Tag: Yoga Journal

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Flexible and strong hamstrings are key to a healthy, happy yoga practice @Yoga_Journal #fitnessaware

Flexible and strong, hamstrings are key to a healthy, happy yoga practice. Here’s what you need to know in order to lengthen and strengthen these muscles.

https://www.yogajournal.com/teach/get-to-know-your-hamstrings-why-both-strength-length-are-essential

Flexible and strong, hamstrings are key to a healthy, happy yoga practice. Here’s what you need to know in order to lengthen and strengthen these muscles.

Get to Know Your Hamstrings: Why Both Strength & Length Are Essential

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Is salad on the menu? Make it your best one ever with these five tips:@Yoga_Journal #fitnessaware

5 Steps to Seriously Superior Salads
Apply these tried-and-true cooking tricks to salad-making, and you’ll be making the best veggie-packed dishes ever.
July 31, 2021 Ivy Manning






Your go-to bowl of greens may be a good salad, but is it the best salad? Some of the best cooking tricks can be applied to salad-making. Here are five game changers that will help take your salads to a new level.
1. Season it
We season everything else, so why skip your salad? A pinch of coarse sea salt and a few grinds of pepper enhance the flavors in salads, too. But don’t stop there! Spices can amp up the natural sweetness of vegetables both raw and cooked. Try this homemade toasted spice blend on salads to turn a ho-hum salads into the best salad with grilled shrimp, sprinkle nutritional yeast on slaws for a savory boost, or herby-tart za’atar blend on a cucumber tomato salad with feta.
2. Underdress
Err on the side of underdressing your salads. You need less dressing than you think, and you can always add more, but you can’t remove dressing from a soggy salad. As a general rule, add ½ tablespoon of dressing, gently toss, taste, and add more until the ingredients are very lightly coated. Another option for chronic over-dressers, pour out small amounts  of dressing (about 1 tablespoon per person) into a small ramekin and dip your fork into it before each bite of undressed salad.
3. Hands on
Toss your salads with your hands in a large bowl, this helps coat all the ingredients with seasonings and dressing and it’s gentler on tender greens. If you’d rather not get your hands dirty, use kitchen tongs to even toss things together.
4. Balance textures
Try to choose a balance of elements – fluffy leaves, creamy elements like avocado or cheese, crunchy items like nuts or seeds, something substantial like roasted squash, meat, seafood and juicy/crisp elements like apple, tomato, or celery.  And remember, we eat with our eyes, so arrange elements artfully for a more satisfying meal. Click here for a handy chart on how to build a well composed, best salad recipes ever.
5. Herbs are salad leaves, too.
Herbs are a mainstay of salad dressing, but they are also delicious by themselves tucked into leafy salads. Fresh, tender herbs like basil, cilantro, dill, basil, parsley, and mint blend right in with lettuce plus they add little pops of fresh flavor that are unexpected and make salads more interesting. Make sure to remove any tough or stringy stems…concentrating on the juicy leaves instead.
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A Yoga Practice for the Summer Solstice @Yoga_Journal #fitnessaware

Yoga Journal

@Yoga_Journal
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Looking for a practice for the summer solstice?

Your Step-by-Step Guide to Flowing Through Surya Namaskar A

If you only have 10 minutes to squeeze in your practice, flow through this ancient series of yoga postures, commonly known as Sun Salutations.

AUGUST 13, 2021

It’s been said—and memed—that “Movement without awareness is exercise. Movement with awareness is yoga.”

It’s easy to aspire to the latter. (Don’t we all?) It’s not always easy to achieve it, though. Especially when you’re taking yourself through your practice without a teacher cueing a sequence. Or when you’re desperately trying to cram 10 minutes of your practice in as your weekday meeting marathon looms.

There’s actually an ancient yogic antidote specifically designed for those mornings. It’s a series of yoga postures known as Surya Namaskar A, more commonly known as Sun Salutations. This set sequence of postures dates back more than 2,500 years to a time when ancient cultures revered the sun. Salutations are believed to have been regarded as a literal salute to sunrise and were perceived to ready the body for all that would happen during daylight. (Had they only known about Zoom…)

This sequence of postures is essentially a series of prescribed motions that begins and ends with Tadasana (Mountain Pose). The poses take you through all manner of stretches, forward folds, and backbends that build heat and happen in a rhythmic cadence that’s aligned with your breath. The start of an inhale initiates your transition from one pose to the next, followed by a lull in both the breath and body as you come into the pose, with the beginning of an exhale acting as a cue for your next transition. Breath, movement, and stillness fall into a rhythm. The trajectory of the sequence, like that of its namesake star, has a predictable arc and is cyclical, making it easy to become quietly absorbed in the looping repeated motions. A moving meditation.

Photo: Baleika Tamara

You may already be vaguely or intimately familiar with Surya Namaskar A but haven’t committed the poses and their order to memory. That’s OK! We lay it all out for you here. Less thinking. More flowing.

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Flexible and strong hamstrings are key to a healthy, happy yoga practice @Yoga_Journal #fitnessaware

Flexible and strong, hamstrings are key to a healthy, happy yoga practice. Here’s what you need to know in order to lengthen and strengthen these muscles.

https://www.yogajournal.com/teach/get-to-know-your-hamstrings-why-both-strength-length-are-essential

Flexible and strong, hamstrings are key to a healthy, happy yoga practice. Here’s what you need to know in order to lengthen and strengthen these muscles.

Get to Know Your Hamstrings: Why Both Strength & Length Are Essential

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Your pelvic floor muscles are to your body what a structural frame is to your house: foundational…@yogajournal #physicaltherapy


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Your pelvic floor muscles are to your body what a structural frame is to your house: foundational.

Spanning from hip-to-hip and back-to-front, the pelvic floor muscles are a flexible sling of muscles that support your reproductive and excretory organs, says Kandis Daroski, a physical therapist. This includes your bladder, bowels, rectum, and uterus (if you have one).

Healthy pelvic floor muscles also support sexual arousal and orgasms, says Daroski. And as part of your core, these muscles help protect your spine and support overall balance, she says.

Just like the other muscles in your body, your pelvic floor can weaken as a result of misuse or overuse, says Corey Silbert, a pelvic floor therapist. Also, pregnancy, menopause, obesity, chronic constipation, even improper form while lifting can injure these muscles. As a result, your pelvic floor may be unable to relax, contract, or move with coordination.

Click the link in our bio for the 5 best yoga poses for pelvic floor dysfunction!

🌿 #yogajournal
🖊️: Gabrielle Kassel (@gabriellekassel)

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Create a more satisfying sex and spiritual life.#fitnessaware

yoga journal affirmation practice

8 Poses to Feel Empowered and Sexy

https://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/yoga-for-better-sex-life

“I’ve learned that having sex and feeling sexy can and should come from the purest space.” — Rina Jakubowicz

Nir Livni

Feel like you’ve lost your sense of Self in the noise of social media or societal expectations? It’s time to get on the mat and reclaim who you are. Join author and yoga teacher Rina Jakubowicz for Empowered Vinyasa: Journey to Your Highest Self, a series of 10 yoga classes and companion dharma talks that zero in on principles of yoga philosophy—from The Bhagavad Gita and the Hindu spiritual tradition Vedanta—that are essential to self-exploration. Sign up today!

When I was going through a divorce 10 years ago, I used affirmation practices to try to shift my mindset during the healing process. One phrase I repeated often was “I am beautiful.” 

As silly and simple as this may sound, it really helped me. Failing at a marriage is very painful and I carried a lot of judgments about myself, especially since I had been the first in the family to get a divorce. Walking around each day with this affirming thought, even if I didn’t believe it in the beginning, was life-changing. It helped me realize that my words and thoughts are powerful and that I’m in control of how I feel about myself. I began walking with confidence and maintaining a sense of calm in my communication and interactions. In addition to the affirmation practices, I started studying in the Bhagavad Gita and began to apply some of the teachings to my relationships, including in the bedroom. It took several years, but I began to develop a healthier relationship with myself and my sexuality. I learned how to break down my sexual walls and release judgment and fear to become my gorgeous, badass self from within.

I’ve learned that having sex and feeling sexy can and should come from the purest space. That will create the most euphoric and pleasurable experience for both you and your partner. I now teach “Sattvic and Sexy” workshops and courses because I want to help more women tap into this empowering space where they can stop harshly judging themselves or suppressing their sexuality. 

See also “Three Things Divorce Taught Me About Love”

Sattva is the highest of the three gunas (mental qualities) in Ayurveda. It means pure, poised, or objective. The lower two gunas are tamas and rajas. Tamas is a mental state of inertia, dullness, or laziness. Rajas is associated with mental agitation and hectic activity. We need rajas to move us away from tamas, but our ultimate goal is to move into sattva. If you’re passionate about something or someone but you’re overthinking, emotional, or getting caught in your head, then there’s an attachment and you’re in rajas. If you have passion from a pure place and it doesn’t control you, then you’re sattvic. 

See also How a Sattvic (Pure) Diet Brings You Into Balance + 2 Ayurvedic Recipes

To start feeling more empowered, sexy, and content in your life and relationships, try this 8-pose sequence. Each posture is paired with an affirmation to inspire you to become the best version of yourself, both as a lady and a lover, so you can create the sex life and the spiritual life you deserve.

Then, join me for a free “Sattvic and Sexy” webinar on April 10 at 2:30 EST. I’ll share more tips for developing a healthier relationship with yourself, your sexuality, and your partner. Register today!

 
 
 

Samastithi (Mountain Pose)

Mountain Pose is one of the most important poses to help you gain confidence in yourself and feel sexy in your skin. It’s vital for your spiritual growth because this pose is the epitome of standing up for yourself. You are tall, grounded, and powerful without letting anything external influence you. This pose sets the stage for the mentality you need to have while doing the other poses: equal standing, steady breath, stable mind.

See also 16 Poses to Instantly Boost Your Confidence

https://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/yoga-for-better-sex-life