Your most valuable Christmas gift EVER is right this way.
Come on in and unwrap your freebie.
I’ll jump right in and say it. It’s the end of November and life’s about to get even busier, crazier and more pressured. Agreed?
And, that my yogi friend will make it soooo much harder for you to put your health and wellbeing first. I get that – we all want to have a good time at Christmas and it’s a huge pressure not to fall in with the crowd and think to hell with it, I’ll go along for the ride until January.
But here’s the question. Is it what you want?
Create your 2018 wellbeing strategy.
Your mini-yogi training starts now.
We’re getting ahead of the game…it starts today. Your 2018 well-being planning happens now.
This week, I’m going to get you thinking about your goals, what questions you need to ask yourself (honestly), and give you a few yogi ideas to INSPIRE so you are all set up to hit the ground running on the first day of 2018.
Just so you know. This is not a ‘quick-fix’, ‘boom bust’, ‘giving it lip service’ wellbeing solution I share with you here. It’s your ‘soul-driven’, ‘completely sustainable’, ‘love your frickin-self today and every day’, ‘this is me’, ‘I’m awesome’ solution.
You like the sound?
You feelin’ that good vibration? A QUICK YOGI WAY TO WITHIN
Hey Yogi-in-Training. Hope your week was sweet. 😉
Today’s yoga quickie is inspired by the music streaming services of Spotify.
I just fired up my account and got to scrolling through some beautifully curated sets of tunes designed by its experts to shift me into any desired state of mind or mood. Let me see, do I need help getting my sorry ass out of bed, or be inspired to go kick some creative butt? As I have already won the war to wake, I’ll go for the latter option. Thankyou Spotify.
But It got me asking, who really needs a microscope or a science degree to see that sound can be a very cool way of communicating with the central nervous system?
Which is what I want you to remember as we dive into this week’s yoga quickie which is all about using sound or vibration to access heightened states of awareness, clarity and consciousness.
Yoga for if you’ve not used ‘it’, lost ‘it’ – and want ‘it’ back – thank you very much.
Your health is just too important to lose…isn’t it?
When people say to me they ‘don’t do yoga’ because they’re not ‘flexible’ it tells me two things.
- They lost something super valuable (flexibility).
- They’re ok with it (they don’t do yoga).
These are both heart-breaking truths that drive me crazy.
Seriously, if you lost £50 you’d at least go look for it, right? Flexibility though? ‘Meh – oh well. ‘Easy come, easy go.’ ‘Strength, don’t need it any more’. ‘Balance, over-rated commodity – I’ll pass’.
Come on…really?
Five ingredients for a healthy hormone balancing yoga practice
You asked: What does yoga have to do with hormonal health?
Yogi chickadee, if you are of a certain age it won’t be much of a surprise that between the ages of 35 and 50 us girls experience our worst psychological wellbeing due to hormone issues. Hands up if that’s you. Mine’s up there too.
What’s happening here? Let’s take a quick lesson in biology.
Hormones are chemical messengers that are jettisoned into your body by your endocrine system. And get this… they influence:
- Your emotions
- How you eat
- How you fight off illness
- Your reproductive cycle
- Your sleep cycles
- Your behaviour
- How you react to stress
With a mindful lifestyle and a regular yoga practice you can help prevent hormones from hijacking your health, wellbeing, love life, the whole ‘shebang’.
What to know more? Of course. Come with me.
7 signs your active lifestyle maybe be messing with your health.
Let’s hand out some red flags. Get waving them at me if you are:
- Feeling either unpleasantly plump or dangerously preskeletal.
- Ravenous at times, off your food at others.
- Lying awake at night, thoughts racing.
- Tired all the time.
- Racked with aches and pains.
- Accident and injury prone.
- Forgetting easy stuff like names, birthdays, the day of the week.
Almost no one ever tells you should exercise LESS but if you’re waving that red flag at me right now, this yogi is.
Now I know what it means to not listen to advice. I also know what happens when you ignore the wisdom of your body. So, before you dismiss this course of action as outright lunacy, please read my story. It’s all here, alongside some yogi tools to reclaim balance and enhance your hormonal health.
Plus, I’ll share why being less active can sometimes actually help improve athletic performance. It’s all about listening to your body folks. Come with me. It’s time to tune in and tune up.
FLIP FLOP READY YOGA
Ramp up some summer self-lovin with these 3 simple steps
Flip flops and (come to think of it), handbags too. I just lurrrve.
Ask me why… OK I’m imagining you’re asking (I like to ‘see’ you as I’m writing this stuff – else sometimes this blogging thing can feel a little crazy). Anyways, the answer is…they always fit. Right? You don’t dig around in your shoe stack and hope you’re going to get back into your fave flops. At least that’s never happened to me.
So, girls (and boys if you’re out there) you’re flip flops are always good to go…each summer. Ready, steady. They’re ready to rock. Question is, are you?
Girls’ Get up and Go Guide to Yoga
In 5 Easy Steps
Girls has your get up and go, got up and gone? Are you sleeping yet still hitting snooze. Eating less but carrying excess. Popping pills but catching ills? Can you remember when you last felt your best self?
Yoga has your back…
…No Yoga Pants Required
Chickadees however you feel about your health today this does not have to be your normal. You do not have to be resigned to it or get used to it. My mission is to show you how yoga can get you back – to you.
Why is my physio saying yoga is a good idea?
Hands up if you’ve ever had physio? Hands up if the reason you called your physio was down to any one of these?
- Pain
- Limitation
- Frustration
Probably all three right?
Now ask yourself, was something way, WAY off balance before you actually made that call. Had your body stopped talking in whispers and started shouting – “You got to help me out here. Stop doing the thing that you are doing and let’s try and fix this.”
Oh yes – I’ve been there and I know I am not alone.
According to the NHS, the things we mostly seek physio out for include one or more of the following:
Why Runners Do Yoga X 7
If you run, yoga’s a good idea because…
Ok, let’s start with this. The more you can take care of you the more you are able to continue to enjoy and love life. Agree?
Cool. So how does that relate to running? Keep going. Anyone who loves and LIVES to run will know how it feels to have to hang up their runners for any length of time. And I’m guessing their long-suffering significant others most definitely do. Yes? Can I hear nods? Seriously, but that’s life right? We all want to do what we want to do and we are seriously not happy when something, anything; ill health, fatigue, motivation, pain or even our own belief in our ability, stops us in our metaphorical tracks.
So my answer to the question above is simply this. It’s a good idea for runners to take up a yoga practice because the more runners bring yoga into their world, the more runners will continue to enjoy their love of running.
Whatever you already might think a yoga practice is or does, I invite you to consider this. Yoga is a practice that helps us all continue to do what we LIVE and LOVE to do.
Revealing some whys?
Now I appreciate this is a somewhat short and simple answer. There’s loads more to say and I’ll be breaking it all down at the next Yoga for Runners/Athletes Series. If you’re interested in this five-week yoga course designed specifically for runners and athletic types, find out how and when to sign up here and at the end of this article. First here’s just some of the whys I’m always promising…