All of a sudden, the term lifestyle medicine is everywhere. I even heard it on the radio this morning while taking my son to school. I like the term – it’s a hipper way of saying healthy living, and it’s so true – the ways in which you live your life are ultimately good for you or bad for you. Lifestyle medicine is about choosing the good for you variation more often than not! Now, there’s big lifestyle medicine and then...
I know the common idea surrounding dressing for success is work-related, being neat, “put together” and looking professional. To me, however, dressing for success has another connotation: it’s about wellness, productivity and feeling authentically good. First thing is footwear. Is your footwear inhibiting movement? Does it slow you down? Does it hurt? If you answer yes to any of these questions take those bad influences off your feet immediately! I’m not kidding around when it...
Drishti is a Sanskrit word meaning focused gaze. It’s about where you are physically looking, but it’s also where you place your attention, even when your eyes are shut. A yoga pose, like Warrior II, has a very specific physical drishti, vital to doing the pose correctly. As you can see from the above photo, the drishti is laser-like, directed to the tip of one’s middle finger. This is by design, as a means of fine-tuning alignment, developing concentration, and heightening a sense of self-awareness. When...
Many of us feel a bit stuck at the moment, waiting for things to turn around. I’m sensing a great big collective “in limbo” status, which to be honest, I find agonizing. Feeling powerless is no fun, and the first reaction to this sensation is to do nothing, and wait. But your time is now. Go. Go drink a big glass of water. Go breathe with awareness. Go workout. Or go cook a great meal or organize your closet or...
There’s a new video fit tip today on Ellen Barrett Mindful Movement called Breathing Your Shoulders Down. It’s short and sweet, and I think we all could benefit by watching it right now, because it’s about releasing neck tension. I’m seeing lots of neck tension in people (myself included) across the board – kids and adults, men and women, on TV and in real life. Ugh… let’s loosen up people! As a fit pro, I am particularly clued in to neck tension because it’s dangerous. It...
Did you see that full moon last night? It was simply gorgeous – so big and bright. As I was basking in the moonlight, I felt lots of cosmic love. I know that might sound strange, but the moon is my homegirl, and we go way back. Yes, I’m one of those people who go on midnight hikes on full moon nights and celebrate the new moon with my own intention setting ritual. Even as a young child, I was hypnotized...
Originally – way way back – the idea for this workout came from emails from you. Many people wanted a longer walking workout, so my first working title was “Long Walk” but my 11-year-old son put the kibosh on that saying, “That is way too basic.” The next working title was “Endurance Walk” which I held onto for a few months but never really loved. I finally settled on Walk With Weights because after describing the workout to someone I said,...
Fear gets lodged in the heart center, smack dab in the middle of our lungs. It tightens and constricts. It makes our breath shallow and rolls our shoulders forward. Prolonged fear literally stops us in our tracks. I am usually not a fearful person and I definitely try to steer clear of fear-mongering, but I honestly haven’t been able to completely avoid it in 2020. It’s at the grocery store, on the cover of Time...
Every week, I teach yoga to a group teenagers. I adore them and class is never boring. After over five years, I’ve learned to expect the energy of this group to be one of two things: hyper and unfocused OR lethargic and low-energy. You’d think different energies would require different teaching strategies, but actually I ‘treat” these energies the same. I simply bring their attention to their breath. Sounds unremarkable, right? Yet, I’m finding breathing...
The last big video shoot we had for Ellen Barrett Mindful Movement was February 24, 2020. Who knew that craziness would ensue so soon after that day? By Mid-March 2020, life as we knew it was turned upside down. All summer long, I plotted my next video shoot and prayed everyone involved stayed healthy and prayed our government wouldn’t close down production. I prayed the weather (and the power!) would cooperate too. Well, my prayers...
