Anti-Inflammatory matcha drink is a healthy drink that’s common with green matcha and also blue matcha. Both are very good for preventing inflammation that can lead to some chronic diseases.
Like this special blue matcha tea with icy blue ocean vibes that reminds us that we are small in calm chaos with climate change and our zero waste efforts make the sustainable difference. This anti-inflammatory matcha drink recipe is below. 🌊
And yes, your dry skin eczema and other symptoms could be related to your body chaos… and on top of that, an anti-inflammatory matcha drink is a cooling one you can make to have an inflammation-free day. 🧋
Look for heirloom, organic, or local farmers market produce as in-season (free of pesticides, good for us and the environment)
As we’re approaching warmer months, we like our soothing and cooling anti-inflammatory drinks. And an orange can be added to a blue matcha drink that has tea. And orange and coffee are a great pairing.
If you don’t have a home organic composting system (most people don’t today), saving food scraps helps to cut down on waste before discarding in the garbage or the disposal.
Plus, this eco-move prevents attracting unwanted house critters in warmer months. So it’s a practical tip too!
For the little extra effort it takes, saving food parts is so easy to do!
With a whole orange, you can zest the peel of an orange that can substitute the “sugar” flavoring for your baking. Then use the skin and pith for your flavored orange water. It usually gets discarded even though it has higher vitamin amounts.
And of course, saving the best for last… enjoy the juicy orange slices for a snack, which is the only part that almost never gets tossed. 🟠
Now that’s a systemized orange habit 👏 where nothing gets tossed out, and you would reap all the healthy and tasty benefits.
And an orange can add sweetness to a mild bitter matcha drink. It goes well with black coffee, Earl Grey tea (bergamot citrus vibes), or cocoa for your drink.
Plus raw honey that’s everything sweet in my opinion.
And besides for food, “honey is medicine” as it’s an antioxidant and has antibacterial and antifungal (microbial) benefits. Our ancestors (the ancient Egyptians) and in modern Ayurveda practices, we have been using honey to prevent infections and help lower inflammation for ages.
It’s also a natural humectant, so whether you have dry skin or a dry throat when applied, it will also help with relieving symptoms. 🍯
And you can add your honey to this calming anti-inflammatory matcha drink or blue matcha butterfly tea 🦋 drink that’ll sweeten your day.
Matcha is an anti-inflammatory tea that comes in different types. A blue matcha makes for a blue drink that can be layered.
Course beverage
Cuisine American, Japanese
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets
Ingredients
1tea bagblue matcha tea (Butterfly pea flower tea)
4-6ozcoffee, black tea (like English Breakfast or Earl Grey), or cocoa/cacao
2ozfreshly squeezed orange juice
raw honey, optional
blueberries, optional
Instructions
Brew your blue matcha tea leaves for about 5 minutes in a mug. Be sure to use cooler than boiling water to not burn the leaves. Cool in the refrigerator.
Pour about 1/3 high tea to your drinking glass or rock glass for your "ocean." Add honey (optional).
Freeze.
Add a "sand" layer with coffee or black tea. Add orange juice if using.
Freeze again.
Add milk or cappuccino froth for "cloud." layer. Zhugh with blueberries if desired and a melting ice cube (metaphor for the melting ice caps).
Notes
Earl Grey tea has bergamot citrus vibes that pairs well with oranges. Black coffee also pairs well with oranges that mellows out the bitter tastes.
Cinnamon biscuits are a healthy way to welcome in May that’s Mental Health Month and remembered year round.
One way to do that is to add cinnamon to your diet to replace refined sugar (aka table or white sugar).
Cinnamon is good for calming anxiety. It’s a good sweet substitute instead of refined sugar. And it may not be the first sweet you ever knew or came to love… I know it wasn’t for me.
But over the years, the cinnamon sticks and cinnamon ways intertwined with me like in these bakes and makes. It was bound to catch up with me as I’m a Vata and maybe you are too?
braided cinnamon bread sticks
Cinnamon is also good for our memory boost and because of the anti-inflammatory properties, helps our cognitive abilities to learn.
That’s the basis for healthy growth and how we can protect our minds from drifting away from good mental health or moving toward depression.
It’s worth a reminder to daily renew your mind and celebrate everything you have to be grateful for.
Changing perspectives and thoughts changes your day.
And if you’re like me who loves sweets and controls the sugar with low-sugar recipes, cinnamon biscuits are good for a May occasion, brunch, or afternoon tea. 🫖
Even if you don’t have your own… there are plenty going on globally. In America where I live, there are annual events like the Kentucky Derby 🌹, Mother’s Day 💐, Met Gala 🤩, Memorial Day 🇺🇸, or just celebrating life 🎉
The healthy type you can consume regularly is Ceylon cinnamon that you can add to your hot beverages.
It’s okay to use the traditional Cassia cinnamon (more reddish brown and powdery than Ceylon) common in stores, but not regularly.
Because it has a flavoring substance called courmarin that can damage liver in large quantities.
And we don’t want to hurt our physical health while we keep our mental health and mind-body balanced.
If you limit to using Cassia cinnamon to baking, you’ll be fine and also enjoy how it tastes divine with apples and pear pairings.
This recipe is for two sandwich size biscuits so multiply the ingredients for the number of biscuits you want to make.
Course brunch
Cuisine American
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets
Ingredients
1cupcombined flour (whole wheat and almond flour are recommended
1tbspcinnamon (or adjust to taste liking)
1tbspall purpose flour
1/2tbspbaking powder
pinch of salt
1-2tbspcold butter, small pieces
buttermilk (or milk and apple cider vinegar)
Instructions
Combine ingredients until they are combined and dough is cohesive and not too moist. You should be able to easily make a ball without much effort.
Tip for liquid: start with 1/4 cup of milk and look at the dough. If it's too dry, add a little more milk. If it's a little too wet (milk is coming out of the dough after mixing), then add a little more flour. Do this until you have the right consistency dough (not too moist).
Use oil to coat a pan and then bake in oven on 350°F/180°C for about 25 minutes. About 10 minutes before finish, check the bottom. If toasted, you can flip so the bottom is on the top so it gets baked evenly through.
Fill your sandwiches with seasonal fruit and ricotta or Greek yogurt.
Mindful thinking can break you out of your stuck shell areas. And taking a mindful break can provide a simple solution to some of your life’s biggest challenges.
Delicious healthy parfait sundae 🍨 recipe below 😋 (and maybe you’ll change your mind from a high calorie sundae).
You can take a break with this banana-Greek yogurt bowl with cherry and berries. It’s not only a happy sweet, but a healthy snack loaded with prebiotic-probiotics.
The sundae puts a sun to my day ☀️ And the healthy to my happy joy.
Can you make a list of ordinary mindful 5-minute micro-moments that bring you happy and healthy joy daily? I’m sure you can!
In the past, I would have dismissed the smaller items on my list below as I only saw the bigger happenings worth noting, but that was missing the point of mindful micro-moments.
Our brains are wired to sometimes focus on what we don’t have which only makes for souring the day. So when I focused on little life joys, I noticed the outcome and outlook of the day changed for the better.
And when you adopt good lessons you’ve learned from your life experiences, focusing on what you DO HAVE, then you too appreciate simple and ordinary day things. And, appreciation for small things makes a big difference.
How?…
For one, you’re less disappointed about expectations that didn’t happen. You get off the life roller coaster you can’t always control, and where you’re relying on your situations to bring happiness.
Secondly, you find internal happiness and peace with yourself. You silence the unhelpful noise and have the opportunity to learn to drown out and replace negative mind chatter.
Then you experience more meaning about what this life can grow into for you that’s different than what you started out thinking it would be.
That can happen by changing and developing more loving attitudes that affect your feelings and moods… and make bigger waves in you, than in the situations you experience.
So on that note, this is a page from my daily inspired healthy, and joyfully mindful minutes:
Daily, I check on my avo-plants that came from delicious avocados.
They’re daily living organisms that don’t need any type of green thumb. They remind me of living more eco-friendly and #earthday every day.
These plants have food names based on the flavor of the Oui glass they started their roots from. That’s too cute (or nerdy), right?
…That was the only way I could keep their starting growth dates straight as I had multiple seeds growing at the same time. “Lemon” was the first one I started in 2020.
The naming exercise helped me keep track of dates as 2020 was an off-year for all of us (but not the avocados). The seeds grew despite the major world happenings.
Plus, it didn’t need any kid-glove attention. So, I grew out of the date recordkeeping stage and just started enjoying their presence.
And that’s a good lesson on how our lives could be: more mindful focusing on the enjoyment of the moment, and less on detailed minutiae facts that won’t matter in years to come or even tomorrow.
Most of our memories fade and what you do on most days, you forget. And that’s why the only time that really matters is now. You appreciate and let the present moment pass through you.
And if you don’t want a memory to fade, you could take photos, or make journal entries and share posts– as great memory reminders.
So, now I’ll remember these plants for years to come. 🥑
…And then sitting next to the indoor plants are a table humidifier that’s another mindful break.
Filling room humidifiers with clean water is another way to appreciate the moment.
When I pour fresh water from a reusable water bottle, I stay mindful that clean water gives our bodies and our planet, LIFE.
Water is a source for regeneration: if we had more water to support healthy soil and plants, then we’d help keep new carbon in the ground.
Moisture from the plants and trees would allow more humidity into our air and help lower our climate temperature. Just like the small room humidifier does, but on a much grander scale.
And since I’m on the sustainability topic and #stopfoodwasteday is tomorrow, consuming and buying organic foods from farms that don’t use harmful pesticides helps our health and the planet. Or better yet, grow your own.
Thankfully we’re starting to take this seriously. And as consumers, we have a say and can live out our part.
Another mindful ritual is taking daily supplements.
Like the yogurt photo above, which has healthy fats (almond butter and nuts), I combine the meal with Vit D and A vitamins so they’re better absorbed. There’s an order that matters.
And I make sure I have filling lunch food in my belly before having a multi-vitamin as a general rule, but mostly just to keep a daily routine reminder (i.e. habit stacking).
Clockwise: Mushroom complex, Vit D-3, Vit C, Cod liver oil/Vit A, Magnesium-Calcium-Zinc, and a multi-vitamin.
Then later I take my magnesium (which has an optimized ratio of calcium and zinc) with my mid-day “red wine.”
…It’s actually a pure cranberry-tart cherry blend, water, or water spritzer blend. But, I had you there for a second in case you were mindfully drifting off! 😉
And, I know there’s so much controversy today about vitamins. For them to work they have to be absorbed by the body or else they become expensive pee.
I see and use them as a backup plan and a supplement to prevention. They don’t hurt in approved low doses, but they can help. So they’re worth time and money.
A good multi-vitamin to take is a prenatal vitamin with extra B-vitamins (we all need a lot of B-vitamins to run properly).
And adaptogens that are the rage these days, like a ‘shroom complex to support wellness, immunity, and to help fight off environmental stressors to our bodies.
So now I’m done describing these quick healthy rituals, and moving on to daily writing…
Writing, of course. …Oh yes, duh, that’s a no-brainer on the list. And there’s nothing quick about writing. It’s not a 5-minute ritual. It’s also a labor of love that takes energy and passion. And why a robot can’t replace me (at least not today). 🤖
Robots also don’t have moods, so they wouldn’t want to sing along with me to music tunes like Sam Smith’s version of “Time After Time,” which is a 5-minute break.
You probably have a different jam or song you hum to.
Finding a personal way to express yourself by singing or in another outlet you enjoy, breaks up the day.
Even if this is spending 5 minutes looking out the window. Those few minutes get remembered more than the hour you spent doing any unrewarding jobs you don’t look forward to.
And maybe you have a deeper side passion you spend more time with like dancing, exercising, yoga, playing an instrument or sport, cooking, drawing, or painting, to name a few ideas. The list of possibilities is endless.
These are all good mindful breaks you can build into your balanced and reshuffled day.
Doing your preferred activity helps you bypass the negative emotions, thoughts, or worries at any moment, and can break you out of any ego-mind drama that definitely doesn’t serve you.
What does serve you is feeling better as one of your daily goals.
I can pull together ingredients for a lazy recipe in 5-minutes and that pulls me away from a lazy Kapha mood.
Baking and coming up with baking ideas is one of my fun weekly leisure activities, plus keeping up with a community that does also. You could probably guess my favorite flavor is healthy bakes. And that leads me to the last mindful activity on my list…
Feeding my sourdough. Are you part of the sourdough cult (I mean culture) that came out in 2020?
I can’t exactly say that I am. And I’m glad that it only takes less than 5 minutes to make a starter from scratch.
I kinda have a love-hate relationship with sourdough (even though I don’t like the word hate for anything).
I love the healthy baked dough that benefits the gut (and have even researched/written in well-known healthy pubs about the health benefits).
The problem is I don’t prefer the sour “gone bad” aroma that lingers in the air. It’s strong and irks the Pitta body out of balance.
Pitta is the fire dosha in us. If you learned about Ayurveda or have read other posts I’ve written about using balance to improve life, then you know that you and I can shift in and out of Vata, Pitta, and/or Kapha imbalances at any time.
But back to the homemade sourdough starter… it’s a healthy reminder of bacteria living among us as a breathing organism that’s omnipresent in the air (and plus our bodies are mostly made of bacteria).
So, the “newish” sourdough bread idea can take a bit of adjustment, especially growing up in an ideal germ-free society.
The sourdough plan is to adjust and make enriched doughs like in a sourdough brioche.
And to continue to make my weekly sourdough on demand and not grow a starter pet in the fridge. No reminders are needed.
Butternut squash is a low histamine food that’s good for seasonal allergies.
Food does make a difference and you can mix in your veggies and lean into more squash with spaghetti squash.
Often we ignore some produce foods in the grocery store, heading for the ones with marketing words and labels.
But the best seasonal foods (like butternut squash) and those for seasonal allergies don’t have ingredient labels. They don’t need them.
And they contain vitamins and minerals, and healthy food body benefits that are contained inside the food.
The PLU, color, and skin often give away what that can be.
But then there are other food benefits like low histamine that is underrated for seasonal allergies.
If seasonal allergies has got you, you’re in good company and I have a list of natural above-the-neck soothing tips below…
Before 2015, I never felt outdoor seasonal allergies living on the east coast. Now, they linger around year-round and I’ve learned to manage them… and maybe you manage yours.
Tree pollen (e.g maple, juniper, elm, oak, etc.) found in most U.S. areas is the main culprit for spring seasonal allergies that starts as early as February these days.
Allergies are your body’s annoying, but healthy response to your immune system working. 🌱
Reducing histamine can be the difference of low congestion, itching, aches, and digestive issues.
Sneezing is the body’s natural way to rid of allergens in the body, but some congestion days that doesn’t always work.
If that’s you, you can keep a black pepper tin nearby and peppermint essential oils are good to sniff and use in your steaming shower.
You have a choice to stay indoors for high allergy days which is really the most effective way to dodge seasonal allergies. Try to do your outdoor walks earlier in the day. I know that’s still a bummer. So another idea is you can jump or stay in the pool. You may be able to pull it off like this unicorn making the most of it! 🦄
And when you’re indoors, stay further away from the open window if you’re super sensitive or keep the blinds semi-shielding.
These are 10 Tips For Seasonal Allergies:
✅ Change your clothing and take a shower as soon as you can or remember to. The steam will help you feel better faster. A night shower will help especially if your seasonal allergies feel worse in the afternoon or evening.
✅ Weekly, use a neti-pot to clean out nasal passages. This helps you get some relief naturally and prevents nasty sinus infections and your taking unnecessary antibiotics. That’s probably the best tip I can give you! Water is your friend away from pollen.
✅ Also, use a natural saline nasal spray to clear your nose as needed e.g. 2-3x per day for relief. Look for grapefruit seed extract with microbial properties that help prevent bacterial, viral, and fungal infections.
✅ Use a free-standing daily air filter machine with a HEPA filter for pollen (not just dust). Pollen kicks up in the afternoon and evening so it’s good to have the machine cranked up while you’re sleeping.
Change your house air filters as needed and vacuum the filters regularly as they will work better dust-free.
✅Use a desk humidifier or have one set in each room. Moisture like this works especially well during spring allergy season.
✅ Keep eucalyptus or mint oil essential oil drops close at hand. They work well in the steamy shower. You can put a few drops in a small vessel of water and sniff. Unlike a nasal spray, the oil drops don’t enter directly into your nose.
✅ For foods, add fresh horseradish or spicy wasabi that’s great for clearing nasal passages. Also increasing Vitamin C and bromelain helps. Pineapples are a good source.
Disappointingly, local honey doesn’t work the way that maybe you hoped it would for seasonal allergies.
Honey comes from flowers, and tree pollen comes from trees so there’s no cross-pollination… or an ex-pollinating effect that would be helpful for spring seasonal allergies.
But raw honey is a good natural sugar substitute and a natural humectant that when topically used on the skin help prevent dryness and other light skin inflammations or itches.
Honey also has other “anti” properties that are good for you… antioxidant, anti-bacterial, and anti-fungal.
✅ Keep up your vitamins and minerals, especially Vit C, D-3, Calcium, Zinc, etc. Butternut squash is loaded with Vitamin C and A. And a tropical fruit smoothie is a great way to help soothe seasonal allergy symptoms.
✅ Drink teas. You can try a good green matcha tea or black tea (Vata preference) early in the day and then switch to decaf/herbal teas in the afternoon. You can do decaf all day if you prefer.
✅ Keep eye drops close by for dry eyes. You can wear blue-light-blocking glasses, so you don’t have to strain on devices that worsen dry eyes (and they help you sleep better).
✅ Keep cough drops nearby, in case you get a dry or itch in your throat. And menthol cough drops help to open up passages.
Seasonal allergies don’t have to be the daily annoyance that runs your life. You can have a much smoother season if you stay informed.
✅ And finally, bring in more healthy anti-histamine foods such as bell peppers, squashes, and eggs. You can incorporate a butternut squash spaghetti recipe that you can blend with regular egg pasta or spaghetti squash. 🍝
Best yoga poses are subjective, but I’m sharing with you why I think these 100 poses make the (my) list. I’ve been practicing yoga since 2008 when I attended a life altering Ayurvedic program journey across the country, to enrich my mind, body, and spirit, that we all are in this life. Then I wrote about the lessons learned from my experience (in my first and optimizing mind-body blog post on this healthy and happy blog) that I think can help all minds and bodies. 🎉
100 blog posts landing on Easter deserve confetti sprinkles 🧁
But this article post is ALL about the best yoga poses that I started learning in that eye-opening experience and as my journey unfolded with yoga.
Because growing up for me in America, getting on the mat meant a sweaty experience on a vinyl padded mat in PE class.
But around the globe in the eastern world, they were lightening years ahead and aware of the healthy healing that a mat can provide.
In some cultures, they get up and off the floor (or out of their sitting position) on a daily mat in one fell swoop as they did in younger years.
And that’s one of the characteristics of the Blue Zones’ Okinawa Centenarians.
The Blue Zones around the world have the largest group of Centenarians, whose longevity we can aspire to.
Most can remember facts and figures and walk up hills quicker than some younger able people. And re-tell stories of their youth like a historical tale. They live extraordinary lives as they are revered in culture for their Golden Years activity, sharing wisdom and enjoying younger generations.
They breathe in and out purpose daily (…and have breathed about 1.4 million more breaths than a 30-year-old).
But whatever age you’re at, you can start with your intentional breathing and yoga moves that help build your balance, strength, and flexibility.
Yoga is not just about getting in the pose.
It’s an individual journey that enriches life. And most of us in modern, busy life don’t take time do daily yoga. But if you did, you would reap the reward of an enriched mind, body, and spirit.
We all have a unique yoga start story and hopefully a way to keeps us with a yoga practice. As I’m convinced, yoga can fix anything in the body that ain’t broke!
And as you do more, you can discover how it can help heal the mind-body and restore your lesser moods going through this life full of tough twists and turns.
These are some yoga articles to help inspire your specific yoga journey (wherever that may be for you today):
First off, something I learned in my journey is that yoga is amazing because of the benefits for the mind-body connection: where the mind and body “talk” to each other.
If we’re lucky and focused we pick up on the cues as a witness to our mind-bodies.
This is an area that traditional Western doctors aren’t necessarily trained on. It originated from Ayurveda, an eastern life science perspective, that’s made its way slowly to the Western world (and I started practicing in 2008 when I became aware).
Over the past decade, we’ve learned that the prevention of chronic diseases and inflammation in the body is connected to better mental health and less stress we carry.
And we can often tell by our anxious, irritated, or lethargic moods.
Sometimes it’s hard to do yoga until we get in a balanced mood, even though we know if we did yoga, we’d get there sooner. We can get in our way.
So, in case you need to overcome that or need a dose of moving or getting going inspiration, I’ve listed 100 best yoga poses that are timeless reminders, challenging, and fun (I think so anyway!).
I included some quick encouraging words for each pose that come to mind. They include thoughts of when to do the pose, reminders, or intentions that could be useful for you as they are for me. Some poses are better done when you have more energy.
And it helps if have a known purpose for doing the pose, to help be motivated. We can all use a good metaphor reminder in our daily lives.
So here we go to my picks of the 100 best yoga poses…
Standing best yoga poses:
1. Sun salutations – reminder: life is constantly changing, and you keep moving. This is a good series of poses to start the day with, like just before you have your first glass of water for the day
2. Warrior I – reminder: feel empowered to take on the day
3. Warrior II – reminder: take up more space
4. Warrior III – reminder: focus on moving forward
5. Sun Warrior – reminder: don’t forget to look up and stay open
6. Dancer pose – reminder: you’ve got this day with your calm and grace, and letting go of the past. Today is a new day 🌱
7. Tree pose – reminder: you’re resilient and unshaken even in uncertain times
38. Staff – do when you want to straighten your back and remind yourself that your back is an important part for your body’s support. (reminder: build strong abs)
Side best yoga poses:
39. Side angle – do when you need a break or stretch
40. Extended side angle – intention: stretch your mind
41. Side crow – do when you feel adventurous; one side is probably easier than the other and that’s your strength
42. Side plank – do when you feel strong
43. Falling Star – tip: like half-moon is great to do against a wall when you’re first starting out so you can lean further. Intention: feel free and creative
Front face down best yoga poses:
44. Cobra – reminder: you’re making progress
45. Sphinx – reminder: you can do anything you want
46. Upward Dog – reminder: you’re almost there!
47. Turtle – reminder: stay steady on the course
48. Bow – reminder: your hands, head, and feet are all closely connected
Lay down poses (starting with back flat on the mat):
49. Bridge – tip: use a block on the small of your back and feel grounded
50. Fish – reminder: relax and let go of heavy problems
51. Lay down spinal twist to one side – when you do this on each side, you see a different part of the room or space you’re in and is a good reminder that you have different options from different perspectives
53. Knees to chest (knee hug) – reminder: of self-love
54. Half locust with one leg slightly lifted: reminder -it can feel strange but still be helpful
55. Through the hole stretch – do when you feel tight like from driving or sitting, or when you feel uptight
56. Spider laying down – intention: holding onto your purpose but letting go of how you’ll get there
On all 4’s:
57. Inverted plane – reminder: great for bringing your shoulders back in mindfulness
58. Downward dog – intention: feel the day in earthly roots
59. Downward dog with one leg lifted – intention: enjoy the day by doing something new
60. Cat – do when you’re feeling fearless
61. Cow – good for feeling balanced
62. Balanced cat reaching out one arm and opposite leg
Back challenge: you can arch backward relying on all 4s
63. Backward Bend – do when you’re feeling energetic and youthful
64. Wheel – and you go higher to see and feel new possibilities
Front challenge: you may never do a full handstand, but you can get both feet off the ground
65. Crow – intention: strength (you’re stronger than you think)
66. Crane – and you can stretch higher
67. Peacock – reminder: you can get over the limitations you have
68. Firefly – reminder: you can do something different to light up the world. You may feel like a kid again doing this one (one of my fave poses and I have happy memories of catching fireflies )
Inversion best yoga poses:
69. Shoulder stand – do when you’re feeling moderately energized
70. Half shoulder stand – do when you want to feel energized
71. Plow – reminder: encouragement that you can take two steps back and come out ahead
72. Legs up the wall – intention: feel supported by the environment around you
Resting best yoga poses:
73. Child’s Pose – reminder: you don’t have to be doing something every minute of the day. It’s not how busy you are (something I had to unlearn)
74. Hare – intention: purposefully resting
Other inspirational best yoga poses:
75. Inclined plane – when you’re feeling like you want to get off the ground or you’re excited to start a new project
76. Plank – intention: building daily strength for any trials or difficulties you’re going through
77. Camel – reminder: let go
78. Dolphin – reminder: we’re born with natural abilities
79. Splits – intention: flexibly grow daily and watch progress
80. Happy Baby – do when you want to feel safe and carefree
81. Swan – reminder: have daily grace for those areas you can’t change
82. Hero – reminder: we can all be a hero in our ways in our lives serving and doing what we do
83. Neck rolls – intention: calming and releasing mind tension
84. Neck side to side – intention: take a moment to relax
85. Shoulder shrug – intention: be less stressed (letting the weight fall off your shoulders)
86. Frog – intention: feel youthful and free to spread out
87. Garland – reminder: take a break; good for when you’re feeling unsure or in between energetic and tired
88. Locust – reminder: try something different or take on a new project
89. Wild Thing – intention: let go of worries and enjoy more
90. Goddess – intention: feel ready for the world
91. Swan dive – intention: go with the flow
92. Cactus arms – reminder: take time off
93. Airplane – intention: feel free and in control at the same time
94. Spider with feet and hands on floor – reminder: you’re a beautifully unique creature
And then these sounds and breathing pair well with yoga poses and intentions:
95. Om – making the sound clears nasal passages along with mind and body. Try a variation by using your mouth to create an ah-oh-mmm sound sequence. Intention: peace and living stress-free
In yoga, breathwork is super important and great for calming. If you get heart palpitations from anxiety, these are good breath exercises to refer to and do.
For all of us, staying mindful of breath gets us in a good reminder habit to be healthy-minded. And when you get a good breath of air you can send that energy through your mind and body, to help improve both mental and physical health.
Your nose acts as a natural filtration system. If you regularly breathe through your mouth when you sleep or if you have nasal congestion and obstructed nasal passages, you may want to look for solutions to help you breathe out of your nose regularly.
And these are the special breath exercises you can do with yoga:
96. Sounding breath – this includes long and slow breaths while laying down, so is good to do when you’re getting in and out of bed. Reminder: you’re alive and able to take purposeful breaths
97. Breath of fire – while sitting, exhale out short and quick breaths from your nose (like a fire-breathing dragon that doesn’t exist) until all your air from your diaphragm feels expelled. And then fill back up gradually like a balloon. Daily reminder: you’re a miracle with automatic breaths. You can control your breathing using your respiratory muscle, your diaphragm, that sits just below your two life-giving organs: your heart and lungs
98. Bellows breath – do this one when you’re in standing mountain pose with hands at heart center (optional). Full inhale/exhale from the mouth. This is a good one to do in the morning when you’re first waking up
99. Sufi Mother’s Breath – this is a simpler version than the Pranayama 4-7-8 version. Exhale through your nose, then inhale through your nose for a count of 7, and then exhale again for a count of 7. This is great and simple to do on a walk where you’re staying present and observing your surroundings
100. Alternate Nostril Breath – take one hand and rest a middle finger on the forehead, thumb from the same hand rests on the closest nostril temporarily closing the airway, light ring, and baby finger on the opposite nostril. Then, inhaling through the open nostril. Intention: notice details about how each side feels as the air circulates more intently to one side of the body from your head to your feet. Reminder: how the air affects our body at and in this moment and how we affect others and the community around us with our breath
So there you go... those are my best yoga poses, intentions, and recommendations as someone who got on her daily mat later in life and has never left or looked back.
And if you need an activity to help ground your yoga, I find baking goes hand in hand. Because you wait for your bake, you don’t want to go far away. Or start a new project that will get interrupted by the timer bell going of.
Yoga is the perfect 10-minute wait for cookies baking (and not burning). Or if you want a sweet something that’s a little more anxiety calming?… a cinnamon roll while you slowly roll on your yoga mat.
