Restore Archives - Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Plow Pose For Stress Ease and Back Pain

Plow pose yoga is one of the best stretches for releasing stress and back pain. You don’t have to love yoga to love what this pose can do for you! And when you have surrounding healthy inspiration in your life, then you breathe in balance.

Plow pose and healthy living are a great combination.

Do you have a healthy inspiration board? I think it’s a fun way to bring more of that intentional energy and balance into life. 🌱

And Plow pose fits right in. Like the name “plow” implies, Plow pose loosens your body up. In farming, plowing is essential prep-work so seeds can be planted. And in your back’s case, plowing for a loose and limber back will support your daily movements…

If any of these apply, you may just need some restoring Plow Pose love in your life 🧡:

✔️Sit in a chair most the day

✔️Hurt your back doing daily activities

✔️Are as tall as a baby giraffe that towers over most of us

…And in those cases, doing this pose often, you may never cry again to go see a back specialist. The easy pose may be all you need in your wincing daily back pain that can come from accumulated tension.

Some of us already do this pose regularly to restore our backs.

And below I get down to the nitty-gritty of how to get in the pose with ease… and not hurt yourself, that’s a point not to miss!

Because warning: you can hurt yourself. And I’m emphasizing that because people think yoga is just light movements, but some of those movements come with intensity.

That goes for other yoga poses too, but in Plow Pose especially because you’re carrying most of your body’s weight with your upper body half. It’s pretty cool-phenomenal when you think about it.

Yoga is awesome in this way because you don’t need equipment or weights to do weight lifting that’s also good for building strength.

Body weight is self-equipment and you want to use what you have! And like any weights, you want to use good form.

That’s not to scare you away because yoga does good for your body, health, and wellness. And it’ll only help you on your journey!

Sometimes “use it or lose it” can be a good motivator.

Or one I heard recently was that if you don’t make time to exercise (or do yoga), then plan to make time for illness. Sad, but true. And you have a chance to use that mantra as a gentle reminder. 🧡

…We all need reminders to take action today.

Sometimes a new perspective or healthy kick in the pants, works (as it has for me, ha!).

I look at it as investing in yourself now, so that you can have lasting healthy habits and good results in later years that creep up and you start to feel your joints and parts you never felt before. 😭

You have a chance to Plow now for benefits tomorrow..

For starters, I’ll begin with… in one of the first few times I did Plow Pose, shifting my neck in the pose taught me an unforgettable lesson you can avoid in aches.

But done properly, the pose is a life saver!… Just keep your mind focused on good form and you’ll be in great shape. 😊

And if you have ceiling exposed beams or a ceiling fan you can stare at one spot easily, that’ll do the trick.

Or turn your popcorn ceiling into a positive feature.

…And more recently when I relocated and had to sleep on a floor mattress for a month before my bed furniture arrived, Plow Pose saved me and my back.

I had used the lessons I learned from Plow Pose yoga years back to revive my back… and restore me back!

The simple restorative move over the course of a week provided the much-needed relief. It was very little effort that’s always a crowd pleaser plus.

So if you tend to get the lazy Kaphas or consider yourself a tired Kapha, Plow Pose can be a huge problem solve. You can restore yourself without leaving your digs.

The area where the pose feels best is in the mid-back and some lower back if you dig deeper into the pose when your toes and parts of your feet are planted on the mat.

You can use that as a metaphor for getting deeper in your life. Even just a few seconds feels sooo good.

The other benefit is you can do this pose anywhere. If the travel bed you’ve slept on gave you trouble, you can lay a towel down on the carpet-padded floor or yoga mat on floor or flat ground.

You could even do this on the therapeutic beach sand. 🏝️

…So, ready to get your plow-on?

You can do this while waiting for your easy recipe to come together.

This is an easy and healthy oat blueberry waffle great for weekends and brunch. Recipe below. 🫐

Always start with a warm-up move to loosen you up and also get in the mood.

Do a stretch before the stretch. If you’re feeling lazy, you could rest a block behind your mid-back and another block or folded blanket under your head if you’re at home or at a yoga studio.

This stretches your verterbrae without much energy.

But the one move I like that’s portable is…

Seated, and with arms wrapped around bent and tucked knees like a tight ball of yarn, roll back down to the floor and then back up.

Keep doing this several times to warm up your vertebrae so you’re more back limber.

…I like to call it the roly-poly move (…would make a good pose name, yes?).

That’s actually a protective interior move for isopod insects that have the nickname. And you can look at it as protecting your body from any snaps from not warming up.

And then when you had enough of that, lay flat back on your mat or towel. Scoot down on your mat quite a bit, leaving just enough room on your mat above your head where your feet will land on the mat (if they do).

If your buttocks is about at the 1/3 mark of your mat, you’re good.

It can be hard to imagine if you’re new to the pose, but you’ll be glad you did when you’re in Plow. When you’re new to yoga, figuring out space on your mat is interesting.

….The good news, it’s not that important as everywhere you land is flat and you’re low-grounded already.

So if you don’t care so much, you can let your free spirit lead you!

What’s a universal agreement is you don’t want to have your devices or anything else damageable around you, so you can relax!

…Now you’re ready and on your mat, can go into a pause pose like Shoulder Stand that grounds your shoulders and keeps your legs straight

Or, a hugging Upside Down Child Pose like a Happy Baby for a few breaths.

Or go into Bridge Pose before. You could use yoga blocks on the middle setting to transition and help you throw your legs back.

Or go straight into Plow Pose by gently throwing or lifting your legs straight up in the air and then slowly lower back them behind your head. Try and get your legs over with mindfulness and control, one verterbrae at a time.

But however you get there is good. You can use your hands to help guide your buttocks and body.

And in good form, stare at one point on the popcorn ceiling 👀 or above. And maybe you have a nice view so that lowers your blood pressure to look at in addition to the release in body tension.

Avoid shifting your neck.

Do keep your shoulder blades down on the mat helps. You can move your eyes. but if you want to keep your focused gaze (Drishti) still 😳, that’s up to you.

Just remember to keep your neck still. And remember to breathe naturally and not hold your breath.

I think those last points are worth remembering. 📝

And then you’re doing your pose!

You can decide if your toes or parts of your feet touch the mat. Those moves are the deeper pose that’ll stretch parts of your upper back.

But if you don’t go that far back (on your back), you’ll still get a good stretch in your lower and mid-back, that works in the beginning. And that’s where most of us have back pain in the mid-lower area sitting in a chair.

Plus, there’s always next time to practice…

Next time will be when you’ll be more prepared and your body cells will remember the pose that makes the pose easier as you do it more times. And that’s why you can go deeper and further with less effort as you get more comfortabe.

Enjoy yourself and let time melt in your mat. Even a few breaths is beneficial for your back… and adding moments longer is good for de-stressing.

When you’ve been in the pose long enough, then slowly roll and unwind your spine, vertebrae-by-vertebrae. You may have done that with self-control getting into the pose and balancing the move out of the pose. This time use patience as your mantra.

That’s another point to not miss: yoga teaches us good lessons in character alignment we need without long trials and hard lessons.

And right away you’ll feel rewarded with a better feeling back as you roll out of the pose. And when you sit back up, you should feel less back tension.

If you feel the stretch in a good way, then that means you need to do it again more often. When you don’t feel the stretch, that’s when you can focus on other best yoga poses. There are hundreds to choose from on our planet for the amazing creature you are.🧘🏻‍♀️🐶🐬🐪 🐗🐱🐦‍⬛🐇

If you’d like you can pair your yoga with these aligned waffles… and even better make these waffles in the time it takes to get in your Plow Pose. 🧇

Easy No Egg Blueberry Waffles

Short on eggs, you can make this easy recipe in 3 minutes.

Course Breakfast, brunch

Cuisine American

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

1 tbsp blueberries, frozen
1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup milk
1 tbsp whole wheat flour, plain flour, or gluten free flour
1 tsp neutral oil

Instructions

Mix ingredients and add to your medium hot waffle maker. This is a liquid-y batter. Add more oats to fill in if it becomes too liquid in spots. This is a very forgiving recipe and great for lazy weekends!
Cook for about 3 minutes or until easy to pull in one piece off the waffle iron with a fork.
Flip the bottom for the top as often that's better cooked.
For healthy version, dust collagen powder on top instead of powdered sugar.

Relaxing Easy Autumn Bread Recipes to Inspire You

autumn leaves inspires autumn creativity and autumn bread recipes for me that i share in this blog article. — When you blend autumn leaves together, they look like a colorful painting that life is. And that can give you inspiration for expressing creativity and your creative talents! One way I like to stay creative and express creativity is through baking. I share autumn recipe inspiration below that can help YOU find your colors. 🌈

Autumn bread recipes can be comforting for the soul. After baked, the hearty loafs with sweet or savory flavors bring moments of joy and satisfaction.

And creating your own easy autumn bread recipes is easy when you know what to do! You probably already have the few essential bread making ingredients needed in your kitchen cupboard. So you’re already half-way (or more) there to spark your inspiration. 🎨

After you’ve practiced and perfected your foundational bread making skills (aka making progress over perfection), you realize you don’t need “special” recipes to create your own bread masterpiece that will wow your taste buds and friends.

…And that can even be a table centerpiece for a few days, just long enough for you to have that enjoyment factor before it wears off. 😉

The simple things like bread can bring the most joy in this life. 🎉

And with satisfied feelings, bread baking is more an art, than a science experiment with baking measurements (in case that scares you off).

Bread chemistry science happens in the oven, so it’s mostly outta your hands! That can be comforting and take the pressure off.

And below step-by-step, I show you the easiest bread you can make and bake.

Your part is to put your love in your bread dough making process, and not to get mired down with complicated step-by-steps that doesn’t always pan out.

…And I learned this over many self-taught bread lessons. The a-ha is that sticking to the basics pans out every time. And that’s good for balancing Vata where the balance recipe is consistency.

The secret in making good bread is using your calm energy and heart where you enjoy the process. And maybe finding your bread making relaxing place, kinda like the one you find outdoors on a perfect fall day with no clouds in the sky.And then when the clouds roll in, spend time in your kitchen making progress on your bread baking skills. 🥖

Bread Making 101

Starting with pizza dough or crust is one easy way to learn bread making.

Because pizza crust is bread, and even if there’s no or low rise (or you don’t get it exactly right the first time), it usually tastes great. And will get eaten in minutes if you have delicious ingredients as toppings.

Oh, btw, did I mention I was a pizza maker for 4 teenage years, lol?

So in many ways, I got my feet wet with bread baking lessons starting from a young age. And in my more mature weekly recent home baking experiences, my pizza making lessons come inspired from those years.

When I do the bread in the young at heart way, then it works out. And you can do this too with practice.

You need four common ingredients: bread flour, water, salt, and instant yeast.

(Tip: keep the salt and yeast in separate corners of the flour before the dough is formed, as salt can kill the yeast early on).

After breaking down the gluten by kneading and then forming a cohesive dough ball, you can let the dough rest and proof in a covered plastic bowl for a couple hours or longer. That’s proof that even bread need rest! 😁

You will get the hang of the elastic dough texture (like soft Play-doh) after you do it a few times. It becomes some of the easiest baking prep you can do!

Instead of intricately cutting out cookies or delicately icing your cake just right, bread doesn’t need slicing or icing precision. You might add a decorative incision or a glaze at the end, but those take less focused gaze on your part.

You can make rustic and airy bread when feeling a bit Kapha tired because it doesn’t require finesse (for my Great British Baking show friends who like to make cottage loafs). 🎪

Spice up autumn bread recipes with cinnamon like this bread muffin.

The hardest part (if there is one), is remembering to make and prep the dough hours or a day in advance, so the dough has time to proof. You let nature of time do the work.

So here are the easy steps to by pass flops. This is the skinny on what does work for quick bread making wins… and without making skinny bread! 🍞

Learn to Make Inspired French Bread Pizza Crust

Once called “poor man’s bread,” this is actually an American invention that students love. In the public high school cafeteria I ate in, French bread pizza made a debut on certain days kinda like Taco Tuesdays.

With the same 4 ingredients you make pizza crust dough (mentioned above). After proofed, move the dough over to your baking sheet, and shape your dough in an oval or more football shape than a pizza circle.

Use a little bench flour to prevent sticky dough on your hands and the baking sheet.

When you’re about ready to bake and your oven is pre-heated to 350°F/180°C, you can flatten the dough center if you’ll be adding toppings that are wet like tomatoes.

Or make your traditional French bread pizza with cheese and sauce only, and leave the center alone so it can rise in the middle (or the reason why you proofed the dough in the first place).

The trick to airy bread loafs, is to gently handle your dough (kinda like in baking cakes where at times you want to fold in your batter or ingredients like meringue whites, so you don’t flatten and knock out the air you just worked on).BUT, you’re the artisan, so you decide!

And then bake (or be-ake! in Great British Bake Off terms).

Healthy Autumn Bread for Balancing Vata and Kapha

Keeping bread healthy, breads that have light airy pockets like French bread interiors or pita bread will not be as heavy and can melt in the mouth.

Here’s the quick bread breakdown low-down on body science:

When bread first enters our mouths, the breakdown starts as an enzyme called amylase in your mouth that initiates the process. Bread is one of the unique foods that doesn’t have to get to your gut first to start digesting (breakdown).

And it’s also one food, if not chewed well in the mouth, that can sit in your stomach like lead (or at least feel that way).

If you have a Vata sensitive stomach or bloating that’s common, or more a Kapha body who’s trying to lose weight, then not eating as much dense bread like sandwich rolls and fast food buns definitely helps your healthy cause.

Whole grain and sprouted breads are wholesome alternatives that could be a game changer for your heartier and healthier bread life.

3 Sweet A-B-C Healthy Recipes (From Autumn Bread Recipes)

And when you have a sweet tooth, these are some autumn healthy wise tips and healthy recipes that can easily turn into healthy autumn bread recipes.

What I most appreciate about easy autumn bread recipes are the intense hearty flavors. Hearty is anti-inflammatory spices and ingredients. It’s healthy comforting food alongside your meals.

You can sweeten pair with a divine pear and cinnamon duo or add a chai tea flavor twist. And you can turn autumn bread recipes into a bread cake, scone, or muffin recipe with just a few simple tweaks.

Sweet autumn bread recipes like these braided bread ones often have cinnamon or chai spices.

And these 3 sweet autumn baking recipes below are the healthy (my fave kind!)… with these ABC’s: apple, banana, or citrus orange. And loaded with other fall healthy spice and vinegar ingredients. And have no shortage of flavor burst wow! 🤩

Fall Apple Bundt Bread Cake with ACV (or pears) are loaded with polyphenols and apple cider vinegar is shown to lower blood sugar levels that’s good for losing weight and reducing risk of diabetes.

Healthy Fall Apple Bundt Cake Recipe

Chocolate Banana Cake Bread – banana and cocoa is loaded with polyphenols. Both will help to put a smile on your face so you don’t have to reach for processed foods and refined sugar sweets that lead to weight gain.

Chocolate Banana Cake Bread Recipe

Orange Scone – orange zest as a sweetner is loaded with Vitamin C and flavanoids. High in fiber and water content, that will help you feel full so you don’t eat other “bad” sweets with refined sugars.

Orange Scone Recipe

And before I leave you this week, I’m sharing some work inspiration from having professionally planned thousands of party menus with Lebanese food stirring up memories because of the pomegranates, that are an in-season autumn fruit. The red rubies are a dazzling pop of color that leave a juicy finish.

What do ya think?

Feeling-Thinking Mood Balance In Your Practice

thinking feeling mood balance with intention and purpose.

Getting your feeling-thinking mood balance this season prevents burnout, staying stuck, or feeling helpless from bouncing back.

And below I share tips to encourage your best mood season ahead.

Where most people don’t think about how their moods affect them. They’re focused on what they’re doing or not doing.

And most working people start their work day thinking about their workday, and not so much how they feel. When they have free-time or their feelings are provoked, that’s when feelings enter the scene.

So, there can be a disconnect between thinking and feeling on any given day. And over time, that can weigh any of us down or turn into heavy moods over a longer season.

But striking more of a balance between both in daily life helps to restore and prevent chronic moods and create space awareness of what’s missing today that needs restoring for a better tomorrow.

And knowing this can be the game changer for your bursts of daily joy and peace vs. disconnected or hopeless feelings.

Yoga is one empowered tool or practice you can use to get into calm feelings and feeling better right away in any moment.

You can get in your peaceful headspace wherever you are.

So, what if you’re well-intended to get on your mat, but you’re not feeling inspired? And no where near Happy Baby!? 👼

That’s a common example of disconnect from feeling-thinking that shows up in moods.

The good news is a thinking-feeling mood balance is something you can work to restore in small baby steps, just like mind-body imbalances. Knowledge and knowing what to do when unrest hits is how to healthy restore.

Simply scooping your body to the floor can start the process.

And if you don’t feel like it because your mind is fighting you or you’re tired, you can decide to just sit or lay back on the mat and see what comes up. It’s your second resting place next to your bed or couch.

Your higher thinking tends to show up when you create the space. So rely on forces outside yourself to kick in when you make just a little scoot effort.

The act of being on a mat or being on your sits bones can do that.

Your “being” is the baby step.

Yoga or your quiet practice is how you can get your deeper insides to awaken from feeling outside sensations or stretching. Sit in silence. Some call this meditation. And others, self-care.

If you rest your palms on your eyes, that can feel nourishing.

Many common stretches without yoga names are yoga poses even if it’s more a gym mat style one than a yoga one. In yoga poses, you’re usually working on multiple muscle groups at one time versus isolated muscle stretching. It’s balancing our muscles.

Yoga includes mind brain muscles where you get to marry thinking and feeling. Thinking because you have to remember which side you’re working on. Your left and rights can get tangled up easily if you’re not focused or tend to have two left feet.

If you don’t stay focused or start daydreaming, you fall out of your pose. Each move is an opportunity to stay present and feel areas and sensations in your body that are tight and tense.

Making Yoga Progress

If you don’t know what pose to begin with, work with common tight body parts first. The hamstrings (back of the upper leg) is one area that can tighten easily for most of us. The back is another. So you can get in a seated position on your mat, and try to reach your toes. Feel the stretch. And do it on each side, separately.

You get more flexible and the stretch feels better as your muscles loosen up if you’re not injured. And that’s the ‘lil accomplishment boost your mind needs to feel encouraged to keep going.

And when you release your tightness over time, you sensitize other parts of your body and start feeling other sensations. The same ones that breathe new life into you.

And that’s when you can mindfully think about and appreciate your body parts that work for you day in and day out.

When you get familiar with how it feels activating a specific muscle or muscle region, you become more in tune and sensitized to your body.

And that leads you to awareness of deeper parts you can’t see like your heart or brain. You can think of how you deeply feel or think at that moment, that btw, would not have been an opportunity had you not gotten in the stretching pose.

Or you can do yoga from a chair If that’s where you spend most your waking hours doing computer work, where you likely got your tight hamstrings in the first place.

Take Anywhere Intention

In yoga anywhere, then you can reap the full mind-body benefits that help to feeling-thinking mood balance restore you. You can mindfully lighten the load and burdens from where you just came from.

And if you look forward to yoga or enter with enthusiasm, that activates growth intention as you operate with healthy intention and your body cooperates in your full range of motion that each pose offers.

You get more healthy intention energy with your open headspace.

You also deepen the connected mind-body benefits of being present and engaged, that lead to:

-relaxation vs. stress undertone (stressful energy)

-joy vs. depressed (if this hits everyday at a certain time, then you want to restore this)

-calm vs. unrest (restlessness is a sign for a need to shift)

-peaceful alignment vs. disconnect (this can show up as two identities that are often affected by moods)

-clarity vs. confusion (feeling stuck or making poor decisions)

And calm, joy, peace, and clarity all help to mood balance.

Blocks To Remove

A repeated ego block could be the veiled blind spot that is not helping you see overall if left unaware. Catching your ego in the act is the way to awareness. You do this by watching your reactions and actions that you internally question whether they’re helpful or hurtful to you and others.

Other blocks could be a misaligned season in your situations. I discovered this in my own block removal seasons when emotions got the best of me from my situations.

Yoga helped me to gain revelations to remove my blocks. When I centered with my deep breaths, I could stay in the moment in those breaths. And that created space and a way to escape from thinking thoughts that caused emotional unrest.

And you can do the same in your life. 🎉

You can get back to your center. In the pause, you can feel good and think good thoughts.

And after you leave your yoga mat or breathing space, you can continue your feeling-thinking mood balancing.

Feeling-Thinking Mood Balance

For some of us, we prefer to feel our way through life over thinking (and over overthinking). Thinking is work. And most the time, worth the time and effort for the positive thought-out results that occur.

And some of us feel more than think. Feeling can be suffocating if we can’t get away from our feelings. And it can be cathartic releasing feelings, so we are aligned with ourselves and don’t hold onto negative energy.

Finding the healthy feeling-thinking mood balance is always the best answer. And when balance is restored:

As a thinker, you know the benefits of noodling out ideas, problem solving, and planning.

As a feeler, you know the benefits of your feelings guiding you, and empathy for helping others and yourself from your feelings first.

Tipping the scales so they’re more feeling-thinking balanced, make a big impact to your daily perspectives and outlook. And that’s everything that matters in life. ⚖️

Getting More Feeling-Thinking Mood Balance

A good way to get more balanced on your thinker-feeler scale is bridging intentions and calming the mind to feeling sensations in the body that help to feel more in life. Yoga was one way already mentioned.

And if yoga is not in your wheelhouse, you can try other quiet practices like taking a nature walk, meditation, or journaling.

Find a solo practice that makes you feel alive.

Those restorative activities are good to time block in.

But where we spend most our time influences us the most.

Such as, those who choose careers in physical labor work or play sports rely on their bodies to work, and they rely on their feelings as to how to move and use their bodies.

They feel the weather impacts for outdoor sports when a ball or a person tackling them collides into them. They feel pain effects lifting or pushing intentionally to activate muscles.

Or those who choose professions that help others like nurses, social workers, and teachers feel for their patients and students.

Then there are those who do office work, behind-the-scenes jobs, data analyze or problem solve for a living. Those are thinking jobs.

One profession is not better than another. We’re all called to do different work.

But whatever you do impacts your feeling-thinking mood balance. And over time if not aligned, you could feel there’s something missing.

#1: To help stay balanced, you could do the opposite feeling-thinking moves when you finish your work, like an office worker plays or coaches sports after work. Or someone who spends time in a kitchen or gym most the day, then works on the computer at night.

You get the feeling of relief as you have an outlet to express more of yourself in feelings or thoughts in your spare time. That’s the healthiest daily restore.

But often situations change on a dime so as soon as you get your rhythm, the beat changes.

I know this all too well when I was constantly adapting to new work situations from hotels, offices, and remote.

When I did corporate work, that was heavy on the thinking. I often felt uninspired that turned into feeling lack of purpose and growth with unhealthy feelings. So I was out of balance.

Until I was able to pivot. Today, my thinking-feeling balance comes from writing, doing yoga, and baking on the weekend. And having those elements baked into my week creates balance so I can do the other purposeful work tasks.

The contrast is I look forward to my work and balanced activities and that create a healthy lifestyle that provides enough sleep, emotional rest, and joy.

And maybe that’s what you need…

And if so, taking a few moments this week for you to consider how much feeling-thinking mood balance you have (and by default, discover the deficit). You’ll gain self-insights and revelations.

When you get awareness and connect the dots, then you can make self-helpful shifts to find your way back to your balance. And those become your better ways.

…And that’s about a decade or two of lessons I had that you can do in a weekend. 😊

Especially when we’re younger, we have times when we’re less aware or de-sensitived because our professional and personal lives are jam packed with being busy.

Leading with activity that’s not helping us grow is an easy way to lose sight of who we’re becoming as time passes, and time is the only asset we know we can’t get back.

From experience, I know those seasons catch up with our mind-body when we look in the mirror one day in present awareness, and wonder who the stranger is staring back at us that we’ve become.

And in intention and wisdom, we can make the change, start the process, and seek the answers we don’t know today.

Like the shift I made from “being busy” in the busy metropolitan culture I grew up around. I learned “being busy” as good for us and made us more important.

And then along with culture shifting away from working all the time, I realized that busy was actually hurting. So I unlearned that way that’s aligned with my value in balance.

I’m not sure that has caught up with most people these days…

And in the upcoming weeks I’ll share my tips and thoughts on work life blend that work life balance has turned into, as I DO believe balance can exist in your prime years!

And especially since we have so many work choices these days, more than when I started and it was expected you went to college.

…And thankfully these days, there are even mental health resources and departments in companies as acknowledgement that personal life can be part of the professional life. And if you do career life your own way, then you choose your tasks and days.

So stay tuned for that! 🌱

Yoga Side Benefits From Traditional Yoga to Yoga Today

Yoga side benefits and bends are great for stretching your mind and body. And fall is a good time to bring back out your mat.

yoga side benefits are more than just the obvious health and wellness. You can have a reason to wear a fun pair of seasonal socks like this heart pair. — A little heartfelt yoga love spread to a mat never hurts!

National Yoga Month is in autumn. And that’s the season when I first started attending yoga classes regularly for the first time at 35. It was mostly all women. Rarely did you see a male in class. And when you did, it was an older male (wise fella!).

Yoga wasn’t seen as a physical activity or as a form of mind meditation. It was considered stretching or relaxation class. It was so foreign like this beet cauliflower soup color.

beet cauliflower soup recipe. — Get out of your norm with this tasy pairing cold beet cauliflower soup recipe below. 🌱

Today, yoga is widespread in the western world and has evolved into mainstream classes. There are male teachers and school-age kids in some classes. And that’s partly due to the yoga side benefits that we now know and I’m sharing below.

…And maybe just the encouragement and inspiration you need.

And, we know yoga is good for overall health at any age. When we work on our physical fitness in a yoga pose, we’re also doing our mind and Universe a world of good. We’ve leaped years into our awareness for our good planet.

We’re more united. And that’s fitting because Yoga means “union.”

…Oh, how far we’ve come…

“Oh, the places you’ll go!” – Dr. Seuss

Evolved Yoga Wellness

Yoga took years to get mass appeal, but the benefits came just in time for our wellness needs. Our evolving culture is a heavy virtual world vs real life. It’s 80/20 for many of us these days, that was once 80/20 real life vs. virtual world.

And, yoga is one way to bridge the divide, and get back to our healthy lives.

Primary yoga benefits are for physical, mental, wellness, and developing mind-body intentions. Evolved poses today are still based on textbook, timeless, and traditional yoga poses usually named after an animal or things in nature.

But today, there seems to be less focus on variation and more on intensity under the categories of Restorative, Vinyasa, and Hatha yoga.

It’s less about inversions, and more about restoring and getting deep. And that makes me happy because that helps to get us back to balance.

What happened to hot yoga?

It was trendy but heat revvs up the heated engines and that’s not good for relaxation and balanced Pitta. Plus the body goes into mild shock, so drinking a sip of water can be momentary trauma. I would hear students in their near inversion poses around me come crashing to the floor sometimes.

So we’ve wised up in our classes as you can actually get hurt. But that’s how we learn what not to do that makes us grow. 🌱

Today the yoga stretches are deeper and more deeply described by instructors who are more knowledgable on the widely adopted subject.

Someday, medical and physical fitness practitioners may be required to take yoga classes to get certified. And that POV would help our longevity and prevention as a whole. We would focus more on building up isolated muscles and joints that protect our aging human bones.

But that’s just my early yoga trend predictions based on 15 years of observation.

Our culture is becoming more science research and healthy knowledgeable on extending life, but that hasn’t exactly caught up in our Western world ways yet.

As we do more yoga, we will gain deeper knowledge that will empower us to stretch the core mind and body to greater depths. We live in times like no other, and nothing is impossible.

Timeless Yoga Side Benefits

And Yoga has always been a personal journey and adjusting to your body. That’s timeless and traditional.

Traditional yoga has always been about building strength, flexibility, and balance at the core.

We still use the same tools: our bodies and a mat. And the same timeless props as when I started: a strap, blocks, a blanket and a bolster.

I like the simplicity. Our bodies are the complicated piece.

And application for our bodies’ needs is where we can make the deepest impact to our personal lives.

You can use blocks for additional development in core and arm muscle strength. You can use two blocks to do dips. Blocks are like human lego blocks. There are unlimited yoga block poses for beginners.

Blocks and yoga are tools for everyday health. And these are 3 evolved yoga side benefits today where you can bridge timeless traditional yoga benefits:

1.Yoga for personal empowerment

Strength can be in Chaturanga as a bicep push up move which is great for men and women to build tone in the biceps.

I did daily push ups and saw no muscle tone gain. But holding a Chaturanga, lowering and rocking back and forth on the mat got me back to feeling arm strong and empowered (while my muscle looked more svelte, in case you’re worried you’ll build Popeye arms that won’t happen for women!). You can also build Chaturanga into your Vinyasa yoga flow.

In building personal strength, yoga can help you feel challenged and renewed. You can feel successful when you reach new heights like in a Crane Pose, or feeling stealthy (strong and wealthy 😉) like when you get closer to the floor in a Lunging Lizard Pose, and you then remove the block and crouch down lower. This reminds me of a crouching tiger pose in the wild. 🐯

And if yoga is new to you, it’s like crunching smaller into a ball to fit in a tight space, but you’re actually doing stretching good to your body that’s unraveling beyond limits. 🧶

You can do this with a simple seated stretch forward to reach your toes. As you try longer, you will stretch further. And as you do it more often you’ll find your flexibility improves.

So yoga empowers you to do better and challenge yourself at your own pace.

You feel accomplished, and gaining confidence with each move and that helps your body and mind. And your strength transcends into your balance poses where you can hold the poses longer, and this slows us down in our needed busy lives.

2. Yoga for disconnecting

Yoga is a great practice to purposefully disconnect from technology attached to our hip. No devices belong on your mat. It’s a no device zone. 😊

A few short years ago, we learned a new way of working: WFH 2020 (or smart work as some countries call it). Today or sometime this week, maybe sit on your yoga mat and meditate on what you gained over the past few years. It’s smart to process what you learned about yourself.

Most of us were and are on our devices just a little too much. And 80/20 was skewed toward digital, especially in 2020. We all had our reasons whether it was social media connection, doing work, or digital escape. Some of us took vacations online. And we took our phones to sleep that never slept.

But when you’re on your yoga mat, you should have the intention to disconnect. Get off the grid. If you attend classes, you leave them in your car or lockers. Because a vibrating phone in a class would be a faux pas. That’s a good reminder to stay disconnected.

That yoga time block is your appointment to connect with yourself, the Universe, and your body-mind. You gain physical health yoga side benefits as you feel and listen to your body’s kinks and tightness. And when you come out, you feel renewed and refreshed.

3. Yoga Therapy for Change In Us So We Can Better Change The World

We go into yoga with an intention to come out with a personal growth change, being taller and wiser. These days with the generation swap in younger teachers than when I started, most of us are familiar with mantras and now being intentional is just part of the yoga practice.

One intention can be we step up to embrace change. We start with ourselves and how we show up, and let that intersect with what gift our world needs from us.

We can learn more about who we are and are becoming, so we can step into our awareness and make life impact sooner. And sometimes that comes out as a transformative identity like as a butterfly from our formative caterpillar years. 🦋

Late bloomers and those who seek personal growth often look forward to the benefits that comes with irreversible change. And with the yoga side benefits that could be an intention.

Diverse Yoga Side Benefits and Moves

When I started out in yoga, the world was so diverse. And these days, it’s less of a melting pot. Everywhere metropolitan you go, we all have our devices.

America used to be so different than our mothership UK. We were worlds apart in culture.

But today, it’s globally aligned in ways such as food.

UK and its big city London was about fish and chips and pub food. And now it’s a global food haven with many diverse ingredient influences.

But it had to grow into that identity. And these days, it’s funny to watch The Great British Baking Show use popular in America movie references for openers. It’s not dry humor, it’s just humor. For Cake Week, this is my version of cake celebration.

While I’m waiting on the oven, I’m on my mat.

I’m step hopping or hinging forward. I windmill my arms, and heel-to-toe move across the mat until the timer goes off. ⏲️

And this is something you can do in the short minutes you get a break!

Hatha yoga is a great way to start especially for balanced moves if you’re a beginner. You learn new poses and incorporate the sun and the moon in your morning or sunset yoga.

Namaste Dei

Enjoy your autumn and with climate change, you can can enjoy a cold beet cauliflower soup… and maybe a warm soup too!

Beet Cauliflower Soup

Course lunch

Cuisine American

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

beets
cauliflower
cumin
turmeric (optional)

Instructions

Puree beets and cauliflower cooked and soft.
Add cumin spice.
Add turmeric (optional).

Restore Body Balance For Longevity

Restore body balance is the way to live a calm, more joyful, and less stressful daily life, while boosting longevity.

restore body balance

Over the past few decades, American culture is becoming more exposed and open to mind-body connection healthy revelations, where we know that our thoughts and mental health affect our bodies and physical health through the mind-body connection.

And that was the premise of the second part of this balance series and what I’m all about as a life balance seeker.

And, the reason why I’ve kept stress under control (and you should too!)… at least after the first 30 years when I started on this health-saving quest.

This has been a high priority for me ever since and I doubt I’m ever going back. I never say never because life is unpredictable, but when you’ve got a taste of the better life, why would you go backward in awareness?

…And I’m sure that’s how you feel.

In earlier years, I didn’t have the means for lower stress wisdom. I wasn’t ready and it probably would’ve hurt me, as I wouldn’t have stretched myself in work as much.

Plus, when you’ve suffered accumulated stress, then you know that you don’t want that life in your second and future acts. Your younger years are the best times to test out “what you don’t want” so life gets better and you grow.

When you’re younger, you’re more resilient and energetic. It’s a good time to develop habits that make you more adaptable and flexible.

And then you can look back and say, “I’m sooo glad I don’t have to do that again”!

And maybe that’s what you needed as encouragement to keep growing your mind-body balance in your life today and EVERY day moving forward.

Internal balance is not all about the better situations, like having work-life balance.

It’s influenced by how we process the situation and find new grounds like gratitude and attitude. Daily, we can choose to see something that appears negative to us (and our ego) and flip it into a positive like what we’re experiencing is needed to get us to where we want to go.

And when we get into the habit of doing this in the small life things like daily interrupts, then we get to feel more joy in this life and our energy comes across to others as approachable.

What people actually think about you (and don’t say to you) in all the important roles you play is one life success measurement that is underrated and often overlooked.

What you are trying to become can backfire if not careful (and I’m sure you’ve seen many examples of people saying they want to be more ____ and end up doing the opposite).

…So much of what happens is based on people’s subconscious reactions in the moment. And the only people you can control is you and your reactions!

So, flipping your script from what your subconscious ego wants to serve up daily as prickly and unattractive personality points is going to be one habit change that leads to your personal success.

At anytime, you can simply walk away from your moody self (and that’s healthy!) and reject the associated thoughts. That empowerment is 100% in your control.

…And you’re wise to do so, because when your mind takes on negative thoughts, then your body feels the effects from immediate feelings that get transferred in the mind-body connection. And over time, they often show up as delayed response symptoms on or in the body.

Body Imbalances

These unwanted body imbalances “show up” as events that often need to be prioritized and take you away from your busy, planned life. You take work effort to nurse yourself in the areas that need attention or take time out to see a doctor so that you get back to normal.

But the opposite is snowball-building body stressor events that lead to chronic inflammations and common diseases. And as mortals, heart-related (CVD) is still in the #1 spot (and in the top 5 list of mortality causes).

A quick, easy scan to know if you’re increasing your chances for body symptoms and illnesses is if you’re accumulating anxiety, anger, or depression. These are the extremes of Vata, Pitta, and Kapha doshas.

And if you have a natural mind-body accumulation for any one of those ways that align with your primary dosha body type, then you increase your chance of being in the hurricane-eye of accumulating body issues.

…So that’s especially why you want to pay attention to your body cues, prevent, and know your Vata, Pitta, and Kapha imbalances. And where we know most are life situation or lifestyle created.

And being conscious of this is a good thing because that means you can make changes that over time make an impact on your body.

Early on, I learned that if you’re sick or not physically well, you’re not helping anyone. And that thought stuck with me. Making impact in this world requires us to be healthy.

Restore Body Balance

Most of us want to restore body balance first (over mind body balance or mind-body connection balance that’s deeper to penetrate). One way to restore body balance is yoga, if you have a tightness.

You can restore your body symptoms and that can be healthy for your mind too as the mind-body and body-mind connection is bi-directional.

When you work to restore your body balance, you focus on doing everything you can to take care of your body so it gets well, and you gain new and better healthy knowledge.

And one piece of knowledge today that’s helpful is measuring body mass index (BMI). It’s still one of the medical relied-upon predictor tools to help determine body health outcomes.

BMI doesn’t measure a stress-free, joyful, purpose, relationship-filled life that contributes to longevity healthy outcomes, but it’s something we can impact and change.

We don’t have a say in our genetics, but we do decide how we take care of our bodies in our environment. We are empowered with lifestyle choices, even if we’re not living our dream life yet.

We can take daily small steps and make quality choices, like in moving daily and choosing quality calories. We know apple calories are more nutritious than cake calories. So balancing our nutritious food choices is in our control.

The point is, we don’t need to see signs of inflammation to know that we are making better or not-so-good choices. We don’t need to test how far our body limits are.

We want to show our bodies love as showing up for us rain or shine… so we can do what we want everyday.

And this love includes knowing that naturally our bodies are deteriorating slowly as we age and as we are exposed to daily pollutants. So better calories are feeding our compost growth, and not the gut weeds that can exponentially grow and leave a jungle path in our intestines.

When we adopt the healthy ways, we love ourselves and that adds a new happy to our lives. And we can show up to the world as our BEST selves that everyone on a similar mission is working toward.

We’re our best advocates. And that lets us live a more enriched life where we get to do more.

Restore Body Balance Healthy Lifestyle Leads to An Easier Life

And this makes our lives easier…

Like, when you eat the quality calories as your healthy habit, something great happens… you no longer have the same taste for the empty-quality calories that go down great, but leave you feeling and looking more full.

Similar to new habits, this takes a few weeks or longer for your body’s getting used to. But if you seesaw back and forth between old and new ways, you’ll not give the healthy way a real chance.

Healthy Mind For Body

To help your body out, start with the mind. If you want to be healthy eating, you want to tell your mind something that will choose the healthier option, especially in the beginning.

And when you do have a bite of the not-so-healthy, that’s okay too. Be okay with that. And actually DO that once a week, so you don’t cycle back to your old ways. That’s healthy wisdom. We’re not meant to be like sloths or koalas that eat leaves.

And every day, just keep on going without beating yourself up or going overboard because you didn’t meet an arbitrary goal.

Your healthy mind will show up on your body if you keep aiming for the healthy.

And eventually over time, the healthy will be your desired choice in every fiber of your being. And one day, fiber foods you didn’t consider before, will be something you reach for.

And I can use the analogy of intermittent fasting as something I do not do for losing weight reasons, but that would be my go-to if that was a goal.

Final Thoughts to Restore Your Body

Restore your body is like restoring your computer in many ways. Sometimes something breaks, like a part that needs to be put back together.

Body parts are resilient but when something breaks, then the area is fragile and open to damage. And that’s why physical therapy is so needed for sports injuries and the like.

And for disease-related problems, it’s the same. Once your body has a weakness, the wound is open and subsceptible to repeat chronic episodes.

If you look at football quarterbacks and how much they have to endure every play, they’ve made a career out of weekly restoration. They know how to bounce back with helpers trained to help them heal faster and to prevent injuries.

And they’re more appreciative to their bodies and how they perform like daily machines. We need that sometimes when we get used to something that we miss.

We need to see what we miss from a new perspective.

Prevention is the #1 defense. And that’s why having a healthy lifestyle is so important. 🌱