March 20, 2020 at 02:00AM by CWC When practicing yoga, it’s easy to get caught up trying to nail each posture, but postures and movement are just one component of yoga. Yoga breathing techniques, or pranayama (prana means “life force” and yama means “control”), is also an essential element of yoga that enhances and deepens your practice. “Yoga without breath isn’t really yoga,” says Reiki master and certified yoga and meditation teacher Nina Endrst. “The breath is the foundation of the entire practice. Marrying movement and breath is what makes yoga such a special and powerful experience. Using the breath as our guide draws us back to the body and the current moment.” “Using the breath as our guide draws us back to the body and the current moment.” —Nina Endrst, yoga and meditation teacher Still, yoga breathing techniques and exercises are often met with resistance, which Endrst believes is because it makes many feel vulnerable since it is often an unfamiliar practice. “We have trouble sitting that close to ourselves sometimes, but that is when deep healing and connection take place,” she says. Whether you’re on the mat or out in the real world, living life, yoga breathing techniques are great tools to have at your disposal for whenever you need to clear and calm your mind and body. So are you ready to experience the magic of breathing for yourself? Here are five yoga breathing techniques to try, the benefits of each, plus tips on how to incorporate
Category: Yoga
The strength-boosting sequence that’ll help you master the yoga headstand
March 16, 2020 at 07:00PM by CWC You may be able to twist your way into a bird of paradise with the best of them, but mastering the yoga headstand is a whole different ballgame. Unlike many moves in the practice, which solely rely on flexibility, balancing on your head requires some serious strength. And if you’ve ever attempted it for yourself without any prep—and wound up toppling over onto the person on the mat next to you—you know that holding a headstand isn’t quite as simple as just deciding to do it and kicking up into the pose. There are a few key muscles responsible for getting you—and keeping you—in the position. “The trapezius and deltoid muscles in your shoulders protect the head and neck, and the latissimus dorsi, which is in the back of your core holds you up,” says Kajuan Douglas, founder of Merge New York, a yoga studio in New York City. “Core muscles like the obliques, rectus abdominis, and transverse abdominis get you up and help you balance, and the biceps and triceps have to be strong to provide a supportive base.” How to get strong enough to do a headstand In order to get started in a headstand practice, then, the first step is strengthening these muscles. To help you do that, yoga pro Jess Penesso, founder of The Sweat Method, suggests cycling through the below movements that will work your core and hip flexors while also stabilizing your shoulders. 1. Medicine ball plank-to-pike:
The anti-inflammatory breakfast a yoga instructor eats every week
March 15, 2020 at 12:00PM by CWC When you work out a lot, properly fueling your body is a must. There’s no way you’ll be able to power through those workouts like a champ if you’re slacking on your meals. One person who especially needs all those nutrients is yoga instructor Blair Flynn—it’s how she keeps her energy up with a busy studio schedule. And there’s one healthy breakfast in particular you’ll find her eating on the regular that always helps her feel her best. Whenever Flynn is in need of an easy and nutritious breakfast, she reaches for some chia seed pudding. Not just any chia seed pudding, though—a golden milk version that’s loaded with plant-based protein and anti-inflammatory properties. Two things that are pretty hard to beat when it comes to your breakfast. “I love making these simple chia puddings for the week ahead. They’re quick and fun to put together, full of protein and fiber, and you can constantly change up the flavor by adding in any fruit or toppings so you’ll never get bored,” she says. “They make the perfect grab-and-go breakfast any day of the week, keeping me feeling energized, full, and satisfied—especially on busy days when I’m teaching all morning.” The golden milk pudding recipe is dairy-free and has a short ingredients list. All you need is plant-based milk—she recommends almond or cashew milk—rolled oats, chia seeds, flaxseeds, cinnamon, maple syrup for sweetness, and turmeric for the anti-inflammatory benefits. After giving it a good
How Black women have historically used yoga as a tool for healing
March 11, 2020 at 12:00AM by CWC Studies prove that anxiety, stress, depression, heart disease, and other ailments affect Black people disproportionately compared to other ethnic groups, but the statistics rise alarmingly when it comes to the health of Black women. Because of the many external and internal social stressors—racism, sexism, socio-economic issues—Black women do not have space to accurately practice self-care in a way that is safe and fulfilling for them. Now with wellness becoming a trillion-dollar industry, many Black women have come to create spaces that are inclusive and safe, particularly when it comes to yoga. There are trap yoga studios, hip-hop yoga studios, and platforms—like Black Girl In Om— that cater to women of color. There is a new generation of Black women who are taking the lessons from the women before them and redefining their ideas of wellness in innovative ways. But this isn’t a new phenomenon; there is a reason why Black women have been increasingly turning to yoga since its popular emergence in the 1970s. Yoga has a complicated history with race and appropriation, and much of today’s imagery still centers around that of a white woman in an asana, or meditative posture, but Black women’s reliance on the practice as a healing tool goes back decades. In a 1975 Ebony article, “Yoga: Something For Everyone,” writer Stanley Williford addressed the relatively new phenomenon, where an increasing number of African-Americans were turning to yoga as a meditative practice, to retain lucidity and heal from the injustices that ailed them. Krishna Kaur, a Black pioneer in Kundalini
Yoga has literally thousands of poses, but a stretching expert says this one unwinds every muscle
March 06, 2020 at 11:00PM by CWC No one has an exact count of the number of asanas out there (it could be thousands or millions), but trainer and massage therapist Joe Yoon, author of the newly-released book Better Stretching, says that one pose outperforms the others when it comes to better mobility and flexibility: cat-cow stretch. “When I was a trainer, I thought ‘oh this is just a yoga move for the extension and flexion of the spine,” says Yoon. Once he started studying up on stretching, he learned that the movement works way (and I mean, way) more than just your vertebrae. “When I started to actually look at the movement, I noticed that you’re moving your shoulder blades into protraction and retraction, too,” says Yoon. “So it’s almost like you’re reaching for something and then when you’re dropping your chest down and pulling your shoulders down and back.” And that’s just what cat-cow does for your upper body. Cat-cow asks you to pull your chest forward (cow) then puff up your back (like an angry cat), but this move doesnt’ happen in isolation, it pulls the rest of the kinetic chain—your middle and lower body—along with it. For example, “It’s great for [alleviating] pelvic tilt. So your hips tuck under and then they arch. That’s another thing that people just don’t have awareness of,” says Yoon. But reader, this is just scratching the surface. Below, Yoon and yoga teacher Beth Cooke share the tiny cat-cow tweaks that can
A laughing yoga session in India gave me the most powerful sense of human connection I’ve ever felt
March 03, 2020 at 02:00PM by CWC “We’re going to be late!” Our tour guide, Umesh, had us park our bikes outside Jaipur’s morning vegetable market, and told us to run. After eight straight days of unlimited naan while on a solo tour of India with a group called Flashpack, that was not exactly an easy feat, but I followed the direction and took off into a dead sprint through the vendors. I weaved through the streets as quickly as I could, with absolutely no idea where I was going, avoiding stray animals and women carrying hundreds of pounds of vegetables on their heads. Ten out-of-breath minutes later, my nine travel companions—who were complete strangers before we’d touched down in Delhi a few days prior—arrived at a park. It was just before 8 a.m., and the grass still smelled like dew. “This,” I thought to myself as I looked from the empty patch of grass to the faces of my confused companions, “is a strange thing to have to sprint for.” As if he could hear my thought, at that moment, Umesh asked us to stand in a circle, then put two fingers into his mouth and wolf-whistled into the air. Within a minute, a group of 15 Indian men who had been hanging out in various other parts of the park made their way toward our little congregation. “These men are going to let us join them for laughing yoga,” he says. What is laughing yoga? Laughing yoga involves
This yoga teacher swears by weekly baths with 200 pounds of ice
February 25, 2020 at 11:05PM by CWC [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThvmuboEOo4] What happens in a yoga class inspired by the Wim Hof Method? Watch the video to find out. When an instructor says to wiggle your fingers and toes to wake up from savasana, I’m always a little sad. It’s a bit jarring to go into the real world after reaching peak relaxation. Five, a unique practice in Brooklyn created by Danielle McCallum, takes that feeling to the next level—breathwork followed by an ice bath. In the latest episode of What the Wellness, host Ella Dove takes Five, a class comprised of five parts: yoga, meditation, breathwork, cold exposure, and you. McCallum, a yoga teacher and Wim Hof Method instructor, created Five in part to share the benefits of cold exposure. “Ice baths are good for circulation, they’re good for energy. They decrease inflammation, so that helps with recovery from injuries and illness,” says McCallum. “These are tools that have greatly increased my health, and I wanted to package them together.” The Wim Hof Method has three parts: training the mind, breathwork, and cold exposure. “The philosophy behind it is that greater health leads to greater happiness,” she says. “When you get out of the tub, you’re going to feel so alive, so invigorated, you’ll feel like super woman.” The meditation and breathwork—athletic, deep, and fast—are meant to help prepare the body for the cold exposure. Once you’re in the tub, McCallum says you have to maintain that focus on the breath. “When you get
The soothing yoga pose variations that provide a stretch where you need it most
February 24, 2020 at 08:00PM by CWC [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtTbsrp55Ns] Yoga itself is incredibly soothing. A simple flow will have you rolling up your mat feeling more limber and energized than you did before. And the best part about the practice is there are so many yoga pose variations you can do to engage more full-body benefits—especially in those tight and often overlooked areas that need your attention the most. According to New York City yoga instructor Beth Cooke, some simple tips and tricks could turn you into your own masseuse. “It’s a really cheap way of self-soothing the body,” she says. “You don’t have to spend millions of dollars at the spa. You can do it right here on your own.” Start by focusing on three unexpected areas that will make you feel like a million bucks all throughout your body: your abdominal muscles, armpits, and calves. The next time you’re looking for relief, use these easy-to-follow yoga pose variations. Once you go through this flow once, you’ll want to do it every day. The most soothing yoga pose variations for full-body relief Photo: Elena Mudd 1. Tabletop with calf massage variation Start in a tabletop position. Take your right shin and place it on top of your left calf. Roll your shin down your calf so you’re rolling through the calf muscle. Keeping your shin in place, move into a child’s pose, pressing your left hip slightly more to the left. Complete 5 inhales and exhales. Repeat on the
How to use your yoga practice to boost your stamina while standing still
February 09, 2020 at 08:00PM by CWC Typically, when people want to build their stamina, they start incorporating high-intensity interval training and gradually decrease their recovery time between sets. But stamina isn’t only built in the weight or cardio room: Yoga can help get the job done, too. As a refresher, “stamina” is your ability to push through a workout without getting tired—in other words, it’s what drives you to reach your maximum effort in the gym for a given length of time—which is fundamental to your overall strength. “Stamina is important for a productive life,”says Zac Armstrong, master instructor at YogaSix. “If you don’t have stamina, how will you accomplish multiple things in a day without getting fatigued?” So, for example, the better your stamina is, the better you’ll be able to catch up with your running puppy… a very important daily life activity, indeed. Unlike HIIT or cardio, which keep you at your max effort for long periods of time, yoga works to boost stamina mainly through its focus on matching your breathing with your movement. “Yoga can improve your stamina and cardiorespiratory fitness because it helps your body better utilize its oxygen intake,” says Armstrong. And learning how to control your breath—and make the most of every inhalation, the way you do in a yoga class—can pay off immensely in endurance-focused activities like running or cycling. “Yoga also opens up your body in general, creating more room for your respiratory system to operate.” Plus, not only can
These chest-opening yoga moves ‘flush out’ your lungs for more open breathing
January 31, 2020 at 11:00PM by CWC Whether you’ve been to a single yoga class or practice on the reg, there’s a good chance you’ve been instructed to flow through poses that “flush out your lungs.” If the phrase has ever had you raising an eyebrow in confusion, allow me to demystify: Certain yoga moves help to open up your lungs for better, more open breathing. “On the most basic level, it’s aeration of the body,” says Beth Cooke, a yoga instructor with Sky Ting, who says that certain yoga poses work to release stale air and energy. “In Chinese medicine, the lungs are qi masters that take in oxygen, giving us energy and expelling that which we don’t need.” She stresses that the lungs should be kept “as clear as possible” during these yoga breathing exercises to support our everyday physical life. Through yoga, flushing the lungs can help with more efficient breathing to powers your movement on and off the mat. “Although just breathing more deeply expands your lungs, adding specific movements or shapes in the body that open up your chest and lungs also allow you to breathe deeper,” says Cooke. “When we breathe deeper, we drop into our parasympathetic nervous system.” In your yoga flow, that often means flipping your wrists to open up the chest. “This opens up more space to deepen your breath by opening the collarbones, sliding your shoulder blades down the back, and pushing your lungs forward like a puffing sensation,” she