The holiday season brings feasts, parties, merry-making and heavy foods. Big meals complete with turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy leave us sleepy and ready for an afternoon nap on the sofa in front of the fireplace. If you're concerned about increasing your immunity during the flu season, you'll want to avoid overeating this Thanksgiving.
Read MoreThe Season of Generosity
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Welcome to the season of Generosity! Note that we started with “gratitude first.” Gratitude brings us back to humility and compassion, connecting us to our world in many ways.
Read MoreThe Three “Super G’s”
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This is the time of year when the holidays begin to unfold, and it’s well worth noting that as we begin with Thanksgiving, we are in the habit of beginning with gratitude first. How ironic that here is our lesson, since after all, gratitude is the mother of all virtues. Starting from this humble place should help us keep things in perspective. All faith traditions and many mind-body practices encourage beginning and repeatedly coming back to focus on “our blessings.” This is powerful!
Read MoreTen Tips to Avert Ama Build-Up Over the Holidays→
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Ama, the toxic waste-product of inefficient digestion, can accumulate at any time of the year. During the holidays, we’re particularly susceptible to it. The bounty of festive meals and lots of sweets tempts us to overeat and eat at irregular times, and these are all triggers for the build-up of ama. If left unchecked, our body can become clogged and our immune system weakened by the accumulation of ama. Do you experience lack of appetite, stiffness in the joints, occasional constipation, respiratory issues, allergen reactions, or weight gain?
Read MoreAnchor to Gratitude
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Did you know that cultivating gratitude is a skill? It’s a mindset, it’s a way of life. It’s also a very worthwhile pursuit because of the incredible benefits of cultivating gratitude – we recommend starting by spending 5 minutes/day in a gratitude journal. Interestingly, we start experiencing MORE of these benefits the longer we consistently keep a gratitude journal.
Read MoreAyurvedic Strategies for Healthy Holiday Eating→
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‘Tis the season to be snacking! From Thanksgiving (or even Halloween) through Valentine’s Day, the holidays present an extended string of festive gatherings that center around food and drinks. While living it up with friends, family, and colleagues can be fun, it can also be a bit stressful — especially with travel, gift buying, hectic schedules, and easy access to rich and sugary foods.
Read More5 Yogic Ways to Cultivate Gratitude
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Join us this November as we begin a mindful practice of gratitude to see what unfolds in life. Lets consider a daily practice so that the conditioning effect on both the mind and the body become more habitual. There are actually many ways to focus on a gratitude practice so we are suggesting something simple and doable, that we might lock elbows together and make it a collective exercise in this EYP community – ready to join us?
Read MoreYogic Breath Practices to Minimize Stress & Anxiety
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Breath is life and therefore attention to breath is paramount to how our life will unfold. Everything else can and should supplement the effectiveness of proper breathing – awareness, movement, nutrition and spiritual practices.
Read MoreUpgrading To An Ayurvedic Diet: Five Secrets of Good Digestion→
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The majority of Americans suffer from occasional digestion problems: gas, bloating, stomach discomfort, constipation, heartburn, and fatigue after eating.
The act of eating is life-giving, and the process of digestion, according to Maharishi Ayurveda, is critically important. Eating for maximum benefit requires awareness, and is important for the development of consciousness as well as our physical health.
Read MoreOn Strength and Grace in Yoga and in Life
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To reflect on inner strength from a yogic perspective, we want to consider all the ways we yoke our practice, so that we look from the angles of physical strength, emotional stability, and spiritual steadfastness. We can find that our understanding of Santosa (pronounced Sahn – toe – sha), the Niyama (“rules” for self-observance), which means contentment, holds the key to offering us another facet for contemplation on strength and grace.
Read MoreLive Your Practice, Claim Your Joy!
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Yoga means to unite or to yoke, but on a deeper meaning, it is the realization of the interconnectedness of everything, from the micro to the macro level. Our practice helps us to understand our place in our world and therefore helps us to rise to our obligations, not in a way that is cumbersome, but with realization that life requires sweet responsibilities.
Read MoreReleasing Tension
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Excess tension is stealing not only our peace, but the quality of our lives. Physically, when the body is under tension, the cardiovascular system is challenged, cholesterol and blood pressure increase, the breath becomes fast and shallow, nutrition is compromised as the body excretes vitamins and minerals rather than absorbing optimally from foods, muscles hold unnecessary tension for prolonged periods, and adequate sleep becomes harder to access.
Read MoreDosha Balance: Vata→
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Vata dosha governs flow and motion in the mind and body — the movement of thoughts across our minds, memory, food moving through our digestive tract, elimination of wastes, the flow of our blood, and our breath. For the movement of all three doshas — Vata makes it happen; it’s the leader! Since the other doshas, Pitta and Kapha, cannot move without it, it is important to keep Vata in balance.
Read MoreClearing Mental Clutter
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We can all connect to instances like walking into a room only to forget what we originally came for, or having too many things on our “to do “ list than hours in the day to support successful completion. Technology constantly keeps us over-stimulated. So much so, that our desire for clarity is wishful thinking on a daily basis. Yoga to the rescue!
Read MoreTear Pad Tutorial
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This is a short video about how to use the Tear Pad that accompanies our book
Read More5 Ways to Age-Proof Your Brain with Ayurveda→
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Feeling forgetful or absent-minded on occasion? It's perfectly normal (and human!) to feel a little scattered now and then, but if you're increasingly forgetting names and appointments or frequently misplacing your keys, it might be time to give your mind and memory a little Ayurvedic TLC.
Read MoreMoving Into Stillness
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We have a short video instead of our usual blog post this week. Enjoy, Yogis! Before the journey can begin, we must first learn to spend time daily allowing the body and the mind to be still, to withdraw from the distractions and obstacles, so the soul and spirit can emerge to lead the way.
Read MoreBack to School, Back to Basics, Back to ...Yoga and Aromatherapy!
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Ever notice how people of all ages respond well to having a schedule? Though we recognize that in ourselves, children especially need such boundaries of a consistent schedule. Back to school is an opportune time to not be frazzled by the dictated schedule after relaxed days of summer, but to use the lesson of time management to include how to balance taking care of mind, body and spirit.
Read MoreCreate an Experience
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What a month it’s been! Beliefs are fascinating, because they really do generate thoughts, feelings and action that impact our entire lives. And we often aren’t even aware that we hold certain beliefs until we map them out (or get external feedback from someone who isn’t confined to our personal paradigm.)
Read MoreYour Best Foot Forward: Ayurvedic Foot Care→
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If there is one part of your body that works hard for you, it is your feet. Every day, walking and other activities bring the weight of your entire body to bear on your feet. And that workload may come with a cost — your feet are the area of your body most subject to injury.
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