Preventing Type 2 Diabetes - Can Yoga Help Reduce Major Risk Factors?
The incidence of type 2 diabetes mellitus is skyrocketing, affecting more than 300 million people worldwide. This had lead to extensive efforts to understand and prevent the disease. Now, research published in Psychoneuroimmunology, points to low inhibition and high anxiety as
Yoga for a Healthy Pregnancy
Practicing yoga safely during pregnancy may seem like common sense, yet there is still misleading information circulating about the practice of certain styles of yoga while pregnant, in particular Hot Yoga.
Motherisk program based out of Sick Kids Hospital in
How to Lengthen the Hamstrings in Janu Sirsasana
How can you use spinal reflex arcs to facilitate lengthening the muscles in yoga poses? Dr. Ray Long on PNF - Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation. Sports medicine experts long ago perceived that this particular reflex arc could be carefully manipulated to
How Yoga Helped One Teacher Overcome Anxiety and Depression
How does yoga affect lives? For one example, read this moving interview with yoga teacher Amanda Reh, who teaches wildly popular donation based yoga classes in Orlando, Florida. Amanda talks with writer Susanna Barkataki about her life before yoga, her practice
Virabhadrasana II: The Quiet Warrior
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras state that asana (the physical postures of yoga) should be “steady and comfortable,” “firm and soft” or “steady and easy,” depending on the translation. All these descriptions add up to a quiet balance between the energetic and
Why and How to Activate Your Muscles in Yoga Poses
For some time now I’ve been suggesting that you add “isometric muscle contraction” to your yoga poses to enhance both strength building and stretching. I, myself, have been experimenting with it quite a bit in my yoga practice, and have noticed
You Are What You Eat - The Seven Dhatus in Ayurveda
You are what you eat! As yogi, nutritionist, and Ayurvedic health educator, I love helping people understanding why eating good-quality food is such an essential part of health and longevity, two core values promoted in the field of Ayurveda. Ayurvedic
The Art of Sequencing: Asana Modifications - Book Review
Sthira sukham asanam – Sutra 2.46, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali In the first chapter of The Art of Sequencing – Asana Modifications – Volume III, yoga teacher Melina Meza evokes Sutra 2.46 from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali as one
How to Prevent Boomeritis: Slow the Clock Safely
Bursitis, tendinitis, arthritis, plantar fasciitis . . . these are just some of a long list of ‘itis’es that people become increasingly vulnerable to as they get older. And, they all put you at great risk for another condition - FixMe-Itis,
Lengthening the Torso in Forward Bends
The thoracolumbar complex (TLC) is a multilayered structure comprised of the thoracolumbar fascia (TLF) and the muscles that connect to it. This composition of passive fascial tissues and active muscular structures acts as a corset-like structure that encircles the torso. It plays a key role
How to Practice Ahimsa on the Mat
Most who practice yoga these days have at least heard of the word ahimsa. We might even have read some of the in-depth literature on it, or practiced incorporating the idea of ahimsa—non-harming—into our lives. Translated as “dynamic peacefulness” by
Mindfulness May Create Happier Relationships, Study Shows
Most people practice yoga and mindfulness because it makes them feel good. A meta-analysis published in the Journal of Human Sciences and Extension finds that higher levels of mindfulness may also be linked to happier, more satisfying relationships. Meta-analysis on Mindfulness
Are You Eating Too Much of a Good Thing?
Raise your smoothie if this sounds familiar: Picking at that plate of dates with nut butter because they happen to be there. Cleaning up you quinoa dinner bowl, not because you’re still hungry but because there’s not enough for leftovers.
3 Essential Steps to Protecting Your Shoulders in Yoga
I started taking tennis lessons recently. My tennis pro tells us in every class: “Save your shoulders! Do not swing with just your arm, turn your whole body!” All athletes know that – we cannot generate any kind of significant
Explore New Territory in Side Bend Yoga Poses
For all too many of us in Western culture, close familiarity with the physical body doesn’t extend too far beyond the hands and fingers—always on keyboards or phone screens. Whatever other areas make themselves known often do so through pain