Yoga: Healing Foods to Enhance Your Yoga Practice and Feel Great
June 15th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
Want to feel great? You can enhance your yoga practice with healing foods from the traditional Indian Ayurveda system of medicine. Ayurveda encourages balance: you’ll feel lighter, more energetic, and minor health problems will tend to fade away.
One point before we discuss Ayurvedic foods: if you have a health condition, see your doctor.
Let’s look at some traditional foods recommended for anyone who’s started a yoga practice.
1. Eat Seasonally, So That Your Food Is Filled With Pranic Energy
Eating fresh food, and fruits and vegetables which are in season is a basic tenet of eating the yogic way. Look for green, leafy vegetables such as spinach, arugula, and kale, they enhance the functioning of your liver, and help to eliminate toxins.
2. Turmeric: Attracting Attention As a Weight Loss Aid
The spice turmeric is being studied for its weight loss benefits, as well as for its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects.
3. Mung Beans: Healthy and Healing
You may be familiar with tiny green mung beans, they’re often used for sprouting. However, they’re also delicious when cooked: packed with protein, they’re said to prevent cancer and heart disease. Add some mung beans to stews and soups.
You can also cook a delicious hot and spicy mung bean soup in just half an hour — look online for recipes.
4. Lemons Boost Your Metabolism and Eliminate Toxins
Not only are lemons packed with vitamin C, they’re also a tonic and cleanser — they remove toxins from your system. Try starting the day with the juice of half a lemon in hot water, with an added teaspoon of honey.
5. Ginger: for Healthy Digestion, and to Reduce Inflammation
If you have a condition which causes inflammation, such as arthritis, make friends with fresh ginger. Not only does ginger taste delicious when cooked in soups and stews (you can’t taste the ginger, it just enhances the flavor), you can also make a fresh ginger tea.
To make ginger tea: slice up fresh ginger in sufficient quantity to make a teaspoon per cup. Pour boiling water over the ginger, and allow to steep for five minutes. Add a teaspoon of honey before serving.
Enrich your life with yoga today
Read Yoga for the New You and discover everything you need to create a yoga practice right in your own home. Transform your life with yoga.
Yoga facial: try it
May 25th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
Yoga for your face? If you’ve got wrinkles (or are scared of getting them) try the yoga facial.
“Hagen will be 42 in July, but looks a good decade younger. ‘I had a lot of clients who had tried Botox or plastic surgery,’ she says. ‘But they were becoming concerned about what the fall-out might be.’
So Hagen put together a series of ‘facial gymnastics’ which clients need to perform daily. ‘I can’t promise that you won’t age, but what I can say is that if you practise these principles and exercises, you will visibly slow down the rate at which you age,’ she says. “
Prenatal Yoga for Your Baby’s Health: Start Today
May 19th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
Are you expecting a baby? Prenatal yoga can help your baby’s health as well as your own. Start your yoga practice today, or add specific exercises which will help you throughout your pregnancy and help you with the birth as well.
1. Look for Prenatal Yoga Classes in Your Area
Your first step should be to look for prenatal yoga classes in a location that’s close to you.
Perhaps your own yoga studio offers classes, if not ask your yoga instructor whether she knows of any classes in your area. Some yoga practitioners who offer prenatal classes don’t promote themselves as effectively as they might do, so you might be surprised how many classes there are in your area.
2. Practice Alone With a Book or DVD
If you live in a rural area or in a small town, there may be no classes available to you.
You can certainly practice yoga or with the aid of a book or a DVD. In the early stages of your pregnancy, any beginners yoga class on DVD will be fine. As your pregnancy progresses, look for a DVD which focuses specifically on prenatal yoga.
If you’re practicing alone, tell your doctor what you’re doing. Make sure that he’s okay with you practicing yoga during your pregnancy. If you’ve had health issues like spotting, you shouldn’t be practicing yoga alone, you need a qualified prenatal yoga practitioner.
3. Do a Complete Workout Once a Week
Everyone’s busy, so you may find that you can’t fit in a complete workout more than once or twice a week. That’s fine. Do a little yoga every day — even if it’s only a single pose. You can do a complete workout once a week, perhaps on the weekend when you have more time to devote to yourself.
4. Do Yoga Exercises to Help the Baby’s Birth
Yoga shines because it makes you aware of your body, so that you’re not frightened by it. It’s natural to be a little scared of the birth. This is fine, everyone is. With yoga you have a powerful tool which will help you during the birth because you’ll be comfortable with your body.
Your prenatal yoga classes will offer you specific exercises which will help you to prepare for the baby’s birth. When you’re practicing at home, focus on those particular exercises as the birth draws near. They really do help.
Want to get pregnant? Yoga can help.
Enrich your life with yoga today
Read Yoga for the New You and discover everything you need to create a yoga practice right in your own home. Transform your life with yoga.
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