front of the screen. The average person can spend up to 24 hours a week watching TV - that’s a whole day! Try to limit yourself to an hour or two a day in the evenings. Watch shows that you actually want to watch rather than just sitting and watching anything!
Replace instead of add
Try to only purchase new items if you’re replacing something that’s too old or broken to use anymore. This will help you in maintaining a minimalist lifestyle, and to keep your possessions down. Think about everything you own that you’ve only used or worn a couple of times, and other things you could have done with that money when you are tempted to splurge on new possessions. By only replacing broken things, you’ll get use out of the things you own, rather than them gathering dust.
Buy experiences instead of things
Try to spend your money on experiences that will enrich your life, rather than physical possessions. This could be holidays, nice dinners, anything that you can spend your money on that will make you feel good, without adding clutter to your home. This is also a good mindset to have when purchasing gifts for people - what experiences could you give them instead of things?
Yoga is also an excellent minimalist experience, as all it requires if your body and your breath. Taking some time to practice yoga is a great way to appreciate the things you have, and not think about what you want. If you're in the Northern Hemisphere and it's peak summertime, life might feel more energetic and social, and we hope you're enjoying it! Use this week's classes to find balance and ground, take time to reset, and restore yourself. If it's mid-winter for you in the Southern Hemisphere, embrace this more introverted and restful time of year. Treat yourself to less to accomplish, more rest, and lighter yoga practices.
By Amy Cavill
Add yoga meditation to your life to also de-clutter your mind and body, in your pursuit living more minimally and aware.
Tranform Tension into Vitality with Geenie Celento
Slow Yoga Reset with Jackie Casal Mahrou
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 can slow down and leave the rest of the day behind for even a little while, you’re refilling your well and soothing your nervous system.
Depending upon where you live, you’re probably experiencing a different level of speed. If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere and school’s out for summer, life might feel more energetic and social. Slowing down for your yoga practice will help you reset and restore and enjoy the longer days.
If you’re on the other side of the world, hunkered down for winter, your days are shorter and the evenings are longer. A slow practice complements this more internally focused time of year and aligns how you are feeling with the season.
Regardless of where you are, your yoga practice can create balance.
This week’s classes will help you focus on what’s important to you and refresh your state of mind.
1. Elise Fabricant - Therapeutic Ball Rolling
2. Jackie Casal Mahrou - Slow Yoga Reset (FREE class)
3. Shy Sayar - Water Flow Yoga
4. Caitlin Rose Keney - Yin Yoga for Stress Relief
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!
Can you relate?
This year things have been different and I’m 100% certain it’s because I gave myself the gift of doing a 10-day juice cleanse. Before I go on, let me pause and say that drinking fresh pressed green juice for ten straight days is not for everybody, but I’ve been living the Conscious Cleanse lifestyle for nearly a decade, and to me this was a lovely way to truly nourishing myself. It wasn’t easy but it did remind me just how powerful I am, especially when I fully commit and set my mind to something.
So it got me thinking that it’s the small choices we make every day that shape our lives and make a difference when it comes to our health! Ultimately that is what we hope to teach in our 14-day whole foods cleanse – to teach people the basics about eating fresh, nutritious, life-affirming foods and less of the junk (insert caffeine, alcohol, sugar, gluten, etc) that slows us down.
So in case you’re having trouble revving your engine, consider that it’s not all or nothing and instead of swearing off all the bad crap in one fell swoop (which usually doesn’t work), try simply adding in one or two healthy things.
Need some ideas?
My tried and true favorites to get the fresh start feeling today are:
1. Start the day with warm lemon water.
2. Drink more water…ideally your body weight in ounces.
3. Drink a green smoothie.
4. Do 1-2 days of Conscious Purification (read more in our book on page 113) consuming only fruits and veggies.
5. Try a fresh pressed green juice (try my new favorite recipe below). Don’t have a juicer? Don’t worry! Fortunately there are juice bars popping up all over, so find one near you at the Pressed Juice Directory. Just be sure what you’re buying and drinking is 100% all organic.
With love and fresh starts,
Fresh Start Green Juice
Yields: 1 quart
1 head celery 6 stalks kale ½ bunch parsley ½ cucumber 1 lemon, peeled 1 (3-in.) piece of ginger 1 pear or few drops of Stevia for sweetness
Directions:
In a juicer, combine celery, kale, parsley, cucumber, lemon, ginger and pear or Stevia for sweetness. Pour into a large glass and enjoy!
Jo Schaalman and Jules Peláez are co-authors of the book The Conscious Cleanse: Lose Weight, Heal Your Body and Transform Your Life in 14 Days, a best-selling, step-by-step guide to help you live your most vibrant life. Together they’ve led thousands of people through their online supported cleanse through their accessible and light-hearted approach. They’ve been dubbed “the real deal” by founder and chief creative director Bobbi Brown, of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, beauty editor of the TODAY show.
Want some yoga to complement your juice for a fresh start to your morning? Try the Rise and Shine Morning Yoga program!
It’s been studied 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!
While certain places may be easier to meditate in than others, it’s very possible to drop into a powerful meditation in the park, on an airplane, or sitting in a waiting room. Don’t let your location stop you from fitting even a few minutes of meditation into your day! The tips below will help you learn how meditate more, regardless of where you are.
Here are 6 tips to get good at meditating anywhere (particularly in public)!
1. Sunglasses
If you do not want people noticing you meditating, sunglasses are your best friend. These can make meditating on a park bench or train, simply make it seem like you’re just sitting there or thinking. If you’re sitting in a public place, with sunglasses on, people usually cannot see your eyes, and have no idea they are closed.
Sunglasses can also feel like your security blanket and allow you to go deeper into your meditation, without having to worry that you’re standing out or concerned that you’re being judged (although anyone who judges someone for quietly meditating, is missing out, in my humble opinion). Still, sunglasses take other people’s input and energy out of the equation of your personal meditation journey. Also, upon opening your eyes after a powerful meditation session and re-entering the public space you’re in, sunglasses make the transition a little gentler.
2. Headphones
Headphones can make the biggest difference from being focused on the outer world versus tuning inwards toward a meditative state. Sometimes, the moment you have to meditate is in a loud place. Overhearing construction noises, someone’s conversation about what they ate for lunch, or a baby crying, can make it incredibly difficult to find your inner zen. Ambient music is my go to, and takes me from my sometimes chaotic surroundings, to a place of internal peace.
There’s also an abundance of apps and guided meditations to choose from, that you can access with headphones. My favorite combo to get into the zone in a public place is combining tip 1 (sunglasses) with tip 2 (headphones).
3. Remember that Even 5 minutes of Meditation is Powerful
Sometimes we have moments to meditate out in the world, that may be briefer than we think are worthwhile. Remember, even 3 deeps breaths or 5 minutes of meditation, can make a massive difference in your day! If you only have a few spare moments, it’s still beneficial to meditate.
For many, meditating consistently for a few minutes (or even seconds) per day, is more powerful in the long run, than practicing meditation once every month for several hours. It’s making meditation a regular part of your life that matters, so remember, the effort to meditate, is worthy, even if it’s not for as long as you’d like.
4. Public Transportation is a Perfect Meditation Opportunity
Often when we’re on the go on buses, trains, or planes, we spend time listening to music or reading. All too often, this time is spent mindlessly looking at our phones or doing nothing. Meditating during travel time, can turn your commute into the most potent and transformative part of your day.
On trains or buses, having a general idea of how far away your stop is can help you relax and drop in without worrying you’ll miss where you need to get off! Using headphones (and sunglasses) here can also make your meditation discreet and focused. I’ve meditated a lot on New York City subways and love to meditate flying on planes, during times I might otherwise just be sitting here.
5. Keep Touch With Your Belongings
In busier spaces or on public transportation, you’ll be able to relax more into your meditation if you’re physically touching your stuff and don’t have to worry about theft. The main reason for this tip, is the security of knowing your belongings are safe, which allows for a deeper meditation, free from worry and not on high alert!
Crime rates vary drastically around the world, but if you’re in a place that you’re visibly meditating, you’ll want to be sure to keep tabs on your backpack or belongings. You don’t have to hold tight, as even having your bag against your leg will allow you to feel if anyone tried to take it. Luckily, I’ve never had to come out of meditating in a public space because of theft, but again, it’s the ability to relax for a nice meditation session, that is the benefit of this tip.
6. Care Less What Others Think
Simply letting go of insecurity about another person seeing your meditating, is sometimes all you need to feel comfortable enough to calmly meditate in a place you may be visible to others. There is nothing to feel bad about for meditating, and not giving energy to worrying about what others think is liberating (whether in this instance or in general in life).
While sunglasses are useful in making yourself discreet, there’s nothing wrong with visibly and shamelessly meditating. For some, it’s harder to drop in knowing others can see them, but I’ve gotten more comfortable over the years, meditating on beaches or on planes when it’s possible others can see me. Caring less, allows for deeper meditation, which allows for more amazing benefits of meditation. Furthermore, meditating openly might inspire someone else to do the same when they feel like it.
Of course, some places and moments in time are more suited for meditation than others. You might have your favorite meditation spot, that gets you into the zone. That said, be flexible on where this powerful practice can transpire and use these 6 tips to meditate more, regardless of where you are!
Practice meditation with Keith now, from anywhere!
Meditate & Cultivate Calm
Manifestation & Visualization Meditation
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. The lymphatic system and blood floor work to continually deliver waste products to the liver, kidneys, and other digestive organs. This waste and other toxins that your body absorbs, such as air pollution, then gets filtered and eliminated through bodily functions such as urine, sweat, waste and breathing out.
It’s believed that yoga twists aid in your body’s natural detoxification process. This belief began with the foundation of Iyengar Yoga, which teaches that twisting poses create a squeeze and soak action - in that when you compress your organs in a twist, you squeeze out waste, and when you release the twist, fresh blood flow is delivered to your organs, kind of like wringing out an old dirty washcloth and refreshing it with clean water. This idea can also be applied to how the spine reacts to yoga twists. Your spine is made up of vertebral twists, and over time, gravity and old age compress these disks, causing them to lose their moisture. Twists will increase circulation to the vertebrae, making your spine healthy.
The Iyengar concept of the squeeze and soak, is an easy way to explain the way twists stimulate our organs. When these organs are stimulated, this kick starts our natural detoxing process, metabolism and rate of excretion.
Twists also do stimulate our circulatory systems, releasing tension in the spine abdomen, and ribcage. They also allow us to sweat - another natural detoxing function.
Creating heat is another technique used in yoga to aid detoxification. Sweating is the body’s second detox system that backs up our organs. Whenever the liver and kidneys are unable to filter out toxins, they are stored in fat cells. However sweating helps to release toxins - a study found that sweat contains heavy metals like lead, mercury and arsenic. This isn’t to say you can just ‘sweat out’ a particularly unhealthy night - anything you consume will still go through the body’s digestive system. Sweating also helps to maintain healthy skin, releasing endorphins and prevent overheating.
These detoxing systems naturally occur in the body, and do not need external stimuli in order to perform properly. However, a regular yoga practice can aid detoxing and allow the system to run more efficiently.
Other things you can do to aid this include, limiting high at odds and alcohol, to maintain a healthy liver; drinking lots of water to aid the digestive tract, limiting chemicals in external products that come into contact with your body, and taking part in regular expertise.
Poses that help detoxification in the body include:
Wide Legged Forward Bend
The folding motion in this pose compresses the belly, which will help move digestion on. This pose also encourages circulation, aiding detoxification.
Revolved Chair Pose
This is a deep twist that aids digestion as is slightly compresses the kidneys, liver and spleen - key organs which filter out toxins. This pose also stimulates the heart and improves circulation.
Three Legged Downward Dog
This is also a great pose to aid detoxification. As you hold your head below your heart, and lift your leg up in the air, blood is encouraged to circulate throughout your body. This pose is also great for a mental detox, as it releases stress.
Revolved Triangle Pose
This pose stretches out and opens the chest, lungs and shoulders, helping to increase lung capacity. The revolved motions stimulated your digestive organs and circulation too.
Half Lord of the Fishes (Seated Spinal Twist)
Finally, a traditional spinal twist. which will help to massage your internal organs, encouraging them to filter out toxins.
If you’re on the detox train, and are looking for further ways to aid your body’s natural detoxifying process, cutting out alcohol is one of the easiest ways to help your body detox. Over 90% of alcohol is metabolised in your liver, and when you drink excessively, this can have an adverse effect on the organ - limiting it’s capability to filter out toxins.
Getting a better night’s sleep can also help, as while you’re asleep your body works to remove toxins. If you have less sleep, your body has less time to perform these functions. Seven to nine hours a night of sleep will help your body to detox.
Drinking lots of water will also speed up the removal of filtered waste from your body.
Want to kickstart your detox process with yoga? This week's classes focus on twists, and will have you wringing yourself out from the inside first, and have you rejuvenated to start anew.
Practice the Yoga for Detox, Cleansing, & Vitality program to kickstart your body's cleansing systems and enjoy twists!
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.
Twisting is an important component in preventing back pain because it helps lengthen the muscles and connective tissues surrounding the spine, which keep the joints mobile and healthy. Twists come in all types of varieties and sometimes more gentle versions are appropriate for those who have experienced back pain while more advanced versions are great for those with normal spinal rotation. Regardless of what type of twists you practice, you can reap the benefits of a healthier spine.
When we twist, our organs are compressed and when we unwind, we’re encouraging fresh oxygenated blood to flow more freely. So although it may not be accurate to say twisting detoxifies your system, it definitely aids in the process. Twisting feels invigorating and wakes up every cell in your body. When we feel these benefits, it impacts our mindset and emotions too. Twist can wring out stagnation, and calm your anxiety. More than seventy percent of your immune system is in your gut, so keeping it healthy and flowing is key to vibrant health.
How we feel physically is intrinsically woven into how we feel mentally and emotionally.
A well-rounded yoga practice emphasizing twists will leave you feeling refreshed, rejuvenated, and ready to go! Try this week’s classes and see just how invigorated you feel on every level.
1. Keith Allen: Twist & Flow
2. Elise Fabricant: Yoga for Better Digestion
3. Celest Pereira: Twist it Out Detox Flow
4. Rob Loud: Twists & Binds
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. Some things look and work perfectly in my head, but do not work out at all. Sometimes I have tested the recipe for 15 times to make it perfect. Sometimes I have only tested once and then gave up on the recipe because it is just so hopeless. And then there are recipes like this banana bread, that worked out exactly how I imagined it the first time. And the second, and the third. Because this is how many times I baked it in the first two days!
Also, the recipe is boyfriend-tested. He does not like to cook. Like not even a tiny bit. But he tried out this recipe for mother’s day, and he succeeded. Sure, it did take him longer than 10 minutes to prepare the batter, but the result was perfect, so this should be proof that the recipe really is good.
Let me know in the comments how long did it take you to prepare the batter and how did the recipe work out for you!
Vegan Banana Bread wtih Chocolate Chips
Yields: 1 loaf
Cooking time: 10 minutes prep time + 40 minutes cooking time
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 tbsp coconut sugar
3 + 2 ripe bananas
2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 ½ cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
A pinch of salt
½ cup dark chocolate chips
Preheat the oven to 180C/360F, cover the loaf tin with coconut oil and sprinkle with coconut sugar. Keep the tin in the fridge until you prepare the batter.
Break 3 bananas to pieces, add the cinnamon and mash with a fork. Add the almond milk and mix.
Sieve the flour, baking powder, baking soda and a tiny bit of salt to the wet ingredients, also add the chocolate chips. Mix, but do not overmix!
Cut up the remaining two bananas and place them to the bottom of the loaf tin. Pour the batter on top of the bananas and bake for 40 minutes.
Want to get moving after too much Banana Bread? Try yoga from the comfort of your home, even if you're brand new to it!
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.
When we see an event from a different perspective, even understanding it’s positive intention or gift, we move from being a victim to being at choice. When we change the meaning of something, we simultaneously change our feelings and emotions about it, too. Something that once felt negative and restrictive now can feel positive and freeing.
To find a positive reframe, we ask: “How can I return to love, appreciation and respect?”
As healthy, evolving adults we can begin to reframe by getting curious: “I wonder what my role is in creating my problems? Could these challenges be opportunities and have something to teach me? How can I be inspired by others to live my brightest life?”
Our thoughts become our beliefs, our beliefs shape our experiences, and our experiences become our reality. With reframing, self-limiting thoughts such as “life is hard, I have so many problems, I never get it right, everyone is better than me,” are replaced by more life affirming and self-loving thoughts. When we are stuck in a place of self-judgement, it’s near impossible to make positive changes in our lives.
Radical personal growth is a top priority for me and it’s becoming clear that having a glass-half-empty Eeyore mindset is no way to thrive in the abundance and good of the universe. Reframing is key to liberation. Reframing equals choice and growth.
By Elise Fabricant
Elise is a life coach and teacher on YogaDownload.com.
Want some more support on getting enough quality rest? Elise's online course REVIVE: 30 Days to Vitality, Health & Ease dives deeper sleeping rituals and other yogic lifestyle habits. I’m also always at your service for one-on-one coaching. If you’re ready to make big changes in all aspects of your life, sign up for a complimentary clarity session here.
Practice yoga with Elise right now, for your own instant reframe.
Awaken Your Generous Spirit
Mindful Movement
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:
Improves Digestion
All twists, including advanced twists, have the result of compressing your digestive organs and placing them under weight. Compression causes a lack of circulation - but don’t worry. When you release your advanced twist post, there is a rush of blood to the compressed digestive organs. This fresh blood delivers more oxygen and nutrients to your digestive organs, increasing their ability to function and helping to aid digestive issues.
Detox Organs
Another benefit of this compression and release, and delivery of fresh blood to your digestive organs, is a detox effect. When you release new blood supply into your digestive tract, you can help to cleanse your cells of any waste products and toxins. This is due to cellular detoxification, caused by the increase and improvement of your circulation.
Increase Spinal Range of Motion
Our spine is worked hard every day keeping us upright, and without proper exercise, the muscles that keep the spine surrounded can become stiff and inflexible. Overtime this will lead to a decreased range of motion, and can cause pain and discomfort. Advanced twists keeps the spine moving, and increases your spinal range of motion to decrease the risk of this.
Reduces Back Pain
We put our backs through a lot, and a lot of the causes of bad posture also lead to back pain - slumping over chairs and drooping our shoulders. Yoga twists, especially the more advanced ones, can help to strengthen your back muscles that you use every day, and help improve your posture - leading to less back pain!
Release Stress and Anxiety
If you suffer from anxiety or are feeling stressed, add some twists into your yoga flow. As these postures open up your upper torso and back, the release pent up tension on your body. This in turn can relieve stress, help to decrease anxious thoughts, and generally improve your mental state.
As with any poses, you shouldn’t go straight into advanced twists. There are a few things to keep in mind when going into a yoga twist, and here’s our tips to help you improve, and move to more advanced variants of twisted poses.
Tips for practicing advanced twists:
Lengthen Before you Twist
It’s important to create space and freedom within the spine and torso before a twist. Make sure to lengthen your body and your spine by pulling your crown up towards the ceiling and your tailbone down towards the floor. Really create space in your spine, and maintain this length throughout your pose.
Breathe Properly
It’s important to breathe through the poses in yoga, but this can be tricky with advanced twists as they compress the diaphragm. Try to lengthen the spine some more when you inhale, and use your exhale to twist and revolve deeper into the pause. If you continue breathing and moving in this pattern, you can get deeper into the pose in a more relaxed way.
Stabilize your Lower Spine
To protect your back during a twist, make sure you stabilise your lower spine as you move your upper spine. This helps prevent injury in advanced twists as it anchors your lower back while your upper back twists. You should also try to stabilize areas that are prone to injury like your neck. These areas move more easily than your other parts of your spine, and can sometimes take on strain when doing advanced twist. Try to be careful not to over revolve these ares, and focus on the areas of the spine that are less mobile.
Twist Both Sides
You should practice each advanced twist twice, one on each side, so you don’t become imbalanced. Twists are asymmetrical poses, so try to spend an equal amount of time on both sides. However, if you feel tight or stiff on one side of your body, it’s okay to focus a little more on that side, to help balance out.
Take Care when Combining Poses
Advanced twist poses often incorporate forward bends. These are advanced poses that you should ease yourself into, but if you’re ready, be aware of the strain that can be put on your back. If you have lower back issues, or are new to twists and folds, progress slowly, and take the advice of an instructor who can help you on form.
Finally, enjoy the benefits of twists! If you want to take advantage, take a look at this weeks classes of twists, which will rejuvenate you, letting you release the old to make space for the new!
Practicing twisting right now, to experience the benefits for yourself!
Anytime Detox Flow with Jackie Casal Mahrou
Get Long and Twisty with Elise Fabricant
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.
Of course, we believe yoga and meditation are excellent pathways to awareness and will not just help you become more aligned in your spine and physical body, but in your mental and spiritual life.
Yoga encourages you to hit the pause button and check-in with yourself in the present moment. When you cultivate a sense of stillness within, you can truly assess if you are living a life that aligns with your values and your desires. This week, we have a fabulous program from Patrick Montgomery to help you move into a state of alignment.
When you are in alignment, you make decisions from a place of truth, even if it’s uncomfortable. Take the time this week to listen to your inner voice and create the life that has you living in alignment with your dreams. The possibilities are endless!
Practice Patrick Montgomery's Focus on Form: Alignment Intensive classes, to get your body and mind in optimal alignment!
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. This turnip has a much lighter, sweeter taste than your traditional turnip and it’s actually much closer to a radish in texture – crisp and crunchy. It’s perfect paired with fresh bok choy in this fresh veggie sauté. This recipe is root-to-stem: you can use all of the plant. Leave the tops of the turnips on or chop them up with the bok choy for extra green goodness. This dish is cleanse-friendly, and can be easily adapted for purification by substituting water for the oil.
Now we want to hear from YOU! What’s your favorite summer veggie? Have you found any new favorites from your local farmers market or CSA? Let us know in the comments below!
With love and sweet turnips,
Sautéed Japanese Hakurei Turnips with Bok Choy
Yield: 2 servings
1 bunch Japanese Hakurei turnips, trimmed and quartered 1 to 2 small bunches bok choy, sliced into 1/4 to 1/2 inches 2 TB. fresh green garlic, thinly sliced 2 to 3 TB. avocado oil Sea salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions: In a large cast iron skillet over medium-high heat, add avocado oil and heat. Add turnips and sauté until starting to brown on the sides, about 8-10 minutes. Sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Add bok choy and garlic and sauté for about 3 minutes. Serve with a sprinkle of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Practice Yoga for Detox, Cleansing & Vitality, now!
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.
If this is you, then yoga is for you. Yoga is one of the ways through which you can stay fit and active and be safe from any injuries that could happen while working out. If you are still skeptical, keep reading as the following benefits of prenatal yoga may persuade you to try it out.
1. Allows you to Sleep Better
Are you suffering from insomnia? If yes, then it is time you joined a prenatal yoga class. Studies have shown that women who begin to practice prenatal yoga while in their second trimester, sleep better. Pregnant women who did not practice prenatal yoga were reported to have woken up multiple time throughout the night and stayed awake for a longer period of time before they could finally fall asleep.
Poor sleep has been associated with long duration of labor and a higher probability of going through a cesarean birth. If you find that you are still having trouble sleeping, it may be the pillow you are using. Getting a comfortable night’s rest paired with the light exercise of prenatal yoga will help you get your beauty sleep throughout your pregnancy.
2. Makes your Core Muscles Stronger
Prenatal yoga helps you build stronger core muscles which in turn, prepare your body for the physical stress brought about by the birth and delivery process. Yoga strengthens the spine and back muscles which carry the weight of the baby growing in your tummy. Yoga also makes your pelvic floor muscles stronger which in turn helps you push your baby during birth and delivery.
3. Helps you Learn Proper Breathing
Prenatal yoga will also involve breathing exercises that help pregnant women relieve their tension and stress. This, in turn, helps alleviate pain and also get rid of headaches which are quite common during pregnancy.
When you are due to give birth, the breathing exercises will get you through labor and delivery as you will be able to stay calm by the use of the controlled breathing techniques.
4. Allows you to Connect with Like-minded Moms
If you were yet to find a community group with fellow pregnant moms who would encourage and support you throughout your journey, look no further. Joining a prenatal yoga class is like joining a support group of some kind as you get to connect with other pregnant moms who share similar ideas, lifestyles, and choices.
Walking the pregnancy journey with fellow women who understand your highs and lows will help get rid of the anxiety you may be going through.
5. Provides a Cure for Common Pregnancy Complaints
Many are the times' pregnant women will complain of feeling nauseated, back pains, headaches, breathlessness, insomnia among other common pregnancy complaints. If this has been the order of the day for you, then it is advisable that you try out prenatal yoga as it could provide a cure for all these discomforts.
Prenatal yoga poses to stretch and tone your body improve blood circulation in your body. The yoga breathing techniques also ensure that your entire body and little one get adequate oxygen. Also, the meditation practice in yoga also offers relief for the stress that comes along with pregnancy.
However, it is important to note that there is no guarantee that all the pregnancy discomforts will disappear all at once but yoga will help your body and mind deal with the situation much better.
6. Reduces the Likelihood of Intrauterine Growth Restriction
Studies have found that babies born to women who practice prenatal yoga are rarely born prematurely and more often than not have a heavier weight than they would at their gestational age.
This is proof that prenatal yoga reduces the occurrence of intrauterine growth restriction which is often the end result after a series of pregnancy complications.
Scientists have also suggested that women who practice prenatal yoga are less likely to suffer from preeclampsia. Prenatal yoga is believed to greatly support the development of the placenta as the arteries in the reposition themselves and allow the placenta to position itself in the inner parts of the uterus. This inner positioning ensures that the growing fetus gets adequate nutrients. Poor placenta development has been linked to conditions such as preeclampsia and low birth weight.
By Natalie Michelle
Hello, my name is Natalie and I am the owner of MaternityatHome. In the day I am a General Physician and at night I am a devout mother of two. I am always busy but I do love sharing all my knowledge and experience with other mothers or mothers-to-be out there!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Maternityathomeblog/ Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/MaternityAtHome/
Practice Prenatal Yoga right now to have a more enjoyable pregnancy!
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. In other words, if you happened to drink too much last night or you succumbed to a craving for a big fat cheeseburger, you might think you can sweat out all the negative calories and heaviness. Actually, waste can only truly be removed through your digestive and elimination systems.
So, while you may feel like you’re sweating out that margarita through your pores, you’re still simply sweating. Sweat is composed of 99 percent water and 1 percent potassium, carbs, and salt. Working up a sweat through exercise will make you feel better and help kick-start your internal waste removal system, so go for it.
Sweating regularly helps you look better too!
Perspiring helps bring the blood to the skin’s surface, which gives you that healthy glow. Arguably the best benefit of working up a sweat through exercise is boosting your endorphins to feel happier. You’ll release stress and tension and move your way to a more positive outlook.
Check out these excellent new classes to sweat:
1. Pradeep Teotia: Sweat Sweat Sweat
2. Robert Sidoti: Power Functional Vinyasa
3. Jackie Casal Mahrou: Flow Your Heart Out
4. Becca Riopelle: Rock Hard Body Blaster
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
Detox the Body
The secondary function of sweat is for detoxification. There’s a lot of evidence that shows that detoxing through sweat is a real thing. For example, in one study, sweating sessions reduced levels of mercury toxicity to a safe level. With modern living and industrial pollution, detoxing is an important part of our bodily functions. Exercising more and building up a sweat can help eliminate heavy metals and toxins from the body.
Clear Skin
Did you know that your skin has its own microbiome balance? These are trillions of microbes living on the skin. Sweat can act as a prebiotic to help healthy skin bacteria grow - just like drinking prebiotics to help bacteria in your gut. Sweating also stimulates skin cell turnover and can remove unhealthy bacteria that leads to acne.
Reduces Stress
The de-stress response, or parasympathetic response to give it it’s proper name, allows us to relax and recover and its activated by sweating. By breaking a sweat, we allow our bodies to boost endorphins, the happy hormones which relieve anxiety, stress and depression. Sweating also reduces cortisol, a stress hormone, and adrenal hormones are active to maintain this de-stressed reaction.
Strengthens the Heart
Sweating can increase circulation and strengthen the cardiovascular systems. A study following a group of people who had weekly sessions in a sauna found that this group were the least likely to have heart problems.
Helps Recovery
If you’re a regular exercise bunny, sweating lots can help you to reduce your recovery time. Sweating stimulates and increases blood flow to your skeletal muscles. This helps you bounce back quicker from illnesses, injuries or strains. Sweating also boosts the body's growth hormones, which helps it to repair itself from damage.
Reduces Eisks of Kidney Stones
When you sweat, you expel salt from your body, and retain calcium in your bones. This will limit the amount of salt and calcium that can accumulate in your kidneys and in your urine. It’s this build up of calcium and salt that causes kidney stones. Also, the more you sweat, the more you drink, and drinking water is also a great way to prevent kidney stones. Something as simple as working up a sweat with a brisk walk can reduce the risk for developing kidney stones.
Prevents Colds
Sweating can reduce the risk of catching a cold or the flu by a third. This is because our sweat contains antimicrobial proteins, which help to flush out toxins, bacteria and viruses in the body, and attack germs. These proteins attack the bacteria and viruses, and break them down., Sweating can also help you fight certain illnesses. Our sweat composition can change depending on what toxins and diseases are in our body. For example, a study following people suffering from tuberculosis found that their sweat contains proteins that are key to improving their immune system to fight the disease. These natural proteins are effective in fighting off illness long term, as bacteria cannot develop resistance to them.
Reduce Risk of Alzheimer’s
As mentioned, sweating detoxes the levels of heavy metals in your body, which in turn improves the blood flow to the brain, which is a great tool to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. One study showed that a group of men who used a sauna more than once a week saw a reduction of risk of Alzheimers by up to 65% compared to those who didn’t.
Hair Growth
Did you know sweating can help your hair grow? Sweat from your scalp will unclog your hair follicles, letting new hair grow through. It also opens up pores, which further allows your hair to grow more. However, it’s important to keep your head clean and not allow sweat to build up. This can eventually cause damage to the hair follicles, so sweat away but make sure you wash your hair after working out.
How to Gain the Benefits of Sweating
If you want to reap the above benefits, that’s great! Get your sweat on. It’s important to allow your body to sweat, so using less antiperspirant is the first step. These can contain the heavy metals you’re trying to detox, and also can block your pores. Natural deodorant can be a great alternative to chemical antiperspirants.
Try and fit in a workout a day, just something that's active enough to get you sweating. You’ll also reap the benefits exercising has on your health, both physically and mentally. Try our classes this week - all designed to get you working up a sweat.
Finally, you can relax and head to a sauna. Your body will sweat more in a sauna, and you’ll notice the positive benefits immediately.
Work up a sweat with power yoga right now!
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.
A secret ingredient that makes the mousse extra light is something that you would otherwise throw out. The liquid from the tin of chickpeas is called aquafaba, and it resembles egg whites when whipped up. This is what gives this mousse its incredible lightness, just be very careful while folding it through the chocolate mixture as it collapses pretty easily.
So anyway, next time you prepare hummus, keep the liquid and use this up in a dessert!
Light Chocolate Mousse
Serves: 4
Cooking time: 15 minutes + 3 hours to set
3 ½ oz dark chocolate
5 oz very ripe avocados (cleaned weight)
15 ½ oz tin of chickpeas (You only need the liquid, use the chickpeas in a different recipe)
Melt the chocolate.
At the same time start whipping up the aquafaba, it takes about 10 minutes and you want to get very firm foam.
Once the chocolate is melted, add the avocado and a tiny bit of salt, and mix with the stick blender.
Now it is time to mix everything together. At first, take about half of the foamy aquafaba and mix carefully in the chocolate mixture. Then add the other half of the foam and really gently fold. You want to keep as much air in the mixture as possible.
Divide the mousse between 4 serving bowls and glasses and let them set for at least 3 hours in the fridge.
Enjoy some enlivening yoga before your delicious chocolate mousse!
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.
Similar to computers, we don't always work optimally, but there are always simple things we can do to function better. Hitting buttons in frustration does not make us or computers function better and get us what we want.
I ran a computer clean up on my old laptop and was in the process of virus scans, duplicate file finders, uninstallers and more. It was then that I had an epihany about life. In the simple press of a button and a moment of time, your computer is analyzed, problems are identified, rectified, deleted and restored.
What if you could do the same in your life? What if in the moment of highest agitation at my tech problems (which let’s be honest are first world problems and so insignificant in the scheme of life and love and world peace), I could have pressed a button, waited all but a minute, completely let it go and return to the task at hand with higher efficiency?
Then I started to think of more unique functions of computers, and how they can symbolize actions we can take as humans, to function better and thrive more.
What if the things that stress us out the most and make our blood boil, could be deleted with the press of a button? The good news is we can do this. While these are metaphorical, these lessons I learned from my computer reboot, are lessons on how we can re-program ourselves and our lives to live optimally. We all possess an in built virus scan called awareness.
Negativity can have a detrimental effect and corrupt our highest efficiency, but awareness allows us to scan ourselves, find these pockets (or thought patterns) of negativity, and clear them out. The practice of meditation or yoga, is simple and similar to the way your computer does it. Technological devices close all other applications and then look at every file to identify any that are affecting the optimum performance of the machine.
Likewise, sit in stillness and look at every cell to recognize anywhere that is hindering your performance. Notice tight and tender areas and offer expansive space on your breathe. Use your exhale like the trash bin on your computer and move any unhelpful stored data out with your breath. The duplicate finder, is another computer function I appreciate. If my laptop finds any files that in my laziness or haste, have been saved more than once, it can delete them to stop taking up unnecessary space. Do you have old tendencies, repeating behaviours, repititive habits that are chewing up storage in you? Grudges and anger can actually be erased in an instant if we want them to be.
Another favorite feature of the computer clean up is the archive feature, in putting things behind us, from the past, that don't need to take up space as we move forward. Rather than being tainted by the past, we could live with more connection to the moment. Old experiences shape our perception, and are valuable, but they don't need to weigh us down, and it's more important to stay open to the present and future.
In yoga, the direction of your gaze represents your viewpoint and where you are going. Taking your drishti to aim behind you like in Half Lord of the Fishes pose (Matseyendrasana) is gazing into your past. When you look forward like in Warrior II (Virabhadrasana II) you address your future. To archive your attachments, before you release a twist, bid the past farewell, redirect your drishti and gaze bravely forward. Take a fresh new breathe here and then release the twist. The memory booster feature on a computer scan manually improves the systems memory. What a lucky computer! As humans we scatter our attention on multiple tasks, sometimes failling to truly concentrate on the present. To boost your memory, fuel your body well with thoughts, experiences and people that nourish you and be right there in every moment. Removing junk files optimizes your systems speed and is so simple to do the same for yourself. One can easily fill up on junk food, but does it actually nourish and nurture your body? For the same amount of calories, you can consume whole foods with real nutritional benefit to maximize your potential.
Finally, the crash log can help troubleshoot performance and stability problems. From this the inference is that stability is more efficient than highs and lows, mood swings, tantrums and energy crashes. Pay attention, maybe even keep a journal of situations, people and foods that trigger a metaphoric crash in your life, minimizing exposure to these spikes, to improve balance and stability.
While technology doesn't always work how we want it to, if we learn how to use devices for our favor, they are more fun, effective, and efficient to work on. Same goes with our thoughts, habits, and emotions.
If we can adjust and fine tune certain reactions, we can live as happier, more free and grateful people. Sure, we are not as simple as computers and much more complex beings with more of an array of emotions. However, if we're able to see ourselves and our struggles as simply as possible, it can give us a clearer path forward in how to thrive.
By Amy Booth
Amy is a yoga and pilates teacher and personal trainer in Brisbane, Australia, where she runs a cute riverside studio and a personal training business. In addition each year she runs a yoga retreat (Bali, August 2018) and hiking retreat (Australia, 2018). To find out more: Website: www.ambertreeyoga.com.au Instagram: @ambertreeyogaandretreats Facebook: Amber Tree Yoga and Retreats
Give your mind a reboot with the 14-Day Meditation Program, suitable for all levels!
What is the solstice?
If you are in the Northern Hemisphere, the solstice is the first day of Summer, the longest day of the year, and the days will begin to get shorter for the next 6 months until the winter solstice. If you are in the Southern Hemisphere, the solstice is the first day of Winter, the shortest day of the year and the days will slowly start to get longer. When is the solstice?
The solstice occurs on Friday, June 21st.
Why does it symbolize?
Beyond just daylight hours, the solstice is a powerful time for reflection, intention setting, and feeling your place in the natural world as the seasons change.
It is a moment to pause, and take a step back from the routine that the day to day grind can bring, and zoom out to look at the bigger picture of our lives. It is also a potent moment in the yearly cycle to get clear on what it is you want to call in, during the next season.
How to honor the solstice?
Taking a moment to honor this turning point in the year and seasons, that the solstice represents, does not have to be overly involved or time consuming. Simple gestures can go a long way, and have ripple effects for the next 6 months.
You can get creative with how you'd like to honor this occasion also, as there is also no correct way to salute the solstice. This could be a day where you simply feel more connected to nature and the cosmos, or a pivot point where you get clear and serious about your goals and intentions.
Whether you're simply putting your feet in the grass, or taking the day to journal and cast spells, the mere recognition on this day of our place in the solar system, can have profound benefits for your life, or simply make for an enjoyable day.
Here are 6 fun, simple, solstice ritual ideas for you for a happy and healthy season ahead.
Don't feel confined to just these 7 ideas, and you can even use these ideas as inspiration to come up with your own.
1. Honor the sun.
If nothing else, the solstice is a reminder of our relationship with the sun, as residents of the Earth. Without the sun, we would not be here. It is what gives us life, the different seasons, and our energy.
This simple solstice ritual idea will take no more than 1 minute and connect your entire being to the sun's magnificence.
1. Go outside. 2. Face the sun (you might want to close your eyes). 3. Take 3 deeps breaths, and feel the energy of the sun connecting and charging your heart. 4. Feel gratitude and appreciation for the sun, and send good energy back to it.
2. Reflect on the past 6 months' successes and room for improvement.
Take time today to look back for a moment. What has gone well since the last solstice, 6 months ago?
Have there been breakthroughs and areas where you've made positive change and progress? Have there been new challenges or ways you could have done better?
Without beating yourself up about anything, look at the successes and setbacks over the past 6 months, as neutrally as possible. Use these reflections as powerful information, for where you want to put your time, energy, and focus, over the next seasons and months ahead.
This idea, can be combined with idea #3 (but you can also do this one by itself).
3. Create your ideal vision for the next 6 months.
This idea is perfect to combine with idea #2 (reflecting on the past 6 months).
Tell the story of your future, more than you tell the story of your past. There's no better day to start than on the solstice. The solstice is a potent time to set new intentions you'd like to have manifest over the next cycle. Take time today, and create your ideal vision for the next 6 months. If you're newer to law of attraction, the idea is we attract what we focus on.
Take time today to focus on what it is that you want. Dream big and set goals that excite you.
4. Go barefoot in nature or lay in the grass.
Simply taking the solstice to be more with the natural world, is a special way to appreciate the solstice. The beach and sand count here too.
It's easy to forget that we are animals on this Earth, susceptible to it's change in seasons and rhythms. Take time today to be outside.
You could commemorate the solstice by going somewhere new, or one of your favorite places in nature you might not get to regularly. Or, if it's more ceonvenient, you can do this in your backyard, or at the nearest park.
The essence is the same though. Get outside and feel the Earth. There's no easier way to do this, than taking your shoes off, and feeling the Earth beneath your feet! You can even combine the first 3 ideas, with your outdoor time.
5. Make a vision board.
A powerful, fun, and artistic way to get creative, is to create a vision board. While the benefits of intention setting on the solstice have been outlined, if writing is not your thing, you can channel these intentions into an artistic activity.
Making a vision board is simple, creative and fun. Simply go through a stack of magazines, and cut out images of things, feelings, and experiences you'd like to have manifest in the seasons ahead, cut them out, and glue them to your vision board. Have fun arranging everything.
Collaging usually takes a few hours, with some clean up time. All you need to create a vision board collage, are scissors, glue, some magazines or books you're okay with cutting up, and a piece of paper (preferably strong paper) to glue the cuttings onto.
6. Organize a get together.
There's a number of ways your can go about this. If you want to make the gathering intentional, you can bring people together for any of the 5 ideas above, such as a group vision board making night, a solstice ritual of honoring the sun, or journaling together.
Otherwise, solstice does not have to be about ritual or intention setting and can simply be a good excuse to gather your favorite people. Especially in the spirit of summer, it's good to re-connect with people you love that you may not get to see as much as you'd like.
It can be harder to connect with people during the winter also, which is a more introverted time for many, so it's good to spend time with those important to you, before you go into hibernation mode.
Enjoy this day, the constant change of seasons, and planning something special, to honor the sun, your vision for the future, or those you love!
Practice yoga or meditate to visualize your ideal season ahead, with Keith, now!
Manifestation and Visualization Meditation
Humble Warrior Flow with Keith Allen
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.
Even if you are regularly practicing yoga and have developed a strong mind-body connection, you may still not feel as happy and fulfilled as you wish to be. Yoga helps us quiet our minds, connect with our emotions, and tune into our body’s signals. Sharing how we feel with others via touch takes it a step further.
Ample research exists from psychiatrists to massage therapists, documenting how even a hug or pat on the back can lower anxiety levels, increase serotonin levels in your brain, and increase your mind-body connection. When you feel good, you are in the position to share your positive energy with others. Of course, we’re not suggesting you run up and hug everyone you see whether you know them or not! But if you’d like to learn some different ways to get closer to those you care about, we’re here for you.
This week, we’re offering exciting new classes of Thai yoga massage techniques from yoga therapist Shy Sayar. Acquire new skills to harness all the benefits of the power of touch and see how you can become more connected with those around you. Treat yourself and the people you love will benefit from you practicing on them!
1. Shy Sayar Therapeutic Yoga Massage: Lower Body
2. Shy Sayar Therapeutic Yoga Massage: Upper Body
3. Shy Sayar Therapeutic Yoga Massage: Harmonics
4. Shy Sayar Therapeutic Yoga Massage Techniques