Tag Archives: happiness

yoga and health quotes

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yoga and health quotes: “Happiness is the highest form of health”. What are your thoughts on this ? I think the Dalai Lama is reminding us that inner happiness is the most nourishing lifestyle choice. He is not referring to constantly seeking outside oneself, but rather, to feeling a sense of peaceful fulfillment. Negative thinking steals joy and robs us of our health. The yogis were smart, promoting the breath as link between mind and body, realizing and steering us to calm our minds, improving our mood we seem to improve our health.

In the yogic system, the word for contentment is ‘santosha’ which is one of the niyamas. The path to health is a blend of balancing or re-balancing your body, calming the mind, and learning to breathe calmly through challenges. There is also the personal component to health, making the most nourishing choices, and organizing your life to be meaningful to you. I like this quote because it emphasizes that happiness is with (in) reach.

Cultivating contentment, as I have written before is an art form. I think, at the level of asana, one can be very mindful about how one moves, sensitive to creating conditions for comfort and ease rather than over doing, or, over-stretching. Yesterday at Base, we broke down upward facing dog pose, and the response was great. By breaking the challenge into simplified steps, we found an uplifted backbend instead of a shortened and compressed one.

yoga and health quotes

Endorphins alert!

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Endorphin alert ! “Walk yourself out of your bad mood. Studies show that even a ten minute walk immediately boosts brain chemistry to increase happiness” ~ boosting endorphins ? Absolutely wonderful remedy for stress relief which by definition means stress hormones get defeated by the releasing of endorphins, our happy molecules

Wow! I would say the same thing for a short yoga routine. Do you have a ten minute strategy? Everyone should have a recipe to uplift and boost endorphins. I am certainly available for private yoga lessons to amp up your home practice, or you can download my CD for a track that you can use as you walk to the subway. It is also nice just to know that a walk around the block endorphins alert!

The Path Of Happiness

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The Path Of Happiness : Sometimes it appears as if happiness is like the sun on a cloudy day – hiding! Especially if you are sleep deprived. Where your yoga practice plays in is to balance out the overdoing.

happiness

the path of happiness

Extra tiring week? Stressful? Not sure if you are happy? Something that “feels good” and elicits a calm response in the nervous system is restorative yoga. Everyone seems to be concerned about stretching…you get a great release actually, and the opportunity to teach your nervous system to unwind. Think of balance as calming what is overly active and energizing what is not as strong as it could be. Find your happy place !

Even just placing the calves and feet on a chair or sofa, turning down the lights, and taking 15 minutes for yourself can help you reboot. It may not take away the stressful situations but at least make you less reactive. Soothed nerves can ease mental agitation.

Fatigue and anxiety often accompany breathing difficulties. With gentle stretches that open the chest more mobility is created in the spine, and the emotional tension that restricts your ability to breathe well is loosened up.

We spend a lot of time chasing – whether it is to run and catch a bus, make it to work, to a class, to an appointment. The mode we are in, we also carry towards happiness, chasing it, trying to purchase it, eat it, wear it. Even trying to get the one magic pose that creates it.

“Remember, happiness is a way of travel, not a destination”

vehicle For Happiness

on contentment

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Latest blogpost on MindBodyGreen

 

Every time I think of the word “happiness,” I recall one of my favorite poems by Ven. Lama Gendun Rinpoche: “Happiness cannot be found through great effort or willpower, but is already present in open relaxation and letting go,” he writes.

Wow! Powerful, right? It is certainly easier to connect to a feeling of happiness when you’re not being tested, but is this your default setting? If pressure builds up, do you breathe and release, reboot and move forward with peaceful gratitude, or do you store it, build steam and explode? When things aren’t so easy, what are your attitudes, perceptions, and coping strategies? Is it still contentment, or is this reserved for the one day all the bills are paid, you’ve slept and have eaten well? In other words, are you content regardless of your situation?

Contentment, Patanjali says in Sutra 11.42 is dynamic, as opposed to complacency, which is stagnant. We should be able to look at our life, weed out the toxic relationships and situations to then rebalance on all levels. This requires changing what isn’t working. It also asks us to want what we have, be grateful and see a crisis as a crossroads.Contentment brings us to a new perception of how things are, which calms the mind. It is an attitude that’s independent of outside influences. What you have or don’t have does not change the essence of who you are.

Here’s what you need to do to turn your frown upside down, view adversity as opportunity and connect with the contented you:

1. Stop comparing yourself and your life to others; we all have gifts.

2. Give away something you don’t need; there’s always someone who could use it.

3. When you find yourself complaining, listen to yourself and write down two options for bringing change.

4. Repeat the mantra, “Thank you” more often; it cleans up taking things for granted.

5. Sit, breathe, relax and reboot.

6. Practice (safely) an energizing backbend, to open the body and allow new energy to flow to you.

7. Write down one thing today that makes you smile, and let that energy permeate your core.

Tough times provide opportunity for great inner strength and to connect deeply with what’s important to us. Allow this sustaining virtue of grateful contentment to take root in your life so that your default setting is now rewired for peace and positivity.

 

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