Spaghetti squash is an anti-inflammatory food. And if you’re trying to stay away from gluten or inflammatory foods for healthy eating, then squashes fit the bill. Spaghetti squash can even take the place of spaghetti carbs.
Make this spaghetti squash bowl easy from the recipe steps below 🍝
It also has more fiber. And you can count on A, B, and C vitamins.
Both vitamins A and C are antioxidants that help to protect against chronic diseases that can develop from chronic inflammation.
And your allergies and eczema skin symptoms can be telltale. It doesn’t always have to be an internal diagnosis as inflammatory warning signs.
I learned this firsthand when I experienced adult eczema in a nightmarish way during the world pandemic. It was a 3 month saga I’d love to forget. But then ended up in the hospital emergency room a year later for a related episode that had to do with food eating habits.
Before then, I knew common allergy foods from the outside as I planned parties and food menus working with thousands of groups with known food allergies and gluten sensitivities.
Gluten flour was a red flag for the chef foods prepared and I’d add a special label to food items on food tables that were gluten-free
For my preventing eczema better food habits, white flour and white table sugar are ingredients I try to use less of in my recipes and low-sugar desserts. That seems to do the trick (along with skin moisturizing often)!
Choosing gluten free flours for pasta is more healthy for most people and those with allergies.
Because white table sugar is a primary inflammatory food source. It raises blood sugar.
That’s probably no surprise as too much sugar can make your skin crawl (itch) and no research (other than asking your sweet taste buds 😋) has sanely suggested that sugar is good for you.
But that’s hard news to swallow when you’re a sweet tooth (and a Vata body like me).
But I’m happy to say that even though I love baking (and do it weekly), I’ve learned how to bake healthy and keep eczema at bay. And yes make bakes that are sweet tooth satisfying (otherwise why bother?).
…Boring rice crackers are not my cup of tea. I’m looking for the sweet childhood desserts I remember that leave no inflammatory memory.
Because I’m a foodie…
And when I started in catering management for upscale hotel chains, there was only a vegetarian menu option outside of what others ate.
Then common requests grew like “hold the onions” and “hold the garlic.”
And peanut and nut allergies cropped up.
When I dug deeper into creating menus for food allergy group requests, we found that guests who had some peanut allergies could sometimes eat tree nuts like pine nuts.
They even reported back they liked certain dishes with them.
And shellfish can be another tricky allergy area, but gratefully I didn’t work much with those foods.
An affected person who has even a trace of the shellfish can experience a life threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis shock. Like gluten to Celiac disease people, it can be a real issue.
Your body gives different health conditions signs as warning. But a warning is a warning..
Also corn, oats, and quinoa (pseudo-grain) meals are good ideas since they are naturally gluten-free.
Corn is actually the largest agricultural crop produced in the United States.
But what spikes the blood sugar of one person is different for another person in our biodiversity.
Testing food and exposing yourself to a variety of healthy foods helps the body function as you get more vitamins, minerals, and anti-inflammatory nutrition.
Adding more organic plant-based 🌱 in nature when possible, and less plant based (factory) foods 🏭 help your entire body system run better.
Every little bit of our effort counts…
And adding more healthy food variety, and nutrient-dense plant-forward foods is a double-win, scoring points for our bodies and our earth. 🌍
Small switches can be as easy as exchanging pasta made from flour for a spaghetti squash bowl (steps below).
Also, focus on anti-inflammatory foods and include a Mediterranean Diet or Mediterranean-style diet. Many of the foods are found in both diets. Like spaghetti squash would be acceptable on both diets.
Changing your habits like a regular sweet one for a plant-based breakfast is doable. I’m living proof. 😊
And I take another page from my catering days where Crudite was a platter offered at almost every event.
That’s basically raw veggies like cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, and asparagus.
Those are good sources of fiber that your body needs to better absorb foods.
We often forget about the fiber as we’ve been primed to think of the macros (protein, carbs, and fat).
I discovered spaghetti squash as a meal substitute when vegetarians requested special meals when I was working in hotel catering planning. It's an easy anti-inflammatory food bowl or dish to prepare.
Course dinner, lunch
Cuisine American
Total Time 1 hourhour10 minutesminutes
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets
Equipment
Bread knife or safer sawing knife.
Spoon
Ingredients
spaghetti squash gourd
extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
Instructions
Score the gourd lengthwise. do not try to cut the hard gourd raw
Bake your spaghetti squash for about 20 minutes at 350°F or so. Then softened, you can cut where you scored. Tip: for the ends (like on pumpkins, take the firmly planted inside squash knife and twist to the right at the top and then at the bottom of the squash and that should do the trick break it open fully into two halves)
Face the two halves down on a baking sheet. You can add a ‘lil EVOO if you like.
Bake for 50 minutes or until you can scoop out strands easily with a spoon. You can test with a fork if you like. About half way through, when you see browning, flip the halves so they're facing up, and add a 'lil more EVOO drizzle.
Optional: keep the healthy seeds and enjoy them as snacks! Roast them along when you're baking the squash.
Real life vs. virtual world is a reality today. We felt this during the pandemic when we were on lockdown and had opportunity for more virtual connection. Real life was maybe more home and or outdoor focused.
Avocados 🥑 are nutri-delicious and you can grow an avocado plant easily from a healthy seed as a heathy real life activity! 🌱
And the lessons we learned were mostly from our own experiences. They shaped us in our hybrid worlds today in 2025 and beyond.
Today we’re balancing real life vs. virtual world digital life where AI is the new digital movement.
It’s a brand new era of possibilities.
Figuring out your balance is where you will get the best reward and living 80/20 real life vs. virtual world is going to be your healthiest best.
You grow when you get out and meet people instead of staring at digital screens. You may be more productive and scalable on your screen reaching more people, but the connections you make with in-person connections will be higher quality.
They also help you have a happier life and get more restful sleep as you’re not staring at blue screen lights non-stop.
Below I provide some ideas and tips from my own self-discovery of an 80/20 balance from 2020 where I clearly saw the contrast and learned useful real life vs. virtual world digital balance lessons.
Co-working spaces are opportunities to make connections and water cooler chat in real life. Zoom and video conferencing are still opportunities to meet more people in different places.
Adding those two meeting opportunities enriches lives and promotes growth in your life and community.
In the Blue Zones regions around the world (with the highest number of vibrant 100 year olds on the planet), community is a common factor.
Conversations happen in community and provide opportunities.
Offline (real life), I once had a office coworker from another department who had over a dozen healthy plants in her office and as a conversation starter I said to her, “the air in here must be really good!”
She pointed out the growth of specific plants (they were her babies), and how wee-small they were when her daughter was born and now off in college.
Proximity was an opportunity to connect and provide opportunity to tear down department communication walls.
That also inspired me to bring in my own house plant as you can never have enough metaphors in life for growth.
And today you may have your work-from-home living situation. And over time, that can get lonely. That’s also when real life vs virtual world connections have the most benefit.
Lessons Learned From 80/20 Real Life vs. Virtual World
If you want to live more balanced, get more good sleep and enjoy this life while not missing seasons. And if you want to get up earlier, rearrange your bed so that it’s closest to the window. Turn the shades so that natural light comes in at sunrise. That transformatively helps to biohack your circadian rhythm naturally.
When I did this, I noticed I got up 1-2 hours earlier every day appreciating sunrise. Getting sunlight in and through your eyes, wakes you up!
Create boundaries so you can have the balanced, 80/20 happy life you want.
You can count how many days you’ve left your house. And if it’s less than 4 per week, that’s a sign that you’re less than 50% doing real life with others.
And you find that you’re flip-flopped or less than 20% in the real life vs. the virtual world (80% plus), you definitely want to evaluate and change some things so you can “stop and smell the roses” and enjoy your foods, that are not in digital cookies. 😊
That’s what I found my life was becoming back in our social distancing world days.
And now that we are socializing again, it’s still not the same as in the past.
It is reported that Gen Z generations living in this increasingly heavy digital world are reporting their sleep is suffering. Unlike younger and older Millennials (Xennials), they weren’t all born before the internet so they only know the Web 3 and beyond worlds.
These days not having digital boundaries is definitely affecting any of us, so it’s good to be aware.
Counting and gauging your overall daily hours online is a healthy, first-step awareness exercise.
This brings me back to the point of finding the best balance that’s achievable.
Keeping a calendar helps to check your real life vs. virtual world balance. And if you keep a printed calendar on-hand then you rely less on the digital world.
Getting inspiration to go back to at least 60% real life vs. virtual world is a healthier balance, no matter what your type of work is, for an overall happier life. Aiming for at least 4 days where you get out of the house.
Besides running errands, you could sign up for events or volunteer so those are built into your schedule.
Your time on Zoom counts as virtual hours. Meeting for coffee in the real world has a different effect than seeing someone on a Zoom screen.
Connecting to people in the virtual world saves travel time and the value is the idea exchange, growing further, sharing, and collaborating newborn opportunities and ideas with people around the world.
So balancing the two worlds (real life vs. virtual world) is tricky.
During 2020, counting hours helped me to become aware of my own behaviors, and helped influence me to add back real-world life hours and joy in a safe physical environment.
One thing is I learned how to use the manual setting on an SLR camera that’s been sitting in a closet for almost a decade dying to be used properly.
Since applying learned camera lessons, I’ve been excited to take photos again in real life.
Another example is, I learned how to use the dough hook that comes with the Kitchen Aid mixer, where I was able to make all types of low-sugar brunch desserts and foods that I missed when I was at real life brunches.
And I discovered new food varieties! Like, I didn’t know there was a Cara Cara orange variety until I infused them in my low-sugar orange scones.
If you’re a Vata like me, you can see and appreciate nature changing and evolutions in the world through food variety.
And when adopting enhancements in your adapting life, you probably have progressed more in your life than you give yourself credit for.
Here are some additional positive examples that happened (that are still relevant and you can try!):
2020 Pantry Stock (Real life vs. virtual world)
The real life 2020 pantry!
I learned how to stock and keep a supply of grocery goods in a closet pantry for convenience (and just in case), that saves time.
While pulling out older items, I took the time to read the nutrition labels and intentionally deciding to keep some of the “bad foods” that’s readily available when we didn’t know if a food shortage could exist.
…They are still joyful foods for kids and we do live in a real world where it’s good to be sensitive to the world’s food insecurities in community, compassion, and empathy, in a kinder-giving and patient world we’re living in and becoming.
Having a pantry helps make you appreciate the real world vs. virtual world.
When you leave your digital device and healthy food interweb searches, you get to compassionately learn that food banks have lines and where more expensive healthy meal planning is not the main goal of the average American household.
And when I think back to Pop Tarts or a bag of Tootsie lollipops (off the charts in sugar content), I stop healthy judgment, and feel grounded from my humbled beginnings.
These have been popular treats since I was a little girl and taught me to change my ways in 2020 where eczema had a life in me. And since then found the better anti-inflammatory eating ways one baby at a time that’s more like a weekly 7 day eczema diet plan to eliminate any flareups today.
I eat less sugar baking my own desserts which is healthy and something I may have never pursued on my own. 🍥
You just never know how tough situations can pan out and bring in better ways… that you organically learn about living through those seasons one day at a time.
And daily to keep focus, whether you use Post-Its or Trello boards (or digital similar tools) for life productivity, those micro choices shape and shift your 80/20 balanced life.
What tool you use isn’t what’s so important, as much as how they serve you and keeping an 80/20 real life/digital balance.
And that’s the same reason why I have a yoga mat permanently laid out on the floor.
It’s easy to get distracted in our blending real life vs. virtual world where we balance life-work-and everything else.
A benefit of doing the balance is you stay very relevant to all the changes around you and the world.
Balancing helps to not go extreme in either way.
It allows us not to get left behind in the process of who we could become in this world and also what’s happening in the world.
Catching some of the daily news is helpful but not watching or reading for hours is healthy. We keep using what we learn to benefit our experiences.
And blocking out all social media isn’t necessarily healthy while looking at your devices first-thing in the morning isn’t either. So finding that happy medium balance of 80/20 helps.
Here are a few learned tips to view social media and digital communication (in case you’ve been living out mostly in the real world!):
Have patience with tools that drop communication and people not replying back because of busy real, and digital life overwhelm reasons. You can be pleasantly surprised how waiting can lower your blood pressure (it has mine).
We didn’t tolerate slow tech issues a decade ago (faster was a goal), and now we’ve mellowed out. Catch yourself from taking no replies back as a personal rejection to you (always believe it’s a technology glitch, other party personal overwhelm, and not your human glitch!).
Girl, I don’t know you as a reply to a stranger’s DM in social media, is no longer the kinder way you should respond to people reaching out to you in our sensitive #metoo society. Have no judgment.
Some people are unaware as no adult today was born with social media as a daily norm. We’ve all committed to a social media faux pas or two (even if we’re not aware). Kindly react or let someone they know (not you, a stranger to them) respond to them.
And yeah, spam is still spam to a stranger, so unfollow as needed without thinking the Universe is going to take that as your negative energy. Just think, you’re helping spammers (who could be a bot 🤖) figure out who their people are and that so happens to not be you, someone who cares.
Don’t be afraid to reach out with good intentions. Friend circle divides have been broken. It’s now…. do we have anything in common even if it’s just a mutual engagement on a conversation thread? Don’t overthink. Just post and reply authentically so people know you exist.
If you have kind-hearted intentions, don’t feel regret or question whether you should I have posted or commented? Be brave. Sometimes you only get one chance and then the time has passed.
In network meetings, make a habit to act like that could be the last time you see any one person even though there are future meetings scheduled. You just never know and opportunities don’t wait.
Social media is encouraging all of us to embrace each other, our vulnerabilities and differences. Being fearless, collaborating, and taking initiative are how you make inroads and meaningful impact.
You may even discover an interest, passion, or purpose in the process! When you listen to other people’s journeys and how they discovered their calling, you realize that they didn’t set out to do what they do.
They found an opportunity and that took them to their next step action that provided the next step clarity. And years later they have blossomed and can look back and re-tell their passion origin story.
Create discipline for time and space. I found myself pulled into podcasts, social media, Zoom, and other conversations when I wasn’t fully present.
If you don’t need to enter them (e.g. not scheduled on your calendar), then keep staying productive with your main focus task. It could be an activity or it could be staying creative that could be a strategy.
For non-essential tasks, if it’s not a good time or you’re not receptive, come back to those non-real time recordings and listen when you can pay attention to get the most benefit.
Real Life, Work-Life Balance :
I’m very specific and serious about getting high-priority, creativity, and deep-thinking mind activities done in the morning as I protect those golden hours. It’s the natural planner in me.
Then as night falls, I become more flexible about how I feel and anything I do is additional. This leaves wiggle room for being less rigid (quality over quantity).
Being structured and flexible shapes you into a well-rounded person (generalist), empathetic to the world that’s more needed than ever, and then you add your uniqueness and talents (specialist) to the mix.
You can find your balance and rhythm to do both, in your staying flexible, open, and intentional life.
And if you work or spend most your time at home, creating boundaries is super important. Closing an office door, turning off the television, or shutting down a laptop helps.
Create different room zones that divide activity. Have a special nook for your journaling and reflection time, and a separate area where you exercise.
Even if you’re in tighter quarters like a city apartment or bedroom, you could set a pillow or mat on the floor by the window and that gives you a new perspective.
Defining time and space is more important than the perfect physical space or a large space.
What used to be called “me time” a decade ago (that could sound selfish if over-indulgent), is now prized as self-care in our aware world to what helps to create a successful life. See how the world is coming around 😊
So, keep restoring your inner you and peace, and making micro habit shifts to improve your vitality and grow the relationships around you.
When you healthily re-enter the digital world that never sleeps, you can add more value to your virtual spaces, tribes, and groups.
Set your timer or stack one of your habits.
You can show up adding value and sharing your real-life natural gifts, talents, and mutual interests
And when it’s time to switch back to your balanced 80% real-life (work-life-sleep) routine, put your devices back to sleep. 🛏
Because devices and imbalanced lifestyles, can put you feeling out-of-sorts. Your mind and/or body can feel like it’s in a mood funk from your usual balance, but you can restore your body-mind type imbalances.
I share what I learned from top-to-bottom in one stressful season where I turned to modern Ayurveda ways as a solution that costs you practically nothing and you can do conveniently in your surroundings (even if your home is in a busy city in the Western world) once you know what to do.
Orange smoothie sounds good to me! Navel orange in a smoothie is a dream come true with creamy popsicle vibes. It can be made like the frozen treat I grew up around ice cream trucks and drink stands with colorful fun signs.
This sign is orange (and not lemon-ade) like you often see.
And you can make a healthy orange smoothie dream come alive with oranges like these.
For beverages, the orange flavor is calming to the body.
Oranges calm our parasympathetic nerves that directly impact if we feel anxious or not. It’s also one healthy way to celebrate that we have decadent beverage variety choices when we get a ‘lil creative.
The orange calming factor can give you a new reason to be happy today. 😊
Orange dream smoothie recipe below.👇
Your body, balance, and sensitivity to tastes and smells change all the time. What’s good for you in this season may change in the next or even tomorrow.
You can come up with your own creative dream smoothie ideas like I did and stumbled on the creamy dream orange smoothie.
Stumbling upon keeps life interesting!
And this is one sweet and healthy smoothie to add to your list.
As a natural Ayurvedic Vata, I was born with a sweet tooth, so if I think a dessert is too sweet, then believe me… it has waaay too much sugar, so that’s why I came up with less sweet, healthier options!
Especially in America, where foods are loaded with sugars, our healthy taste buds and sense can be off track.
The average American consumes over 70 grams of sugar a day, when 25 grams of maximum recommended added or processed sugar is agreed on by both the FDA and American Heart Association.
While fruit sugar (fructose) is a better kind of sugar, it’s still sugar at the end of the day.
And that’s what makes this orange dream smoothie irresistible!
When I first made this creamsicle orange smoothie, I loved the textured beige-cream frothy color beverage (and maybe you do too!)
A creamy orange smoothie like this will help your calming morning.
The whole orange is much healthier than concentrated orange juice if you want to do a small step replacement for healthy habits.
And a much healthier version than the childhood popsicles that this special creamy orange smoothie comes from.
Use one whole orange. A Calfornia navel, blood orange, or Cara Cara navel orange will give you a more balanced sweetness than a Florida orange.
If you can, opt for organic or heirloom oranges especially if you’re using the outside peel or zest that’s a great idea for taste and texture.
Look for heirloom, organic, or local farmers market produce as in season (free of pesticides, good for us and the environment). This would be good for your drinks, bakes, and even Creamy Orange Smoothie.
The magic add is 1 tsp orange marmalade (add bold sweetness but you don’t need much) or you can stay wholesome with your orange zest only
Add vanilla milk
Also add vanilla yogurt (to thicken) or if you prefer, you can add a banana that will slightly alter the taste but still pair well with an orange.
And ideally you will have a full-on orange smootie.
How?
Make some orange zest from one medium orange. That can be very calming too while you sniff orange scents.
Blend with a teaspoon of marmalade, yogurt, and vanilla milk. Marmalade has sugar so that’s why keeping in moderation is a tasty-good idea for this Creamy Orange Smoothie.
This one tastes like the orange cream popsicle but without so much sugar. If you want to add some protein, blend in fine almonds or add powders.
And if you want to have low-sugar, then eliminate the marmalade and cut down on the orange zest.
1orange (a navel or California orange will give you a balanced sweetness)
1tspmarmalade (add bold sweetness but you don’t need much)
Vanilla milk to thickness liking
Vanilla Yogurt (to thicken)
Instructions
Blend. Zhugh glass rim with orange zest. Enjoy!
Notes
Creamsicle Creative Smoothie 1 orange (a navel or California orange will give you a balanced sweetness)1 tsp marmalade (add bold sweetness but you don’t need much)Vanilla milkVanilla Yogurt (to thicken)Make orange zest from one medium orange, blend with a teaspoon of marmalade, yogurt, and vanilla milk.This one tastes like an orange creamsicle popsicle if you know what those are. If you want to add some protein, blend in fine almonds or add powders. And if you want to eliminate sugar, then eliminate the marmalade and cut down on the orange zest.
Morning mindfulness in a quiet NYC park. You’d never know that I had just given one of the most stressful high-level presentations I’ve ever had to deliver in my life. Our bodies and minds are super resilient!
I think many people need overall stress relief these days. I’ll share some of my insight on how you can become aware with mindfulness.
People walk around seemingly unaffected but underneath their skin, they are stressed out, anxious, annoyed, or irritated. You know that because of the stress statistics, and because you have shared and felt those same feelings at some point. That makes us human. And, if you live in a city or busy, suburban area around people, you probably know that all too well.
Living chronically stressed is one of the worst things you can do for your health (it’s a slow form of dying as I think settling into retirement is, but that’s another story for another day).
You may know stress is linked to 6 of the leading causes of death and probably more as our society is growing even more complex and filled with daily stressors. The saddest result from stress is if a person tragically considers ending their life or lives on anxiety medication. Inside of each of us, there are healthy alternative solutions, and that is the answer to life.
Jon Kabat -Zinn is known for his mindfulness and meditation work and writing. He worked on a study where employees practiced a mindfulness technique for 30 minutes a day for 8 weeks. Their brains were scanned before and after. Following the mindful 8 weeks, the participants had more activity in the left side of their front brain that showed enthusiasm and joy.
The study is an example of how we can affect our stress and daily lives by our thoughts. Most adults carry some out-of-control problems and walk around with varying levels of burden or worry in the mind-body construction we’re given.
Often, we don’t know what we can do to fix our immediate problems or we’ve already tried without a definitive solution, so we just accept that’s just how it is, at least for this season. And the season can be lifelong if never addressed again or if giving up or coping is the way of being.
That’s this life. It’s what you do with your thoughts and making them positive in some way, that makes all the difference in the world.
If you’re a natural Vata-Pitta type and live in a city environment, like I am and do, you’re highly susceptible to stress-related health issues. You can get warning signs initially showing up as acute or chronic anxiety, strong judgment, inflammation, aches, or pains that you can’t pinpoint the exact cause of. Over time these stress symptoms wear down your mental health and you can suddenly one day no longer get excited about your work, even though it was a gradual accrual.
So I starting making stress relief and work-life balance a priority in my late 20’s. I knew my health and appearance would suffer if I didn’t make changes.
We all want to live actively, and full of energy now and especially in our older years. Plus we have our individual desires like I want to look 20 years younger than my real age… and, I know I’m not alone in those wants.
Looking back in my young adult life, I had put my health on auto-pilot, prioritizing goals to climb the corporate ladder. And then I had small health situations, one after another, that made me question if my work lifestyle was contributing.
I took my job more seriously than my own health. Like, one time I had a panic attack and just went on with the day as though nothing had happened. I never forgot about it though.
Another time, I ignored the initial call to walking pneumonia. Not until the CEO of the company I worked for, urged me to go see the doctor, did I actually prioritize health over my job. I was lucky to get the encouragement and luckily I went to get medical help.
Those were warnings. They may have panned out okay for a healthy 20-something-year-old, but even a few years later makes a difference in the aging process as I started to notice my health more as I got more balance in my life.
I had accumulated stress in my body-mind for many years before I noticed or took any positive action. The body keeps score.
The stress I accumulated had started years before.
I grew up in a house with struggling immigrant parents. There was a lack of daily consistency. There was weekly household expressed anxiety-anger that got recorded in my young brain. And, I suppressed my emotions. As an adult, to become whole and healed, I needed to let out and process post-trauma still living actively in my old child’s brain and affecting my new adult decisions.
I didn’t know mindfulness could be an even better cure (than therapy). Back then in my 20’s, I didn’t know I had an issue, until I started learning more and getting aware (in our pre-vulnerable sharing society days we live in today).
As a young adult, I was just trying to put a roof over my head. That led to a panic attack incident from accumulated stress building up from a prior work victimization situation, then-current toxic management issues, and also working 55 plus grueling work hour weeks.
Different situations, but those are the types of multiple, complicated layers that many adults walk around with daily, that’s running in their mind-bodies. And they hold it all in instead of finding a healthy, sustainable solution that’s readily available (like I found).
In my case and so many others, my brain had recorded current stress-filled situations and mixed them with past emotional childhood trauma that was never healed. The body can then snap.
Our regular healthy bodies are naturally resilient but they can only take so much before there’s a breakdown, and that’s what happened in my case.
Most people live like that, unconscious and unaware about the damage carried around in the cell memories of the mind-bodies. Getting stress relief awareness is life and investment in your future health.
Yoga poses are the breath of life. We all start somewhere as beginners. And it’s usually on a mat. And if we’re lucky, in a class with others and a teacher where we get instruction.
Yoga poses for beginners are also for those who have been doing yoga for decades. Because we all have aching joints from time to time. And the basic poses are just what we need.
Coming up with your own yoga pose routine can help restore specific muscles, joints, and balance to your day. It’s a reset.
Evolving into new yoga poses can be a powerful way to discover how to cure your own body aches and pains.
And, 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.
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.
