May 30, 2019 at 07:00AM by CWC The #YogaEveryDay hashtag has 5.7 million photos attached to it on Instagram. Some of them feature people doing headstands in front of exotic locales (Machu Picchu seems to be a popular choice), while others simply show yogis hanging out in child’s pose in their local studios. The vast collection serves to prove that there are a whole lot of yogis out there getting into their practice on the reg. But whether you subscribe to the “yoga every day” way of life (like one of our writers, who got her vinyasa on every day for an entire year), or hit the mat only as frequently as the mood strikes, how much yoga should you do to be able to reap the benefits? Well, there isn’t really a one-size-fits-all answer to that question. Really, it depends on what you’re looking to get out of your practice, be it a stronger mind, body, or something else entirely. But according to the pros, there are definitely positives associated with the #yogaeverydamnday (another very popular take on the hashtag with 16.1M ‘grams) movement. “Daily yoga practice can definitely help your mood,”says Kajuan Douglas, founder of Merge New York, pointing to studies that cite yoga as an aid to coping with anxiety and depression. “Besides becoming stronger and more flexible, you will start to change your outlook on life. Whether you believe it spiritual, mental or emotional, daily yoga can help instill patterns or routines for self care.” Los Angeles-based
Category: Yoga
How to genuinely connect with people, even if you’re a serious social introvert
May 30, 2019 at 04:00AM by CWC Last month, while trying to escape a group work dinner because I didn’t know anyone yet (it was, like, my third day), I ran into my boss and admitted that I didn’t know how to connect with people. I felt as if I had transferred to a new school mid-semester, and texting my old coworkers made me wish I was back at my old professional stomping grounds. My boss was quick to remind me that overcoming my social anxiety and building up my harem of work wives (my words, not hers) wouldn’t happen overnight. Still, connecting with people is hard whether you’re introverted, starting over, have an intimidating RBF, or simply want to make basic human connections. It was true before we shielded ourselves behind the walls of iPhone screens, but its truer now. That said, if you are a classic introvert, even professionals agree this can be an especially tough obstacle. “Extroverts tend to ‘collect’ friends—sometimes at the expense of having quantity over quality. Introverts, when they do make friends, often connect by slowly forming solid, deep ties.” —psychologist Carla Marie Manly, PhD “Extroverts have it easy when it comes to making connections, yet learning to form genuine connections is an area where introverts can learn to shine,” says psychologist Carla Marie Manly, PhD, and author of Joy From Fear. “Extroverts tend to ‘collect’ friends—sometimes at the expense of having quantity over quality. Introverts, when they do make friends, often connect by slowly forming
This muscle group suffers most from sitting all day (no, it’s not your hips)
May 28, 2019 at 12:10PM by CWC One of my yoga teacher’s is like the Seinfeld of vinyasa. In between deep breath work and ooey-gooey poses, he’ll drop one-liners that make me belly laugh mid-downward facing dog. And during a Sunday morning class not too long ago, he called the groin—and I quote—”the deep, dark dungeon of the body.” The whole class snickered, but what the instructor dropped was indeed a truth bomb. Hips and IT bands get all the attention for being extra tight, but the area between your thighs? Er, not so much. “Anatomically, the ‘groin’ refers to the area between the abdomen and upper thigh around the pubic bone containing various adductor muscles,” explains Jeff Brannigan, director of programming at New York City’s Stretch*d. “These are muscles that connect at the base of the pelvis and extend along the inside of the thigh.” He’s in agreement with my teacher—this part of the body tends to get overlooked. A travesty, really, considering that the groin does a whole lot of leg work (literally) to help you do just about everything—from sitting up straight between the hours of nine to five to going hard in a HIIT class. “Allowing [the groin] muscles to become tense or tight will compromise movement of the hip and leg, increasing tension on the joints and increasing chance of injury.” —Jeff Brannigan “Coupling long hours at a desk and strenuous activity without time for recovery is a recipe for disaster,” warns the stretching expert. Like
This muscle group suffers most from sitting all day (no, it’s not your hips)
May 28, 2019 at 12:10PM by CWC One of my yoga teacher’s is like the Seinfeld of vinyasa. In between deep breath work and ooey-gooey poses, he’ll drop one-liners that make me belly laugh mid-downward facing dog. And during a Sunday morning class not too long ago, he called the groin—and I quote—”the deep, dark dungeon of the body.” The whole class snickered, but what the instructor dropped was indeed a truth bomb. Hips and IT bands get all the attention for being extra tight, but the area between your thighs? Er, not so much. “Anatomically, the ‘groin’ refers to the area between the abdomen and upper thigh around the pubic bone containing various adductor muscles,” explains Jeff Brannigan, director of programming at New York City’s Stretch*d. “These are muscles that connect at the base of the pelvis and extend along the inside of the thigh.” He’s in agreement with my teacher—this part of the body tends to get overlooked. A travesty, really, considering that the groin does a whole lot of leg work (literally) to help you do just about everything—from sitting up straight between the hours of nine to five to going hard in a HIIT class. “Allowing [the groin] muscles to become tense or tight will compromise movement of the hip and leg, increasing tension on the joints and increasing chance of injury.” —Jeff Brannigan “Coupling long hours at a desk and strenuous activity without time for recovery is a recipe for disaster,” warns the stretching expert. Like
If burpees feel straight-up impossible, start with this move instead
May 28, 2019 at 08:09AM by CWC I know I’m not alone in despising burpees. There’s something about getting down onto the floor, doing a push-up, then popping back up into the air that feels straight-up impossible. If you’ve yet to master the move but really want to nail it, don’t worry. There’s a move that helps you ease into burpees and avoid injuries until you’re ready for the real thing. Personal trainer Jason Millar shared a video years ago that focuses on beginner burpees, and it’s still getting views because it’s so useful. While you can simply slow down the movement and skip out on the pushups to make the exercise more beginner-friendly, one of the best ways to ease in is by grabbing something you already have on hand at home. Performing burpees using a chair might sound strange, but it allows you to get used to the motions in a safe way that’s easy on the body. Soon enough, you’ll be able to do the real deal. And maybe—just maybe!—even like it. How to perform beginner burpees with a chair [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS9RO6wsIlM?start=49] 1. Roll a yoga mat out on the floor and set a chair at the end of the mat, making sure it’s staple and won’t slide around. 2. Place your hands on the seat of the chair and jump your legs back to the end of your mat. 3. Jump your legs back to the starting position and raise your arms above your head. 4.
Unleash your inner-psychic by balancing your chakras and opening your third eye
May 27, 2019 at 01:00PM by CWC Your third eye, or that sixth chakra that sits between your eyebrows and helps you tap into your intuition in a new way, has been around for as long as you have. But that fact alone doesn’t mean you know much about it, including, on a basic level, what exactly it is. And while we’re on the matter, you may want to know how to open your third eye, right? Luckily experts are here to clear things up—for all of your eyes to see. “The third eye is an energetic center, or chakra,” says Erica Matluck, a naturopathic doctor, nurse practitioner, holistic coach, and founder of Seven Senses, which facilitates wellness retreats. “Though it is not an actual physical structure, it is associated with the pineal and pituitary glands on the brain and located on the forehead between the brows.” Matluck explains that the chakra system is like the organ system of the subtle (or energetic) body, and each chakra has a function or purpose. The function of the third eye? To access clarity, intuition and foresight. “It gives us the ability to see beyond what is physically present in the moment,” Matluck says. “Seers and psychics typically have highly developed third eye chakras.” “[The third eye] gives us the ability to see beyond the what is physically present in the moment.” Erica Matluck, holistic coach and naturopathic doctor To that point, learning how to open your third eye isn’t something you can
Need your inner voice to speak the eff up? 7 ways to pump up the volume on your intuition
May 26, 2019 at 06:00AM by CWC You don’t need to wave a pendulum or carry crystals in your bra to channel spiritual guidance (but like, you can if you want!). Call it your gut, your intuition, or universal guidance, but your inner voice acts as an insanely powerful GPS to guide the decisions you make—whether that’s following the internal nudges to ditch your corporate job and sign up for yoga teacher training or just knowing when you need more sleep in your life. You just have to learn how to tap into your intuition and then act on those whispers, even when they seem to make no logical sense. Okay, but what if crickets is all you hear? How do you actually hear that inner voice? To help us answer that question, we sat down with Los Angeles-based life coach and breathwork teacher Gwen Dittmar to ask for her tips on how to hear your inner voice. 1. Create space for your inner voice to come through “One of the reasons why people aren’t hearing their intuition or trusting it or following through on it is because there is no space for it to come in,” Dittmar says. The solution? More quiet time. “Prayer is actually asking [for guidance] and then meditation is the space that you create to be able to hear the answer,” she explains. Whether you sneak away for a brisk nature walk or meditate in your car before work, incorporating more quiet time into your
Having good “facial posture” is a thing, and it’s just as important as sitting up straight
May 25, 2019 at 02:00PM by CWC The importance of having good posture and not hunching like Quasimodo over my laptop all day has been so ingrained into me by now that you can sort of, kind of say that I sit up straight. (For all of my coworkers that are raising an eyebrow, I said kind of.) But to add another thing to keep top of mind, yesterday I learned that it’s equally important to have good facial posture. Yes, it’s a thing. The idea was introduced to me by the three beauty experts behind brand-new skin- and self-care brand Wildling—Britta Plug (holistic facialist), Jill Munson (formulator), and Gianna de la Torre (acupuncturist and herbalist)—and my very first question was,”Do you mean like, resting bitch face?” Which they confirmed that it is, at least, somewhat. “There are all of these unconscious patterns we have in our lives in every way—physically, mentally, emotionally, energetically,” de la Torre explains to me. “My personal experience with facial posture began on the yoga mat. You realize you have all of these things going on in your body—your left side is much tighter than the right, for instance. And as our culture has gotten more used to being explorative of the body, we become more aware of those things and the places we’re holding our tension. But one of the very neglected aspects of that is the face, which is what we greet the world with.” So your facial posture is how you hold your facial
Celestial summer reading: The best book for you, according to your zodiac sign
May 25, 2019 at 06:00AM by CWC Even if you devour books year-round, there’s something special about summer reading: Those chilled-out hours spent lounging on a blanket with a paperback as your companion can seriously balance out all the energy you expend doing outdoor yoga, surfing, hiking, and other summer-season activities. And, good news: This year especially, there are so many great new books worthy for your selection of what to read next. Actually, perhaps even too many. Walking into the bookstore can be overwhelming—especially because $20 and 300 pages can feel like quite the commitment. Should you go for that psychological thriller everyone is talking about? Or will a romance novel prove to be a more enjoyable read? Rather than asking you to rely on the universe itself to help you pick, I enlisted the help of astrologers to point out best summer-reading books according to the zodiac. Below, Stefanie Iris Weiss of Saturn Sisters and best-selling authors of Astrology for Wellness Monte Farber and Amy Zerner offer their top reads for your sign. Let the universe determine your summer-reading list with the best book for your zodiac sign. Gemini: (May 20 to June 20) Book picks: Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi; How to Skimm Your Life by The Skimm “Geminis are more of the smartest, more verbal signs and will love something on the best-seller list that they can talk about at cocktail parties,” Weiss says. One book everyone is buzzing about right now? Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi, a
Celestial summer reading: The best book for you, according to your zodiac sign
May 25, 2019 at 06:00AM by CWC Even if you devour books year-round, there’s something special about summer reading: Those chilled-out hours spent lounging on a blanket with a paperback as your companion can seriously balance out all the energy you expend doing outdoor yoga, surfing, hiking, and other summer-season activities. And, good news: This year especially, there are so many great new books worthy for your selection of what to read next. Actually, perhaps even too many. Walking into the bookstore can be overwhelming—especially because $20 and 300 pages can feel like quite the commitment. Should you go for that psychological thriller everyone is talking about? Or will a romance novel prove to be a more enjoyable read? Rather than asking you to rely on the universe itself to help you pick, I enlisted the help of astrologers to point out best summer-reading books according to the zodiac. Below, Stefanie Iris Weiss of Saturn Sisters and best-selling authors of Astrology for Wellness Monte Farber and Amy Zerner offer their top reads for your sign. Let the universe determine your summer-reading list with the best book for your zodiac sign. Gemini: (May 20 to June 20) Book picks: Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi; How to Skimm Your Life by The Skimm “Geminis are more of the smartest, more verbal signs and will love something on the best-seller list that they can talk about at cocktail parties,” Weiss says. One book everyone is buzzing about right now? Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi, a