Joanne

I’m a freak about feet. Not in a fetish kind of way but in an everyone needs proper foot function to live their best lives kind of way. When I first started doing yoga, one of my teachers pulled me aside and told me that my arches were ‘fallen. Not flat but just fallen. Needless to say, I was devastated even thought I didn’t know what it meant. I immediately dove into endless hours of […]

Restorative Teacher Training by Lillian Zahra I recently completed my restorative teacher training at the beautiful Nilaya House. It had been a year since my last course, and I’m forever looking to learn more as a teacher and be able to teach a wider range of classes (while also balancing my income from teaching and not spending it all on more courses – although in reality I think this is what does happen). This course […]

Developing a ‘at home’ Restorative Yoga practice can save your life. I know this sounds a bit dramatic but there is a lot of truth to this statement. Creating an environment where the body can drop into deep rest will allow the parasympathetic nervous system to activate, shifting the body into a state of repair and reset. Restorative yoga is a form of yoga that seeks to achieve physical, mental and emotional relaxation with the aid of […]

When you think of osteoporosis you probably have an image of your grandmother or someone sitting in an assisted living center using a walker to get around.  This may be the age group that is most at risk but you really need to start thinking about healthy bone density long before that.  Our bones are alive and therefore constantly changing, our skeleton continues to grow and develop until we are in our early twenties, this […]

How I quit smoking… for good! I was a bit of a badass when I was a teenager, at least I thought I was anyway.  I started smoking cigarettes at 14 years old.  It didn’t take long before I had a full-blown habit. Money seemed to be a problem for most kids my age but my strong work ethic and my maturity level meant I had a steady stream of part time jobs.  I was […]

Parasympathetic Nervous System: Relaxation Response / Rest, Repair & Digest Sympathetic Nervous System:  Stress Response / Fight, Flight, Freeze or Fawn The Relaxation Response is the exact opposite of the stress response.  It is our rest, repair and digest mode and it occurs when the body is relaxed or resting.  It is also known as the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system. Ideally, we want to live, or at least spend most of our time […]

I started doing yoga because I was in pain just about every day.  I was in my early twenties and I was beginning to think that it was a normal part of adult life. I started going to the gym on the advice of a Doctor but I just hated it.  Everything about the gym just felt like a chore.  Luckily there was a yoga class at my gym, it took just one class and […]

Your head is heavy, about 4.5 to 5kg and your neck is designed to balance that weight effortlessly over your shoulders. It is a perfect design actually, so why do so many people suffer from shoulder pain, neck pain and tension headaches? At least half of the people that walk into my yoga class claim that they are experiencing pain in this area on a regular, sometimes daily basis. Is it our lifestyle and commitment […]

Tales from the Kumbh Mela – the holy gathering in India The Kumbh Mela in India is the biggest gathering of human beings on the planet, 100 million people trying to bathe in the holy rivers. With holy men and sadhus from all over India gathering there it’s a fascinating and frankly, interesting spectacle. “I want you to meet the ‘one eye Naga baba’*. His one eye is completely white; they say it’s from looking […]

Being a beginner isn’t easy but in this case it is well worth it! I love yoga. Knowing the rewards that yoga can bring, I often wonder why there are not more people doing it. Everyone can benefit from yoga, regardless of age or level of physical fitness. I encourage my friends to come to classes with me but I hear the same thing over and over again, “I can’t do yoga, I’m not flexible!”  […]