Pose of the Week -Savasana

Savasana, or corpse pose, is best known as the final relaxation after a yoga practice.  It's certainly not as easy as it looks, and that's why I am choosing it for "pose of the week".  First, two references from Yoga Journal: Basic Pose Information Struggle of Savasana I've never been particularly good at clearing my mind …

Dog Yoga

I’m offering this new class for stress reduction. It’s called “dog yoga”. I promise you’ll laugh so much that all of the stress will just melt away. Check out a couple excepts from my class.... Options include one or two dogs, but I highly recommend the “two dog” variety for ultimate relaxation. There were so …

What Being Cold Does to Blood Pressure!

I just finished the second semester of anatomy and physiology and one of the topics we studied was the heart.  I was hoping one of our final exam essay questions would be on blood pressure because I've been measuring mine for over a year and felt I could eloquently discuss the topic, as well as …

1st 90-Day Challenge – Goal 3 Met

When I started this 90-day journey, I came up with five goals that I shared. They were as follows: “Have an abdomen measurement of less than 30 inches”. “Develop a derailment plan that will successfully get me back on the wagon when I lose focus.” “Exercise at least 150 minutes per week and enjoy it.” …

Blood Pressure – Also on the Decline

Since my resting heart rate looked so good, I decided to plot my morning blood pressure measurements over time. I had previously tried to do my average blood pressure over the week (considering all measurements), but there is so much variability over the course of a day that the overall effect of the downward trend …

Insomnia is not my Friend…

Today, I want to share how I believe sleep has the biggest effect on my health.  I may not have a lot of "scientific" research to make this claim, but I do have my own data. Here is my sleep data from 3/15/17.  The averages represent three time periods: The time I stopped being so …

End of March Update

I've been pretty busy the past couple of weeks. We had spring break for the kids. I took a day and a half off to be a tourist in my own home town (no kids, yay!!). I was swamped at work because of my time off and preparing for a business trip. I took said business trip. …

Aches and Pains and Stress, Oh My!

This isn't my week, so far... I don't know if it's because of my three days of eating "crap food", but I feel like a complete physical mess. I'm sure it's more related to poor sleep, but was that caused by my poor nutrition or just from staying up too late two nights in a row? I have no …

Samatvam Yoga Uchyate

...which I just learned means "Yoga is the state of equilibrium". I am reading B.K.S. Inengar "Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health" and the initial chapter is on the life of Inengar. It's so fascinating... Yoga has been a part of my life for many years. My dad practiced yoga when I was a teenager. …