Did you know that approximately 1 in 7 Canadians suffer from insomnia? Are you one of them? Yoga can work wonders for insomnia. A dedicated bedtime yoga routine is guaranteed to calm your body and relax your mind so that you can catch some much needed z’s.
Author Archives: Mara
Great Outdoor Yoga
Outdoor yoga has been steadily gaining popularity in cities across North America. Even if you are the most dedicated yoga student in the world, it can be pretty hard to stay in the yoga studio with the summer sun calling your name. There are so many reasons to practice yoga outdoors.
Yoga For Men
Did you know that yoga used to be exclusively for men? Yoga grew out of the ancient Indian Shramana tradition, when young men would leave home on a spiritual pilgrimage. Only in more recent times has the practice of yoga been adopted by women and, ironically, in the West it has been women who have predominated. But this too is changing fast, as more and more men are bravely stepping into the yoga studio and onto their yoga mats.
Too Hot for Yoga? Get Cool with Yin Yoga!
Here is how you can practice yoga through the hot summer months — and stay cool while doing it. Begin a yin yoga practice, which will help cool your body and release extra heat built up by the sizzling summer sun. Yin yoga has a cooling effect on the body and provides a deep stretch for your joints and connective tissue (fascia).
How to Find the Best Yoga Music
My quest for yoga music — or “free yoga music” to be totally honest with you — usually comes to an abrupt halt when I am confronted with so much choice. How can you sift through the myriad of songs and albums out there on the great world wide web without a compass?
How to Meditate
When you sit on your yoga mat and dive into any of the practices that are currently called ‘meditation techniques’, you are actually engaging in Dharana: learning how to meditate. You are practising how to focus and still the mind and hold your attention in one spot or on one thing.
How to Practice Yoga for Others
Have you ever dedicated your yoga practice to someone else? Have you ever practised yoga for the benefit of all beings? If so, you may have felt the levity of surrender, as you shifted your attention away from yourself, towards the bigger picture, seeing the interconnectedness of everyone and everything on this planet.
What is Meditation?
What is meditation? There are two distinct ideas in yoga that come together in contemporary yoga practice to form what we now define as meditation. One is dharana (concentration) and there other is dhyana (contemplation or meditation). Knowing the distinction between concentration and meditation is the key to understanding what meditation truly is.
Yoga for Weight Loss
Yoga for weight loss is not a new concept. Many yoga teachers and yoga writers have focused on the epidemic of obesity that plagues North American society. But here’s a unique and more holistic spin on the idea of losing weight.
Tapas: The Original Hot Yoga
What comes to mind when you think of the words: yoga, fire and purification? Do you picture a sweltering hot yoga class jam packed with people dripping sweat all over their yoga mats, wiping their exhausted looking faces with yoga towels?