Yoga Pose Primer: Urdhva Dhanurasana (Upward Bow Pose)

Backbends are one of yoga practice’s great gifts. Because our daily lives don’t require a lot of backbending, doing some sort of backbend every day is a way to balance our forward-folded lives. Plus they’re energizing and just plain fun.

Yoga Anatomy: A Cool Tip for Deeper Breathing

Pranayama is one of the core practices in the Eight Limbs of Yoga. While asana (postures) are much more commonly practiced in the West, pranayama is a powerful tool for regulating physiological functions, especially blood pressure.    I searched Pubmed

Smooth Transitions: 5-Minute Wake-Up and Bedtime Yoga Practices

Waking up and preparing for sleep are arguably the most influential parts of our days, in the lens of holistic wellness. If we “wake up on the wrong side of the bed,” as the saying goes, our whole day can

Pranayama: Expand Your Life Energy

Breathing is the process of moving air into and out of the lungs to facilitate gas exchange with the internal environment, mostly by bringing in oxygen and flushing out carbon dioxide. Pranayama in yoga is the regulation of the breath

Yoga for Pain Relief – Managing and Preventing Sciatica

Doug Keller is a yoga therapist, author, and a lifelong yogi. He has spent most of his life studying in a wide range of yoga systems including Iyengar Yoga, Ashtanga Yoga, Anusara and many other systems. Doug combines his yoga

Steady as She Goes: Practicing Forbearance and Steadfastness in Yoga

Take a seat. Do your best to make the seat as comfortable as possible. Now, notice that no matter how comfortable the seat is, at some point you will incline to get up from that seat. Some urge will strike

Change Up Your Practice: 4 Not-So-Typical Yoga Poses to Stretch Your Quads and Strengthen Your Hamstrings

We all know about the endless benefits of yoga. We understand the good that it can do for both our bodies and our minds. But, just like so many things in our lives, yoga has the potential to become stagnant and

Liberate Yourself: 8 Key Lessons for Living a Simple Life

For the last dozen years, I’ve been living a (relatively) simple life. At times, the complexity of my life grows, and I renew my commitment to living simply. Living a simple life is about paring back so that you have

Getting Started: A Guide to Beginning Yoga Practice

So, you’ve decided to give this yoga thing a try. Great! Now what? With more than 20 million people in the United States practicing yoga there are more options than ever for finding a place to meet your needs. But

Insomnia Blues: 5 Kinds of Sleep Disturbances and How to Identify Them

Sleep impacts every aspect of our physiology, so it's not surprising that sleep is at the top of the list of questions most health care professionals ask their patients. And it's a topic that is worth investigating yourself as a

Bringing It All Together: A Yoga Sequence to Promote Right/Left Brain Integration

As thinking and feeling people, who execute hundreds of actions each day, we have both left- and right-brain “modes.” We used to believe that left-brain functions are analytical and logical, used for things like mathematics and language, and right-brain functions

Take a 5-Minute Recess: 3 Yoga Poses to Reduce the Negative Effects of Sitting

There are several ways you can counteract the adverse effects of sitting. First, examine the way you sit and notice if the chair you sit in is hurting you or helping. Second, learn to take a five-minute-stand-and-move break every hour.

Teaching Yoga: 5 Tips to Prepare for Arm Balances

Arm balances can be one of the hardest categories of yoga asanas to practice and teach. Not only do you have to prepare the body thoroughly for these challenging poses, but you also need a reliable sequence that makes sense

Plans Change: Can You Change Along with Them?

Yesterday I was excited about all the things I was going to get done. I had a lot of plans and commitments scheduled for work. So, I woke up early, ready for a super productive day. I made Jack’s lunch

Bringing Yoga to Cancer Patients: A Review of the Research

Hundreds of research studies have been conducted in recent years on the therapeutic effects of yoga for people living with cancer. These studies vary greatly in size, method, length, and content. Sifting through this large body of evidence presents a

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