Health Guides
Positive Interventions Through Yoga Practices An excerpt from Yoga for Times of Change by Nina Zolotow. POSITIVE INTERVENTIONS FOR PAINFUL EMOTIONS In positive psychology, taking steps to regulate your emotions and increase your own well-being is called making “positive interventions.” Sandy Blaine, a positive psychology expert as well as a longtime yoga teacher, says that [...]
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A Few Thoughts about Suffering An excerpt from Peace from Anxiety As you can see from the discussion of trauma, suffering comes in many flavors. It can be rooted in personal, interpersonal, or systemic issues. Some suffering is inevitable—things like death, illness, and loss touch everyone in their lifetime. Some of us are protected from [...]
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Releasing Stress Before Sleep An excerpt from The Open-Focus Life The clock shows three o’clock in the morning. It’s a night like many others, when you can’t fall asleep, or you drift off for an hour and then wake up in a panic about something you can’t remember, chasing endless worries. Now you’re thinking about [...]
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By Mark Beauregard Co-author of The Open-Focus Life Do you feel mentally or emotionally exhausted after Zoom meetings? Is it difficult to concentrate? Do you have physical symptoms that seem to have nothing to do with sitting and looking at a computer screen, like muscle pain, backaches, or shortness of breath? The emotional, psychological, and [...]
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Welcoming Yoga Nidra An excerpt from Radiant Rest One of the first things I became aware of, as I began to practice and then share deep relaxation, was that it’s difficult for most of us to “let go.” Yoga teachers often give this instruction without the slightest consideration for how it will be received in a [...]
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The material in Peace from Anxiety can be much more impactful when approached in an interactive and exploratory way. It is especially powerful when you can engage with the material with others. This is your guide to working with the concepts in this book with a small, trusted group of people. There are many ways [...]
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5 Free Tools to Release Stress and Anxiety ENTER YOUR EMAIL TO RECEIVE FIVE FREE TOOLS FROM PEACE FROM ANXIETY. Reclaim your capacity to heal and learn to regulate your nervous system with practices and reflections from therapist and yoga teacher Hala Khouri, author of Peace from Anxiety. Draw a body map, learn to feel [...]
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Mindful Sex An excerpt from Passion & Presence Taking it to the Sheets: Mindful Sex So, what exactly is mindful sex? What images come into your mind at the mention of “erotic presence”? Are you seeing two people breathing in synchrony as they gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes? If you imagine penetration, are you [...]
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Breath From Still Running On a cool spring morning, a Zen teacher and his student are going for a walk. The last traces of snow have melted from the ground, and tiny buds are beginning to show on the tips of the cherry branches. Bundled in their robes, master and disciple walk easily as the [...]
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The following is an excerpt from Yoga Myths By Judith Hanson Lasater Photo Credit: David Martinez Yoga Myths$26.95 - PaperbackBy: Judith Hanson Lasater Add to Cart Attentive Practices that Protect Your Neck Remember, the cervical spine is both the most mobile and most delicate of all the regions of the vertebral column. Approach the practices suggested [...]
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What Life in the Country Taught Me about Ayurveda and Self-Care
By Cara Brostrom You don’t have to travel to the countryside or a wild, remote place to connect with nature; these Ayurvedic self-care routines will connect you to the nature within yourself. I used to think of time spent in nature as a way to escape from the pace of modern life; the ultimate self-care. [...]
The Everyday Ayurveda Guide to Self-Care Rhythms, Routines, and Home Remedies for Natural Healing Discover the best way to care for yourself with a free self-care download from The Everyday Ayurveda Guide to Self-Care by Kate O’Donnell. Embrace Ayurveda to become a more integrated, whole, and healthy version of yourself. With this offering you will learn basic Ayurvedic [...]
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Natural Woman ENTER YOUR EMAIL TO RECEIVE YOUR 5 FREE HERBAL REMEDIES FROM NATURAL WOMAN. Plant medicines are a woman’s ally to achieve optimal health; they bring balance and nourishment to daily life and can reduce or eliminate symptoms of physical and emotional distress. Download 5 free herbal remedies and start 2020 off with a [...]
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Herbal Remedies for Radiant Health at Every Age and Stage of Life Leslie Korn Answers Our Top 10 Questions About Plant Medicine and Natural Woman Leslie Korn, PhD, MPH, is a licensed clinician specializing in mental health nutrition, herbal medicine, and integrative medicine for mental health and the physical symptoms of traumatic stress. Her book, [...]
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Three Practices for Eating | An Excerpt from Mindful Eating on the Go
Bettering Our Relationship with Food Trying a New Fruit The Exercise Find a fruit you have never eaten. An Asian food market is a good place to look. Star fruit, lychee, kiwano, rambutan, papaya, custard apple, mangosteen, and dragon fruit are some possibilities. At a Mexican market look for mamey, guanabana, sapote, chico, or pitahaya. [...]
The Competitive Yoga Trap | An Excerpt from Hip-Healthy Asana
A Challenge to Yoga Practitioners Comparing Our Practice If I had to pick one thing that challenges Western yoga practitioners more than any other, it would be the urge to compete. Because I haven’t spent more than a few months living in other cultures, I don’t know this for a fact, but I suspect that [...]
Cultivating the Right Attitude bhava-pratyayo videha-prakrti-layanam (1:19) Samadhi is a natural state for someone who is enlightened. shraddha-virya-smrti-samadhi-prajna-purvakah itaresham (1:20) For the rest of us, we must use faith, passion, mindfulness, quiet, and good judgment to support our journey toward samadhi. Our life is a reflection of our attitude, the energy of our mind. When [...]
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We Won’t Last Forever | An Excerpt from Let the Whole Thundering World Come Home
Death A Long Distance Call On a Wednesday morning, sitting in my old blue Volvo in a parking lot after just getting a facial—my cheeks redolent with cream, all pores clean—I called the Cancer Center in Santa Fe, persuaded an oncologist to look up my chart. The oncologist I was assigned to was on vacation, [...]
A Mother’s Five Necessities | A Printable Excerpt from The Fourth Trimester
Remembering to care for yourself as a mother can sometimes be the most difficult thing about your postpartum time. Kimberly Ann Johnson, author of The Fourth Trimester, has compiled a list of the five basic necessities every mother needs in order to be healthy, happy, and ready to care for a new child. Below you [...]
Bonus Recipes from Everyday Ayurveda Cooking for a Calm, Clear Mind
Four Recipes for You to Enjoy We are excited to share with you four bonus recipes developed by the creators of Everyday Ayurveda Cooking for a Calm, Clear Mind, Kate O'Donnell and Cara Brostrom. Carrot & Green Bean Palya This versatile recipe can be used to prepare all sorts of fresh vegetables. The combination of [...]
Coconut-Lime Baked Sweet Potatoes | A Recipe from Everyday Ayurveda Cooking for a Calm, Clear Mind
A Recipe to Relax and Calm Rajas SERVES 2–4 These twice-baked sweet potatoes are divine and a feast for the eyes. They are easy to make and offer a calming mixture of digestive spices, along with the smooth, sweet taste of sweet potato and coconut milk. Serve them open-faced, sprinkled with cilantro and mustard seed. [...]
by Tias Little, author of Yoga of the Subtle Body What is Fascia? In the same way that a fish swims in water and a bird flies through the air, fascia is the way we move. Every time you practice triangle pose or the camel, you stretch an entire network of cellophane-like tissue (“cling-wrap” if [...]
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Self-Care As the well-known columnist Ariana Huffington notes, “We take better care of our smartphones than we do ourselves.” When you take care of yourself, you are saying to yourself that you matter. Engaging in self-care doesn’t mean you are selfish. You can’t care for anyone else until you first take care of yourself. Then [...]
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Enter your email to receive your beautiful, printable PDF. Start reading Everyday Ayurveda Cooking for a Calm, Clear Mind by Kate O’Donnell! This sampler includes an introduction to Ayurveda (its history, the power of digestion, how the five elements combine into the three doshas), plus recipes for a calming drink, nourishing lunches, and a wholesome dessert! Email [...]
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by Nina Zolotow, author of Yoga for Healthy Aging Asana works to steady the mind through a focus on physical sensation, breath, or drishti (gaze). If we can bring that same focus into our Accessible Yoga practice, we quickly realize that the outward appearance of a pose is not a sign of whether or not [...]
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We have excerpted the chapter “Busy Days” from Relax and Renew by Judith Hanson Lasater. This chapter describes three series that bring restorative yoga into your busy life. The first one you can practice at home or on vacation; the second is for the office; the third is for when you’re on the go. Click [...]
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Everyday Ayurveda: Maintaining Balance Through the Change of Seasons
The following article by Taylor Sumner draws from The Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook by Kate O'Donnell The first days of autumn have come. With the help of Ayurvedic practice and recipes from Kate O‘Donnell‘s Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook, we explore valuable adjustments to our everyday routines that can help maintain balance through this transitional time. As the mornings grow cooler [...]