Physical Health and Body Archives - Page 21 of 24

Yoga Poses to Restore Aches and Creativity

Yoga poses are the breath of life.

yoga poses

And, yoga poses are gradually are becoming creative yoga poses to help restore specific muscles, joints, and get balance in our day.

Evolving into creative yoga poses can be a powerful way to discover how to cure your own body aches and pains.

I didn’t particularly like yoga when I first started. It was intimidating and there was a learning curve to keep looking at specific body parts, making sure that it matched with what the yoga instructor was saying and doing.

Somehow I got myself to go back to class. And I started to learn and get into certain poses that became familiar. Child’s pose and other resting yoga poses were my respite in the beginning.

Gradually with added stamina and skill, I added new poses as my body helped to intuitively remember. The body cells have distinct memory.

Being at home means you still can do yoga poses at home or anywhere, even if you usually relied on attending in-person classes for form and instruction. If you didn’t learn yoga foundations, you can take the extra step and watch YouTube videos or take virtual classes.

Date Muffins. — Date muffins recipe below that would be good for your yoga days!

Here’s a good way to begin:

Sit on your yoga mat or on a brick with your sit bones (the yoga language for your bottom), and stretch your legs out into a “V.” Reach down on each side of your legs to your feet, or as far down on your legs as you can.

We sit down, lay down, and stand too much in our daily lives. Just by sitting in this unique pose and doing seat yoga poses, allows your legs, back and arms to stretch in a different position than it normally is in.

That’s the name of the game. Our bodies want us to stay limber and stretch other muscles and parts of our body.

I have a kneeling pose that I particularly like that feels good, where I crouch down almost to the floor. I prefer this over bending down. If you like roller skating as I did back in the day, then you know this pose from the game called “shoot the duck” where you crouched down with bent knees as far as you could and extended one leg straight out.

That takes some balancing and flexibility. Usually, one leg was better or stronger than the other on any day. Then you rolled yourself forward using the law of motion and force and tried to make it under the limbo bar without knocking it over.

This can be a metaphor for life in finding balance, as on your yoga mat or floor, you can go from balancing your body from feet on the ground to your tippy toes in this similar duck pose.

In this yoga duck pose (I made up the name so won’t find it researching!), I like to flip through books and recipes, look inside the oven when a bake is completing, or clean floor spots in this familiar pose.

I don’t know why, but it’s a comfortable position for me. It’s a balancing pose that stretches the back, and rounds out the spine. Similarly, you can find the comfortable positions that give yoga a new name (and some of these poses can even cure you of aches and pains).

You may like this crouch (not couch) pose, or make up your own. The point is to try new bends as often as you can remember.

Without weight and while standing, you can observe when you touch your toes, and then try to reach your ankles. You can prefer to bend down with your knees bent or bend at your torso (not everyone can do this). Try attempting both and seeing how that feels.

This torso stretching is particularly good for your back and hamstrings that can get really tight if not used often. Remember in school gym class, how they started out with stretches so you wouldn’t hurt yourself?

Besides our backs and back of legs, another area that often gets ignored is the arms. As much as you can throughout the day, move them back behind you. That also stretches your shoulder muscles that can get sore. If you work on a computer all day, you can find ways to counteract hunching forward with your typing keyboard hands, and arms.

One season I went to physical therapy because I had a daily right arm and shoulder pain that wouldn’t go away. It was nagging for relief from daily right-handed motion overuse, and typing contracts all day.

That’s how voice technology can help our future aging and aching bodies.

Anyway, from my own testing, I figured out which arm stretch would make a difference and correct the pain problem after months and years. That was by self-discovery because no one can pinpoint where your pain actually is, but You, and you alone.

Especially if you didn’t get in an accident or the pain point doesn’t show up as an injury on a scan. Having had multiple x-ray scans reviewed by an orthopedic physician and chiropractor, I felt I went round and round with the same issue and was left to come up with my own solutions.

In hindsight, that’s where I should have started… but when you don’t know, you don’t know.

I found that if I took my right arm out and raised it to shoulder level like an airplane wing, and then I bent my wrist straight down, then that caused tightness and sometimes slight pain that went up to my entire arm through the main radial nerve, and that corrected the problem. ...So simple! All I needed to do was stretch in the right way. I call this Airplane Wing Pose… just kidding!

And then when I took the airplane arm wing back about 45 degrees and bent my wrist straight down, that gave another tight stretch that is what I needed to provide pain relief. Hallelujah!

So my suggestion is if you have any slight aches or pains and there’s no known injury, start with questioning how that could have come about.

If nothing concrete emerges searching your thoughts, then try light and gentle stretches. Moving your body is healing for daily wear and tear symptoms and maybe just what the doctor ordered!

Not moving your body can be just as hurtful to your body, as moving is to an injury.

If you did possibly hurt yourself, that can come from something as simple as bumping a table corner or carrying a bag of groceries too heavy without bending your knees, then that can be a deeper injury like a sprain to the body. Your resilient body will heal over time, but needs rest instead of movement.

An example of this is when you have a swelling inflammation. You could apply ice in a ziplock plastic bag (not a bag of frozen vegetables that isn’t cold enough).

If a body area is sore or has tired muscles, then a heating pad and stretching can help, but that’s if you have determined there’s no inflammation. If you’re not sure, you’re better off trying ice and seeing if it improves over a few days.

Then when you’re getting better, start gradual, light yoga poses and stretching again.

Sensitively figuring out in discernment what your body needs is the healing balance. When or if you should explore medical help over self-diagnosis is an individual question.

Implementing yoga, stretching, and movement is almost always beneficial, as that’s what they have you do in rehabilitation.

With the comfortable yoga poses and stretches you come up with, you can use those as starting points to create other poses that your body will be thankful you did to take care of yourself.

As you become aware, you get to know other parts of your body and that helps you to become more flexible.

If you’re someone who believes you’re not flexible, change that to you are getting flexible every time you stretch. Your body and mind (and mind-body balance) are your most powerful tools and assets to invest in, so you can keep doing all that you do daily.

Date Muffins

Course Breakfast

Cuisine American

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

1 cup dates, pitted and chopped
3/4 cup flor + 2 Tbsp flour
2 eggs
1/3 cup brown sugar (optional for low sugar)
3 Tbsp butter, cold (or substitute with applesauce for healthy)
1 cup boiling water
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

Boil dates in a pot of water for at least 5 minutes.
Combine butter, baking soda, salt, eggs, flour, and sugar.
Pulse in blender until combined.
Add dates and water as needed for smooth batter consistency.
Bake in 350°F for 30 minutes in muffin or cupcake tins.

Morning Routine Healthy Stretch Start

Morning routine changes can get you up when you want to hit the snooze button on the alarm . Letting the window light in can be the baby step move…

Morning routine can include letting the sunlight in. Wake up, Sunshine! In the morning when you get out of bed, you use you mind-body muscles to get up, as part of the daily, morning routine.

You know if you’re an early riser or a night owl. You’re usually wired one way or the other.

Morning people are usually proud of how much they get done early on, while night people stay up and enjoy more leisure time.

I’m not a natural morning person and I honor that, as I do appreciate sleep. Similarly, if you’re a slow riser naturally, I have some suggestions below that can help get you moving…

Women need more sleep than men and children need more sleep than adults. Waking up adult energy changes and depends on many factors.

If you normally pop up, right out of bed, but find it difficult this season in your life, then you may have a Kapha imbalance (could be mind or body).

If it’s recurring every winter, then seasonal affective disorder (SAD) can be an added layer of mood tiredness. You can change your morning routine so it’s enjoyable, and you look forward to getting up.

Embrace Your Vata-ness and Why This Matters Even If You’re Another Dominant Dosha

While usual daily variance on waking up energy is a good indication that you’re a natural Vata, you may find your partner or friends seem to get up at the same time every day. They’re likely Pitta dominant people.

In true-Vata form, if that’s your natural way, one morning you could start off feeling energized, and then the next day, tired and groggy waking up, that doesn’t always have to do with what time you went to sleep.

Your eyes can open at the same time every morning naturally, that’s part of your natural circadian rhythm and internal clock, but you want to rest and snooze for a few more minutes before you drag yourself to get up.

This is especially if you wake up to an artificial alarm clock.

Your level of mood tiredness and body functions are separate aspects and both affect the energy you have for a morning routine.

Since we all possess traces of all the dosha traits, you could be imbalanced in a dosha that you or may not be dominant in, and that’s what I want to help you with today to invigorate a healthy, wake up morning routine.

If you’re not sure which imbalances you currently have and want restoring suggestions on your specific body imbalance symptoms, then I encourage you to take the body balance quiz.

The results are revealing to what your body is trying to tell you at this moment without written or voice communication. Your non-verbal response can be simple, healthy behavior tweaks to prevent irritating symptoms from getting worse and so you can enjoy foods and activities you like.

In the same way, having an inspiring morning routine for your body is going to be better than a forced one. If you’re a learner you like to challenge yourself and that will help you to get going.

Easing Into Your Morning

So, while you’re starting your day drinking room temperature water (or a warm ginger tea is good) and visiting the bathroom, this is a good time to get mentally prepared about yoga stretching.

You may need or enjoy a cup of coffee or cappuccino to wake-up your mind, and that’s great.

As part of your morning routine, find a pause moment to be mindful, and think of something to be grateful for today, or that just happened recently.

You can find this mindful moment when you’re heating water for tea, straightening up along your path, or putting the clean dishes back in the cabinet.

In America, we don’t usually stop reflecting on our busy lives and ambition. Living overwhelmed isn’t healthy.

And if you have a Vata imbalance, you easily move on to something else without finishing your current activity. Staying focused at least at the start of your day, and having a routine to stick to is especially helpful so anxious feelings don’t sink in.

So after getting mindful, and visiting the kitchen, a natural transition is to move onto stretching parts of your body that need just a little awakening and movement, from the wear and tear of yesterday and the day before.

You can call this yoga or just stretching, it doesn’t matter.

This is a good way to ease into the morning even if you only have 10 minutes before someone or something needs you.

My stretch routine is below (and if you’re a yoga beginner or think you’re not-good at yoga because of body issues, I’ll explain how not to be intimidated).

If you did a workout the day before, even if that was carrying groceries up a flight of stairs, you can reset your body for today, the new day and the only one that exists (at least in your mindful 10 minutes or the time you have).

Here’s a daily morning practice that you can try and tweak to how you like.

If you’re a Vata you’ll naturally want to change up your morning routines.

To start off, you could get on all 4’s, and in a pose called TableTop where you put your bended knees on your floor or mat and lay your palms flat on the floor.

Your back is flat and parallel to the floor. Your body looks like a table and you could set the book on your back, and it would balance.

Table Top is a neutral pose, getting you ready, and doesn’t require much energy even if you’re not yet fully awake.

If you’re still super tired from there you could go into a resting pose like Child’s pose (or a Hare pose with a rounded back). Be careful you don’t end up napping so you keep your focus on a general, not specific mindful intention like peace or love today. Take your time and don’t be in a hurry.

But once you’re ready to get up back into Table Top pose, you can flow into Downward Dog (inverted “V”).

Then when you’re ready, you can walk your feet up to your hands on the floor or take a quick jump forward (the fun and energizing way to meet your hands).

Then you can rise up slowly and as controlled as you can like one spinal vertebra at a time, into a standing Mountain pose position.

Then, take your hands and reach in the air to the ceiling forming a “Y” with your arms. If you’re by a window or outside, you can look out and pray or take a meditation moment, or inside, you can look up at the ceiling.

Move your hands down to heart center with the specific intention of your day, or love if you don’t have one in mind.

Then, fold your body downward with hands to your thighs and shins and then shift to palms on the floor (or swan dive your hands straight down to the floor for more energy).

You can repeat these morning sun salutations. They’re good for getting your mind and body into a calm and appreciative flow.

From there I like to test where there are kinks in the body, where there’s tightness and especially cracking sounds that are common in the morning or if it’s cold outside.

You may not experience that type of sensation if your muscles are naturally more limber, as everyone has a unique body.

You may not discover these tight areas if you don’t move around. Testing slight bends and stretches allow you to appreciate your body at the moment for its abilities.

You familiarize yourself with your weaker spots and just by moving your body around, you can feel and discover where those spots are. Whatever that may be for you, you have your one and only body to fully take care of, so it helps to do these check-ins.

I like to smooth out muscles taken for granted. Where you feel tightness you can move the body part in the opposite direction to see how things feel.

I like to go from my morning Table Top waking up poses above to an inverted table (where my stomach is facing the ceiling) and move the arms behind me around, hinging back and forth. That gets tightness out of the upper arms that I wouldn’t otherwise know about.

I made that one up. In the same way, you can use yoga as a creative body expression to become aware of your body. You can make up and create your own poses and you can blend in more traditional yoga poses you like and know.

And you can do a water animal series like starting in happy Dolphin pose.

You can get in Seated Spinal Twist that has a name that sounds like a kids game you play (maybe, Twister or Sit-n-Spin?). …Anyway, it’s a pretty simple yoga pose and a great stretch for either side of your back that often gets ignored.

I was taught this pose, and have been doing these since grade school P.E. class (physical education), way before I knew any yoga poses, and before yoga was popular in the States.

And similarly, you too probably have been doing some yoga poses long before you knew their pose names.

So those are two examples of how you can get innovative and reinvent new yoga poses in your daily routine.

If you’re intimidated by the idea of yoga and doing poses wrong, don’t be.

I’ve been in yoga classes before where I would hear people say they’re “not good at yoga.”

Re-framing your thoughts help.

We all start as yoga beginners and each morning is a re-start so your body feels different than the day before. It’s a good metaphor for being a lifelong learner.

If you look at laying down flat on your back as another name for Corpse pose, you can make the connection that yoga can be a fancy name for “just being.”

Besides, the funny and interesting thing is, no one is looking at anyone else in a yoga class. Everyone is too busy concentrating and looking at their own body parts and poses.

No one talks about other people’s poses, in or after class. The point of yoga is that it’s an individual sport. You get to look inward and see yourself like when you look in a mirror.

If you’re self-conscious, then yoga can help you break away judgmental feelings about yourself.

If you’re a beginner, doing more yoga gives you self-confidence, and you feel better about your body when poses work.

When I attended my first class I didn’t like it because I didn’t know what was going on, and that’s just par for the course of learning a new skill.

And practicing yoga at home gives you more confidence. So don’t be too quick to rule out yoga as a sustainable activity for you and your morning.

If that’s you at this stage, just have fun with getting to know your body, and center your mind on parts of your body and intention for your practice. The rest will work itself out.

We all have weak spots and our vulnerabilities and bringing them to light is how to go through them. You never know, you may end up loving yoga like I did and do.

And if you’re beyond beginner yoga overthinking or any yoga insecurity, then maybe use your morning yoga practice to work on your patience and resilience.

So that’s my morning routine start (that you can use) before my coffee and catching up with my daily news.

Then I make myself a breakfast smoothie or a breakfast snack and get to productive work.

I hope you’re a bit more happily inspired to get up in the mornings! 🌅

Sugar Cravings, Fasting + Low Sugar Orange Scone Recipe

Sugar cravings don’t have to get the best of you… and the orange scone recipe below may help you get over the worst sugar sweets as it was the healthy start for me, someone who ate way too much daily sugar that many of us do. It’s no one’s fault.

Oranges and citrus fruits are good for blood sugar levels as citrus fruits have a lower glycemic index as a general indicator for how a food will impact your blood sugar level.

And juicy foods like oranges also have a way of quenching your thirst and hunger. Like water and tea, you can feel less hungry when you consume oranges and lower your food cravings.

Using orange and orange zest are also a good way to avoid artificial sweeteners while brightening your food and day.

natural orange zest for sugar cravings.

Maintaining a healthy blood sugar level is at the heart (pun intended!) of a healthy heart.

I became aware of the American Heart Association when I volunteered for the American Cancer Society in my backyard while I was attending college.

The “Eat Smart” campaign was one of the promoted programs and I remember posters (remember those?) were donated that had healthy fruits and vegetables.

These are now known as anti inflammatory food ideas like oranges that were brightly represented on the poster and I proudly displayed on my wall.

Who knew that anti-inflammatory foods would become so important with all its healthy benefits and in many healthy diet movements like the Mediterranean Diet and plant-based diets?

And we couldn’t have predicted that the role of Vitamin C would grow in highlighted health importance, and that oranges would relatively stay the same while we see more orange varieties on the grocery shelves.

We keep evolving in food, health, and nutrition.

Vitamins stay as a focal point in the anti inflammatory diet. Some are antioxidants that are good body protectors for preventing heart disease, Diabetes 2, certain cancers, and cognitive decline that can start off as harmless brain fog or short memory mental health lapses.

In the beginning of 2020, I created a smart pantry for “just in case,” where I collected processed, longer shelf-life foods in cans and boxes. That’s where I failed in my sugar cravings dilemma and developed an itchy eczema skin rash by mid-summer that came from sugar indulgence.

Luckily I caught on before things got worse. I got aware and my love for sugar got replaced for Ayurveda ways, moderation, and anti-inflammatory foods.

Sugar we know is good for our happy selves, but not our healthy one. They latch onto lectin anti-nutrients in our gut and can destroy our microbiome that we know controls so much of our daily body functions.

My hope is you’re onboard for a healthier new year, new health progress goals, and micro habit changes. Fasting is one way I have deployed in my healthy lifestyle and you can too. You can download my FREE fasting guide that makes it a sustainable way.

And when you’re eating, if you’re like me, you’re a bit choosy and conscious about your food choices.

I love foods, food variety, and enjoy good foods. I planned catered parties in nice hotels and foodie restaurants for a decade, so it’s a part of me that has been weaved into my adult DNA. And healthy eating that I learned early on.

But I have a weakness… a sweet tooth.

Many of us enjoy some sweets in moderation.

Having a sweet tooth is natural but isn’t helpful on a healthy lifestyle mission.

If you regularly eat sugary foods to curb your sweet tooth and sugar cravings, you set yourself up to have more sugar cravings. It’s a vicious cycle.

For entertainment, I had started watching The Great British Baking Show, that’sa competition show that started with U.K. bakers… initially, it wasn’t the best thing to watch if you want to curb sugar cravings and stop eating so much sugar.

But I worked through it and can now watch the show without eating a sweet dessert. I’m telling you this because I believe everyone can get there!

In my search, I came across a book called The 40 Day Sugar Fast by Wendy Speake.

It reminded me of a sugar fast I set out to do for 3 weeks in 2011 but ended up doing the sugar fast for around 40 days.

How?

When I had my tonsils removed as an adult, the fast was a smooth transition as I mostly had a liquid diet in the beginning.

And if you’re trying to break the sugar habit, finding a time when you’re not dealing with as much stress is your best bet.

Like if you’re a teacher, do your sweet fast after the school year ends and you have the summer off. You usually crave less food in the hot months anyway, so use all those helpful situations to your advantage.

Another helpful situation is when you have support. To keep me encouraged, the church I was attending was doing an annual fast for those who wanted to participate. So, it was perfect timing as I wasn’t doing it alone.

And as I focused on giving up sweets for sweet Jesus, the sugar cravings also miraculously disappeared. The ones I’d had every single day since I was a child.

I didn’t use my own willpower to make changes. That doesn’t usually work.

I focused on my heart and deeper desires. To my surprise, my way of thinking changed. It was supernatural and beyond my small capabilities to overcome sugar on my own.

But that’s just a reminder that you don’t have to do it alone and can encourage the Universe or higher source you turn to, to help you.

I also use maintaining good teeth as motivation. As a child I always had a mouth full of cavities. I wanted to live a better dental life later in life. That same motivation carried me when I quit all sodas years ago. Previously as a young adult, I’d have at least 1-2 sodas by noon.

Do whatever works for you and your healthy motivations.

Another tip is to look at sugar nutrition labels. Most food labels are in grams and 1 gram = about .24 teaspoons or a quarter teaspoon.

We use teaspoons for baking in America so that’s easier to visualize.

It doesn’t take much in a Western diet to go over 20 grams of refined sugar at breakfast alone!

You can try these breakfast plant-based breakfast ideas and tips to stop sugar cravings and craving sweets if you want some suggestions.

And sodas are off the charts starting at 30-40 grams.

I drank diet sodas early on, but those are linked to heart disease and Diabetes 2 so they’re no better and probably worse off

Also, keep in mind no fat is usually linked to higher sugar in foods, so you’re giving up one evil for another.

The better healthy answer is to change your healthy food and beverage habits. And then you will enjoy the healthy foods and especially after you have adjusted. I promise.

If you’ve every shifted from a whole milk to a plant or other milk, you know what I’m talking about.

You no longer go back to the other because 1) your body doesn’t need the same quantity of nutrients it needed before or growing up and 2) you have a decent food or beverage replacement.

Most of are lazy in this area about food fixing. It we have something easy and near us, we’ll grab that instead of go out and forage if we don’t have to.

And for fruit, I still don’t overindulge even though the Food Pyramid I grew up with recommended 2-4 servings of fruit per day. These days, MyPlate says at least 1 piece of medium fruit.

Even natural fruits and dried fruits have a huge dose of natural sugars, the better fructose sugar, but still sugar. I limit myself to an apple, a banana, and an orange if I’m craving fruits and sweet foods.

Foods that you wouldn’t suspect and maybe even classify as healthy food like a Fig Newton or low-fat “healthy” cereal are loaded with sugar. You discover reality when you do package label reading.

I once felt I had to add a puff of white cloud sweetness that finished off almost every dinner dessert, holiday cheesecake, pie, or warm beverage. The nutritional breakdown ingredients of some whipped foods say “hydrogenated oils” or trans fats and high-fructose corn syrup to avoid.

You can always say “no whip, please.”

And you can choose moderation where it’s okay for a happy celebrations, but not for daily healthy consumption. That’s what I do in the balance.

That’s the modern Ayurveda way that is sustainable. Turning to healthy and anti-inflammatory foods that are also good for weight loss and preventing weight gain, so you don’t have to do one more yo-yo diet that never works long-term.

Modern Ayurveda lifestyle people love following natural, doable, and achievable (practical) advice.

So here are 3 actionable Ayurveda creature habits and tips for reducing sugar in your diet and curbing sugar cravings:

Become aware which foods have high sugar, added sugar – fact vs. fiction. Read labels at least until you are familiar with the foods you eat regularly.
Substitute your sweets not for other foods, but for a higher calling or purpose for yourself. Find a motivation that makes you stick to your plan and look forward to maintaining.
Do one daily baby step food choice action you can make to create a healthier micro habit. Reminder: the more you eat sugar, the more you crave sugar.

Maybe that’s substituting an empty calorie sugary dessert with a fortified cereal that at least has some nutrients?

And if you need a replacement for something super sweet, I have a low sugar, Orange Scone recipe below I mentioned above that you can try that’s super easy and you’ll love (or grow to love!).

What I love about this recipe is the orange peel zest you would normally throw away is used as the main sweet ingredient.

Oranges are also good for calming in our parasympathetic nerves, so in the strong orange smells, we experience calmer nerves instead of anxiety. You hear people who like to eat oranges by their bed and this could be a good reason why. They are calmer, better managing worry and anxious thinking hours before sleep o’clock.

This orange recipe has no needed added refined sugars, but you may like the turbinado sugar small packet crunch finish like I do, that has 5 grams of fat total used for the entire 8 scone slices. So you do your daily sugar math and see if that’ll work for you.

I also love that you won’t use all your eggs in one recipe. And, in the easy, it can take less than 10 minutes time to prepare!

It takes about 40 minutes total time (from prep to baking to mouth 😋). That’s something to celebrate!

Print Recipe

low-sugar orange scone for sugar cravings. — with currants and brown sugar topping

Orange Scones (Bread) – Makes 8 pieces

This can become a regular dessert bread for you that’s healthier than sugary processed breads and pastries. Great for a sweet tooth (or a Vata)!

1 egg

2 cup flour total (can mix gluten and gluten-free flours if you choose)

2 tbsp frozen unsalted butter

1/2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp baking soda

½ cup plain or vanilla Greek, plus more if needed (this is a good food item to look at sugar labels). Use more solid yogurt parts to bring it together if it gets too crumbly.

Zest of an orange (navel oranges are great)

Cinnamon to liking (and you can purposefully add a little teaspoon of sugar, some tips below)

You omit sugar that normally would be added. Since you’re not using sugar, you don’t need salt either to balance any sugar. NO refined white sugar, yay! 😊

Add flour to a medium bowl. Add butter and cut it into small pieces with a knife. Add the egg and mix with a spoon.

Add yogurt and keep mixing until well mixed. Add baking powder and baking soda. Add orange zest and mix until blended into flour mixture.

Form a ball with the spoon in the bowl. Then place the dough on a baking sheet and flatten it slightly, so it forms into a 6-8” circle.

There will be flour crumbs, just stick them on top of the circle to blend in (like you’re adding clay to pottery before being fired in the kiln).

Sprinkle with cinnamon if you like. Cut 8 slices before placing in the oven.

Optional sweet: if you desire, you can add one brown sugar packet of Sugar in the Raw (turbinado cane sugar) on top of the circle bake before it goes in the oven. These small brown crystals are similar to refined sugar in health terms, but if you add them in moderation, that’s not going to make a big difference. If you’re feeding anyone diabetic, they’re not going to eat it anyway… or if they can eat monk fruit sugar, you can add that.

You can also optionally add ½ tablespoon of dried currants or raisins and blend in the mixture before you form the circle. Or you could do half and half (4 pieces plain and 4 pieces lightly sugar)… then you can please those you’re sharing with who won’t necessarily appreciate your low sugar, healthy scone bread efforts.

Finally, put the baking sheet in the middle of the oven and bake the scones to a golden brown for 25-30 minutes at 350°F/180°C degrees. Let your scones cool, and then you’ll be ready to enjoy.

Easy, Low-Sugar Orange Scones

Course Breakfast, Dessert

Cuisine American

Servings 8 pieces

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

1 egg
2 cup whole wheat flour or all purpose flour with gluten free flour optional (almond flour suggested) total
2 tbsp frozen unsalted butter
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 /4 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 zest of an orange adds sweetness
cinnamon and currants or raisins (optional) to taste liking
1 sugar In The Raw (turbinado sugar) packet to cover the top of 8-scone slices.

Instructions

Combine all ingredients except sugar and make a circle mound. This is a crumbly dough especially with gluten-free flours such as almond flour.
Take all the crumbly bits and add back to the circle mound. Then, slightly flatten the top with hands to about 1 inch high.
Use one packet of turbinado sugar (optional) to zhugh the top before baking, so the sugar sticks.
Cut lightly or score 8 triangular "pie wedge" shapes.
Bake at 350°F at 25-30 minutes (or until light golden brown color).

7 Effective Gym Habits For New Year’s

Intended effective gym habits can begin in a new year and die before February 1. Don’t let that be YOU in the upcoming year. Make this year and better and different that it deserves as you’re a better, more resilient person.

The usual drill…

Welcoming in the first week of the year with effective gym habits is the intent, where many of us think of new personal, health, and fitness goals. In my mind, I think of the end goal that comes from 7 habits of highly effective people that can be applied to life. But not always effect in fitness areas…

Because most people don’t like to workout. That’s the first hurdle. Especially if you prefer to work or play instead of work out (I know the feeling!). At times, working out can add more stress if you don’t have a routine down.

But, if you prioritize, practice and adopt doing regular habits (great for Vata balancing)… and they are habits you enjoy, that could be a game changer to effective habits. Let that be the new year mantra or philosophy you breathe in…

OUT with ancient new year’s resolutions, and IN with inspiring habits for your betterment, progress, and self-improvement goals.

Simple steps like attending a Gold’s Gym (my fond memories) or similar, and doing at-home ab exercises regularly can help get you into healthy physical body habits with good results if you choose successful ways that help you, explained below…

Inspired by 7 habits of highly effective people who are proactive in their lives and begin with the end in mind, these are 7 effective habit traits (and what it boils down to), to embrace ideas that can turn into action and help set you up for success.

I think these ways make habits easier to adopt, and you can apply to any area you want to have continued success in.

So, applying these traits will help you with training to stay active and healthy fit for the year and keep effective gym habits for life.

Effective Habit Traits Inspired By 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

1. New – highly effective people consider and embrace new ideas, challenging the status quo or current norm. They keep everything fresh and have a learning and growth mindset. They think “today is a brand, new day” to do something better, remarkable, or impactful.

2. Variety – they spice up life with more than one way or choice. This can be from food to finding new inspiration or a new route. If they did it one way, they try another way to keep things exciting.

3. Fun or exciting – they have fun doing what they do. If you’re enjoying yourself, then you’re more likely to keep doing what you’re doing. Laughter is a good indicator that you’re engaged. Remember when you were a kid, and that’s what got you going?… just good, innocent fun.

4. Usefulness – they know how to be productive with their time, and highly effective people spend time working on activities that are useful and not a waste of time. There’s a next step, where there’s personal growth, observable impact, or serves others.

5. Practical – they turn ideas into action and use resources they have access to, and keep going. They don’t let excuses keep them from moving forward. Relevance guides them to their next steps and pivots.

6. Getting better – they look for progress. They know that if it’s not getting better, that it could be getting worse. They look for signs of growth, impact, and healthiness.

7. Easy – they keep it simple and uncomplicated. They know if it’s easy, then it’s doable. There won’t be delay and “easy” can be duplicable and scalable to perform in other ways.

So now here’s how can you embrace and select 1-2 of these 7 ideas into your personal fitness or exercise life and routine: Continue reading “7 Effective Gym Habits For New Year’s”

11 Tips For Winter Allergies + Save Money With Celestial Seasonings Tea

winter allergies

This or every winter, you may feel like you have cotton stuffed up your nose, head, face, or even in your ears. Allergies and winter allergies especially are no fun.

You may even get annoying chest congestion, that starts when you wake up and then once you get going, annoyingly disrupts an otherwise good day.

This article is all about what you can do to have a better winter season, facing winter allergies. Read all 11 tips, as they’re all golden to keep you fit and healthy.

Dryness aggravates allergies, so here are some simple moisture tips:

1. Invest in a small humidifier for every room or place you spend time in.

If you’re a Vata, then dryness is something you face regularly, literally on your face (or scalp), and probably on your cracking hands and sandpaper feet. Winter only aggravates dryness. You need a daily winterizing self-care regimen.

You may find yourself wanting to moisturize your rougher face more often. Or do glycolic exfoliation, and facial mask pampering. I have my favorites, but this article is about allergies, so I’ll try to stay on topic 😊

Keeping your body moist with non-fancy products such as Eucerin lotion and pure aloe (clear or Kermit frog green), will help. Every little tidbit helps to keep you calm and your winter allergies, tame.

When I was growing up, humidifiers were these relatively expensive, bulky, and loud machines that took up floor space. And if you’re a decorator, there was no way to dress up the eyesore.

Nowadays you can buy a sleek, inexpensive humidifier at your favorite variety or everything stores like Marshall’s or Home Goods. Table humidifiers are usually less than $20 and if cleaned regularly, you can use them year after year. Many table humidifiers have glowing neon changing color lights that you can turn on for fun and add cool brightness to your day… we all need that!

You can complement a running humidifier with a Vicks Vapor Rub, that contains camphor, menthol, and eucalyptus. I like that it can open up your nasal passages and wake up a Kapha imbalance if you gently sniff. As the name implies, it’s meant to be rubbed on your skin, and so can help chest congestion

For winter allergies/chest congestion:

2. Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) steaming before you shower. You can do this over a pot on the stove. This is the best thing for chest congestion (coughing up mucus), or if you feel a heaviness to your chest that seems to come on when the weather starts to cool.

Take apple cider vinegar and boil/steam with a water mixture. Inhale and exhale through your mouth so you can deliver directly to your chest. Add more water in the beginning as the vinegar can have a stinging feeling. Then you know that you’re doing something good.

I recommend doing this before you take a shower, as the apple cider vinegar has a strong odor, that can linger on you and your clothes, and be repulsive to a sensitive Vata.

Thankfully it’s easily washed off by taking a shower. If you are highly congested, performing this practice once or twice per day is good. You want to nip it in the bud, so your chest congestion goes away after a few days. It may come back, but then you may only have to perform weekly or bi-weekly. The longer you let it go on, the longer it stays.

I don’t use the good ACV for steaming, as it will be wasted in evaporation. If you only have the expensive or organic ACV, with the mother (the good milky stuff) that’s good for ingestion, just don’t shake up the ACV bottle, and let the mother stay on the bottom.

Keep doing the other ACV tips and neti pot regimens recommended for fall allergies and ragweed allergies. Continue reading “11 Tips For Winter Allergies + Save Money With Celestial Seasonings Tea”