 The energy of your Sun Sign is what motivates you and drives you. Your sun sign is who you are learning to become.
Libra sun is learning to create harmony in their relationships with themselves, others and the world around them. Their planetary ruler is Venus. They are the physical archetype of love. The scales symbolize their need to create balance and restore equilibrium to all affairs. They can hold two opposing viewpoints and feel them equally at the same time. That is powerful. They are the rulers of love. But whats the opposite of love? Fear. It is up to the libra to figure out what to act on. You can usually tell if some is a libra by their beautiful smiles. They are photogenic. They have an eye for symmetry. They are great at decorating homes and putting things together. They are friendly, social and enjoy meaningful cordial interactions with others. They do not like conflict but will always seek compromise if they feel something isn't fair. They seek peace. Sometimes they indecisive, manipulative and people pleasers. They can be quite flirtatious. They easily get what they want and have their way. Deep down a Libra knows what love is and what love is supposed to look like. They showcase love. Libras you know deep down what love is, better than anyone. Instead of acting out of fear act out of love. We need more love in this world. Let love lead the way, and others will follow.
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 So if you read post 5 Ways Stress Affects Our System you know what your body is telling you when it comes to stress. Let's talk about ways to destress.
1. Breathe When you change the flow of your breath your mental state. This easy because you can do it anytime and anywhere. When we are stressed our inhalation becomes extremely long and exhale is typically very short. Sometimes we are so stressed out we forget to exhale. Have you ever noticed this? The quality of our inhalation is energizing and stimulating while the quality of our exhale is calming and relaxing. Practice: Right now, noticed you breathe without changing it for about 30 seconds. Notice the quality of your inhales and exhales. Notice where your breath enters your body and where it leaves. Observe the quality of your inhales and exhales. Is one longer or shorter than the other? Are their pauses in between breaths, or is your breath smooth? Now, change your breathing. Take 3 deep inhales through your nose and exhale through your mouth. Then, go back to observing your breath. Feel your breath moving in and out of your nose. See if you can make your exhalation slightly longer than your inhale. Continue doing this for as long as you'd like. If you become uncomfortable at any time just stop controlling your breath normal. 2. Go outside Nothing is better than fresh air and sunshine. Nature is powerful for fighting stress. You don't even have to do but just "be". I try to go outside at least 3 times a day. It helps me disconnect. When I come back inside I feel refreshed and ready to go. 3. Talk it out Call a friend or meet up with a friend and talk it out. When our brain feels swirly and overwhelmed sometimes its best to talk about what is going on in it. Getting your thoughts out is a great way to lower your stress level. There is no escaping stress. When you are feeling stressed take not of it. Notice where stress is occurring in your body and make an effort to incorporate some de-stressing practices into your routine! These are just 3 of my favorite ways to de-stress. What are yours?  So far the month of September has been pretty hectic. I had my regular classes, privets and yoga teacher training. Yes, I was stressed.
When stress is triggered stress hormones are released in your body. The hormones trigger your fight or flight system. Fight or flight function is helpful when you are truly in a stressful situation (like if you in a life or death situation). When too many stress hormones are released all the time it can negatively affect how our whole system functions. Here are some ways stress affects your system. 1. Stress Affects Your Mood We all know this. Stress = bad mood. Stress can trigger everything from anxiety, inability to focus, sadness, irritability, and anger. When someone is stuck in stress it can make some mood disorders worse. Stress has a huge impact on our mood. 2. Stress Affects Your Digestion When I am stressed out my body feels constricted, and tight. That constriction affects digestion. Stress affects how food moves in and out of our body and can result in constipation or diarrhea. Stress affects what type of food we consume and how much we consume. When we are stressed we will likely reach for convenience food-food that overly processed, overly salted, and full of oils and fat. This food can be hard on our digestive system. Notice if you feel more bloated, gassier or having issues in the bathroom this might be related to stress. 3. Stress Affects our energy levels When you are stressed your liver produces extra glucose to give your system a boost. Again, this is helpful in really stressful situations that may be life or death. When you are stressed your body is constantly having to produce these hormones that send you on a roller coaster of energy. 4. Stress Produces Lack of Clarity When we are stressed out and our mind is racing around we may feel frazzled and disorganized. This can lead to headaches. If someone already suffers from headaches, stress can make them worse. This makes it imposable to have clarity on situations. 5. Stress Affects our Sleep Stress impacts our sleep. I hardly ever have issues sleeping but, when my day/week is thrown off so is my sleep. Stress impacts the quality and quantity of our sleep. Lack of sleep affects other areas of our life. We aren't as motivated to move our body, our metabolism slows down, our food cravings are different and so on. What ways has stressed impacted your system? Look out for my next blog post as I share ways to destress.  I'm writing this to encourage everyone who hasn't tried Yin yoga to try it!
Benefits of a Yin yoga practice: -Increases circulation -Balances and improves the flow of prana or chi -Improves flexibility Reduces the insane amount of stress and anxiety -Improves joint mobility and releases fascia -Calms the body and mind Yin yoga is a floor practice, with little to no standing postures. The Yin postures are held longer to gently stretch connective tissues. Yin yoga teaches relaxing of the muscles around the connective in order to stimulate and remove blockages in the body internal organs and system. In hatha yoga class postures involve lengthening the spine, stretching, and engaging muscles. Whereas Yin yoga the muscles are relaxed so the body can completely release. Yin yoga teaches you the art of stillness. In stillness is where you learn to observe the physical sensations of the body and your emotional connection to the sensation, without the story. This practice gives you time and space, allowing emotions, thoughts, and feelings to surface and flow through you. It requires tons of energy from your body to keep thing suppressed yin helps you release physical and emotional tension in your body. I encourage you to try out this amazing practice with me! I teach a Yin yoga class every Thursday from 9:00am-10:00am at Temple Yoga Wellness. I teach a monthly Yin & Restorative Class the Last Friday of the month 6:30pm-8:00pm at Temple Yoga Wellness Center. Temple Yoga Wellness Center is located at 318 N. 2nd St. Temple, Tx.  I have ADD (Attention Defiste Disorder) Yes, its a real thing. I have struggled with maintaining focus all my life. Keeping focus is harder for some people, more than others. I thought I'd share some ways to help you improve your focus.
1. Unplug Get rid of as many distractions as you possibly can. Silent your phone. (NOT ON VIBRATE, OFF, OR DONT DISTURB) If you are working on a laptop close out social media and your email. Try to work in a space with little too no distractions. 2. Prepare Your Brain to Focus Let your body and mind find stillness before you begin your work. Find a quiet place, sit in a tall comfortable sitting position. Take a few deep inhales and exhales. In through your nose and out through your mouth. Bring awareness/attention to your chest. Feel your chest rising and falling on each breath as you breathe in and out of your nose. Do this for about 5-8 minutes or until you feel focused and calm. If you want to cultivate focus practice attention through meditation. 3. Doodle or Listen to Music If I am listening to a lecture I just doodle. It helps me stabilize my mind and keeps me at an optimal level of focus. Doodling aids in cognitive performance and recollection. Listening to music does not help me no matter if the music has words or not. Music only distracts me. Some people find it easier to focus on their thoughts with music. If you have never tried music or doodling to help you focus, give it a shot. 4. Take short breaks After focusing hard and for long periods our mind gets tired and even more distracted. Give yourself short 10-15 minute breaks then come back to your project starting the steps over again. These are just some tricks I use to improve my focus. How do you stay focused?  In January I set an intention to be more active on social media and connect with my students on a personal level.
If you've followed me on social media (Instagram and Facebook) you know I've been much more active. Last year, the only time I posted on social media was to advertise my upcoming events and classes. My online presence was more advertising than sharing. I've always had a difficult time sharing and opening up to people unless I'm sure of them. Thus far, this year has been about vulnerability. Opening up to others requires one to be vulnerable and that can be scary. I'm learning that it's ok to be vulnerable. The more I open up to people, the more I learn about myself and my experiences in the world. You hear me say this all the time... "We all share the same experience. My experience is your experience. Your experience is my experience. Without you, I'm unable to have the experience I'm currently having. Without me, neither are you." This is true. I started blogging this year opening up about lifestyle and yoga practice because I want to share more with my students. Since I began sharing I've had meaningful responses and connections with others. Now I realize if I share my experiences and knowledge with the world the abler I can help others create new experiences. Initially, my intention was to help grow my business and connect more with my students. I didn't recognize how the intention would help me connect with myself on a deeper level nor how much I would grow.  Impatiences represents the desire to act. When one is impatient they will go against the flow and always will be offbeat. Ask yourself when are you the most impatient? How do you feel offbeat? To have patience is to also have experienced impatience. Being impatience only makes us human. Patience is about connecting with the world around us. Patience is about allowing yourself to catch up to the world, not for the world to catch up to us. Patience has nothing to do with waiting. It has to do with pausing. Sometimes one must pause to understand the essence in play around them. We must slow down enough to see what is really happing around us. We should move at a pace that feels best for us not move at the beat of the outside world. We will then only fell more disconection. We are all at different stages of our life, practice, and career. By pausing and marching to the beat of our own drum we can transform impatience into patience. Practicing patience is a way of treating ourselves with kindness and it helps us accept things as they are.
How do you practice patience? What advice do you have?  One of the most important this for our health is sleep and most of us are not getting enough of it. Your body needs more than five hours of sleep. You might feel fine running on 5 hours of sleep, but your body needs more rest.
I thought I'd share advice on creating a nightly routine that helps support your sleep. How we sleep affects how we function and our overall health. Getting an adequate amount of sleep can help you with:
My goal is to sleep 6-8 hours each night. I am an early bird. This means I must be in bed no later than 10:30 pm. To have this bedtime I had to create a routine. This is how I do it! 1. Start Off Early Start preparing your body for bed at least 45 minutes - 1 Hour before you actually need to be in bed. If I need to be in bed by 10:30 pm. I need to start getting ready for bed at 9:30 pm. 2. Turn Off Electronics We must limit light and stimulation at least 1 hour before we go to sleep. This means no TV or phones in bed. We want our brain to shut off before bed and being bombarded with things can be hard to fall asleep. I recommend putting your phone on the other side of the room every night. This will keep you less distracted from the light. If you use your phone for an alarm moving your phone away will also force you to get out of bed in the morning. 3. Set the temperature & start your diffuser Sleeping in a cool room promotes more restful sleep. I sleep with the ceiling fan on and set the temperature to 65-70 degrees at night. I also start up my diffuser using a lavender and cedarwood blend. After the temperature and diffuser are set I change into my PJs and finish the rest of my routine. 4. Make a Cup of Tea Tea just makes me relaxed and calm. Especially my night-time blend. At your local grocery store, you can find many nighttime herbal blends. If you drink a sleepy time blend try to go to sleep 30 minutes after finishing your cup. 5. My Skincare Routine I am very anal about my skincare routine because signals my brain that is bedtime and its also relaxing. 6. Pick Up a Book I always try to read one chapter of a book in bed. It's not too stimulating. Almost as soon as I pick up my book, I am soon asleep. It is a great way to ease me into sleep. As far as my routine that does it for the most part. Do you have any tricks that help you fall asleep or feel more rested? Comment Below  What is Hatha Yoga or What is Vinyasa yoga? I want to spend some time explaining the differences and similarity between the two classes. Watch the video that goes with this post! Hatha Yoga is an ancient practice. Hatha is a lineage of yoga that began around 800 CE and is a style most practiced today. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika was written by Swatmarma in the mid-1300s and is the classical manual of Hatha yoga. Hatha yoga teaches a six-limbed practice.
Hatha yoga is my favorite style of yoga because I have to explore my breath and the sensations of my body in the shapes in creating. Unlike Hatha yoga, Vinyasa yoga is not a lineage of yoga. Vinyasa means order or placement. In Vinyasa you are continually moving or transitioning from pose to pose. Whereas hatha yoga you hold postures. The transitions are very strong, heating and smooth. Vinyasa yoga for the most part honer the sequencing principles of hatha yoga through more transition is incorporated. Vinyasa yoga you are constantly moving. I believe students should have a strong hatha yoga background to safely, and effectively transition through the postures. Both Hatha and Vinyasa yoga are similar because you will more than likely still be doing the same postures. Hatha yoga is more relaxing while Vinyasa yoga is more energizing. Both practices help with flexibility, strength, and focus on bring your body towards balances. Which style of yoga do you enjoy the most and why? Comment below to share! |
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