How to create a short targeted yoga practice to change your mental state
When you want to change the way you think or feel at any given moment, the first thing you need to do is identify what exactly it is that you[…]
When you want to change the way you think or feel at any given moment, the first thing you need to do is identify what exactly it is that you[…]
I find it curious that Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras does not explicitly distinguish between thoughts and emotions. The text calls all mental processes “fluctuations” and states that the main[…]
How do you feel when you wake up in the morning? Do you feel energized and ready to start your day, or do you feel tired and depleted? Every day[…]
When we design a short yoga practice to manage our energy, breathing needs to be the focus of the practice. Breath is the most direct pathway we have to affect[…]
One of my favorite things to do when I teach a yoga class is to ask my students to close their eyes, sense the quality of their energy and then[…]
The beauty of short yoga practices is that you can fit them into small pockets of your day much more easily than a full-length yoga practice. This means that you[…]
Every time I have a yoga video shoot with my videographer I feel slightly guilty. He usually crouches down behind the camera to record my yoga practice. While I feel[…]
My sister had recently gone to see Tony Robbins – you know, the self-help guru? While a lot of the things that he talked about weren’t new to her, the[…]
When I first moved to Michigan about five years ago, I experienced a bit of a yoga shock. I went from having a yoga studio and being surrounded by long-term[…]
Yesterday I had a chance to reconnect with one of my fellow yoga teachers that I haven’t seen in seven years. It is always remarkable to me that with some[…]
In Macbeth Shakespeare states that sleep is “the chief nourisher in life’s feast.” And modern science proves that is truly is. What other miraculous remedy helps you fight infection and[…]
Two years into WWII, the US military realized that due to extraordinarily high levels of stress and lack of sleep many of the combat pilots began to freeze up in[…]
Our students choose to do yoga for all sorts of reasons, but in my personal experience they rarely seek advice of a yoga teacher specifically for sleep problems. However, many[…]
In the course of your day, how often do you close your eyes and disconnect from the external bombardment of information to check in on what’s going on inside? If[…]
Last week we talked about some biological reasons of poor sleep. Today we will cover several others and discuss the strategies for dealing with them. 5. Restless leg syndrome Some[…]
When you have trouble sleeping, it is useful to conduct a thorough investigation and try to get to the root of the problem. We often do it by method of[…]
Last week we discussed two most important factors that can interfere with your sleep quality and quantity – light and temperature. Both of those factors affect the release of melatonin[…]
A decade or so ago I visited a small surfing town in Costa Rica. It was a great adventure, but one thing I found most surprising was that by 9pm[…]
Sleep impacts every aspect of our physiology, so it is not surprising that we always ask our private yoga students about the quality of their sleep, both in the initial[…]
Have you ever had this experience when you get worked up about something one day and after a night of good sleep it seems much less dramatic? This happens because[…]