Yoga with Melanie

Beyond the physical postures, yoga encompasses a holistic journey of ethics, self-discipline, mindful movement, breath awareness, introspection, focus, meditation, and unity.

The eight limbs provide a roadmap for practitioners to explore yoga's benefits for mind, body, and spirit.

By practicing them, we can experience improved physical health, mental clarity, emotional well-being, enhanced self-awareness, and a deeper connection with ourselves and others.

A final article on sleep about how much you may need. Sweet dreams!

Why You Don't Necessarily Need Eight Hours of Sleep If you're busy but also health-conscious, you might question, "How much sleep do I need?" Find out the range you should aim for, and why it's not necessary to fixate on how much sleep you need by age.

Some more tips for bettersleep.

Why Sleeping with Socks On Could Be Your Answer to Better Sleep Does wearing socks to bed help you sleep? Here's how wearing socks to bed can affect your sleep, according to sleep experts and published research.

So many of us have trouble sleeping these days. Here is a non invasive method to try the next time you find yourself awake and can't fall asleep.

6 Pressure Points for Sleep That'll Calm Your Mind and Body Next time you struggle to score shut-eye, try these pressure points for sleep. Here, licensed acupuncturists and a doctor share the best pressure points for sleep and explain how to use each one to improve your zzz's.

Yoga with Melanie added a View Shop button to their Page.

Namaste and greetings from the temple.

My latest creation, just in time to teach yoga today

Getting creative in my" barn yoga" class. Who knew that pool noodles could be props?👍😄

Egyptian yoga

Beach zen.

Sunday yoga with Edie the Wonder Dog

Deep Breathing Might Have Benefits We're Only Beginning to Understand

One researcher's push to understand how an ancient yoga technique can change our cells.
By Sara Novak|Tuesday, March 12, 2019

As a cell biologist, Sundar Balasubramanian never forgot his rural southern Indian roots, or the traditional practices his uncle, the village healer, exposed him to. Today, as a researcher and assistant professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, Balasubramanian has turned his focus back to those roots — specifically, to pranayama, a deep-breathing relaxation technique. He’s showing that this ancient yoga practice is about more than relaxing — it can change us at the cellular level.

Q: What made you examine this technique through a cellular biology lens?

A: In 2005, I noticed while I was practicing pranayama, I was producing so much saliva that I was almost drooling. I wondered why and what the overall impact of that was. This led me and my team to study whether increased saliva production was a common response to the practice, and we found that it was.

Q: Most people wouldn’t think much of getting spitty when they focus on breathing and relaxing. But your 2016 study in BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine showed this bump in salivation seems to matter. Why?

A: Saliva has numerous antibodies and proteins that do everything from suppressing tumors to regenerating the liver. For example, it contains immunoglobulin, which are antibodies that bind to germs, as well as DMBT1, a tumor suppressor that blocks the conversion of normal cells to cancer cells.

Q: Your 2015 study in International Psychogeriatrics showed that pranayama does more than just increase salivation. Can you elaborate?

A: Yes, it changes the makeup of saliva by increasing the amount of nerve growth factor (NGF). When NGF is produced, it’s transported to the brain, where it signals nerve cells to grow or survive longer. Increased NGF could have a major impact on aging, and specifically on some of the degenerative diseases of the day like Alzheimer’s and cancer.

Q: Do you have any upcoming or ongoing research projects on pranayama?

A: We’re about to start a study on patients with scleroderma, a chronic disorder that causes the body’s connective tissue to swell and harden. We’ll look at how these breathing techniques impact inflammation and how this relates to disease symptoms. We’re also in the beginning phases of a study that will look at whether deep breathing can reduce pain, improve appetite and improve mood in cancer patients.

Here is a great article on deep breathing. More and more research is being done on this and all of points to food things

Deep Breathing Might Have Benefits We're Only Beginning to Understand | DiscoverMagazine.com One researcher's push to understand how an ancient yoga technique can change our cells.

If this isn't a reason to do yoga, I don't know what is.

Eileen Ash - Great Britain The Oldest Driver in the World at 105 Years Old

How Yoga Changes Your Brain

Did you ever wonder how yoga changes your brain? As it turns out, that post-session happiness you feel isn’t just in your head. Using brain scans, scientists can now prove that yoga actually changes your brain chemistry. And that’s a good thing. Just like practicing tai chi moves, using yoga as a form of exercise and meditation can help naturally treat a range of health issues, particularly ones rooted in the brain.

While natural therapies, including yoga, don’t have a ton of funding for major studies compared to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, we are starting to see some compelling science emerge. Some of the best science to date showing how yoga changes your brain involves yoga’s impact on anxiety, depression and pain tolerance.

Did you know yoga is a natural remedy for anxiety? That’s because yoga impacts our brain’s GABA levels. GABA is short for gamma-aminobutryic acid, sometimes referred to as your body’s “chill out” neurotransmitter. GABA is crucial for suppressing neural activity. Your GABA neurotransmitters produce a calming effect similar to of drinking alcohol (without the harmful side effects). And, alcohol’s calming effects are only temporary, with anxiety often rising once the buzz wears off.

Yoga bumps up your brain’s natural GABA production without traditional anti-anxiety drugs designed to help your body release GABA. Yoga sounds much better than insomnia, seizures and, ironically, more anxiety linked with drug withdrawal.

While walking to lose weight really works, it may not be your best defense against anxiety. Practicing yoga unleashes more anxiety-quelling GABA in the brain’s thalamus than walking, according to a 2010 study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. Compared to pleasure reading for an hour, a 60-minute yoga session increases GABA levels by 27 percent.

Because of its combination of breathing, meditation and movement, yoga could be one of the best exercises to combat anxiety.

Yoga can actually prevent or reverse the effects of chronic pain on the brain, according to the National Institutes of Health. In fact, depressed individuals may have reduced gray matter in the brain as the result of chronic pain.

Gray matter is located in the cerebral cortex and subcortical areas of the brain. Decreased gray matter can lead to memory impairment, emotional problems, poorer pain tolerance and decreased cognitive functioning.

But yoga and meditation have the opposite effect on the brain as chronic pain. People who regularly practice yoga have more robust levels of gray matter in their brains in areas involved with pain modulation. This means yoga could be an effective remedy for certain types of depression and one of the top natural painkillers you can count on.

Yoga even acts as a natural antidepressant in pregnant women susceptible to depression. A 2012 study published in Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice found meditative yoga significantly reduce depression symptoms in at-risk women.

Yoga could be the most important forms of exercise to combat anxiety thanks to its unique breathing, meditative and stretching exercises rolled into one practice. There are many different forms of yoga, You can to start out with gentle yoga and experiment to find the type that works best for you.

Medical research tells us that yoga changes your brain in wonderful ways. These include flooding the brain with calming GABA and bulking up gray matter in areas of the brain that make us able to tolerate pain. This is crucial for those living with chronic pain. Too many doctors are too quick to prescribe painkillers. Instead, give yoga a try. Your brain will thank you.

5 Signs You’re Not Drinking Enough Water

Cooler temperatures and cloudy days can make you feel less thirsty, often resulting in lower water consumption and, in some cases, dehydration.
Whether you’re exercising, running errands, at home or at work, hydration is critical for your health.

Let’s have a look at the importance of hydration, the effects of aging on fluid intake, and five easy ways to know if you’re drinking enough or if you’re dehydrated.

Water Is Life

Adequate water intake is essential to staying healthy. Dehydration negatively impacts the body’s thermoregulation, its capacity for physical activity, cognitive and kidney function, the digestive and cardiovascular systems, and your skin. It also negatively affects your bones.

Water, composed of two hydrogen atoms attached to a single oxygen atom, is indispensable since we can only survive a few days without it.

Our diets often include sources of water that contribute to our hydration. Some foods, such as strawberries, watermelon and cabbage, are more than 90% water.

The Effect Of Age On Thirst And Hydration

Hydration should be a part of your daily routine no matter your age or condition, but an active choice to hydrate is especially necessary for older adults.

Studies that have compared the relationship between thirst and fluid ingestion between younger and older people found that after water deprivation, older persons experience less thirst and drink less fluid than younger people. The result is that older people are less likely to replenish their body’s supply of water, leaving them dehydrated.

That means that you should keep sipping water throughout the day, even if you don’t feel thirsty, and you should know how to tell when you’re dehydrated so that you can take immediate action.

Headaches, fatigue, muscle spasms, and dark urine are known to signal dehydration, but there are five little-known signs of dehydration that we’ll look at.

1. Loss Of Skin Elasticity

Grab a little bit of your skin on the back of your hand between two fingers. Now pull it up gently, then let it go. It should immediately return its former position, smooth against your hand. This test is a simple measurement of skin turgor or elasticity.
If you’re dehydrated when you try this the skin will remain in the pinched position, or return more slowly than usual. Use this simple test to tell whether you need to up your water intake.

2. Confusion
Dehydration influences cognition. Even very mild levels of dehydration can disrupt your mood, concentration, and cognitive function. Studies have shown that dehydration impairs performance on tasks, affecting short-term memory, perceptual discrimination, arithmetic ability, visuomotor tracking, and psychomotor skills.4
If you find yourself feeling lost, confused, or short-of-attention, that could be a sign of dehydration.

3. Bad Breath

A sudden case of bad breath, or halitosis, can indicate that you’re not getting enough water.
When you’re dehydrated, your body produces less saliva. Saliva reduces the number of bacteria in your mouth, and it is those bacteria that cause bad breath. So if you’re not getting enough water, the bacteria levels in your mouth increase, creating that noxious odor.

4. Food Cravings

In a national study examining data from nearly 10,000 participants, researchers found a direct relationship between inadequate hydration and elevated body mass index (BMI) or obesity.
This study further confirms that dehydration causes overeating. Sometimes when our body is trying to tell us to drink water, we misinterpret the signal as hunger and get something to eat instead.
If you find yourself regularly having food cravings, it might be dehydration misleading you. Staying hydrated can clear up the cravings, both keeping your body healthy and your weight under control.

5. You Stop Sweating

Water is so essential that your body will do just about anything to preserve it when supplies are running low. One such measure is effectively turning off your sweat glands. This response indicates severe dehydration and may be a marker of heat exhaustion or heat stroke.
If you suddenly stop sweating, seek help immediately and start hydrating as soon as possible, especially if you feel faint, confused, or unlike yourself.

Synopsis
Loss of skin elasticity, confusion, bad breath, food cravings, and ceasing to sweat are indicators of dehydration. Drink filtered water throughout the day- not just when you’re thirsty. You can alkalinize it with a few drops of lemon juice. Bottoms up!

8 Life Hacks To Get The Most Out Of Your Yoga Practice To maintain your body it is essential to make yoga practice daily to cleanses the body and the mind. Here's are the different ways to get most out of your yoga.

Way better than goat yoga.

Meditation is the science of the process whereby we rewrite your pre-written destiny.Your Destiny is in Your Hand

It's never too late to start doing yoga. Look at some of the benefits of a regular practice.

CREATING PAIN FREE SHOULDERS

I am offering a 4 week course on Creating Pain-free Shoulders starting Monday of week. If you or someone you know has shoulder pain that is giving you problems or keeping you from doing the things you, then this course is for you.

I am excited to offer this course because you will actually do things in every class that will help you to create pain free shoulders.

Here is what you will learn in this course:

Study the anatomy of the shoulder to learn how it works
Learn what the most common shoulder problems are
Find out potential causes of shoulder pain
What steps you can take to decrease or eliminate shoulder pain
Discover one simple habit that can make a huge difference in your shoulders
Learn movements to build up strength in the surrounding area
Practice stretches to help heal, open and stabilize your shoulders

Starts: Monday July 17th
Time: 6 - 7 pm
Place: 2565 D Mission St.
Cost: $100.00 for the 4 weeks

2017 Marketing Calendar Download my fill-in-the-blank 2017 Marketing Calendar today and make 2017 your best year ever.

Relax & Restore Yoga this Tuesday at my Westside studio. Come and allow yourself to sink into delicious deep relaxation in this nurturing and supported practice.

Date: Sept 13th
Time: 5:30 - 7 pm
Place 2565 d Mission St.
Cost: $13.00

I hope you can make it.

An in depth look at how to keep your knees happy.

How to Keep Your Knees Safe During Asana Practice Protect your knees in asana with these expert alignment tips.