Rambling Yogi

Tag: Yoga

  • 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.

     

     

  • 2015 blog review – what a year it has been

    The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

    Here’s an excerpt:

    A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,300 times in 2015. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

    Click here to see the complete report.

  • Christmas Sunrise

    Christmas Sunrise

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    The last time I watched the sunrise on this beach I was standing next to my dad. We marvelled at the moment by moment transitioning beauty that was unfolding before us and then before we knew it the marvellous colours had faded and the sun had risen for another day. As we sat on the beach with our morning coffees, dad talked about how sad it was that some people could go their whole lives having never woken up to see such beauty. I knew in that moment that we weren’t just talking about the sunrise anymore. While today is such a tough day to not have you here with us I still choose to wake up and see the sunrise; to wake up and see the beauty in the world. For all the amazing lessons, perspective and sunrises thank you dad. It truly is another brilliant day to wake up and be alive.
    I love you forever and always dad xoxo

     

  • Why not now

    Why not now

    wpid-img_20150126_135520.jpg Freedom is a theme that keeps coming up for me and it’s something that I definitely struggle with back home in Melbourne. Yesterday I had a bit of a light bulb moment and simply must share what lit up for me.

    So let me just quickly speed you up on my life right now. I’ve been accepted into the Chinese Medicine course that I’ve been wanting to do for lord knows how many years now and will be finishing up work with my corporate job on the 8th May! It’s still pretty scary, every so often I think about being a poor student for the next 4 years and feel a little sick but then I come back to the day I went to the open day for the course I thought I’d be there for an hour max, sus a few things out and then be on my way. I ended up staying for 5 hours, it all just made sense in a way that nothing else ever has not even yoga and I knew it’s where I need to be.

     

    While all this greatness is in place to happen in the future ask me how my current life is? How’s my work life balance? I’ve resigned from my corporate job and I’m teaching a few classes a week everything should be great right? Not so much… I’m still falling into the trap of taking on too much. I could go into the detail of all the craziness, my insane lack of sleep, the things I should have said no to and all the excuses I make to justify my overload. But I’ve come to realise this, it doesn’t actually matter what the stuff is that I’ve taken on this is just my pattern and it’s going to follow me around. I tell people that things will be better once I start studying and that I will have more time but that’s probably not actually the case either.

    I think a lot of us fall into that trap, giving the things that we need now future dates or believing that certain goals once attained will bring the desired emotion; I’ll be happy once I’ve got blah or I’ll be less stressed once I’ve gotten through blah. Now I’m not about to say that you shouldn’t plan or have goals but I’d like to know what feelings or emotions have to attached to a future goal or situation. And then I’d like to know do you really have to wait to experience that emotion, why can’t you feel how you’d like to feel now? If you’ve got a really seriously good reason why you can’t feel however you’d like to feel right now I’ve got one more question for you – How true is your reason?

    In an amazing workshop yesterday with Krista Jane I was asked how do I want to feel? It’s a question I’ve never been asked before but I knew the answer without hesitation, I want to feel free. I just as I had started to decide that freedom was a once I’ve finished my corporate job thing I was asked what can you do to feel more free now?

    It seems kind of bizarre to me now to say but I actually hadn’t contemplated feeling more free now. I had resided myself to the fact that life is going to be super crazy for the next few months and that’s ok I’ll get through it and then things will be better, I’ll just automatically feel more free from not having to do the 9-5pm daily grind. Sure not being in my corporate job and moving towards something that I’m so passionate about will be liberating but it’s not going to bring about the type of freedom I’m looking for. I fall into this way of think that time equals freedom, that if I have more time I can do more of the things that bring me joy, I’ll be more connected with my true self and everything will just fall into place. Part of this way of thinking also comes from people continually giving me the advice that I need to say no to more things and yes I know I do need to do but if it were as simple as just saying no I would be doing it already. Which is what leads me to believe that not overloading myself is really more about self love and caring about myself enough to say no I wouldn’t do that to myself (that’s another blog post to come).

    So back to Freedom. Freedom is only going to come from me, my freedom resides within me, it’s not about a certain environment or situation it’s purely about my state of mind and how I choose to see things.  Freedom is about vulnerability, connection and worthiness and let me tell you I’m not very good at any of it. The work I need to do is around figuring out what past experiences have shaped my aversions to these emotions and how I might be able to make peace with what has been so that I have a more authentic tomorrow.

    The work starts now, no more putting things off or believing that  emotions are only accessible in a future environment or situation, The time is now, the place is here and the person who’s going to make it happen is me.

     

    Live well beautiful souls

    xxx

  • Lavender Love Affair

    Lavender Love Affair

    Lavender has got to be one of my all time favorite scents, from the actual plants to essential oils I am a very big fan. When your looking at essential oils there are so many great uses,  just be sure to go for a therapeutic grade oil and not your standard oil candle variety which tend to have added chemical nasties that you wouldn’t want to be putting on your skin. Here are a few of the very many uses for lavender oil. • Get a better nights sleep, apply to the bottom of feet or on a pillow before sleeping – Lavender essential oil induces sleep which has made it a common recommendation for an alternative treatment of insomnia.  • Can be used as a bug repellent, simply apply a small amount to exposed skin – The smell is potent for many types of bugs like mosquitoes, midges, and moths. • Use to calm reaction to a bee sting or bug bite – the anti-inflammatory qualities will reduce the irritation and the pain. • Find your Zen. Lavender essential oil has a calming scent which makes it an excellent tonic for the nerves and anxiety issues. Therefore, it can also be helpful in treating migraines, headaches, depression, nervous tension and emotional stress. •Give yourself a little pain relief – known as an excellent remedy for various types of pains including those caused by sore and tense muscles, muscular aches, rheumatism, sprains, backache and lumbago. A regular massage with lavender oil can also provide relief from pain in the joints. • Add a few drops to your bath for an amazing relaxing blissy experience • Apply to wrists or inhale when traveling to ease motion upset • Lightly apply to soothe sunburned or scalded skin • Apply to back, hands, or feet of a restless or agitated child • Use to calm and soothe diaper rash • Calm sensitive skin and soothe pores after hair removal • Apply to dry, chapped lips before applying lip balm • Use with peppermint for a healthy scalp massage • Add to lotion for a stress-relieving hand massage image Namaste Xx

  • 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