Allergies? Yoga Can Help

If you live in Pyrmont and have allergies, then the pollen of the plane tree is probably not your friend at the moment.  It might seem odd, but a practice centered around breathing, like yoga, is exactly what you need when you feel all stuffed up. Nasal chest breathing in conjunction with various yoga poses may help to clear the …

Stillness

One of the reasons we practise early in the morning in the Ashtanga method is because it is easier, without the noise and mental burdens of the day, to find stillness. The purpose of yoga is to calm the fluctuations of the mind. When the mind is calm, like the surface of a lake that is still, we can see …

Trouble Sleeping? Yoga Can Help.

Trouble sleeping? Studies show that yoga can help. A Harvard Medical School study showed that a regular course of yoga not only helped participants get to sleep more quickly but improved the quality and duration of sleep. Additional studies have shown that yoga helps to manage sleep disturbance in cancer survivors, those suffering from osteoarthritis and women experiencing menopause. How? …

Struggling to get on the mat?

One of my favourite yoga sutras (1.14) says that in order for the benefits of yoga to be realised, we must practice for a long time, without interruption with a positive attitude and devotion. Most of us struggle with at least one of these. For a long time means there are no quick fixes, we must do the work. Without …

Build Your Contentment Muscles

Last weekend we held the Introduction to Yoga Philosophy Workshop on the niyamas, which teach us how self-development and study can lead toward a more balanced existence and aid in our quest for spiritual knowledge. One of the niyamas, santosha, means contentment. It means ‘being happy with whatever we have, practicing inner joy from spiritual wisdom’ (R. Sharath Jois 2013) …

This Is Great. You Should Enjoy It.

One of the many lovely gifts we were given this year was a book that contained Neil Gaiman’s ‘Make Good Art’ speech, delivered to the Philadelphia University of Arts graduating class of 2012.  In it Gaiman provides many words of wisdom and refers to the best advice he never followed. This was when Stephen King, upon noticing Gaimain’s success, said …

Falling over…

Some would have you believe that yoga is always blissful, poised, balanced perfection. Don’t believe it. Anything that helps us grow and change usually involves a bit of effort, discipline and some stumbling along the way. Initially these wobbly collapses might seem ‘embarrassing’ or even ‘unsafe’, but that is usually a sense of self that is reliant on what others …

Injury and Yoga

Yoga is well known as a healing modality for all kinds of human conditions including injuries. Yoga helps to mobilise stiffened joints, stretch scar tissues, bring blood flow to damaged areas and helps us to strengthen muscles around injured joints and muscles to support and protect. But what happens when your injury doesn’t improve or seems to get worse with …