Looking for a new yoga mat?

The best mats today are eco-friendly, and are made from natural materials like cotton, jute and rubber.

Cotton comes from the cotton plant, and makes a hard-wearing material which breathes. The big benefit of cotton-based mats is that you can toss the mat into the washing machine to keep it clean.

Jute is a plant material which is used for making floor coverings and the material called hessian. The big benefit of jute is that it’s hard wearing, and once discarded, it’s naturally bio-degradable.

Natural rubber comes from rubber trees and is a very hardwearing material — there’s little likelihood that you would ever wear out a rubber mat.

Eco-friendly yoga mats are often made of a combination of materials, so that they’re ideal for your yoga practice.

[tags]yoga mats, eco, rubber, jute[/tags]

The amazing image above is from the NYT story “A Yoga Class’s Path to Serenity Leads Through Times Square”.

From the story:

Attendance at the event, called “Mind Over Madness Yoga,” has grown considerably since the first day of summer in 2003, the first time Mr. Stewart, Mr. Tompkins and another friend practiced yoga in Times Square.

Carol Solimene, 45, who lives in Tiverton, R.I., said she has practiced yoga for 13 years. “It was worth the trip,” Ms. Solimene said. “I found it to be energizing in its own way.”

So there you go – you can practice yoga anywhere, including your office. Start the day or end the day with a session of yoga. You’ll notice the difference.

[tags]yoga, practice, outdoors, urban, event[/tags]

Wouldn’t you like to get away from it all, and take a break – yoga break? Yoga retreats are popular, and you can take a retreat for a day, or for weeks.

Yoga retreats are basically places that you can go to get away and to practice yoga while you do so. There are numerous different benefits that you receive from yoga. Yoga is an exercise which uses poses that work your body and increase flexibility in your muscles and limbs, and this includes joints that are never really on the ‘radar screen’ let alone exercised.

Yoga stretches muscles and joints as well as massaging the various organs, yoga thus is able to ensure the most optimum blood supply to various parts of the body, and this helps incredibly in the flushing out of toxins from every nook and cranny of your body.

Yoga retreats are great because they are basically just like a yoga class in a gym or studio, only they are typically located in more rural areas, or beside the ocean, so that there is silence and no business or other typical city issues.

Yoga retreats are so fantastic because they help the yoga process overall; it is one which helps to relax and soothe the mind, body and soul, and so being out in the middle of nowhere helps this incredibly. The freedom and solitude that you experience in one of these retreats is going to be able to help you while you do your yoga, and you will immediately notice differences in yourself.

If you are interested in going on a yoga retreat, check with your travel agent, or ask your yoga instructor.

[tags]yoga retreat, yoga, break, holiday, relax[/tags]