A healthy spine moves in four ways: flexion (rounding forward), extension (backward bending), rotation (twisting), and the topic for today, lateral flexion (side bending). Our most common position is flexion, as that’s what we do when we slouch. However slouching all the time leads to pain, especially in the neck and back. To undo the strain of being in constant flexion, it’s important
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Get the low down before you step on the mat Going to a yoga class for the first time can be intimidating, even when the class is online! We create all sorts of stories in our head about why we can’t go, or what might happen when we get there: “I will be the worst
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When you control your breath, you affect how you feel Many people understand how taking five deep breaths can shift you from feeling stressed to feeling calm. Learning to breathe deeply and slowly calms the nervous system, getting you out of “fight or flight” and back into “rest and digest.” Learning to control your breath
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It’s only hard when you don’t understand what it is and how to do it. As a yoga instructor, I hear it all the time: “I can’t meditate because…” Your mind will give you a million reasons why you can’t do it, and I would bet that none of them are actually true. When you
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In the yoga asana practice we often talk about a category of stretching poses called “Hip Openers.” They don’t refer to the area where you “put your hands on your hips,” but target the group of muscles surrounding the hip joints. The “Hips” include the Gluteal muscles (Gluteus maximus, Gluteus medius, and Gluteus minimus), the
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Food is a common way to numb when life gets overwhelming. When do most people numb with food? When you feel dysregulated. Dysregulation is a state of being unable to regulate your emotions, leaving you feeling out of sorts. Dysregulation can happen for many reasons and each can lead to numbing with food, or other
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#3 in the series–Ask your questions and I will answer them! Camel pose, or Ustrasana, is a challenging back bending pose. I struggled with it when I first started practicing yoga as I didn’t fully understand the nature of the pose. If you think the point of it is to put your hands on your
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If you are looking for tips on how to get 6 pack abs or ripped arms and legs, I’m sorry but you will not get that here. Many people start practicing yoga in hopes of getting a “yoga body.” But what is a yoga body? In truth, a yoga body is a body that practices
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Having an open heart is not all sunshine and roses, it means having the courage to feel. As humans, we deal with many dualities: day and night, hot and cold, inhale and exhale. Dualities offer expansion and contraction, an opening and a closing. Feelings like joy and love are expansive, whereas anger and fear feel
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Why fat shaming gets us nowhere, and instead we should be kind to ourselves. Obesity, defined as having a BMI over 30, became an “epidemic” in the 90s. Here’s the problem: BMI is garbage. The BMI was originally created in 1832 by a Belgian mathematician and astronomer who was trying to find a quick and
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