Ayurvedic living Archives - Page 2 of 14 - Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Dolphin Pose Yoga + Water Animal Flexibility

Dolphin pose yoga is a common pose like Downward Dog. Both animals are enticing to pet and add joy to our celebration of life.

Dolphin pose yoga is named after a cute dolphin like this guy.

But if you can’t get your hands on petting a dolphin, today is National Strawberry Parfait Day.

You can celebrate a simple moment of joy with a summertime strawberry lemon parfait you can make that’s healthy and 100% delicious!

…You can also get in your Dolphin pose right where you are! 🐬

For inspiration, dolphins are one of the friendliest animals to us out there… and we think of them as our happy, summer ocean friends we can pet.

…Next to our dog land friends. And maybe that’s why the yoga Dolphin pose is similar to Downward Dog… and both poses are done on dry land.

In Dolphin pose yoga moves, instead of your arms fully stretched out, your elbows bend while your forearms and palms are laying flat like pancakes on the mat.

Because of this, your nose in awareness is also a lot closer to the mat.

…Like dolphin beaks called rostroms that are in placement where noses usually are on mammals.

This gives dolphins their appearance that they’re smiling and then when they show their pearly whites, we smile… and maybe that’s partially how they charmed their way to Hollywood as celebrities in Dolphin Tale with Florida home perks. 😉

But back to noses, dolphins have blow holes at the top of their heads where air is connected to their lungs.

This is where they breathe like us (and not like fish with gills)… and we can remember them in our daily Ayurvedic yoga breathing.

On the mat (…maybe you’re there now?), our Dolphin pose yoga fins and palms are also flat on the mat for good yoga form.

You get a good stretch in your entire body from head-to-toe in Dolphin pose yoga moves.

What you may notice that’s different is your body formation.

Your top half of your body may not be the same length as your bottom half.

If you have long legs and a shorter torso, then you won’t be as high peaked.

Your upside down “V” in the air will look different if that’s your body description. So you get to play around (or splash around 💦) in your Dolphin pose.

…You’ll be more like a hill than a mountain by design.

And that helps you to embrace your unique body and special creature that you are!

…You look more like a dolphin swimming instead of jumping hoops in dolphin show formation. 😁

Like us, dolphins are social and intelligent creatures with abilities.

To get more of their vibe, you can swim with a dolphin and not be afraid that you’ll be thrown.

Well, I take that back…

Once upon a time I swam with dolphins… or a better description is I was thrown from a dolphin’s beak landing into a pool of water.

That was a dolphin ride! Even though in the beginning I wasn’t sure what to expect 🤔

But I did know dolphins are happy and friendly creatures, so I knew we’d get along great in the end. And we did that day.

So all was good…

And I got my Vata anti-worry and cool and simple Pitta balancing self-therapy day in.

In that spirit, you can try these other water animal yoga poses that help with flexibility, and you can do on dry land without a splash.

Water Animal Poses

You can use Dolphin pose as a transition break pose before ending in Fish Pose (that’s an opposite position pose on your back), reminding us that dolphins aren’t fish.

And if you’re starting in Dolphin, you can then transition into a Turtle Pose, turning and facing sideways on the mat.

This way you can use the length of the mat and get a new perspective of your surroundings.

💡This is a good metaphor in life to change your perspectives for good outcomes.

Turtle Pose is especially good for shoulder streching and tight hamstrings where you’ll feel a good stretch in those parts.

In the pose, your shoulders are a bit hunched over forward to give that turtle back look. 🐢

Turtle is a low to the ground pose where you’re seated and legs are ideally in “V” formation laying flat on the mat, or with slightly bent knees until you get more flexible.

Yoga is a journey.

Then you span your wings (that were fins in Dolphin pose) as far from one end to the other underneath your legs.

Maybe you bend forward with body closer to the mat if you can.

You can challenge yourself daily to bend forward as much as you can in the pose, and then build up your flexibility with knees straightening and legs flattening down toward the mat.

Then after you’ve spent enough time as a turtle, you can turn into a frog.

…Which btw, turtles are reptiles and frogs are amphibians even though they both live on land and water.

And in your land-water abilities, still optimizing the length of the mat, you can flow your legs that were positioned forward in a “V” previously… and move them behind you like frog legs.

Your arms can rest on the mat and floor in front of you.

Frog Pose is exceptional for inner hip and thigh flexibility.

🎉Between turtle and frog, you’re getting full upper leg stretches. Your legs are in the largest muscle group in the body.

You optimize your legs in Frog pose that looks just like the yoga pose name, so it’s easy to remember and get into the position.

If you’re a swimmer and know frog swimming strokes, then you’ll be a natural. 🐸

This is a good pose to challenge yourself and see how low you can go eventually, but if you can’t get there just yet (and still feeling a bit like a turtle), blocks are good to rest your forearms on.

For any yoga pose, don’t hurt yourself by overdoing it the first go-round.

Let yourself open up slowly like a lotus 🪷 and that way you protect your joints and tissues from injury.

💡It’s better to start up high and easy and then work your challenging way down, down, and more down to the mat over time.

In a good way, yoga can take you out of your regular norm and reset your mind because usually going down references in your day are easier than getting up and going.

You can pause and think about that one in the pose. And the longer you spend in the pose, the better! 😊

If you spend 5 seconds in a pose, that counts for total time. If you spend 30 seconds in one pose, that’s 6 times the amount for total time.

Not that you’re playing a game of keeping score, but the point is the longer you spend, the greater the daily benefit… and for next time.

Yoga flexibility is all about gradually stretching further each time.

The longer you hold the pose, the more flexible you become in your body’s abilities.

So don’t expect it to happen the first time.

And if you take a break or a season off from yoga, you’ll start over in flexibility. BUT, the your body cells don’t forget so you’ll likely get there quicker than the first time you tried.

Like dolphins that have good memories, body cells also have good memory.

And like the turtle fable metaphor, slow and steady wins the race.

If you’re naturally super flexible, you can rest your forehead on the back of your hands in front of you for both poses.

Then to round out your water poses, you can finish by going into a seated position and laying back into Fish pose. You can do a Dolphin pose yoga move before your transition if you like.

Fish Pose is a great stretch for your neck.

You lay back with your elbows resting on your mat behind your shoulders like you’re catching some rays. ☀️

Then you let your neck rest backward behind you.

Your neck could be wound up as we spend most of our day with our heads and necks leaning forward especially if we work most our day on a device.

So a counteracting reverse pose like Fish Pose helps our neck unwind.

Before you try it full on without prep, it’s good to stretch your neck looking up first to get it more ready and flexible.

Our necks are delicate because they have such small muscles that also have to hold up our heads that weigh like bowling balls.

Like other areas of injury, necks can take weeks to fully heal so be gentle the first few times.

For precaution, a good pre-stretch for the stretch can be practicing looking up toward the ceiling at least 15 seconds several times a day.

I micro-habit stack this move while I’m filling up the filtered water pitcher that takes about that amount of time.

You can also do head circular motions wherever you are and turn your neck from side to side. Those are good if you spend a lot of time car seated.

Hope this keeps you encouraged in your yoga moves and instruction. Stay cool! 😎

Weight Loss Diets for Kapha Body

Weight loss diets are a prime topic for many of us these days. Healthy eating and dieting is front and center especially with age and slower metabolisms that’s common in a natural Kapha body.

This was my Sunday brunch. Recipe on the saffron shrimp white omelet below. 🍤

Let me first start by saying that food is a passionate lifestyle for me where tasty and healthy is a food pairing marriage from heaven.

…I started out as a buttery hotel food catering professional and moved into more healthy olive oil menu event planning in Mediterranean restaurants not too long ago.

Even though I’ve retired from those corporate industries, the experiences live daily in me and is my way of life I live and breathe. And why I’m writing and researching on the topics daily.

…I also do believe you can eat deliciously daily like a healthy foodie and still keep your consistent healthy weight whether you’re a Vata, Pitta, or Kapha.

There are challenges, especially for natural Kapha bodies where a slower metabolism is common.

I have some tips and strategies in this article for changing ways without giving up tastes.

And finding a good sustainable and healthy way of eating is still front and center the best way. That hasn’t changed much.

What has changed is that good weight loss diet plans are constantly changing because research changes that informs us.

The diet meaning here is the little “d” word as in what you eat and not the big “D” diet word of focusing on what not to eat that weight loss diets often focus on.

I like to focus on the positives for healthy change. When you focus on positives, you can more easily move on.

And as we evolve toward the future, we get better researched information that show up as health trends.

So most of what we’ve done in the past is not our fault. We’re fed information we believe that can become obsolete and no longer useful.

People don’t automatically change, but the research changes our behaviors and then that changes our culture and people’s behaviors as a whole.

Then as we evolve, the new information can be contradictory to past examples.

One controversial example today is healthy fats we learn are now good for weight loss diets because they help keep us feeling full.

We know today that it’s not just how many calories in and how many calories out, as all calories are not created equal.

Healthy fats aren’t the lowest calories in the house but healthy fats are healthy macros.

From last week’s blog article, you can listen to my healthy fat journey I had over the decades compared to today’s healthy fat foods list.

Compared to my catering days, we’ve come a long way!

Oh, and then there are the developing research areas. One evolving research example is that some foods that cause our bodies issues are high glycemic load carbs that spike insulin.

This one I embraced in the Inflammation-Free Diet book that I picked up decades ago. Since then, research in those areas has evolved and happy gut health has exploded.

Those were pre-mind-body balance days.

And so often it’s a mindset change choice we get to make with certain types of foods as we have built relationships with our foods that are hard to shake off.

Changing food mindsets not because of taste changes preferences, but because of wanting to live healthier lives is a good healthy push start.

When I started out as an adult, low fat foods were hailed for weight loss diets and healthy benefits. All fats were considered fats and bad.

So one college summer I ate all low fat foods as what I learned from the research at the time for weight loss Diets (with a big “D”).

I moved to the beach and worked at nearby ocean seafood restaurants.

Being a care-free summer when most of us want to eat lighter anyway in Pitta season, I thought that would be a good opportunity to get super slim.

I was skinny fat in today’s standards. I’m naturally a Vata body, but we all have our relative sizes in our one-and-only-body we get to live in and make decisions for.

My strategy then was avoiding all high fats (including healthy fats that we didn’t know about). I was scanning nutrition facts on labels for fat content.

Pasta was and is one of my fave foods that passed the test.

So, I went on a mostly pasta diet.

I ate pasta and a certain low-fat cookie in a green box that was popular at the time. I don’t see them around today.

It took just a few weeks for me to see that I had gained weight I never had before.

Most of us know those yo-yo diets where you gain all the weight back and then some more. That’s what happened to me.

So using percentages I had gained about 10% when I was trying to lose about 5%.

The principle is the same for anyone in their body so there’s no healthy comparing between people. The healthy way is to choose for your body.

And weight cycling can happen easily when you start to crave all the foods you’ve known to love, but aren’t eating. 🥲

I was a newbie at weight loss plans. So I didn’t have any experience with food willpower.

I just loved all foods and they loved me back without question. It was unconditional love that I didn’t feel in other areas of my life.

…and once I got a taste back into the real world of tastes again, I couldn’t stop.

And that’s how it is for most of us where certain foods are addictive.

These days, we can use low-carb, healthy fats and healthy proteins to point us in the better direction.

I’m following along with this better directed macros plan. And not my former macaroni plan. 🍝

I’ve seen the improved results as compared to decades ago where I learned that calorie counting is hard work.

No More Hardwork Calorie Counting

Calorie counting is hard work and exercising to burn calories is even harder work.

Today we know it doesn’t pay off consistently in the long run like eating healthy regularly that can be very enjoyable.

So saving ourselves the trouble from learning better information is a better weight loss plan.

What helps the most is giving your body what your natural body wants.

Some healthy foods are universally healthy to most bodies and some are unique often told by the story of our individual body’s tastes and preferences.

Ayurvedic food categories for our balances and imbalances are more predictable, where we crave certain tastes (sweet, sour, bitter, or salty) that are found in healthy foods.

We can make the natural switch to following our Ayurvedic preferences.

I compare it to getting off an alarm clock that’s like processed foods. An alarm is not when your body naturally wants to get up or do the activity you’ve set the alarm to.

If you naturally follow your body’s time instincts, you become naturally attuned to time changes and circadian rhythm that’s like the eating healthy balanced way.

Finding your subset healthy food list is a healthy balance. Many of the foods are also anti-inflammatory grocery list foods.

And if weight loss is a goal of yours, also focusing on keeping veggie fiber carbs balanced at the top of the list helps.

If you’re a balanced Kapha body, then also lean into bitter tasting and astringent foods for weight loss diets (again the little “d” diet for what you do eat).

If off-balance, that’s where we can get into trouble until you restore balance. It’s easy to tell if you’re off balance with clues around you and a simple body balance quiz.

Healthy Weight Loss Diets

If you eat mostly healthy foods, you also slowly turn your taste buds to healthier choices.

You desire the healthy foods and crave less of the bad. It’s your lifestyle choice that makes your healthy intentions and changes your tastes.

…Like sugar habits that you can transform starting with plant-based breakfasts (I’m living proof 😊). I’m all about low-sugar baking that pleases the Vata sweet tooth.

Healthy ingredient and food substitution is a good weight loss strategy, that also develops creativity skills as a side benefit.

And when you prep, cook, and make your own goods you have more control over what you put in your body. You’re rewarded for the time and effort you put in. 🎉

…Cooking and baking daily, I’m in better shape today than I was last year, definitely from college years, and anytime in between…

I’m feeling nostalgic today because I wrote this Un-Diet Guide twenty plus years ago that I found.

I wasn’t blogging or writing anything else back then. So coming up with a 73-page manual with recipes was interesting at the very least (…maybe even strangely prophetic for my interests today).

Un-Diet Guide for weight loss diets.

Today my evolved manual would include sustainable healthy living meal prep habits and fasting once a week (but no yo-yo fasting habits).

When you stay consistent and keep your favorite celebrational food habit in moderation, you don’t yo-yo or go overboard one day when the stress situation arises or willpower gives in.

Then there’s no obsessing and making our binge food dreams happen. I learned that the hard way (and maybe you did too on your food journey).

Overall keeping most meals, snacks, and days as eating healthy real foods gives us our best results.

And when you choose your ingredients for meals and dishes, you do a couple of healthy things:

You become more intentional about what you source and put in your body. Every ingredient and amount you’ve sourced and researched. You know on some level what you’re putting into your body.

You also get to try new foods to bring in more rainbow variety, new flavors, and aromatic spices to your life.

That’s exciting to me (…you too?).

Never being bored with foods is a healthy norm.

You never grow out of loving food because there’s always a healthy substitution to turn to.

We’re not meant to be bored or avoiding eating. Our hunter gatherer forefathers didn’t live that way.

They were inventive and foraged for new tastes and ways.

Finding Your Lose Weight Food Diet

Wherever you are on your journey for trying new foods, it helps to carve out time to be food mindful.

When I first started out baking and cooking daily, I had to adjust to carving out time to think about meals and sniff spices.

My motivation was eating but also creating colorful plates.

I always enjoyed that part of my job in catering where I got to decorate food with food. It’s fun to play with your food.

In the same way, you can think of food as a creative outlet and the cherry on top is you get to eat and share it at the end.

You can’t do that with all other passions, like say making paintings that you either need to find a place to hang or else find a way to pass them onto others.

Embracing food passions can be an easy creative outlet.

I realized early on that I wasn’t the home kitchen maker that wanted to make complicated dishes.

Being easy and creative for me was not following a recipe if I didn’t have to.

So early on I didn’t create recipes at all. But now I embrace them as a way to share easy baking steps and shortcuts.

And I believe there’s always room to change ingredients, amounts, and methods.

Because even if you use the same ingredients and amounts provided in a recipe, so many factors could change your bakes…

Like temperature in the oven, outside temps, and materials used. …and especially how much love you put into your dishes.🧡

If you create when you don’t feel like it or on half-empty energy, your dishes will reflect and not be alive.

The myth that baking relies on recipe precision is a myth. Great baking I’m familiar with is an art and a science that you feel good about.

That’s where I came up with cooking this 15-minute Sunday brunch Saffron Shrimp Egg White Omelet dish that you can tastefully make and is good on a low-carb weight loss plan. 🍳

Burnout Prevention

Burnout is more common in the hot months and with modern Western style living.

This is where body heat, daily stress and nerves meet with our screaming mind-body limits. All while our bodies are keeping score.

I’m watching summer tennis scores that’s much more enjoyable. And you too can pause to enjoy a relaxing moment to get away from heated moments.

…I baked this relaxed and low-temperature oven strawberry-guava cheesecake with a ‘lil cafe while catching some tennis points. 🇫🇷

Guava dessert and cup of coffee to enjoy moments and prevent burnout. — Strawberry cheesecake with a guava tropical twist. Recipe below 💕

With summer boiling over to year-round heat these climate change days, this can test us all. We can be more sensitive to our daily situations, and easily rattled with weather changes that affect our day.

Those days can kick up our Pitta and fire burning inside us. ☄️

And while heated moments are part of life, our life’s direction shouldn’t be.

One slow boiling source can be when we know we’re passionlessly working, and not doing our life’s work. This is how it is for most of us at some points.

Often it’s how we start off until we gather enough experience or fire in the belly to do something different that we’re wired for.

If we start to feel in limbo, going through the motions and not living a lifestyle we’re happy with, this eats at us and the stress often shows up in odd symptoms on the body in the the mind-body connection.

I know that’s how I felt when I worked in corporate management jobs in a bustling metro city area like Washington DC that’s a highly competitive work area. That’s where I grew up.

Being a local or not, finding work-life balance jobs there isn’t easy or in other places that are filled with movers and shakers who will do circles around you.

That’s when I found passion projects I pursued like scrapbooking as an outlet.

Being in a major metro city can often add additional stressful elements like commute time, turnover transitions, and higher costs of living.

The tradeoff is convenience as larger cities have more service-based businesses and infrastructure to make life better and more convenient.

But they can’t completely take away the daily stressors that add to accumulated stress. And that which can lead to burnout.

In burnout, basically your mind-body is telling you: you need to make changes or else your quality of life will dwindle as we carry you.

Burnout is often gradual like a simmering pot that hasn’t boiled over. It starts with symptoms like a common noticeable gray hair, pimple, or weight gain.

And then one day this grows into a health condition needing to be checked out, frustration or a short fuse, daily inner moods, or a panic attack to name a few inconveniences.

Those are all ways that our body’s alarm system gives us a wake-up call. Burnout symptoms are the body’s way of screaming “fire”in Ayurvedic Pitta terms.

In strong Pitta minds, it shows up as symptoms like being overly critical, blaming, and judging others. If we’re not paying attention or ignoring, this can be tolerable and we just keeping doing what we do.

But this can quickly turn into unhealthy ego-pride areas that can take over if allowed. We see this in road rage and people acting out in public who should know better but don’t.

And while that may not be us, we can have a fire inside us. Some people can be better at smoldering the fire from view, keeping it bottled inside in an unhealthy way.

One day there can be a blowup in another way from a fire buildup.

In burnout, that doesn’t often come from one isolated incident or situation.

A primary source can often be work. Sometimes close relationships. There can be a straw that breaks the camel’s back situation that pushes you over the edge.

The feeling can be like “I’m done (with this).” But, the reality can be you can’t leave just yet. And that’s where all sorts of unhealthy manifestations can harbor like resentment or depression.

In those seasons we’re no longer growing as we struggle with ourselves daily.

Burnout symptoms won’t change by themselves. One productive change you’re empowered to make is daily changes in your mind and body just where you are.

So that your cool, calm, and collected self can walk away from the burnout you had down the street.

Your mind and body are tools to help change your burnout symptoms.

I know this well in my journey because I have been there many times. Each time I thought I was doing something wrong: oh no, not again. 😳

Jobs always started off the same way in the honeymoon work period. You know, when you’re excited about going into work in a new promising role you’re impacting and contributing to.

You meet new people, learn new skills, and the new environment feels a little like you’re walking on Cloud 9 in la la land with your work badge and office space making you feel like you belong and are needed.

And you think: this could be the ONE from the dream of finding an employer who will treat you fairly and you’ll be happy to retire with doing work for them the rest of your working life.

So you start digging into your enjoyable work and proving yourself.

Gradually as the months go by, one day something shifts in the air and you no longer feel new or growing. You feel like you have the weight of performing your job and those around you counting on you as responsibilities now count and add up.

There’s an unseen point system and you’re aware you’re a primary player on the scoreboard. You feel stress above and on your shoulders, and daily neck yoga moves help to release tension.

There’s another point system in your body watching daily, but keeping quiet.

…And as some daily tasks that you didn’t mind before are now seen to you as a waste of time or draining you slowly.

Maybe you don’t have enough hours in the day to achieve what’s expected of you. Or too many work hours where you wonder why you don’t have more responsibilities.🤔

At some point you’re also put to the pinnacle test. There’s always stress involved. For me that was presenting in front of a Board of Directors where I felt my job was on the line each time.

But those type of situations in your career make you resilient and help build character for your next leg of the journey (that’ll be your life dream 💭).

Over the work years, I became more adaptable from a panic-attack-beginning to transforming worry and overcoming fear.

I learned something new about myself in each work experience challenge and problems that arose. Each shift was pointing me closer to my design and passions. And never did I think, I wish I could go back to any one place I was at.

The desires of my heart and maybe yours is to keep growing, live a balanced healthy and happy lifestyle away from the stress-filled work life.

…And to have something worthwhile at the end of the journey.

I didn’t want to accumulate all this time to be used toward the end when age and health typically is not on our side compared to in our 30s, 40s, and 50s.

And maybe that’s how you feel and what you’re looking for as life design.

Looking back, I realized it was a myth I told myself: that there was a good job out there and that would stay that way. And that I just had to keep looking.

Then I realized, that’s not the truth. Nothing stays the same for long and definitely not in a transient area that the world is.

I also realized work opportunities are always out there, but there’s only one me.

And there’s only one you.

And in my last corporate job, I distinctly remember hearing the whisper in my mind: you will not get this time back. This was after work hours when I was the only one in the office I could hear. And from that day on, nothing was the same.

And I know it may sound like I’m saying take more vacations if you’re unhappy or enduring your job.

Vacations can definitely help prevent and soothe early burnout symptoms.

But if the burnout has gone on too long, vacation can be a temporary distraction where you take your overly stressed mind and body condition along with you.

So then you’re not fully present and enjoying your vacation destination. Plus lines, counters, and flight delays can be stressful.

So you could also take a staycation and work on soothing yourself.

Burnout doesn’t care if you’re at home, near home, or on travel. Burnout is a tipping point where you can choose to do a radical change in mind-body lifestyle nursing yourself.

I spent one summer mediating in a quiet indoor pool.

That was needed. And finding work with work-life balance is not a nice-to-have, it’s needed for our bodies daily.

We also all need reminders.

One burnout warning reminder is we should never ignore our symptoms because small symptom warnings can easily turn into inflammation of sorts when not addressed.

And those can turn to chronic inflammation that lead to the disease realities we’ve heard others have.

Ayurveda Daily Restoration in America

Sometimes we catch on, and other times we choose to ignore. In America, we’re not known for longevity records and that has a lot to do with our work lifestyles.

We’re also not taught health prevention anywhere along our journey.

We could have healthy minded parent influences, but their ideas fall by the wayside when our peers seem to be having the time of their lives who are not prioritizing health.

At work, we learn to do more and burn the midnight oil to get ahead and achieve more at all costs. And that goes against the body’s healthy balance desires.

So a goal commitment to ourselves can be to change any out-of-the-ordinary symptoms we notice within a week. We turn to restoration instead, so those symptoms don’t turn into weeks and months. Or grow out of hand.

You can see if you have a Pitta or any imbalances running by taking the body balance quiz.

And for any Pitta out-of-balance starters, a daily cooling activity is one restoring regimen. One easy way is I added guava for variety that has a tart and sweet taste, and very pretty pink color.

It’s fun to find new balancing fruits that have traveled across the tropics. If you’ve never tried, you could always start with a homemade fresh guava juice first.

Have a cool and calm week!

I’ll be back same time, same channel next week. 😀

healthy happy life secrets blog strawberry cheesecake

Strawberry Guava Layered Cheesecake

Course Breakfast, brunch, Dessert

Cuisine American

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Equipment

1-2 baking vessels about the same size or diameter. Round spring release pans work great.

Ingredients

ricotta, whole fat milk
yogurt, whole fat milk
1 egg yolk
1 guava (size of lime will work)
2-3 frozen strawberries
black cocoa
maple syrup (optional)

Instructions

Prepare two deep cake baking pans. Cake release cans work best. Spray sides to prevent sticking.
Add a layer of black cocoa on the bottom of one pan. You can alternate with Instant coffee or fine graham cracker crumbs that would also work.
Mix ricotta, yogurt, and egg.
Divide batter in half if you want to make two separate layers. Pour into each baking vessel.
Add guava to one vessel and strawberries to the other vessel. Optional: reserve some of the guava for topping.
Bake on 325°F/165°C for over one hour until cake is set. Sides will start to brown and may shrink/pull away from the baking vessel
Let cake(s) fully cool. Then remove from pan and assemble the layers.
Decorate/top with guava, berry jam, fruit, and or yogurt.
Drizzle with maple sugar for sweet.

Brain Fog Is Often Spiritual

Brain fog is a way to describe the forgetfulness nature that Ayurvedic Vata minds commonly daily express that we accept as part of us.

Our morning habit choices we choose could be adding to brain fog. — Brain fog accumulates in our daily lives.

In this article, you can learn all about brain fog from our daily environment and simple things we can tweak. You’ll also learn how brain fog isn’t always bad like when it’s from spiritual sources.

Brain fog is the general symptom description for not being able to think clearly.

Often this is when you want the mind to work for you.

Brain fog moments often shows up as confusion, lack of focus, or forgetfulness.

So brain fog would make sense as an explanation for simple memory blips.

But there’s more to this from a spiritual lens that I explain further below on how you can see it as a benefit and a blessing at times.

Because usually brain fog only has negative connotations in our practical culture.

And this article provides some healthy lifestyle tips to eliminate those daily negative brain fog aspects, plus presenting the balancing Vata brain fog positives (that’s a common built-in feature in our Vata mind nature).

In either positive or negative case, we don’t often sit around and analyze what’s going on with brain fog when our minds are in the clouded mist.

And what we experience is usually harmless, like forgetting eye glasses on our heads and looking everywhere for them.

While that can be comical, it’s extra minutes of distraction when the answer was sitting on you above your nose.

For daily routines and tasks, Vatas often create forgetfulness habits to set reminders and purposefully not forget.

High Vatas have active minds of worry-anxiety, more so than Pittas and Kaphas that can have other brain fog distractions.

This btw happened to me when I baked a healthy dessert for the morning and next morning. And the next morning, I forgot about all about it in my mind’s distraction.

A simple scenario like that happens to all of us at some point.

…And when I remembered the forgotten cool peach dessert, it was actually when I would appreciate the bite more after lunch so it could be an enjoyment positive experience.

In your daily life, if someone ever asks you why you didn’t do something and you answer I forgot, you often don’t get a lot of out-of-the-ordinary questioning.

Because forgetting is so normal.

Forgetting can also be healthy for us who like to control ideas. You let go of controlling your mind or the device in front of you that you’re tethered to.

This can invite in creativity inside us and help us let go of rigid ways.

But then there are also negatives such as cognitive decline brain fog instances we want to help prevent. It’s the “elephant in the room” but a diagnosis growing in our world, and that’s something we can be aware of and doing something about in our lives today.

Preventative Healthy Living Helps With Brain Fog

Brain fog can grow when we have these elements in our daily lives: high-processed foods, pesticides, phthalates, non-purified air, and mold, to name a few culprits in our modern lifestyles.

They alter our bodies and that affects our mind in the body-mind connection and in our mental health.

Processed foods for example become whole nutrient-stripped in the plant process (as in factory plant 🏭).

Organic plants 🌱 are better options where we don’t find the same trace levels of pesticides that are found in non-organic foods.

If you garden, you know what natural sprays you’ve used or not used in your care. And when you bake like I do, you know what ingredients you’ve added. You know the wholesomeness details.

In grocery stores, we see the ingredients in our carts we’ll be using to cook with or eat. And we can read labels.

But we don’t see the processes in-between, so this makes comparing foods an apples to oranges experience.

Cheese is an example. Rennet that is found in some parts of the world isn’t the pasteurized cheese process found along the shelf rows in our American grocery stores.

The goat and sheep’s cheese that the Sardinians farm and eat isn’t what we find in our guts.

And for daily coffee drinkers, switching to organic is good for preventative health as coffee is naturally high in mold.

Mold is a brain fog offender.

Organic coffee is considerably more expensive and more difficult to source, but it’s out there when you look and put your health first.

You can get resourceful and save money by buying whole roasts and then doing the grind work yourself. You can feel much more grounded like your coffee when you do. 😊

Daily clean air is also going to be healthy preventative help against the brain fog cause. Developing daily hayfever-like allergy symptoms is one common sign.

And building in more wellness habits and healthy intentions to your life is going to help you most in your sleep, health conditions, and mental fatigue. Yoga is one way to bring in more self-awareness intention.

When you calm and relax your mind and self that also brings down your stress and anxiety levels that help Vata brain fog.

Calming and Relaxing the Mind

Good answers and thoughts show up when the mind is calm and relaxed, and not anxious or worried like when running with high Vata brain fog symptoms.

When our minds are under stress, often we can’t think of the answer when put on the spot.

If we’re asked a Family Feud game show question like what is the first thing you do in the morning?, we can usually come up with an answer. And maybe one that lights up on the board.

But when someone asks us the same question in an interview where we know others will put judgment on what we say, we can’t come up with the answer under mind stress.

We could just give a safe answer.

…Or you may surprise yourself by blurting an answer that surprises you.

Those answers that pop up in memory unexpectedly often come from our spirit.

The answer that pops in our mind come from our deeper wisdom inside us.

We didn’t rack our brain for the answer. They just entered out of no where.

Those thoughts can be blessings when you connect-the-dots.

I’ve had a lot of time and spiritual experiences to teach me wisdom lessons learned to show me this.

Over time, the lessons gave me a different perspective to gain the deeper meaning behind those memory moment lapse blessings.

Once you know you can’t go back to not-knowing and wouldn’t want to as cracking the code secrets toward a happier life.

And you can notice when thought lapses land in aligned perfect timing.

That’s when it’s a spiritual miracle and blessing.

An example is we forget what we were going to say from our rational brain from losing our train of thought.

We get other thoughts that enter.

In groups I attended, we called these other thoughts: popcorn thoughts. These answers come from our heart as though we didn’t process the thought first.

If it’s a helpful suggestive thought, it’s often helpful for others to hear who need the suggestion.

If you can get over what others will think or any insecurities you have in those moments, and blurt out what you’re thinking, often it helps someone else.

You don’t necessarily know how it will help, but it does when you dare to stay vulnerable in sharing.

They are spiritual collaboration opportunities that are expressed when you speak them aloud. You can feel good about showing up.

In the same token, sometimes others blurt out something you needed that sticks with you. It’s the same when purposefully listening to a podcast or a message that you need.

So we’re giving back in a way.

We can all contribute and give back in the energy of life in this way and without much effort.

If you want more of these opportunities to show up and are willing to have your day rearranged in some way, ask quietly aloud or in self-talk: what can I do today to be helpful?

Then be prepared to be useful to others. 😊

And in daily life, these prompted thoughts and memories will show up more frequently if you pay attention (that’s an active move).

You could ignore and override those thoughts to stay on your linear agenda.

That’s how I was until I knew better.

As a planner, we don’t prefer going off course. But over the years, I grew to embrace impromptu thoughts entering, seeing this new spiritual perspective.

And maybe that would help you.

Spiritual impromptu thoughts help you align and redirect to a better way, day, and life. They lead to a life of more purpose, happiness, meaning, and fulfillment. 🎉

So you can be curious next time and openly ask yourself: why did I have ____ particular thought? And see if you get anything back as a thought.

Most likely you won’t immediately.

But that makes you consider another way of thinking and living that can be spirit-filled and coming from deeper inside of you that knows deeply what you want.

And you can stay curious and wondering until something clicks like it finally did for me.

So if we wonder about those spiritual impromptu thoughts, that opens the door to our exploring our spiritual wisdom inside us that isn’t brain fog.

This can be our new norm.

And for our daily mattering lives, we can invite in ad hoc thoughts in our mantras, meditation, and centering to help advise us on what to do next.

And as you can tell, I enjoy baking meditation where this dessert was dreamed up and you can enjoy making.✨

Low-Sugar Peach Shortcake Dessert

Course Dessert

Cuisine American, French

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup plain flour
2-3 eggs
fresh peaches
sugar and salt (optional)

Instructions

Melt the butter in the milk and water on medium heat on the stove.
Add the flour and stir.
Take the mixture to a mixer and mix in egg yolks.
Pipe into a baking vessel to make a shape or add on a baking pan for a free form.
Bake at 325°F/165°C until warm golden brown.
Use your favorite filling, topping, and add diced peaches as the star ingredient. Peaches have fiber, Vitamin C, and A antioxidants.

Vata Active Mind Calming Tips

Vata active mind runs in high Vatas and imbalanced Vatas.

The mind overruns when we want to be done with our thoughts and the turmoil emotions that anxious, stressed, or worry thoughts can create in the mind-body connection.

This looks a bit like Pacman eating pellets that was a happy memory for me. And this low-sugar very Greek yogurt berry cheesecake recipe is one you can re-create. 🫐

This article is about how to deal with a Vata active mind that isn’t serving us.

When we’re confronted with ingested stress turmoil, we want to run from our mind especially when our ego dials up high fear trying to protect us from the world and our repeated hurt past experiences that have semblances in our current situation.

It’s not that severe, but our minds can overreact if we allow it to.

Because the ego serves us repeated warnings that can grow into anxiousness from our fearful thoughts.

The problem grows and can fester when our fear and associated negative thoughts have no where to go unless we successfully get them to take a hike and that satisfies our mind… or we get the feelings from I got this!

Otherwise we ride the trapped ego wave with our evolved human heads spinning in a brain fog cloud until exacerbated ego goes away or some other message distraction comes along to switch up what’s important.

We want to change our channel that can stubbornly stick around on its own.

The default is: we allow our ego to build drama in our lives until we exercise our right to put away the anxious thoughts.

We don’t have to delay our balance for more than a day or more than a few moments. We can practice shutting down our ego and getting better at our practice.

I didn’t start off as the poster child for this as I let repeated thoughts get to me.

But these days I recognize the offender right away and shut it down as soon as humanly possible.

You and I get to celebrate progress in us! 🤸🏻

The progress motivation can be as simple as wanting to enjoy life as much as possible.

We can do this if we know how to recognize and change the thought trajectory when an anxious triggering thought arises from a triggered situation or trauma.

Getting rid of a Vata active mind means having a new way with your new or current situation to get away from anxious thoughts and worry.

Developed fear or insecurity could have come from a past trauma situation, thoughts, or memories.

We can start practicing getting rid of unwanted emotions stirred up by an Vata active mind.

This is how it can go in a typical scenario…

A day can go by where we’re busy and caught up with those nagging thoughts as an under current theme.

We can delay doing something about it until the next day where we’ve confirmed we lost sleep because of the active mind in Vata.

We stayed up way too late in anxious-worry thoughts that’s now confirmed as stuck in our body’s energy.

So now we’re paying for it the day after feeling tired and bad in some way.

We want to get rest and sleep. We know that’s the formula to a healthy life that we want and productivity for our day.

And if we’re healthy, we can be more happy. If we’re happy, we do more in our lives that fuels more happiness. Plus, happy people live longer.

So ridding of an over active mind vs. calm mind isn’t just about feeling rested and better. It’s a protocol for a healthy well-being lifestyle.

It’s easy for us to tell others to not worry or be anxious. But when we’re confronted with our situations, we’re intimately wrapped up with our mind, the emotions, and thought implications of what if the worse happens?

This can show up in all kinds of other ego feeling-defeated flavors.

In those cases, one way I know that works is to have a backup plan so that the best happens coming from Plan A and you don’t have to resort to any backups.

Just having a backup plan shuts the ego down. (Remember: I got this!)

The best time to handle this is right now in this moment.

The tip again is coming up with a backup plan that satisfies you.

It’s not what you’re actually planning to do.

But things do happen in life, that you and your ego know from the past experiences and history that you have no control over.

So having a Plan B in your mind puts you and your (ego) mind at ease at the moment, as not putting more energy into worry, what-if, and other time sucking thoughts.

And in the rare instance that the situation outcome you don’t want to happen actually happens, you have a trampoline to fall on (your Plan B).

If you do this mental exercise for your Vata active mind, this puts your mind at rest.

And when you rest a Vata active mind, then you feel calm and can get on with your day.

You can enjoy the next moments instead of leaving worry on the table to be seen again later on in your thoughts without any real life evidence you need to be alarmed.

There’s no reason to be anxious or worried about anything not alarming, as it solves nothing and is unproductive.

Breaking this down: once you know what the anxious thought is about and determine it’s not clear and present danger, you can move into active mind management, such as having a mental Plan B.

The second thing you can do is have a specific mantra that becomes your outlook.

When anxious thoughts loom, you can refer to a mantra like: I know tomorrow will be better. It always is.

How can you convince you and your ego that’s true?

You have so many examples in the past of that truth. Find a supporting example in your past where the worry you had didn’t pan out, and you actually turned it into something better now that you have hindsight.

Remind your mind.

Because there’s 3 of you on your team: you, your mind, and your body.

When you have positive belief and conviction like “it always is” you’ve defeated ego because there’s no debating “always” in ego language. It’s like calling ego out.

That was ego’s ploy to turn “always” into a negative position such as it’s always going to be like this or it always will be raining.

But you’ve turned the always statement upside down on its head to a positive thought and belief that shuts ego up.

That’s how you fairly head wrestle with ego.

And, here’s how you can practice this:

Let’s use the weekend or your work days off as an example since you have more control over what you get to do or think on those days.

Say, today is Saturday and you’re stuck indoors with lousy weather and you had planned to relax today.

You didn’t sleep well because of anxious thoughts circling from the week before, so all that compounds and adds to your feeling deflated or defeated in some way in your day even though it’s your day off.

This isn’t how you wanted to spend part of your day.

But you can’t plan your thoughts and feelings in advance. What you can do now is prepare your better thoughts and feelings for tomorrow with these steps:

Start re-setting today. Think and repeat: tomorrow will be a new day.

Go to bed earlier tonight so you can get a good’s night rest (as you didn’t sleep well the previous night).

Plus, going to bed early keeps you from scrolling on your devices, overeating and overdrinking, and watching shows that make you feel bad or worse the next day.

So to recap: you’re productively going to bed early and you anticipate a better day tomorrow. And the next day (or Sunday), you wake up better rested compared to the lousy night you had before or on Friday.

That’s because you put a good intention the day and night before.

On Sunday, you’ve reset yourself and your thoughts. And hopefully you got more sleep.

You keep the mantra running in your mind: it’s a brand new day.

You have a new chance to feel productive and happy.

Plus, our minds loves to compare. And fresh-in-mind-memory was that yesterday wasn’t so great. Yesterday is over. So this new day is victory in comparison. 🎉

You could enjoy a cup of tea in peace and that makes you feel much better than turmoil yesterday.

Keep focusing on re-centering yourself in the moment.

The anxious fears of yesterday are put in the dust. Re-focus on your built-up love intentions today.

When the clouds lift, celebrate with singing, dancing, humming or whatever fancies you so you create a new recent happy memory.

Bring out more of the happy, creative person within you. Remove and lower unfocused Vata tendencies.

That’s the happy balance in life that we can reset daily.

Keep doing this even if it takes a few days. Sometimes we need more than a night. The more you practice, the shorter the time becomes to bounce back.

You can choose to get out of self-pity, feeling anxious. or sad in a healthy and graceful way faster.

We can shorten the duration of regurgitating thoughts that don’t serve us. We can put them to bed after we realize they serve no helpful purpose and rob us of time and energy.

Robbing can show up as depressed moods, procrastination, self-loathing, blaming others, self-pity, etc.

I spent way too many seasons feeling self-pity. Especially if my seasons didn’t measure up comparing myself to culture’s standards, those around me, and the high-elated feelings on the flesh level.

Those created my next season lows in the hangover effect when they didn’t measure up.

I had the wrong set of wants that weren’t aligned with what would actually make me happy… me.

People, accomplishments, or things were crutches. It was me that could make me happy.

And it’s you that can make you happy.

If that doesn’t resonate now, know it’s now in your system to digest.

Welcome in your curiosity and questions that wonder about this idea. Maybe you wrestle with this a while. But by processing this, one day, you may find yourself happy with authentic you and who you’ve become that started with practicing quieting a Vata active mind.

Baking in a healthy and happy dessert like a berry cheesecake can start your daily happy.

Greek Yogurt Berry Cheesecake Recipe