Rambling Yogi

Category: Health and fitness

  • How Yoga Can Improve Your Running

    How Yoga Can Improve Your Running

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    Yoga is a great complement to any runners’ regular routine. Regular running will create tightness in some areas of the body and leave other areas relatively week. Yoga can help to loosen out those tight spots and strengthen weak muscles – making you a better less injury prone runner.
    Studies have shown that yoga reduces stress, improves strength and flexibility, eases pain, helps people to stick to an exercise routine and even improves running times. Below are some of the key benefits that runners can expect to experience.

    6 Ways Yoga Benefits Runners

    1. Improves strength and efficiency – Builds strength evenly in muscles, joints and ligaments. Strengthening the core will help to improve the power you receive from each stride as your foot strikes the ground meaning that you will get more bang for your buck. Who doesn’t want that!
    2. Helps prevent injuries – Helps prevent injury by increasing flexibility and strength as well as awareness of the body. Yoga helps you to find the balance between strength and flexibility and have happy muscles with a good range of movement. Increased body awareness will mean that you are less likely to push your body beyond its limits and risk injury.
    3. Enhances breathing – Breathing exercises will help you to optimise each breath and potentially increase lung capacity. Becoming conscious of your breath can have a profound impact not just on your running but your life in general.
    4. Mental strength – Cultivate improved focus and awareness through mindful movement and meditation. Allowing you to run with a greater sense of self belief and push through mental barriers while still being able to discern when you need to pull back.
    5. Loosens tight muscles and facia – Simple movement and supported held stretches help to rehydrate and release restricted muscles and facia. Increased flexibility can help to relieve nagging aches and pains.
    6. Improves energy – Helps to reduces stress and improves sleep allowing the body to get better quality rest. And really everyone needs a little less stress and better quality sleep.

     

     

  • Self Care

    Self Care

    Taking the time to look after yourself before you burnout and or get sick is one of the greatest preventative medicines out there. Self care in essence is a simple concept and yet so many of us struggle to make the time for ourselves. Perhaps it’s that some of us feel guilty and a little selfish making our happiness and wellness a priority, or maybe there’s just no time in our busy schedule for something that feels more indulgent that it does necessary but for whatever reason self care activities often get put on the back burner.

    I have to put my hand up and say that I’m pretty guilty of getting to busy and forgetting about making time for myself. So how do I keep myself in check, firstly I wrote out a list of all the things I can do for myself so that I have an easy go to and then I try to do a couple of things from the list each week. Quite often when I hit a low I’ll realised that I’ve stopped doing some of the key things I usually do for myself and lets face it sometimes things just turn to shit. In those moments I get extra kind with myself, whatever the circumstance there’s no blame or judgement. There’s no you shouldn’t have dropped the ball or how did you create such a mess I only ask myself what do you need right now…

    Then I return to my list and I plan a few nice things I can do for myself, I change up my routine if I can and I identify if there’s anything that isn’t serving me and needs to go. Letting go of things is of course easier said than done but acknowledging something doesn’t serve you is a great start to freeing yourself from the weight.

    So my all important list, I want to share my list so that you get a few ideas for what you might like to do for yourself and you may even be inspired to make your own awesome self care list. I made sure that my list is a combination of simple cheap/free things and some more indulgent things for when I need a little extra self love. I think it’s also important to have a mix of movement based self care activities – that beautiful body of yours was designed to move – and more meditative activities that allow you to drop into clam and stillness.

    Without further ado here’s my list

    • Stop to take a few deep breaths – there’s nothing more grounding and calming than a few deep breaths
    • Practice Yoga – while it’s super brilliant for your physical body to get the stretch and strengthening that yoga cultivates part of the success of yoga is the awareness and mindfulness that it also cultivates.
    • Drinking my morning tea in silence and really soak up the morning
    • Dry brushing my body before a morning shower – while its great for your skin it’s also a great mindfulness practice
    • Get a massage
    • Go for a walk in nature (bush trails, bare foot beach)
    • Make and enjoy bone broth – It’s probably the closest thing to a hug in a cup
    • Go for run – a little endorphin boost is always a good thing
    • Go for a float session – if you’ve never had a float experience do yourself a favour it’s awesome
    • Have a mindful meal – this one is kind of great, you eat less and appreciate your meal more. It basically means that you eat in silence and as you put each mouthful for food in your month you put your knife and fork down and take the time to properly chew your food once you have swallowed your food then you pick up your knife and fork again. It’s amazing when you’re not used to it how much you will go to pick up your knife and fork before you have finished.
    • Do something silly fun – grab a friend and go to one of those kids adventure places and bounce, climb and laugh like a child
    • Disconnect – turn off the phone. laptop, tablet and have some technology free time
    • Write yourself a love letter – remind yourself of all the reasons why you’re wonderful, you deserve the best of your own love
    • Take a nap – sometimes I’m exhausted but I feel really guilty taking a nap, I worry about all the other things I should be doing but I’ve learnt that the world won’t fall over if I take a short nap and all those things get done a lot better when I’m energised
    • Have a bubble Bath – Lots of bubbles, lots of lavender oil and it wouldn’t be complete without some candles to set the mood and maybe a cheeky glass of red
    • Meditate – if you’re new to mediation or find it a bit of a struggle on your own there are some really great apps that can help teach you techniques and  guide you through your experience. Two of my favourite are 1 Giant Mind and Calm.
    • Clean up – When my head gets messy my space will often get messy too or maybe it’s when my space gets messy my head gets messy either way I always feel so much better when I clean up my room and have things in order.
    • Have a good clean out – Less is more. It always feels so nice to give away things that I no longer need. I love feeling of filling up a garbage bag of old clothes and taking it down to our local salvation army store.
    • Journal – I like to give myself topics to journal about, we did this at our yoga teacher training and it was so constructive that I’ve continued to come up with topics to explore or sometimes I will just write about whatever is relevant at the time either way it always feels great to get things out on paper.
    • Puzzles – I’m exposing my inner nerd here but I love myself a puzzle! Research shows that doing jigsaw puzzles increases the production of dopamine in the brain – the chemical responsible for memory and learning.
    • Sit in the sun – Sensible amounts of sunshine not only help your body synthesise vitamin D but it also enhance mood and energy through the release of endorphins and have been found to lower pressure and help you sleep better.
    • Read something for the pure joy of reading – I often have my head in uni books but it’s great to pick up something that I really just enjoy
    • Getting my hair done or a mani or pedi – ladies you understand why this one is so nice
    • Plan an activity with friends – I love little adventures; It might be weekends away, lunch at a winery, a trip to a market, a little bit of kayaking or maybe rock climbing just something to get right out of the normal routine.

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  • The Puzzle of Life

    The Puzzle of Life

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    One night I woke up at 2am struck with an idea about life and how it all fits together. Being only half awake I wasn’t sure if it was brilliant or just pain silly but I wrote it down all the same and drifted off back to sleep. In the morning I came back to it and started testing it for flaws and to my delight it held up pretty well. That was several months ago and since then what have I done with this idea? Pretty much nothing! I’ve just sat on it.

    Why have I not shared what I originally through was a pretty damn good idea? Well I still thought it was a good idea, that hadn’t changed but I was making excuses that pushed it back. I was telling myself that I was saving it for a really good blog post and that I didn’t want to write it until I had the time to do it justice but on reflection I think I was just afraid of putting it out there.

    So what prompted me to share now. Last Friday night I went to an awesome workshop run by InsideOut, at the start of the workshop founder Campbell Butterss shared this vision of how life can get small and messy. I thought it was brilliant and I also saw a lot of my own vision in his. That was the start of stepping towards sharing. Later in the workshop one of the facilitators Miroslav Petrovic took me to a place where I had to sit with and breath through the story I regularly tell myself about not being good enough. To sit with all the harsh expectations I put on myself and to breathe into the emotions and the tightness in my chest was invaluable for me. In going into the feelings behind the story I was able to loosen its grip and step through a place of fear.

    After my three paragraph introduction it might seem like what I’ve got to share is pretty huge. The truth is it isn’t really that profound, but I wanted to be real about how much I’d built it up to be a big deal in my head in the hope that people are inspired to share their struggles and break through their fear. And maybe just maybe the journey of sharing holds a bigger message than my idea ever did.

    Now finally to this idea about life; so I was looking for a way to explain how I’d experienced figuring out who I am at my core and how I had detangled a lot of the rubbish that blocked me from knowing my true self. This is how I see it:

    When you’re born you have a few key puzzle pieces that fit together perfectly and that’s who you are in your truest purist form. As you go through life and have experiences you begin to pick up new puzzle pieces. Some of these pieces belong to you; fitting well with your original puzzle pieces and others really aren’t your puzzle pieces at all, they’re often pieces that others have pushed on you and led you to believe are part of who you are. These puzzle pieces that don’t belong begin to cause a lot of problems. You see we’re always trying to complete our puzzles and when something doesn’t fit what do we do? We pull apart the whole puzzle and try and make it work thinking that maybe there was something wrong in the core puzzle and if we do a little rearranging we should be able to make it work. There in lies the mess.

    Over the years we can collect so much rubbish along with our true stuff that it can turn into one big fat epic mess. While some lucky humans naturally get better at discerning what’s theirs most of us get to some point where we end up questioning why we’re unhappy, unfulfilled and struggling with elements of our lives.

    So then how do you then begin to sort out what pieces you need in your puzzle and what pieces just make life harder. Let me start by saying brilliant puzzles take time and dedication there’s no quick and easy fix but it can definitely be worked through. It becomes a matter of figuring out when you picked up certain puzzle pieces then deciding what needs to stay and what needs to go. When that puzzle gets a little less messy and you begin to really be able to see who you are, let me just say that life gets awesome!

    For me journaling, reading all sorts of self help books, my yoga teacher training and working with some psychologists really helped to trace back to when I started having certain limiting beliefs about myself and forming certain views of the world. I think this process of building the picture of who we are is always a work in progress and it’s evolving nature is part of the magic of life.

    If the puzzle was perfect and finished what more would there be to do.

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    Enjoy the journey, laugh at the confusion, breathe into the moment and know that everything happens for a reason.

    xx

  • Bone Broth Magic

    Bone Broth Magic

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    Bone broth is my go to drink whenever I feel like a need a warm hug from my food and a little extra nourishment. It’s a delicious nutrient dense drink that’s also easy to make. Before I run you through just how easy it is to make your own brew of goodness here’s a few of the benefits of this amazing prehistoric drink.

    • Helps promote good gut health. Lets talk about your gut for a second, because gut health is something that I’m super passionate about. The lining of your intestine is selectively permeable to allow nutrients to pass through and be absorbed into the body. This lining can become too permeable due to lifestyle factors such as consumption of highly processed foods, stress, some medications and pesticides ingested from fruit and veg. When the lining becomes too permeable undigested food particles can pass through the gut lining and directly into the bloodstream. This situation really puts a lot of unnecessary stress on the body, just think of your poor liver having to deal with all this foreign matter. The glutamine in bone broth can help repair a hyperpermeable intestinal wall.
    • Reduces joint pain and inflammation. Bone broth is loaded with glycosaminoglycans (GAGs). These GAGs include glucosamine, chondroitin and hyaluronic acid. They have the ability to stimulate the growth of new collagen aiding in the repair of damaged joints and leading to a possible reduction in pain and inflammation. Bone broth is very high in the anti-inflammatory amino acids glycine and proline
    • Give your hair, skin and nails some loving from the inside. The collagen and gelatin in bone broth helps build healthy hair, skin and nails.
    • Magic minerals a plenty. The minerals in bone broths include calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, zinc and selenium. They are critical for many bodily functions and impact everything from our bones to our mood and our joint health.

    As the name suggests bone broth is made from bones. I trend to always use chicken, but you can certainly change that up. Try and find an organic chook who’s had a happy life. I’m not much of a recipe follower myself but below are some guidelines on what you might like to put into your broth.

    All you really need to know is that you are combining bones with some meat still attached, vegetables spices and herbs to add flavour, apple cider vinegar (helps to leach more minerals out of the bones) and enough water to cover your bones and some then simmer for 24 and 48 hours easy peasy.

    If you’ve like a bit more elaboration around vegies, spices and herbs I tend to use the following:

    • Celery
    • Carrots
    • Onions
    • Bay Leaves
    • Rosemary
    • Thyme
    • Whole Peppercorns

    But you can really just go with whatever your heart desires.

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    Happy Brewing!

  • An inversion a day keeps the doctor away

    An inversion a day keeps the doctor away

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    I’m a really big fan of inversions in all their forms.  Generally speaking an inversion is any pose where your head is below your heart. So while headstands and handstand are probably the first things that come to mind you’re also in an inversion in downward facing dog, standing forward folds and even legs up the wall.

    While I love all inversions I’d like to speak more specifically about headstand using props. Now before I ramble on about all the amazing benefits its important to note that headstands are not for everyone, people with neck injuries, epilepsy, high blood pressure, heart conditions, acid reflux  and eye problems should seek medical advise before getting upside down. Also women on their monthly cycle may also want to avoid headstand (think gravity and flow …enough said).

    Traditional headstand can be a little scary for students and teachers alike. If you don’t get the correct alignment you put your neck at great risk of injury and if you don’t yet have the strength simply lifting your legs up can feel like mission impossible.

    So how do you do a headstand without putting your neck at risk and use a little momentum to take yourself up? You don’t need any fancy yoga props you just need to chairs and a wall. To be kind to your traps use padded chairs or put down cushions and/or blankets to give yourself a little padding and if you’re crazy like me and kind of enjoy a little pain you can skip the padding idea, you’ll be working deeper into releasing your traps. If your chairs feel like they may slip place a yoga mat under the feet of your chairs.wpid-collage_20150122171617410.jpg  Bring the chairs snug up against the wall facing each other (see picture to the right). Fold forward and bring your head into the gap between the chairs and against the wall, you want the tops of your shoulders to be resting evenly on each chair. For me having the chairs about 25 centimetres apart works well but you’ll need to have a bit of a play around to see what works best; you want to feel comfortable and stable. When you’re ready walk your legs in towards the wall, have your hands planted on each chair finger tips facing the wall then press into your hands for leverage and either lift yourself up slowly using core strength or kick your legs up(see video below). From here if you’re feeling steady you can experiment with different arm positions to work on releasing tension in your traps. When you’re ready to come back down press your hands firmly into the chairs and slowly lower yourself back down then come to rest in childs pose while you let the blood run back away from your head.

    The true benefits of headstand are said to be experienced after around 3 minutes of inverting, 3 minutes can feel huge is you’re not used to going upside down, so I recommend start off small maybe just 30 seconds and then working your way up. I personally practice this type of headstand supported by chairs for about 5 minutes and for me it’s magic. Speaking of benefits here are some of the many benefits of having a regular headstand practice.

    • This style of headstand helps to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, which produces feelings of relaxation and calmness.  Your parasympathetic nervous system is a brilliantly peaceful place to be.
    • Forget expensive spa treatments reversing gravity flushes fresh nutrients and oxygen to the face and stimulates the facial capillaries giving you a beautiful healthy glow.
    • Not quite so regular…when you first think about it may not make sense that turning upside down would actually help you go but keep reading.   When you invert your body you allow the stool that is moving through the ascending colon to move with the force of gravity. The pressing of the stool against the intestinal walls also encourages movement and the pressure on the walls of the digestive tract stimulates a stronger peristalsis (muscle contractions that occur in your digestive tract).
    • Hit a wall can’t concentrate or focus? When the brain lacks a sufficient blood supply, the body becomes slow and sluggish because the brain uses 25 percent of the body’s oxygen. Increasing blood flow nourishes brain cells with more oxygen resulting in improved concentration, memory and awareness.
    • Felling a little down…turn the frown upside down! When you go upside down the adrenal glands are flushed and detoxified, this stimulates the release of neurotransmitters and endorphins that allow you to immediately feel uplifted and can counteract depression and mood swings.
    • No one really likes getting sick! Headstands help increase immunity and prevent illness.  Your lymphatic system has a key role to play in keeping you well. As lymph moves through the body it picks up toxins and bacteria to be eliminated by the lymph nodes. Lymph moves as a result of muscular contractions but is also affected by gravity. So when you go upside down you’re sending your lymph to your respiratory organs, where germs often get into the body. When you return to an upright position, gravity drains the lymph away again, sending it through your lymph nodes for cleansing.

     

    So go have fun get upside down and enjoy the new perspective but also never forget to always be listening to your body, not all days will be the same. Honour where you’re at and what your body needs.

    Love Blessings and Kindness

    xxx

     

  • The Dali Lama – How I start my day

    The Dali Lama – How I start my day

    I believe a good morning is the beginning of a good day.  If we wake up in the morning and are happy, even if we face small irritants, we can cope with them.

    If we wake up in a bad mood or are unhappy, even the smallest problem will make us angry.  Mental attitude is very important.

    So, train your mind through meditation, and let your mornings be the best time to bring peace into your lives. We must remain in the ‘thoughtlessness’ zone if we want to be calm. Focus on how to create a happy life.

    Ask yourself every morning, if you wish to live a meaningful life or a frivolous one. Don’t think about the past or future. Every moment is an opportunity to create a life with peace and compassion.

    We need hygiene of emotions. Reach out to others, it will make you self confident and give you inner strength. When we show concern, we will be able to win people’s trust, and this trust creates friendship of a lifetime. It helps us develop inner peace, we create peaceful families, peaceful cities and peaceful societies. Doing things for others will reduce your stress and give you good physical health.

    Try not to bring conflict in your morning and your day. If there is conflict in your relationships, try to resolve it with a dialogue. Talk. Don’t distance yourself from people and create barriers; living a self-centred life leads to stress and anxiety. Live simply. Some days will be difficult and some easy, but if you spend your days with purpose, you will be mentally satisfied.
    His Holiness the Dalai Lama, SPIRITUAL LEADER

    Article from The times of india

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