I’ve been on a big “nervous system kick” lately and one of the biggest enemies to a happy, healthy and regulated nervous system is a workout that is too intense. What is too intense? That’s the million dollar question and the answer is: everything and nothing! It’ll be different for each and every one of us, AND it’ll be different from one day to the next. Movement is movement. The way in which we approach movement is what makes or breaks it....
Apparently, I’m extra sensitive. I can get angry, sad and disgusted very very easily. Litter on the side of the road? Anger. An injured kitten? Sad. The ingredients in fast food? Disgusted! These “negative” emotions, when they hit me, hit me straight in the heart chakra. There’s a tightening to my chest muscles, a collapse of my posture, and a restriction in my breathing. Yup, it’s as if an arrow pierces my heart. Not coincidentally, ancient yogi’s, long long ago, named the heart region of the body “anahata”...
“We made it through another winter.” I’ve been saying that a lot – more than I have in years passed. It wasn’t a particularly “tough” winter. We didn’t have any crazy storms or too many school cancelations. I’d actually say, as far as winters go, it was uneventful. Yet, this year, I feel like I had to dig deep to survive it. I survived the lack of sun. I survived needing extra time to put...
There’s a lot of talk these days about the nervous system and for good reason. We live in a hectic world and our nervous systems are constantly put to the test. I think many of us “soldier on” day after day and never care for our nervous systems. Why is this? For one, because our society indirectly rewards the “type-A go-go-go” personality, making a jacked up nervous system seem like a positive thing. And two,...
When I was in my twenties, and completely clueless about bone health, I trained an opera singer, who was in her sixties. To this day, she’s the most disciplined person I have ever been around. In order to perform at such a high level, and keep her voice in tip top shape, she was all in. She fastened a silk scarf around her neck to keep her throat warm! She traveled a ton, but whenever...
After two solid days of rain, it finally stopped. It was soggy and humid, and the air was thick. The trail was muddy and I was sweating profusely underneath my raincoat, but with temperatures in the low 50’s, I needed to wear it. Basically, it was gross outside. Not ideal conditions for a long hike, but that’s what I intended to do – an eight mile hike up to the pinnacle. 10minutes in, I could have...
If you watch little kids play, you’ll notice: A. they love being on the ground and B. they are very comfortable kneeling. Somewhere along the road to adulthood, our love of sans furniture, and our ease in kneeling, goes by the wayside. Perhaps you think this is just a natural trajectory, and we simply get taller and tighter with each passing year, so by the time we’re twenty-something, kneeling hurts. I’d like to state for the record that, unless there is a legitimate injury or...
Why is it so hard to get an organic apple? Why do I have to pay so much for clean water? Why is gym class only one time per week for my child? I don’t think the “powers that be” care about us. I really don’t. I think there are many very caring and loving people in the world, but I think the FDAs and the AMAs and the USDAs are corrupted and have put dollars...
Remember when fitness studios had classes called High-Impact Aerobics and Low-Impact Aerobics? Also, did you know there was (and is) NIA which stands for Non-Impact Aerobics? I’m bringing the topic of impact up today because “impact” doesn’t get mentioned much anymore. I guess it’s a bit overlooked, but mostly, what has happened I think, is impact level is now getting clumped in under the intensity level umbrella. The problem with this is 99percent of the time, is it assumed that high impact is higher intensity. But is it? ...
“A boat in the harbor is safe, but in time its bottomwill rot out.” – H. Jackson Brown The older I get the more spiritual I feel about the human body. I mean, just wow…what a divinely designed masterpiece, right? We’re lucky to have a body and even when a part of it is injured or out of whack, it’s important to remember there are millions of other parts in perfect flow. An especially vulnerable part of the body is our knees....
