*Heads up: We just launched the YBC Yoga Forum, where health conscious people (like you!) are coming together to chat about everything from chaturangas to chocolates. Come join! We d love to connect! If you consider how often we sit (ahem, slouch), it s not a huge surprise that many of us suffer from minor upper back pain. I mean, we probably spend the majority of…
Here’s a grimly edifying set-piece for twenty-first-century feminists to ponder: when my grandmother was a teenager at Greenwich Academy, a girls’ prep school in Connecticut, she and her fellow students were required to pose nude for photographs taken by the P.E. teacher. Once a year, in a mirrored studio on campus, they would shed their itchy, matronly uniforms—green…
For those with diabetes or pre-diabetes, adopting a regular yoga routine in addition to other healthy lifestyle habits can provide relief from diabetic symptoms and even help overcome the condition. The best beginning yoga for diabetes will include postures and breathing exercises that are designed specifically to target and stimulate the pancreas. By improving blood…
Yesterday, I spent the afternoon teaching Teacher Training at Tranquil Space. As always, it was a fabulous experience and I left feeling exhilarated, exhausted and inspired. To me, there s nothing like a group of students who are hungry for more-who have chosen to study what they re studying because they truly love it- and who have so much knowledge, experience, and…
Being afraid I’ll end up looking like the humpback of Notre Dame when I’m older is a reasonable fear. Overall health and wellness has become much more of a priority now that I’m in my thirties. Good posture was something I may have only heard about from my mom when she told me to straighten up (or when I was acting out, more likely). As a yoga teacher I find myself…
Bikram s Beginning Yoga Class is a series of twenty-six traditional hatha yoga postures designed to scientifically warm and stretch muscles, ligaments and tendons, in the order in which they should be stretched. Bikram Yoga s twenty-six posture exercises systematically move fresh, oxygenated blood to one hundred percent of your body, to each organ and fiber, restoring…
Spinal stenosis is a disorder that is caused by a narrowing of the spinal canal. This narrowing happens as a result of the degeneration of both the facet joints and the intervertebral discs. In this condition, bone spurs (also called osteophytes ) grow into the spinal canal. The facet joints also enlarge as they become arthritic, which contributes to a decrease in…
Can’t quite remember the last time going #2 felt like, well, second nature? While it may be tempting to reach for some OTC relief, consider hitting the yoga mat instead. Can yoga poses really help? “Movement in general is important for stimulating the bowels to help move the food bolus, gas, and, ultimately, waste, through your system, ” says Rebekah Gross, M.D…
How we wish we were one of those people with hot bodies and great stamina. But for that, you have to pull yourself out of bed, and then get into your yoga pants, and then drive to a super expensive yoga class, and then struggle to fight with your insecurities of not being in sync with others. Or worse, being the sloppiest of all. So if you want to save yourself the…
If you were playing a game of word association and heard the word yoga,what would be the first thing that popped into your head? A lot of people would say pretzel or hard,but yoga can actually be quite simple. If you got out of bed this morning and stretched your arms up over your head, you already did a yoga pose. Yoga introduces a mindfulness to stretching…
You might have heard about this web of connective tissue in yoga, physical therapy, and movement classes. Fascia links every cell in the body. Think of this system as an information superhighway where messages can travel instantly from one part of the body to another. Far from merely a physical entity, the fascial web is sentient and intelligent. It plays a key role…
As a former collegiate gymnast, most yoga poses have come easily to me. I can do a Handstand with ease and transition from arm balances to inversions gracefully and weightlessly. And if you look at all those photos and videos of me doing the physical practice of yoga or peer at my life from the outside, it might look like I have it made, like I don’t have a care in…
If you have the ever-popular office job that involves sitting at a desk for eight hours a day, it can wreak havoc on your body, creating tight hips and lower back pain. Many stretches for your hips also stretch out your lower back, so these poses are like two for the price of one. It will only take about four minutes, but that s all you ll need to ease tension. Butterfly…
For many lifters, flexibility training died the day they graduated from elementary P.E. class. Former athletes and service members probably remember long sessions of pre-exercise static stretching, then they probably dropped the routine as soon as they could. Today, few of us perform any flexibility work in the gym. Guess what, you busted barbell jockeys? It s time…
Asana can be defined as a physical Yoga posture or position that is designed to help master the body and enhance the body s functions. Yoga poses are, in essence, Yoga exercises creating strength and endurance, improving circulation and energy flow, cleansing organs and other systems, and expanding muscles and joints. With all these benefits of the Yoga poses, we…
The word Chakra comes from Sanskrit — and means vortex, spinning wheel or circle. Chakras are the major centres of spiritual power in the human body and are circles of energy which balance, store and distribute the energies of life all through our physical body along the subtle body. The subtle body is the non-physical — otherwise known as our soul or spirit, which…
