Soothing Spring Ayurveda Style

Though we have 4 seasons here in parts of the US and other parts of the world, Ayurveda generally considers three. They are based on the qualities of the seasons which are most closely linked to the doshas or constitutional principles. 

The three doshas- vata, made of the elements air and space (also known as ether) has cold, dry and windy qualities and depicts Fall to Winter; kapha, made of the elements earth and water has moist, dense, and sluggish qualities and defines winter to spring; and pitta, made up of fire and water, has sharp, hot, and oily qualities which depicts spring into summer. There are other qualities and I am simplifying, yet I think you will all get the picture.

In Utah we are completely into Spring and will soon move into Summer. We experienced the waking up from winter, the necessary cleansing and now we make sure that we are prepared to move into a hot, dry Summer. Of course, all of my suggestions will depend upon your personal constitution and your general health.  Take this test to find out.

What can you do?

• eat locally grown,organic foods that are coming into season
• my sprouts are going crazy right now as are my son's strawberries
• eat lighter than in the winter and now you can eat cooler foods (like salads)
• continue with your morning and evening routines although some of you will wake up earlier with the sun and stay up a bit later
• begin with warm water with lemon, brush teeth, scrape tongue
• neti pot (nasal wash) with sterile, gently salted water helps to lessen allergic reactions
• be sure to still use your oil in your nose, eyes, gums, and on your skin
• dry brush the skin starting at the extremities and working your way in before oiling to slough off dead skin
• get outside (with sun protection-hat, sunglasses, sunscreen)
• exercise-swim, bike, walk, hike 
• continue with a breathing practice, keeping any stronger kriyas in the mornings
• asana can be a bit more vigorous if appropriate for you (halasana for digestion)
  
• spend time with family and friends
• drink lots of fluid
• although you may stay up a bit later, consider settling down when the sun goes down
• think about disconnecting from electronics an hour before sleep
• continue to meditate because it's important to still spend quiet, quality inner time with yourself
• enjoy

I'm always interested to hear what my readers are doing so feel free to let me know.

The Angry Yogi

Anger: an emotional response to being or feeling threatened. The body kicks into a flight or fight response when we feel threatened. 

If you know me, you know that I am pretty level-headed most of the time, but I do get angry. I might even yell at my kids from time to time and get frustrated when driving. I have had people say things about angry yogis as if we are not supposed to have what are perceived by our society as negative emotions-fear, anger, envy, jealousy, frustration. 

One thing is certain and that is that I have less anger when I am doing my practice regularly and when it's the right practice for me. Most importantly I meditate and keep gratitude in the fore front of my mind. I also need to take care of my human needs-food, sleep, exercise. 

Is it okay to express anger when your a yogi? Of course! As with most things, there are appropriate ways to let off steam, and anger is energy, heat energy. With time, anger, like heat, will naturally dissipate. Guilt for feeling anger does not help the situation. One thing we can do is to observe and be mindful of those situations, people and places that affect us and decide if and how we will do them in the future. 

Causes: Some of the main causes of anger are that we don't get what we want; we're afraid we'll lose something we have; patterns (samskaras); driving; relationships; it's hot outside; we didn't sleep well last night; our diet sucks; we make other poor health choices, etc.

What can you do? 

Breathe 
Meditate regularly
Count to 10
Talk to someone
Take a walk in nature
Listen to calming music
Chant
Breathe
Exercise
Take Action 
Do appropriate asana for our body type, climate and age 
Follow our routines that support a healthy lifestyle

Prevention is key--being proactive can help avoid many situations that could lead us into blowing our top. Taking care of our health is the first step. Also, doing what we need to do so stress and frustration don't overtake our lives, avoiding dangerous relationships, procrastination, and other things that trigger our anger. Following guidelines and routines for our dosha, season, and ability are also helpful.

If you have other ideas, please share them.

Move Your Energy: A Practice

We've all had a time when our energy was low and we did something to change that-sleep, take a deep breathe, walk, shower, go outside, or have a coffee or other "energy" drink.

Those of us who've been around yoga, dance or other type of movement based practice know that moving your body also changes your energy. How much movement is good? What kind of movement will give me the energy I need? I've included a favorite asana practice that I use for helping my body remove toxins and renew energy. It has a lot of twists so pay close attention if you have issues in your spine. It is meant to be done in the morning or mid-day. It is definitely not an evening practice. I adapted this practice from one I found in Yoga Journal a while back. The Practice

What about me, I can't move? Is there a way for me to move my energy? Yes, you can move your energy with breath work (pranayama). Again, we look at what you need and then decide on the appropriate practice for you. When I find myself getting frustrated with my teenagers or driving, I take a few deep breathes in through my nose and out through your mouth making as much noise as the scene allows. It's usually all I need to help calm me down and stop me from saying or doing something I'll regret. 

My other favorite is consciously breathing in through the nose to the chest and then belly and out from the belly to chest and nose. Just focusing on your breathe will change your energy. There are other more detailed breathing processes you can do that I won't get into right now.

If  you live in Salt Lake City and are interested in learning more about practices that change and move energy, check out my Energy Workshop.

Move Your Energy, Heal your Body With Yoga

 ARE WE ENERGY?
Albert Einstein proved that everything is energy when he developed his theory of relativity and the formula, E=mc2, which, in very simplistic terms, says that anything that has mass is just energy in a different form. So it shouldn't surprise you when I suggest that beyond the physical and mental aspects of being alive, we have an energetic aspect that many of us ignore. The ancient Rishis knew about energy and transformation long before Einstein or modern science was born, as they wrote the ancient Vedas, which translates to sacred knowledge.

We are all energy, yet can we see it, feel it, or touch? No, most of us cannot. That is one of the reasons we call it the subtle energy body. Many of the pictures that you see of energy in the body are figurative imaginings or what people have seen. Do we really have rainbow-colored flowers spinning in our cakras or energy centers? I don't think so, but it does help us to visualize what is happening in our body.
What is the subtle energy body according to yoga? I've heard it described in many ways, yet the most commonly held belief is that the body has an energetic system that runs through the body the same was as blood vessels and neural pathways. 
The Nadis
In yoga, we call them nadis and there are 72,000 nadis. The three main and most important nadis, are the ida representing the female aspect, moon, cooling, tha, as in the second part of Hatha, and ends in the left nostril; the pingala, representing the male aspect, sun, heating, ha, as in the first part of Hatha, and ends in the right nostril; and the sashumna runs up the middle similar to the spine. All three nadis, originate at the root cakra and cross at 5 of the cakras above. 
Prana
Prana is our life force; prana can also be considered our breath. We breathe in through our nostrils inviting prana to move down the ida and pingala nadis helping to continue our energy flow. Literally, we breath the life force into our bodies. Various pranayama or breathing practices can alter the flow of prana as can asana or yoga postures.
Hatha Yoga
You may have wondered what it meant when you saw Hatha Yoga on a yoga studio menu.  Hatha yoga is the most common form of yoga taught in the US; it is the physical part of the yoga. Whether it's Krishnamacharya, ashtanga, iyengar, vinyasa, or most other forms of yoga, if it has a physical practice, it is probably Hatha yoga.
The Cakras (pronounced chakras)
The ida and pingala nadis cross at 5 of the energy centers or cakras. The root is where the ida and pingala originate; they cross about 3 fingers below the navel; again at the solar plexus; the heart, the base of the throat and finally at the brow, commonly known as the 3rd eye. The crown cakra at the top of the head is where the shashumna travels to.

I hope you're still with me.  I know for some of you, this is all new terminology and content. I needed to lay the ground work for what I really want to talk about. Blame it on the 24 years of teaching school children; I do.

How does yoga help our energy?
Sadhguru, who writes for the HuffingtonPost, writes, "In yoga, when we say "health," we don't look at the body or the mind; we only look at the energy. If your energy body is in proper balance and in full flow, your physical body and mental body will be in perfect health." Read more:

When my students come in, I look at how their energy and ask them what they need. Then I lead them through a practice that will meet their needs. Sometimes the focus is to relax and contain their energy through calming forward bends or . Other times we need to bring up their energy through sun salutations, back bending or an energizing breathing practice. I tell my students to observe their energy level an hour or two after class because that's when they'll really know the affects.

According to yoga and ayurveda (yoga's sister science), blocks in our energy flow create disease. Blocks can be caused by poor diet, sleep patterns, stress, expending too much or too little energy, and other poor habits. We can practice yoga to move energy through our body; this is why we generally feel better after a yoga practice.

So how do we do this? What about kundalini? They are for my next post. Just know that movement of the breath and the body create healing if done in the right way for your body, your age and your ability. Find a trained yoga specialist to guide you. Namaste.

Trouble sleeping--look no further

Layover at Denver International

Some of us, like my kids, can sleep anywhere and anytime. As fast as I can say savasana in my college classes, is as quickly as some of my students are out. 

Yet, no matter what age we are, how much money we make or where we are, we can all be affected by insomnia. Age, diet, and life circumstances, to name a few, can change our sleeping patterns. 

Some of us fall asleep easily, awaken in the middle of the night and then cannot fall back to sleep. Others have difficulty falling asleep from the start.

Yoga practices, especially breathing practices and asana (yoga poses), enhance or hinder the sleeping process depending on how and when we use them and which ones we use. Even though I've practiced yoga for a long time and felt the energy change in my body, it was much later in my yoga education that I learned about using the effects of yoga to alter my body's energy level. We hear talk about energy, cakras, and the like in yoga, yet how to utilize this source from within is not something universally taught.

pascimotanasana

What to do??

• Set up a night time routine-don't eat too much, too late; start to slow down when the sun sets; turn electronics off 1 to 2 hours before bed.
• Drink some herbal tea or warm nut milk with cardamom; no caffeine after lunch time.
• Take a warm bath with lavender or rose essential oil and then massage some oil into your feet.
• Make your sleeping space a sanctuary- comfortable, cozy and clean
• Do a gentle yoga practice with some forward bending (helps us to turn inwards), inversions. 
• Save the strenuous practices for morning to help you wake up.
• After looking over our day, visualize our intentions (to sleep peacefully through the night). 
• Read something inspirational or peaceful



halasana

• Listen to a guided meditation, peaceful music chanting or yoga nidra.
• Focus on your breathing-breathe into your chest and belly and out belly chest.

supta savasana

 Of course, you don't have to do all of these things.  Choose the ones that speak to you and try them for a week to 10 days.  Evaluate your results and continue or try something different.

A Surprising Cure for Insomnia

One sleep-deprived woman, Kate Sztabnik, discovered a free, uncannily effective cure for her insomnia. All she needed was YouTube—and an open mind. Read more:

If you have other helpful ideas that don't involve substances, please share. Sleep inducement is definitely not a one-size fits all kind of practice. Happy zzzz's.

Neti Washing: Free Your Breath, Free Your Mind

by Guest Author: Charlotte Bell

In yoga classes, we talk a whole lot about the importance of the breath. We exhort our students to breathe deeply as they move into, hold and move out of asanas. Some types of yoga, such as Ashtanga and other forms of vinyasa, instruct practitioners how and when to move with each inhalation and exhalation. It’s arguable that this coordination of breath and movement is one of the most important factors that sets asana apart from other physical practices. The yoga poses many of us practice are not intended to be gymnastic feats to perform. They were developed as vehicles for expanding the breath and therefore, calming the nervous system

In the Eight Limbs of Yoga, the framework for practicing the whole system of Yoga, pranayama—expansion of the breath—lies between the physical and mental/spiritual practices. The breath is the gateway between the body and mind. That is why traditional Hatha Yoga emphasizes breathing more than accomplishing poses. It is the slowing and steadying of the breath that allows the body and mind to settle.

We breathe an average of 20,000 times a day. It happens all day long without our having to give it a single thought. But, unlike any other automatic physiological process, we can also control the breath. We can extend it or shorten it or speed it up or slow it down, all of which affect the nervous system in many ways.

But sometimes we don’t have a lot of control over how we breathe. Allergies, sinus infections and environmental pollutants can sometimes cause our breathing passes to be blocked, making it impossible to take in a full inhalation. When this happens, we can feel less energetic and sometimes even suffer a bit of brain fog.

Neti Washing to the Rescue

Of course, eating healthy foods and exercising regularly can help ward off these symptoms, but sometimes our environment gets the best of us. That’s when neti washing can save the day.

Neti washing is a form of nasal irrigation that employs a small pot and a solution of warm salt water. The warm water soothes nasal passages as it gently clears excess mucus so that the cilia inside your nostrils can more efficiently trap bacteria and other toxins.

You can buy a pot at most pharmacies and many larger grocery stores. You must use specially formulated neti salt—non-iodized—for the solution. We offer two choices for getting started: Eco Neti Pot Starter Kit that includes a lightweight, unbreakable pot (great for travel!), neti salt, a zinc and herbal solution, and instructions on how to get started. We also carry the Essential Neti Pot, a lead-free ceramic pot minus the salt and herbal solutions.

Get Started

There’s lots of good info online about how to use your pot, but here are a few tips:

1. Use boiled, distilled or filtered water. Even though neti washing has been practiced safely for centuries, there have been a few recently recorded cases of life-threatening infections from using straight tap water.

1. Add 1/4 teaspoon of neti salt to your pot and pour water over the salt. Stir to distribute the salt.

1. Test the temperature of your water before you irrigate. It should be warm, but not hot. Hot water will burn delicate nasal passages. Cold water isn’t as effective and doesn’t feel all that great either. When the water is running through your nostrils it should feel slightly warm.

1. Position yourself over a sink and have some tissues handy.

1. You may need to experiment with the tilt of your head. It took me a few tries to find the tilt that would allow free flow between my nostrils. It’s a good idea to start neti washing at a time when your sinuses aren’t blocked, just to get the hang of it when your passages are relatively open.

1. Gradually pour one full pot of salt water through each nostril, blowing your nose at the end of each washing.

1. Wash your pot thoroughly and let it air dry completely.

I was hesitant to try neti washing for years. It just seemed too weird—running water through one nostril and having it flow out the other one. But about five years ago, in the throes of a sinus infection, I decided to try it. I’ve been doing it almost daily ever since. Even if my sinuses are pretty clear, it just feels good for my sinuses and nasal passages to feel so open and expansive. And this is purely anecdotal, but after my morning neti washing, my brain feels a lot more clear too.