Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Falling into Winter

Fall is a great time to settle into a yoga class that you can enjoy.  Simple Pleasures has many classes and times available and a price that fits your lifestyle.
With the cool air settling into the north, your body may not want to be outside as often in the summer.  This means longer nights in front of the TV sitting on the couch. 
Joining a yoga class may help you out of the winter rutt from the bitter cold and the quiet nights.  Not only will it get you moving and feeling great but you will also meet new people and create a different kind of social group who will support you through the winter on into spring....
Hope to see you in the next yoga class!!!

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Why Practice Yoga this Winter?!

Simple Pleasures Yoga has many classes to offer and weekend workshops during the cold months.  Yoga can help destress you during the busy holiday hours and also during the cold quiet times of January, February and March....Sign onto http://www.simplepleasure.biz/ for the class schedules.  Go to the Services Offered section.
Winter, with its gradually increasing darkness, begs us to immerse ourselves in the prosperous warmth of a wood-fire, a glass of clove-spiced cider and a thick wool blanket. During this time, it makes sense to pursue activities that encourage us to delve inward. Yoga, with its emphasis on internal observation, slow and dynamic movement, as well as relaxed breathing and an accepting attitude, may be the near-perfect activity for the snowy stresses of the holiday months ahead. Establishing yourself in a winter yoga practice is a way of going inward, aligning yourself with the slower cycles of nature, as well as detoxifying the mind and body from the stresses that the end of the year can bring. This winter, try to dedicate a few hours weekly to a yoga class that restores you to your glowing self, and you may find that you can rekindle your spark for the season!

The Winter Blues - Symptoms and Treatments

•Gentle backbends like salabasana, cobra and upward dog. This type of yoga allows us to move stagnated energy from our belly up into our hearts. It also helps to uplift our moods and energy levels.

•Doing less. Try to arrange your schedule to reflect the more internal nature of winter. Read more books, invite friends over for an early soup-dinner, or just take a few days off to reflect and rest.

•Going to bed earlier. The natural world is turning in earlier. We should too!

•Eating more warming, wet foods. Replace your morning bowl of granola and cold milk for piping hot oatmeal with cooked apples, butter and cinnamon.

•Doing an Ayurvedic oleation-a practice of self-massage. Choose a warming winter oil such as sesame. Massage yourself from head to toe in the morning, wait 20-30 minutes and then shower.

•Taking baths with warming oils such as ylang ylang, sweet orange, clove, amber or frakencense.

•Practicing some form of relaxation, meditation or breathwork.

Quite simply, winter is a time for rest. With that in mind, allow yourself to curl up, find some kitten whiskers, get out your favorite book and your softest blanket (Snuggie blanket anyone?), make a pot of your favorite soup, and let nature take over. Give yourself permission for a little hibernation, and you will truly see how these simple tips ripple out into the rest of your life.

And lastly, don't forget your in woolen mittens.



Suite101.com

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Yoga For Stress by YogaFit

YOGA FOR PHYSICAL STRESS: Yoga massages the skeletal system, which supports bone mass and growth while taking the stress away from the supporting muscles and tendons. Yoga mechanically removes tension from the muscles through stretching. Steady even yoga breathing reduces stress levels in the body, which is most often accompanied by rapid, shallow breathing Yoga encourages deep diaphragmatic breathing, activating a relaxation response. Yoga also massages the internal organs reducing high blood pressure, stress in the cardiovascular system at the level of the heart, arteries and blood. The nerve pathways are massaged and stretched through yoga practice, conducting messages throughout the body.






Of course, yoga also strengthens all major muscle groups and greatly enhances flexibility and injury prevention as well.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Facts About Yoga

• Yoga is being practiced in USA since late 19th century but it only gained popularity around 1960s.


• A survey conducted in 2003 showed that 15 million Americans practice Yoga.

• The percentage of people that practice Yoga increases on an average of 20-25% every year.

• Yoga is thousands of years old.

• Yoga is not a religion it’s a that leads you to spiritual and physical self-realization.

• Yoga can relieve pain of chronic conditions.

• Yoga unites the body, mind and spirit into a balanced state.

• Yoga prevents osteoporosis.

• Yogic breathing expands your lungs.

• Yoga relives anxiety and depression better than the anti-depressant drugs.

• People who practice Yoga are believed to live longer than their counterparts who don’t.

Monday, September 6, 2010

8 reasons to meditate by Andrew Weil MD

Meditation is simply directed concentration, and involves learning to focus your awareness and direct it onto an object: your breath, a phrase or word repeated silently, a memorized inspirational passage, or an image in the mind's eye. The benefits of meditation are numerous, and include:




1.Helping lower blood pressure

2.Decreasing heart and respiratory rates

3.Increasing blood flow

4.Enhancing immune function

5.Reducing perception of pain

6.Relieving chronic pain due to arthritis and other disorders

7.Maintaining level mood

8.Bringing awareness and mindfulness to everyday aspects of life

A simple form of meditation that can be practiced by anyone is to walk or sit quietly in a natural setting and allow your thoughts and sensations to occur; observing them without judgment.

Meditation is simply directed concentration, and involves learning to focus your awareness and direct it onto an object: your breath, a phrase or word repeated silently, a memorized inspirational passage, or an image in the mind's eye. The benefits of meditation are numerous, and include:




1.Helping lower blood pressure

2.Decreasing heart and respiratory rates

3.Increasing blood flow

4.Enhancing immune function

5.Reducing perception of pain

6.Relieving chronic pain due to arthritis and other disorders

7.Maintaining level mood

8.Bringing awareness and mindfulness to everyday aspects of life

A simple form of meditation that can be practiced by anyone is to walk or sit quietly in a natural setting and allow your thoughts and sensations to occur; observing them without judgment.

Meditation is simply directed concentration, and involves learning to focus your awareness and direct it onto an object: your breath, a phrase or word repeated silently, a memorized inspirational passage, or an image in the mind's eye. The benefits of meditation are numerous, and include:




1.Helping lower blood pressure

2.Decreasing heart and respiratory rates

3.Increasing blood flow

4.Enhancing immune function

5.Reducing perception of pain

6.Relieving chronic pain due to arthritis and other disorders

7.Maintaining level mood

8.Bringing awareness and mindfulness to everyday aspects of life

A simple form of meditation that can be practiced by anyone is to walk or sit quietly in a natural setting and allow your thoughts and sensations to occur; observing them without judgment.

Andrew Weil MD

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Why I do Yoga...

My first time doing yoga was scary.  I couldn't figure out how muscles grow without weights.  Then I found out it wasn't material weights that kept you strong.  It's your own weight!  So then I went on a crash diet (just kidding)...
Yoga showed me how inflexible I was becoming as I age.  I no longer could do the splits or flip into back bends.  I had become totally lost in my journey of aging.  How could these tight, inflexible joints be mine?  I had been working out all of my life?  Well,  I guess you need to do that bad word....stretch!!!  So, I found a yoga class to go to.  At the end of that class they actually took some time to just lay there in a pose called corpse.  I could actually do that pose with no difficulty!!!  Then I remembered back to the last time I got to take a nap on the floor.  I believe I was in kindergarten.  I forgot how great it felt to lay still in the middle of the afternoon or at the beginning or end of my day.  I made a commitment to do this at least once a week.  Well, then it became a little obsession and I had to do yoga everyday.  Just to get to corpse pose.
Today, I feel good, my attitude is good for the most part,...my confidence has finally landed in my mind, I don't eat the bad stuff I used to love, my body is in great shape, I respond to the world with much more gratitude...etc. etc. etc....
Let's do yoga!

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Fitness class schedule

Yoga classes for Every Body!
Monday
Yoga for people 50 & over
9:30am
Tuesday
Strength & Tone class
5:00pm
Advanced Yoga
6:00pm
Wednesday
Beginner's Yoga
5:30pm
Thursday
Strength & Tone class
5:00pm
Beginner's Yoga
6:00pm
Friday
Yoga for everyone!
9:30am

Remember, it is more important for a smile to spread over your chin
that it is to get your chin closer to your shin.

- Stuart Rice