Yoga, Health, and Wellness Articles + Recipes

Summer is winding down and as the season starts to shift, it’s a perfect time to integrate some more calming practices to not only beat the last hot days of summer, but also to remind ourselves how important it is to chill out in our busy, high-tech world. Ayurveda, yoga’s sister science, offers advice on how we can acclimate to the heat and balance it out through both diet and our asana, pranayama and meditation practices. When we align ourselves with nature, we learn to live in balance no matter what’s happening externally or internally. Without launching a dissertation on Ayurvedic principles, we’ll give you the quick basics on how Pitta energy can be exacerbated in the summer and provide some practices that will help you stay calm, cool, and collected no matter how steamy it gets.

Practice our Featured Pose of the month, Warrior II, to fuel your flow. Warrior II / Virabhadrasana II symbolizes strength and victory.

It’s International Green Smoothie Day today (August 15) and we’re celebrating with a new low sugar green smoothie recipe.

One of the most powerful benefits of practicing yoga is that it creates space for you to work through negative emotions and the drama that might be weighing like an anvil on your shoulders. We all have samskaras or karmic tendencies and energy patterns and often we can get stuck in obsessing about the same few thoughts. Over and over again. Usually the thoughts that hold us back—you know those with self-doubt and self-pity? By practicing yoga with an emphasis on flow, vibration, dissolution, you can fire up your tapas and alchemize all that sh*t into positive energy.

One of the biggest hurdles we hear about from Conscious Cleansers (our next cleanse starts Sept. 7.) is that they don’t have time for meal prep! Well, today we have another time-saving recipe for you – A lunch that you can toss together in under 15 minutes! Going to the Whole Foods salad bar takes longer than that!

Are you ready to highlight your humanitarian efforts during this full moon in Aquarius? Good, because the world needs it. This is a time to shed whatever is holding you back from speaking your truth, particularly about how things need to shift. Each of us has our own way in which we can be the change we wish to see in our world. There is no singular effort, no one goal that needs to be accomplished right now; all efforts and all goals are equally important. While each of us has our soap box, so to speak, it is now that we need to stand upon it and clear the way for positive change. 

When I was little, my sister and I came up with this game that we would play whenever we would go to the ocean (once a year). We would be so excited to get our feet in the sand and our toes wet that we couldn’t wait to put on a bathing suit. Fresh from a 12-hour car ride, we’d run down to the beach, still in our clothes, roll up our shorts even shorter and feel the waves crashing on our feet. Then, we would challenge each other by declaring in delight “Step farther!” and each of us would have to take a giant step forward into the ocean. Whoever chickened out first because they were afraid to get waved on lost. We would giggle and scream and then start all over again to see how far we could get into the ocean without getting scared.

We don’t know about you, but we find watching the Olympics to be an incredibly inspiring experience. Seeing the athletes who have dedicated their lives, sacrificed so much for the opportunity to compete at the highest level on the globe have the opportunity to shine is powerful. Are the Olympics just about being the best? Winning the gold at all costs? Is it about the outcome? Or, is it more than that? Is it truly about the journey?

I was first introduced to the sankalpa during my 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training program during a Yoga Nidra practice. This practice forever changed the trajectory of my life. By listening to my teacher guide me into a state between consciousness and unconsciousness, I was able to create my sankalpa by crystallizing what my heart’s true desire was and begin to allow it to manifest and unfold in my life.

The new moon in Leo invites us to move into the spotlight with laughter and exuberance. If there was ever a time to shine, it is now. Leo’s regal qualities are highlighted right now, encouraging us to laugh freely, commune with friends and take advantage of all opportunities to revel in the attention of others. Imagine sitting at the high table with those you love on either side, and an audience of adorers willing to listen…what would you say? How would you communicate your love? This is happening now, and so you must bring your message of loyalty and love to the world.

Summer fun catching up with you? Even though we’re a month away from our next online Conscious Cleanse, it feels good to hit the reset button from time to time, especially during summer when there are just so many fun trips, activities, and gatherings to enjoy!

With the world’s drishti turned to Rio this week, we’ve been asking ourselves, what if yoga were a global competitive sporting event? Yogis would be judged in categories like compassion, presence and breath - they would be judged on their non-judgment. Yoga will likely never join the 28 sports that earn gold medals (and if they did what version of yoga would that be?), but with over 36 million Americans practicing everyday, we still feel a patriot-like sense of pride and community. Many global athletes embrace a yoga practice to enhance their athletic performance. In addition to physical conditioning and strength training, yoga helps build mental agility – in short, it connects brain and brawn for a higher purpose.

I’ve spent many an evening, after a long, hard day doing these poses in our living room while family life happens around me. That might mean that my daughter is jumping on me, or that there’s an occasional sports newscast on in the background. My evening wind down practice isn’t pristine (and yours doesn’t have to be either), but I still find it incredibly helpful to spend a few minutes on self-care in the evening. It provides a buffer zone that helps me relax so that when it’s time for sleep, my mind isn’t buzzing and my body isn’t calling out for more attention.

It’s peach season and that means it’s time for peach pies, peach cobbler, and peach green smoothies! Tis’ the season for PEACHES and as you can tell, we can’t get enough of them. Today we’re adding to our peach repertoire with these delicious Peach Crumble Bars.

You began your workday with the best of intentions. Quite virtuous intentions, actually. But, your job is hectic and deadlines loom. Despite planning on attending a yoga class at the studio down the street or even in your office wellness center, you find yourself trapped at your desk working overtime. Again. If this happens to you on a regular basis, don’t despair. You can squeeze in time for yoga at the office, even if it’s at your desk with no sticky mat or stretchy pants in sight.

We’re officially in the dog days of summer and even though summer doesn’t typically scream “soup!” this recipe – which is straight out of our book, will make you think otherwise! Gazpacho isn’t just any soup, it’s a soup that is traditionally made of raw vegetables and served cold, making it absolutely perfect for summertime.

Dear fellow yogis, When I started the The Kaivalya Yoga Method Teacher Training with YogaDownload.com in January 2016, I had no idea or conception of what the ride would be like.  Wow, that was a training above all trainings imaginable!  It certainly took lots of energy, effort, focus, and strong perseverance! I found the beginning modules more challenging for me personally, and as I continued on, I felt like I was opening up a genie (a.k.a. Alanna Kaivalya) bottle that I found on the beach. And, out of the genie bottle continued to arise more and more intrigue, more and more heartfelt information, more and more myths and depth.

Hello from YogaDownload! We have 4 exclusive new classes to share with you, going back to the core teachings of yoga. The 2000 year-old Sutras (Sanskrit for “threads”) are timeless truisms that brings you closer to your practice. The classes are all offered by the same teacher – and you need to meet this person. She gives us butterflies. Everyone from Ana Forest to Rodney Yee to Yoga Journal has sung her praises. Her books are bestsellers, her workshops sell out all over the world and millions of people adore her music. She is a true yoga scholar, an expert on the sutras, mythology, the anatomy of the body and the creative expression of the practice.

I recently graduated from my 500-hour advanced teacher training. The experience was an intense and deep study not just of yoga but also of myself and my relationship with yoga. As I’ve shared with some of you in my classes, it seems that we are always just beginning our journey – the moment we identify an end-goal is the moment we stray from the very path that will help us achieve it. Some of you have encouraged me to share some of what I wrote in my lengthy 7,600+ word final exam essays. As I went back and reviewed what I wrote, I found the perfect piece to share with you today. There are so many times I reference the Yoga Sutras in my blog posts, but I’ve never really talked through them in a full dedicated post, so now is the time!

Sometimes life is about a collection of details. Flecks of gorgeous sprinkled throughout the day. We can get lost in the macro of things, and we miss it. It being the details. It being the smell of cinnamon and honey that lingers on your skin after making granola. It being that surprising crunch of millet between your teeth even though you know it’s there, even though you know it’ll be crunchy. It being the magic of creation. The magic of watching ingredients meld together into something unique, something yours. It being the connection with your food, the connection with your body, the connection with the world.

Capricorn, the wise elder, gets the full light of the moon this month, bringing awareness to our level of maturity, commitment to discipline, being overworked and developing strategies for our career or lifestyle. The energy of Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, and so there is constant pressure to get work done and work the plans we’ve crafted. On the low side, however, this pressure leads to workaholism and forgetting the human element in our endeavors. Capricorn can be cold and ruthless when it comes to achieving its goal. The light of this full moon gives us a clearer vision to understand who, why and what we are working for at this time. If our goals have become trivial, materialistic or narrow minded, this is a good time to broaden our view and reintroduce meaning back into our life’s work.

Any time you can get to the gym is great. However, some times may have more benefits than others. Below are four reasons why exercising in the morning may be the best.

When you’re practicing yoga, do you ever wonder why you’re doing a particular asana or pose? Why the teacher emphasizes alignment in a particular way? What the benefits are?

Spring has sprung and all throughout yogaland, studios are hosting “detox flow” workshops that emphasize deep twists and side bends. And, no doubt, the vast majority of these workshops will declare that you need to keep your pelvis “stable” when you twist in order to keep your lower back and sacroiliac joints safe. Although the word “stable” in this context is slightly misleading, teachers are trying to keep their students from turning their pelvis when they rotate their spine. This is the way I taught twists for over 15 years — adamantly no less.

Vinyasa Yoga is one of the most practiced styles worldwide, indeed, according to a survey by the Yoga Journal, it is the most popular style amongst yogis. So, why is it that there seems to be some confusion about what Vinyasa is? Is it a style? A sequence? Or is it just a technique? And what exactly does it mean when a teacher says “take a Vinyasa”?