Yoga Therapy Archives · Annie B Kay

Nature’s Timekeepers: Solstice & Equinox, Breath & Circadian Rhythms

Noticing Rhythms

My Ayurvedic friends often say “honor the rhythms of life and nature”. From the rhythm of your breathing to your sleep, wake and meal schedule, cultivating your awareness of nature’s rhythms – the flow of moments, days, seasons – provide a life-affirming dance. Re-attunement to nature’s timekeepers – solstice & equinox, and your internal pulse of breath & circadian rhythms is, in my humble opinion, one of the most health-enhancing gifts (from Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Native American Traditions and other nature-based cultures from which we all descend) that we have remembered. The latest science agrees!

Solstice & Equinox, Breath & Circadian Rhythm

Nature’s timekeepers, including solstice & equinox, synchronize the rhythms of life on earth. The earth’s tilt towards or away from the sun, the length of daylight and darkness, and the fluctuation between summer and winter are earth rhythms. These natural phenomena are in perfect sync (or can be) with your inner biological clocks.

A circadian rhythm (from Latin: “about a day”) is a physiological cycle that repeats itself about every 24 hours. That clock is in mammals, plants, and even in the fungi and bacteria populating the earth’s soil and your own gut. These rhythms are endogenously generated, meaning they originate from within an organism as part of its natural physiology rather than by an external stimulus such as light or temperature. These rhythms allow adjustment to regular variations in the environment at predictable times.

In this post, I’ll explore some of nature’s timekeepers and why they are so important for your well-being. I’ll share some science and what you can do to align or re-align with them. Solstice & equinox, breath & circadian rhythm connect what’s outside to what’s within.

Why does it matter?

If you have a digestive or metabolic condition, trouble sleeping or low energy, understanding your natural circadian rhythms and your breath can likely help. Natural rhythms are the daily and seasonal cycles of nature that affect our mindset, mood, energy, and sleep. Circadian rhythms are the 24-hour cycles of light and dark, and they help to regulate our hormones and energy levels. Finally, your breath is a powerful tool for stress relief and relaxation. Taking slow, deep breaths cultivates rest and recovery and can lower your heart rate and blood pressure, helping you to relax and feel more grounded.

Solstice and Equinox:

The Dance of Time, Darkness & Light

For two moments each year – the solstices – the Earth’s axis (the centerline around which earth spins – once daily) is tilted most closely toward the sun. The hemisphere (top or bottom half of the earth) tilted most toward the sun experiences its longest day, while the hemisphere tilted away from the sun sees its longest night.

Solstice (from the Latin “sol” for “sun” and “sistere” for “to stand still”) is a natural moment of pause for the earth.

Summer & Winter Solstice

The summer solstice marks the longest brightest day of the year. The sun is at its highest noontime point in the sky, and for several days before and after the sun feels bright and intense. The whole hemisphere feels it!

The winter solstice is the shortest day and longest night. The sun rises late and sets so early – darkness and stillness in nature are at their height.

Ready for a visual? Here’s a good one from the US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Winter solstice happens in about the third week of December in the Northern Hemisphere. Summer Solstice occurs about the third week of June. Find Northern Hemisphere solstice times here.

Spirit of Solstice

The solstices are obvious pauses in nature. The summer solstice is a celebration of full light, warmth and all that brings – nature is at its fullest point, and the activity – of plants, fireflies, and most of us is at its height. Dancing, rolling down the hill laughter, lawn games, flowers, and evening parties are in order.

Winter solstice is a time of dark velvet quiet. It’s a moment of pause in the silent depth before we begin to see and feel the return of the light. Days begin to get longer and lighter. It’s a time of reflection. The fall harvest is in, and we are usually in winter. That’s the going-in season. Winter solstice is a lovely time to take stock of the year that has been and to reflect on what went well, and not so. It’s a time of integrating lessons. You can reflect on the major events that unfolded, and when your own choices and actions were in alignment with your higher self. Or not!

Celebrations of winter solstice around the world often involve gatherings, gift-giving, candles or other lights in the darkness, and honoring of what nature has provided for the year.

Breath & Circadian Rhythms:

Your Internal Timekeepers

You and I are organic beings, so we have a collection of internal clocks. Modern science is showing us that, just like Ayurveda has been saying for thousands of years, honoring the rhythm of nature and life can take you far in healing your energy & stress levels, improving digestion, and regulating your metabolic health.

The Rhythm of Your Breath

Breathing is your only physiologic action that is both voluntary and involuntary. That is, you can control how deeply, how fast, and the way you breathe, but, if you don’t try to control it, you’ll continue to breathe. Happily.

The yogis have a whole complex science and practice of breathing as an energy-enhancing practice. That practice – called Pranayama in Sanskrit – entails regulating the level and quality of our energy through practice.

Below I’ve included an easy exercise (in the pink box!) to begin to entrain your breath in nature’s time – the cycle of a day, and the cycle of a year.

Your Inner Circadian Rhythms

We humans naturally have a number of internal rhythms – you are more deeply connected to nature than you may feel! You have circadian rhythms of sleep, and regular mealtimes (meal timing; energy, micronutrient (like vitamins & minerals), and macronutrients (carbohydrate, protein, fat, and water) balance) can also have biological rhythms. Even your digestive bacteria are most active in the middle of the day, when the sun is highest, for example. So, eating your largest meal toward the middle of the day makes biological sense.

There is a master circadian clock in your brain, in your hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN), which is sensitive to light, and syncs with other bio-clocks in your tissues. Chrono-nutrition – the study of how these rhythms interact with sleep, foods, and the timing of meals to impact metabolic health (like fatty liver), and digestion – is a young but exciting area of research. Intermittent fasting (IF, eating at certain times, or limiting your eating window) is a related practice, but the science of IF is still young and from what I see, different meal timing patterns may work for different people (so, work with a qualified nutritionist or dietitian…hmm, who might that be?).

Your Internal Timekeeper: Breath

The rhythm of your breath is deeply connected to time and to nature. Tuning into your breath is an easy first step to creating more awareness of your internal clock and its connection to all of life.

Here is an exercise to help you feel your breath connection.

1. Sit up (on the floor on a cushion or blanket, or in a chair where you can place your feet on the floor), and if you’re in a chair, sit forward from the chair back. Your spine can then be nice and long, and your breath can expand the front, sides, and back of your body.

2. Now, notice your natural breathing. Let your hands rest at your sides, and on an inhale, reach through your fingers as the inhale lifts your arms to shoulder height, then overhead. On the exhale, reach through your fingers and bring your arms back down. Continue this “sun breath”, reaching up on an inhale and back down on the exhale.

3. Now, let’s entrain with time. One cycle of your breath (inhale (I), pause (P), exhale (E,) pause) is akin to day, where the pause at the top of the inhale is high noon, and the pause at the bottom is midnight. As you consider this, notice which of the beats of the breath (I, P, E, or P) feel most familiar or easeful and which is more mysterious or a little more challenging. Extend and lengthen each beat of the breath as is comfortable.

4. Now, think of your breath as the wheel of the year. The pause at the top of the inhale is – you guessed it, the summer solstice. Feel the fullness, perhaps brightness, and vibration. The pause at the base of the exhale – the winter solstice. Feel the stillness, the rest with a tinge of anticipation. Notice which of the beats of the breath feel most easeful and does that relate to the current time of year, perhaps your birthday or something else.

This energy (pranayama) practice can help you tune in to solstice & equinox breath & circadian rhythm – they are entwined. You might begin for 5 minutes daily. Slowly increase it to at least 10 minutes most days. Twenty is even better! This can also be a centering part of your morning ritual.

Enjoy

Breath & Circadian Rhythms:

Entrain Yours for Wellbeing

When your circadian clock is off – due to artificial light at night, an irregular schedule like shift work, eating at night or even a digestive issue (it’s a little like the chicken and the egg – which came first?). Your sleep can get interrupted or shortened, which in turn can impact your stress and energy level, digestion, and metabolism. You might feel generally crummy. A chronic condition that runs in your family may come knocking.

These past several years when we all worked at home or were taking time away from regular schedules, many folks are out of whack. I haven’t seen too many folks getting back into regular schedules yet. Still, there is quite a range of recovery. So, if you have not been feeling well, have gained weight, or are working with a chronic issue, thinking about a reasonably regular schedule – sleep, meals, movement, and rest – can be helpful. Helping you to reconnect with your natural rhythm is one of the first things I do when I work with you as a nutritionist and yoga therapist.

Breathe, Feel, Allow…

There are a number of ways of reconnecting with your internal rhythms and re-synchronizing them with nature and life. Certainly joining my community by signing up for the newsletter if you don’t yet receive it – it comes out twice monthly – will help. I’m all about seasonality and reminders for you to honor the flow of time and nature.

What Can You Do Right Now?

Simply beginning to notice the regularity (or irregularity) of your schedule – of getting to bed, turning off electronics, getting up at close to the same time, have usual regular mealtimes, if you have a morning contemplative ritual like meditation or breathing – these are all opportunities to reconnect with and shift your rhythms. Just notice.

Then, look to nature. The night is for sleeping and rest for most of us. If yours is different – it may be OK, or may not be OK for your energy level and well-being. Experiment.

Keeping a regular sleep schedule and limiting exposure to light at night can help to keep your circadian rhythms in tune.

Likewise, look at meal timing, composition (what), and how you eat. All these things can be adjusted and personalized to address your health and well-being. For some, IF works well, for others not so much. Find a guide for support.

Know when the solstice is. Then, find out what it means to you.

…and Connect

Mostly, know that you are indeed connected to nature. Your very body is filled with clocks that want to sync with your natural environment. Can you see the challenge of our modern life? You don’t need to be perfect to benefit. Just experiment and notice what happens.

Modern science is yet again finding data suggesting that the yogis were pretty much right all along. It matters. Everything is connected. There is a rhythm that you are an integral part of. There is a web of nature and life that you operate within, that is speaking to you in a thousand quiet ways. If you can learn to listen, they will teach you.

So if you’ve been feeling out of sync with life, and want to enjoy better physical and mental health, tune in to these natural rhythms, your own circadian rhythms, and your breath. Taking a few moments each day to connect to your rhythms and breathe deeply can have a huge impact on your well-being, particularly if you have a digestive, mental health or metabolic health condition.

Let’s chat!

Are you aware of nature’s rhythms? Do you re-entrain with nature’s rhythms? I want to know! Leave a comment.

Do you have a ritual for the solstice or equinox – or birthdays – that you celebrate? Let’s talk about it!

May you dance to your own music within and without.

Namaste!

Annie

If you liked this article, here’s one on Healthy Mindset you might also like.

Mantra Meditation: Art & Science for Mind-body Healing

Om gum

Ganapatayei

Namaha

Teaching recently on using intention, mantra and affirmation for lifestyle change, I was reminded why I love this delicious vibrational medicine. The room was filled with seekers, some of whom had chanted before, others who’d practiced reminiscent rituals like praying the rosary.

As we honored Ganesh (the beloved elephant-headed, mama-loving archetype of the tantric pantheon) through mantra, I could feel their voices as vibration in my center, deep in my bones. Sound emanated from within each being, voices distinct yet interwoven, forming a collective fabric tenting us in sound-song. It was a pulsing prayer to Ganesh, the remover of obstacles. Eyes closed, bodies swayed in open-hearted rhythm. The capillary-like channels (nadis, in the ancient language of Sanskrit) of our energy bodies plucked like strings, vibrating in mantra meditation.

This article is a brief introduction to the rich energy medicine of mantra meditation. Please know that we just scratch the surface of this profound tool for healing in this article. Stay close to me, friends, to dive deeper!

- Annie

What is Mantra Meditation?

Mantra is a Sanskrit word that roughly translates as: Mind (Man) Free (tra).

Vibrational in action, mantra is chanted repetition of a sacred sound, or an affirmation with the aim of calming and focusing your mind. Doing that helps you shift to a more meditative state of consciousness. It often draws from words in the ancient languages of Sanskrit, Pali, or Latin, and is often a prayer, an honoring or request of a saint or an advanced soul.

Mantra is a form of meditation. Meditation is a practice wherein you change your consciousness in order to achieve something. Meditative consciousness tends include a soft relaxed awareness, a focus (in mantra meditative the mind is focused on the sound or words of the mantra), a quiet yet attentive mind, and an attitude of kind compassion.

As a dietitian and yoga therapist (get to know me better here), I use mantra in my clinical practice to help you change your mindset, food choices and lifestyle choices such as moving more, managing stress mindfully and get enough constructive rest. Practicing these shifts can help you address looming medical issues or to enhance your energy. I often use mantra in combination with setting intention (getting clear on what you are seeking or why you want to change), and with creating affirmations (intentions in present action). These add-ons help focus and charge your mantra meditation, and boost your likelihood of getting the results you seek.

Chanting meditation is well suited to people who struggle with the discipline of quiet stillness. If you have an ‘active mind’ that has trouble settling down, mantra can provide your mind a strong focus. One of my teachers calls it giving the mind a bone. That sounds right! Your busy mind has something to do. Certainly if you love to sing, mantra meditation may feel joyful and natural for you. Now let's talk about the words that make up mantras.

Each mantra is a poem or prayer. It has a focus. In the case of the Ganesh mantra, we honor the remover of obstacles and ask him to help us clear out the mental, physical and unknown cobwebs that prevent us from being in loving service to all beings everywhere. Ganesh helps us to let go. When we are able to let go, it's easier to embrace and reinforce the new, the wisdom-informed.

Western Science, Mantra & Meditation

Science supports the use of mantra and more generally, meditation, for a number of health conditions. Here is a brief round-up of the science:

A 2022 meta-analysis of mantra meditation for mental health suggested benefit anxiety, depression and stress. Effects tended to be small to moderate. Reviewers noted that Western science on this topic is new, and many studies are underway to explore the answers to the many remaining questions of just how contemplative practice does what it does, and interfaces with your brain and your life.

The National Center for Complementary & Integrative Health (NCCIH) has reported that meditation is generally safe, and there is quality research supporting the use of meditation to address high blood pressure, symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety and depression, and insomnia. There is limited science suggesting benefits of using meditation for pain and smoking cessation.

There have also been some fascinating studies about how meditation impacts our brain. In one study researchers compared the brain images of 50 adults who meditate, with 50 who do not. Those who meditated for many years had more folds in the outer grey matter of the brain. Gyrification, the process of creating your brain's folds, may increase your ability to process information.

Meditation may slow, stall or even reverse changes that take place in the brain due to normal aging.

A JAMA meta-analysis suggested that meditation addresses stress and can reduce anxiety, depression and pain.

A 2014 Indian review of meditation from a decidedly yoga-supportive perspective suggests that different mantras can create different effects in the body and life of the practitioner. This is in agreement with longtime Master teachers of mantra.

The science of mantra and meditation is young - it's just getting started! Studies tend to be small and the research is outside of the usual research industrial complex. However, more bright young researchers are moving toward mindful neuropsychology now that Western science knows enough about the brain to move meditation out of the woo-woo shadows. That bodes well for yoga teachers, integrative health pros, and people like you were are interested in accessible solutions that work.

Neuropsychological mechanisms - how mantra works

If you think about a habit from a neuropsychological view, mantra makes sense as a change-helper. Habits are neural short-cuts. They are collections of neural pathways that fire together and remember.

Think about the habit of having a drink at 4p - the sacred hour of happy in my home growing up. Each day, my parents didn't need to check their notes on how to make a Manhattan or even to ask if the other wanted a drink. At 3:45 every single day, my Dad closed the door of his home-office, and the ritual began. It was automatic. The same co-firing happens when it's time to brush your teeth, or when you've had a stressful day and you remember that a glass of wine or piece of chocolate helped you feel better. The habit is formed, engrained.

Mindfulness meditation - paying attention to the habit in a moment by moment way - can help with the re-wiring. It has actually been shown to be quite effective. Mantra meditation is similar to mindfulness meditation in that it provides the brain the time and the cue to look at things differently. Mantra has a couple other interesting characteristics as well.

Mantra is movement - vibration. Yoga provides a number of intersting ways to think about your human body, and one way is organized around a vibrating crystal (your bones). Chanting vibrates your body - check it out! All communication comes down to light and sound - both of which have frequency - waves. Vibrating your body - through song or chant - tends to feel good and help us to shake it off. Whatever it may be. And, if certain frequencies carry certain messages - they imagine if you start vibrating to peace, love and abundance.

Get Started with Mantra Meditation

Begin your practice by setting an intention. Setting an intention helps you to focus your mantra and brings the mantra deeper into your personal circumstance. Please note that this is how I, as a teacher-healer, work with mantra.

Struggling to begin your intention setting? I can help. Scroll down to download my free workbook on this topic: 3 tools for Mindful Transformation. It’s seven pages that will take you step-by-step through setting intention, chanting a mantra, and then creating affirmations to help bring your intention to life.

Easy Effective Sanskrit Mantras

Here are a few popular classic mantras that can benefit nearly anyone. You might chant one repeatedly as you walk around the block, or find a string of mala beads and chant the mantra 108 times. Several numbers keep coming up in the yogic world, and 108 is one of them. It is thought that if you chant your mantra 108 times, you will have touched each of the delicate energy channels (nadis) of your body with the vibrational energy of the mantra. If you chant out loud you're directing your chant to your physical body, chanting silently directs the chant to your mental and subtle (unseen) bodies.

Popular Sanskrit Mantras:

Om (Aum, ohm)

Om is thought to be the source sound of creation and the universe. It is thought to be the source mantra from which all others arise.

Om Shanti

Shanti means peace, and this mantra is a prayer for peace on all levels for all beings everywhere.

Sat Nam

This mantra means I am the truth. Truth is my name.

Om Namah Shivaya

A bow to Shiva, the eternal observer, the meditative witness, the divine masculine, this mantra honors he who can help you to know your own divine nature.

Om Shri Danvantre Namaha

A bow to Danantre, the celestial healer, and a prayer of healing and to draw to you your healers

The classical mantra meditations I teach are in Sanskrit. That doesn’t mean, however, that you have to chant in Sanskrit to receive a benefit from mantra meditation. The medicine is in the repetition, held with intention and focusing your mind on the mantra.

English Language Mantras

If Sanskrit mantras just feel funny, you might use the following phrases in the same way:

I think I can

Every Day in Every Way, I’m getting Better & Better

May I be happy, healthy and free. May you be happy, healthy and free. May we be happy healthy and free.

You might think about a sweet childhood song you learned long ago, or a spiritual hymn that moves you. Inspiring words and phrases are everywhere - google it!

Find more mantras in English to lauch your day.

Going Deeper - a word on Gurus,

Anyone can benefit from chanting simple mantras with an open heart as a prayer. Traditionally, mantras were given to students by a guru. A guru is a spiritual teacher, who is hopefully an advanced soul. In the Western world of yoga, the guru-teacher model has suffered from a great number of scandals, usually related to a powerful person misusing their power and the responsibility that accompanies it.

Today, there are many master-teachers, some of whom are advanced souls, who acknowledge a need to "become our own guru". It's an empowered spiritual model of learning, and perhaps admiring a teacher while being aware of your own boundaries, and understanding that a relationship between a master (or the CEO of the yoga center), and their student or subordinate is inherently problematic ethically. There are widespread issues around this whenever power is at play - we humans seems to have a hard time with power.

Planets,

Rhythmic by nature, master-teachers often tie mantra into astrology, the cyclical movement of the planets. For more specific or personal mantra development, your personal astrology and planetary astrology comes into play. It gets complicated. Just know that as you learn and practice mantra, much like yoga it is a long term ever-deepening practice. Likewise, numbers come into play.

& Numbers

Certain numbers pop up over and over in the world of yoga, and in spiritual traditions. We mentioned chanting your mantra 108 times. The numbers 40 and 7 also pop up a lot. Why these numbers pop up is a lovely collection of stories and observations. Many of the spiritual traditions borrow these numbers from one another - there has been lots of sharing going on over the millenia! Suffice it to say, to do your practice daily for 40 days is a wonderfully powerful practice. As we think about mantra as a tool for healing, using the seven chakras, or the planets for various aims can make this practice powerful. Do you alwasy get what you want? Hell no! But as Mick Jagger says....

You get what you need.

So, What's Next?

Hot off the program press is a Mantra for Healing self-study blended (personal and group) online program.

Tara is the enlightened goddess of compassionate creativity. She can give you the energy, healing, abundance and empowered action to support your health and life.
Learn more!

If you or someone you love is interested in working privately, check out Truly Nourished, a high-impact personal program that blends nutrition clinical science with the wisdom of yoga and meditation. Read more about my coaching practice.

Ready to chat with me about your situation? Reach out to my administrator Jamie to arrange a free discovery call.

Do you have a favorite mantra or song you sing to cheer yourself up, or keep yourself pressing on? Share it with us!

Have you struggled to stick with your mantra meditation practice? Or, have your overcome mantra inertia? Let's share our experiences with mantra in the comments.

Namaste friends!

Healing Flow: Yoga Therapy for Nutrition-Related Conditions

Yoga therapy has come a long way in the past several decades – I should know – I’ve been writing and teaching it for over 25 years! As a dietitian, my favorite application is to help people with nutrition-related conditions to feel better, make better choices, be in the flow of practice not perfection (for example, practicing non-attachment to the latest weight-loss miracle flooding social media, or a yearning to be a size you last were as a child).

You can break free of harmful mindsets, come into better alignment with a medically-indicated diet, and just be a little more content with yourself and your life through working with a yoga therapist. This article gives you an overview of yoga therapy and the nutrition-related conditions where science and practice suggests it can be helpful. May you find a nugget or two. – Annie

In 1993 I went to my very first yoga class at a gym in Cambridge, MA. My days were desk-bound, working at the Department of Public Health (DPH) in Boston directing the state’s Osteoporosis Prevention Program. That program was a national model of how to prevent a chronic condition by influencing a group when it matters – for girls, the late teen years and women during menopause and beyond.

Recently I’d had a painful romantic breakup, and was on my own for the first time ever. I was a lapsed Catholic, seeking spirit and community. I fell hard for both the yoga class and later, the instructor. The instructor is a different story for another day.

Nearly thirty years and a fistful of teaching certifications later, I remain a fan of what yoga skillfully delivered can do for those who struggle with nutrition-related medical issues. Happily, the science and our understanding of yoga and its nature-based sister science of Ayurveda are expanding rapidly.

Those early life experiments showed me that specific types of yoga done in particular ways, mindful eating and other meditative and breathing exercises – can lead to predictable outcomes – a lot like what the early yogis described. It can be helpful for those interested in taking an interior route to the dynamic rebalance of life, and particularly when life gets juicy – healing from discomfort of body or mind. Conditions resulting from lifestyle choices (imperfect diet, inadequate movement, other unhelpful choices) are a natural target of yoga therapy.

It’s time to go deeper.

There’s an opportunity for the world of clinical nutrition to use yoga as more than a fitness option, but as an adjunct skill for integrated change, physical rebalance and overall well-being. Yoga is being skillfully tailored to a great variety of medical and life conditions, and clinical nutrition practice can benefit from those advances. If you are a dietitian or clinical nutritionist, you may well be already using yogic understanding in your practice.

What is Yoga Therapy?

Yoga is more than poses and it’s different from calisthenics. It is a comprehensive psycho-spiritual-physiologic & philosophical system that involves improving relationships – with yourself, with others, and with the world itself.

Yoga movement is mindful, and integrates with the rhythm of your breathing while being lovingly observed by your attentive, focused mind. All three – body, breath, mental focus – are engaged in order for it to be yoga. So, your whole being – your body, energy system (as breath and attention), and your mind are all dancing together. That’s union, one literal translation of the word yoga.

In addition to movement and postures (Asana in Sanskrit, an ancient language of India) yoga has a philosophical framework. An overview is described in a text called the Yoga Sutras, written by the sage Patanjali, and featuring the eight limbs of yoga practice. There are many many ancient texts describing different aspects of yoga and Ayurveda, but the Yoga Sutra is an excellent place to begin.

Yoga philosophy is less moral overlay, and more an experiential observational science. That is, practitioners noticed that if you do yoga in this way by the guidelines outlined in the Yoga Sutra, over time predictable things happen (the final limb of yoga is called Samadhi, meaning absorption, bliss or enlightenment).

Here is a brief description of the eight limbed path of yoga according to Patanjali. I’ve included additional detail of the first two limbs, which are wonderful flexible guides to lifestyle choices. Yoga therapy for nutrition-related conditions begins with these first two limbs.

Patanjali’s eight-limbed path of yoga:

1) Universal restraints (Yamas):

…controls or restraints of attitude or behavior, primarily in community or relationship. These include:

Non-violence, compassion: (Ahimsa)
Truthfulness: (Satya)
Non-stealing: (Asteya)
Chastity or control of the life force: (Brahmacharya)
Greedlessness or charity: (Aparigraha)

2) Observances (Niyamas):

…awarenesses and attitudes primarily concerned with the individual. These include:

Purity, cleanliness: (Saucha)
Contentment: (Santosa)
Asceticism, simplicity, passion: (Tapas)
Self-study, self-inquiry, philosophical study: (Svadhyaya)
Devotion to God (Isvara Pranidhana)

The remaining limbs of yoga according to Patanjali are:

3) Postures (Asana):

…literally “seat” and describes the physical practice of yoga postures.

4) Rhythmic control of energy flow (Pranayama):

Directing energy and breath.

5) Freedom from senses (Pratyahara):

…inward focusing and withdrawal of the senses.

6) Concentration (Dharana):

focused concentration.

7) Meditation (Dhyana):

…adopting a focused yet expansive consciousness.

8) Super-consciousness (Samadhi):

…absorption into or union with bliss consciousness or enlightenment.

Yoga practice is integrative by nature. It is a whole-life practice encompassing physical, mental, energetic, soul and spiritual aspects of life. So, it provides a personal integrated context for self-examination of any problem in life. A weekly general yoga class, skillfully taught, and a brief daily morning movement and meditation practice most mornings can provide nearly anyone with resilience benefits. Yoga therapy is distinct in several key ways.

Yoga therapy is the use of evidence-based yoga for a specific health aim.

Examples include to help you change eating habits to reflect a recent medical diagnosis, increase movement safely after an injury, or help to manage your inflammatory back pain. There is a growing collection of literature on both the mechanisms of how yoga does what it does, and also the use of yoga for particular medical or life conditions. So, the yoga therapist today uses yoga that draws from both the thousands of years of wisdom tradition, and current Western science to inform her work.

Can taking a well-taught weekly yoga class give you a therapeutic benefit? Absolutely! If you can’t find an accessible general class, or if you need more personal adaptation there is personal yoga therapy.

So, a yoga therapist is operating more clinically – more specifically – and more personally than your average weekly yoga class teacher. A yoga therapist may prescribe collections of postures, breathing exercises, and relaxation techniques to suit your personal health and medical needs. Yoga comprises a wide range of mind/body practices, from postural and breathing exercises to deep relaxation and meditation. Yoga therapy tailors these practices and exercises to your medical and life needs.

How Do Diet and Yoga Mix?

The yoga-diet interface comes straight from the first two limbs of yoga described in the Yoga Sutras; restraints (Yamas) and observances (Niyamas). These two limbs provide a flexible guideline for living. Those who were raised in almost any spiritual tradition will find these tenets hauntingly familiar.

Let’s take non-violence or compassion (Ahimsa), the first restraint (Yama), and apply it to diet. Because non-violence with regard to food and eating means something a little different to each of us, your answer to what it means takes a bit of introspection. Here’s an exercise to help you do that.

Self-compassion (Ahimsa) Self-inquiry

You’ll need a quiet place to sit or lie down, where you won’t be disturbed for about ten minutes and something to write with and on, like pencil and paper.

Make your space comfortable (with a blanket or cushions), maybe light a candle or smudge the space with sage and/or put on some soft music. Take a minute to settle into this comfy spot you’ve made. Breathe and relax. Take a moment to think about your own food choices as well as your thoughts about your food choices.

Breathe and relax.

Can you become aware of how you are compassionate with yourself in terms of both your choices, and what you think about your choices? Can you become aware of how you are compassionate – how you treat yourself well – with food and how you view your food choices & their results – on your body, your health, your family?

Take a few moments to note down the ways you are compassionate with yourself. How do you treat yourself with love, peace, kindness with regard to food and how you think about food?

Breathe and relax. Now, take a moment to think about the ways you are not so compassionate with your food choices and how you view them.

Breathe and relax.

Please know that we by nature have a certain amount of storminess within. It’s normal. We think and do things that seem self-destructive. Do you under-eat or overeat often, deny your body’s messages for food or water, or stress eat rather than integrate the inevitable strong emotions that pop up in your life? Do you listen to the latest media on what, when or how to eat rather than the messages of your own body? How much time do you spend wishing your body were different? Breathe and relax. Take your time and please hold yourself kindly as you examine these uncomfortable possibilities.

Take a few moments to write about what came to you. Remember there is no need to fix things – in fact – jumping in to fix things may interfere with taking in the lessons, and fully integrating the experience – instead, notice, breath, relax, and feel. Take note of how your body feels as you unpack your awareness.

Each of the restraints (Yamas) and observances (Niyamas) can be explored in this way. One exercise I share with students is to practice each of the yamas and niyamas fully for a day, with the intention of finding out what each of them mean for you.

The flexibility of a concept like non-violence or compassion allows for each practitioner to find relevance, as non-violence – in diet, for example – for some means forgoing all animal foods (following a vegan diet) – while for others it means non-restrictive eating.

Is There a Yoga Diet?

Why, yes there is. There is a concept in yoga that focuses on qualities or characteristics (Gunas). There are three characteristics, including purity-clarity (Sattva), mobility-activity (Rajas) and restraining-obstructive (Tamas).

Different foods have these characteristics, and the yogis suggest that we take a primarily pure-clear (Sattvic) diet, which is a light diet rich in vegetables, appropriate whole grains and spices, and avoid too many heavy (Tamasic) foods, which are energy rich and devoid of nutrients or life.

What is Ayurveda?

Ayurveda is often called a sister science of yoga, and is its medical and healing system. It is as complex as Western nutritional medicine, so a brief paragraph does not do it justice. I think of Ayurveda as the original mind-body-spirit integrated medicine developed thousands of years ago. Its foundational principles describe an elegant nature-based mind-body-spirit integrated system that makes intuitive sense.

Ayurveda honors the rhythms of nature, the earth and life. Your schedule of sleeping and rising, eating, moving and even learning have a peak rhythm based on who you are, where you live, the season, and time of day.

How Does Ayurveda Fit Into Yoga Therapy?

A driving principle in Ayurveda is to find balance of the five elements (earth, water, fire, air and ether) of which all matter is composed. So, an Ayurvedic diet uses the taste, temperature and characteristics of food that reveal a dominant element to aid in rebalancing. Generally, like increases like (ex, spicy food on a warm day will make you even warmer) and opposites balance (cool food on a hot day will cool you off).

Western clinical science has been finding, over the past decade or two, that much of what Ayurvedic practitioners have suggested for thousands of years actually has Western scientific validity. The sorting, testing, validating and adapting process of Ayurveda to our Western modern life is going on right now.

How can Yoga Therapy benefit Nutrition-related Conditions?

With recent scientific advances into nutritional psychiatry, digestive health and genetics, it seems every health condition is a nutrition-related condition. Certainly the chronic conditions – those that take years to develop – are prime targets for lifestyle medicine, including yoga therapy. What you eat profoundly impacts every aspect of your life.

That said, there are some particular life events and medical conditions where blending yoga with integrative clinical nutrition have been shown to be especially helpful.

Health conditions that respond to nutrition and to yoga therapy:

Digestive Health:

Every gut imbalance is a mind-body issue. In Ayurveda, the first thing you might do to improve digestion is to eat in a calm and pleasant environment. Eating mindfully, chewing adequately, moving and breathing to support digestion have been only recently considered in modern nutrition yet can transform your digestion. Using these yogic principles along with Western integrative protocols and medically indicated diets can rebalance many a digestive system out of whack.

Mindful eating is a meditative practice that has done nothing less than transform the way I am many integrative nutritionists do what we do. If you’re interested in beginning this profound eating practice (for those who want to eat well…but don’t), I’ve developed a mini-course to help you get started.

How to eat: Mindful Eating Mini-course

Emotional Eating and Eating Disorders:

Stress, anxiety and wildly unhealthful Western beauty ideals have created an epidemic of body self-hatred and deeply disordered eating patterns in women and men of all ages. Diet culture is everywhere and hard to escape. The truth is that you have a natural weight and shape, and beauty comes in every shape, size, color, age and variety. Your intrinsic value as a human is NOT connected to your body size. Every person has value. Learning to manage stress through life rather than food, and learning how to feed, and how to love your healthy body as it is can help you heal these deeply destructive, and at times downright deadly issues.

Metabolic Health:

Diabetes, Heart Disease, and other ‘Syndrome X’ conditions. Yoga therapy can help you move safely if you don’t move very much. It helps cultivate a kind and gentle mindset toward stress and your own body. It can help you open your heart and it supports realistic behavior change. It helps reduce stress. Combining yoga, and mindful meditation with Western medically indicated diets and strategies for these “X” conditions can be wildly successful. I’ve seen it – over and over and over again.

Much of my writing and teaching over the past couple decades have focused on how to heal body and mind from metabolic issues combined with emotional eating. My first book, Every Bite Is Divine, focuses on my own struggle with weight and eating, and is a foundational text for much of the work I do.

Inflammatory Pain:

Our Western diet is creates lots of inflammation. Inflammation combined with stress have made pain and inflammatory conditions like osteoporosis, arthritis and even complex conditions like fibromyalgia yet another epidemic largely preventable. My beautiful colleague Kathie Swift and I have been working together on integrating movement, nutrition and imagination – the mindset around pain – into a collection called Freedom from Pain. To see people come to us hurting, and leaving with a smile – is so satisfying!

Cancer:

The inflammation, fear and treatments of cancer can be really hard on the body, and the level of uncertainty this particular diagnosis brings can be nearly unbearable. Yoga to the rescue. I have a friend-colleague who has developed a program combining nutrition and yoga therapy for cancer diagnoses.

Check it out.

Aging:

Nutrition and movement are central to a healthy aging process, but it’s not easy. Keeping an eye on injury prevention, learning to work at your own pace and to create a way of eating that truly supports the increased nutrient demand (and waning energy needs) of aging is tricky. But, we’re doing it every day.

Pregnancy:

If there’s one time in a woman’s life where she eats well and learns to use the incredible power of her own breath and specific gentle movement to address her well-being, it’s while she is growing a new human inside. These are a natural combination of yoga and nutrition counseling and support.

This is really just the beginning of what a thoughtfully designed therapeutic yoga program can do. For each of these therapeutic areas, there are yoga therapists, and well-trained integrative licensed nutritionists that can help you navigate lifelong health and well-being.

If you or someone you love is interested in working in this with way, check out Truly Nourished, a high-impact personal program that blends nutrition clinical science with the wisdom of yoga and meditation.

Spring Clear & Renew Ritual

Elderberry and Elderberry Flower Essence: Heal with Nature’s Wisdom

Nov 14, 2023 | Heal with Nature

The hustle and bustle of modern life can easily disconnect you from the grounding embrace of nature. In this chilly third quarter of the wheel of the year (aka Fall & early Winter in the Northern Hemisphere) elderberry and elderberry flower essence help you reconnect with that embrace.

Here’s your invitation to a journey exploring the healing gifts of elderberry and its often-overlooked counterpart, elderberry flower essence.

Nutritional Health Benefits of Elderberry

Elder, a plant that has been cherished for centuries, grows throughout Europe and the US. Elderberries are the dark purple berries of the elder plant (which come toward the end of summer) resulting from elderflowers (which come at the beginning of summer). Elderberry and elderberry flower hold a wealth of nutritional benefits that can contribute to your well-being. While other parts of the plant are used in folk medicine, there are some compounds that must be cooked or otherwise processed to be broken down to make it safe to consume. So, if you are just getting to know elder, sticking with the berries and flowers is the most pleasant way to go.

Ready for the deets? Here they come.

Rich in Nutrients

Elderberry, scientifically known as Sambucus nigra, is a powerhouse of essential nutrients. It’s loaded with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that can boost your overall health. Some of its prominent nutritional components include vitamin C, dietary fiber, and potent antioxidants like quercetin and anthocyanins. These compounds play a crucial role in enhancing your immune system, reducing inflammation and related cellular and tissue damage, and protecting against a range of ailments.

Antioxidant Power

The anthocyanins in elderberries give them their deep, rich color and also provide a significant source of antioxidants. Antioxidants have the ability to vacuum up free radicals (naturally occurring byproducts of metabolism). That’s how they reduce risk of oxidative stress and inflammation. What are these processes we hear so much about? Here’s a quick overview.

Oxidative stress is an imbalance of stressors and clearer of those stressors. Free radicals, also known as highly oxygenated species, are a natural byproduct of metabolism but also increase with a high chemical load lifestyle. What’s that? Too much alcohol, refined sugar, chemical-laden ultra-process food, high levels of sodium, and high levels of calories. When your body isn’t removing enough free radicals (or creating more than you can clear) to maintain balance, over time this can damage tissue and cells – and increase your risk for chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

Happily, you can do quite a bit nutritionally to clear the stress of free radicals. A nutrient-dense diet, especially in combination with gentle movement and constructive rest, help to cool inflammation (an immune response to infection or injury) in the body. So, eating antioxidant-rich foods reduces the risk of chronic diseases, such as heart disease and cancer, by helping to decrease inflammation. In this and other ways, including elderberries in your diet can contribute to a longer, healthier life.

Immune Support

One of the most well-studied benefits of elderberry is its immune-boosting properties. The high concentration of vitamin C and antioxidants can help your body ward off or minimize infections and other illnesses, making it an excellent choice for staying healthy during cold and flu seasons. Elderberry has been a popular natural remedy for generations, offering a gentle, safe, and effective complement to over-the-counter medicines.

Respiratory Health

Elderberry has been found to be particularly beneficial for respiratory health. It can help alleviate symptoms of respiratory infections and allergies, making it a valuable resource for those with asthma, bronchitis, or sinusitis. The anti-inflammatory and antiviral properties of elderberry make it a natural ally against a range of respiratory conditions.

Digestive Aid

The dietary fiber and phytochemistry in elderberries supports a healthy digestive system. It helps regulate bowel movements, prevents constipation, and promotes the growth of beneficial gut bacteria. Elderberry can be a gentle yet effective way to maintain digestive well-being, and its natural sweetness adds a pleasant flavor to your meals and beverages.

This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase through an affiliate link, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you. You can read my full disclaimer here.

Incorporate Elderberry into your Life

Supplements & Health Products

I like to use elderberry syrups and lozenges, but you can find a range of supplements (there are over 200 elderberry products in my Fullscript formulary). Here are a couple interesting products that may help you through the fall and winter.

My Fullscript formulary provides you high-quality supplements at excellent prices, and free shipping on orders over $50. When you click on one of these products, you’ll be asked to create an account, then you’ll be directed to the product.

The Culinary World of Elderberry

Elderberry adds a unique flavor to a variety of recipes. From jams and syrups to desserts and beverages, elderberry is a versatile and delicious addition to your kitchen repertoire. Use elderberry how you’d use any tart berry.

Consider trying out these culinary uses:

Elderberry Jam or syrup: Create a luscious jam by combining elderberries with sugar and a touch of lemon juice. Spread it on toast or use it as a delightful topping for desserts. Whip up a homemade elderberry syrup that can be drizzled over pancakes, waffles, or even mixed into cocktails. This sweet and tangy syrup is not only delicious but also packs a nutritional punch. Here’s my elderberry syrup recipe.
Elderberry Desserts: Incorporate elderberries into desserts like pies, tarts, or muffins for a unique twist. The rich, fruity flavor of elderberries adds depth and complexity to your favorite sweet treats.

Elderberry Flower Essence in the Kitchen

While elderberry flower essence is primarily known for its emotional and spiritual benefits, its subtle floral notes can also enhance culinary creations. Consider the following ways to infuse your kitchen with the essence of elderberry flowers:

Elderflower Cordial: Capture the essence of elderberry flowers by making a refreshing elderflower cordial. Mix it with water, sparkling water, or use it as a base for cocktails and mocktails.
Elderflower Infusions: Experiment with elderflower infusions (letting the flower steep in hot water for 5-10 minutes) in beverages like teas or lemonades. The delicate floral aroma can uplift your spirits and add a touch of elegance to your drinks.
Elderflower Desserts: Just like elderberries, elderflower essence can be incorporated into desserts. Try adding it to frostings, glazes, or even infusing it into creams for a subtle floral undertone.

Culinary Creativity Tips

Balancing Flavors: Elderberries have a naturally tart taste, so balancing them with sweeteners like honey or fruit juice is key. Experiment with different ratios to find the perfect harmony of flavors.
Pairing Possibilities: Elderberry pairs well with a range of ingredients. Consider combining it with citrus fruits, cinnamon, fresh ginger or even savory elements like balsamic vinegar for a unique culinary experience.
Preserving Goodness: If you’re lucky enough to have access to fresh elderberries or elderberry flowers, consider preserving their goodness by making jams, syrups, or infusions. This allows you to enjoy the benefits of elderberry all year round.

By exploring the culinary uses of elderberry and elderberry flower essence, you not only add a delightful twist to your meals but also unlock a new dimension of wellness through the rich flavors and nutritional benefits these gifts of nature bring to your table.

Essence of Elderberry Flowers

What’s a Flower Essence?

While elderberry has long been appreciated for its numerous health benefits, its blossoms often remain in the shadows, even though they hold their own unique treasure – elderberry flower essence. This essence is created by capturing the energetic imprint of elderberry flowers in pure water and has been used in traditional and holistic healing practices for ages.

Elderberry Flower Essence

Elderberry flower essence is believed to work on a different plane compared to the physical attributes of elderberries. It is thought to have a profound impact on energetic, emotional and spiritual well-being. This subtle elixir is often used as a form of plant initiation, connecting individuals to the wisdom of elderberry and nature itself.

Benefits of Elderberry Flower Essence

Emotional Balance

Elderberry flower essence is recognized for its ability to promote emotional balance and harmony. It can help you navigate through life’s ups and downs, providing a sense of calm and resilience. Whether you’re dealing with stress, anxiety, or grief, this essence can offer solace and support.

Spiritual Connection

Elderberry flower essence is often utilized to deepen one’s spiritual connection. It’s believed to open doors to higher consciousness and enhance intuition. For those on a journey of self-discovery and spiritual growth, elderberry flower essence can be a valuable companion.

Protection and Boundaries

Elderberry flower essence is thought to create a protective energetic shield around individuals, helping them establish healthy boundaries. This can be particularly beneficial for those who struggle with maintaining personal space and emotional boundaries in their relationships.

Encouraging Self-Expression

The essence of elderberry flowers is associated with encouraging authentic self-expression. It can support individuals in finding their voice, embracing their uniqueness, and confidently sharing their thoughts and feelings with the world.

Alignment with Nature

One of the most captivating aspects of elderberry flower essence is its ability to connect individuals with the wisdom of nature. As a part of the plant initiation experience, it invites us to slow down, observe, and become more attuned to the natural world around us. This connection can be profoundly transformative, nurturing a deeper respect and reverence for the environment.

The Plant Initiation Experience

Plant initiation is a unique and ancient practice that involves connecting with a specific plant on a spiritual and energetic level. It’s a way of forming a deep and reciprocal relationship with a plant, allowing you to tap into its wisdom, guidance, and healing properties. Elderberry flower essence is often chosen for plant initiation due to its gentle and nurturing energy.

Plants Help, Plants Heal – Elderberry and Flower Essence

Elderberry and elderberry flower essence offer an array of health benefits, from strengthening your immune system to enhancing emotional and spiritual well-being. The subtle, yet profound influence of elderberry flower essence in particular can guide you on a journey of self-discovery and connection with the natural world.

In a fast-paced world filled with distractions, embracing the wisdom of elderberry and elderberry flower essence can be a transformative experience. It allows us to reconnect with the healing power of nature, fostering physical and emotional well-being while encouraging spiritual growth. As you consider a plant initiation with elderberry flower essence, you embark on a path of deeper understanding and harmony with the world around you. Let the wisdom of elderberry and its blossoms be your guide as you explore the limitless benefits of this extraordinary plant.

So, whether you’re sipping elderberry tea to boost your immune system or embarking on a journey of self-discovery with me and elderberry flower essence, these ancient treasures of nature can enhance your physical health, delight your palate, and enrich your spiritual life. Elder is medicine for our times, and I hope we explore it together.

Sources

Luo W, Han S, et al. Assessing the suitability and dynamics of three medicinal Sambucus species in China under current and future climate scenarios. Front Plant Sci. 2023 Oct 19;14:1194444. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1194444. PMID: 37929169; PMCID: PMC10620941.

Cicek B, Danısman B, et al. Flavonoid-Rich Sambucus nigra Berry Extract Enhances Nrf2/HO-1 Signaling Pathway Activation and Exerts Antiulcerative Effects In Vivo. Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Oct 23;24(20):15486. doi: 10.3390/ijms242015486. PMID: 37895164; PMCID: PMC10607857.

Sala G, Pasta S, Maggio A, La Mantia T. Sambucus nigra L. (fam. Viburnaceae) in Sicily: Distribution, Ecology, Traditional Use and Therapeutic Properties. Plants (Basel). 2023 Sep 30;12(19):3457. doi: 10.3390/plants12193457. PMID: 37836198; PMCID: PMC10575429.

Plant Initiation Weekend with Annie B Kay

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Yoga's East-West Moderation

What (and where) Is Moderation?

In order to lead a reasonably happy, healthful and productive life you need to practice a certain amount of moderation. We all know when we don’t have it. Just what is moderation, and how can you be moderate in our anything-but-moderate world? Moderation seems both out of style – sort of quaint – and our lack of it the reason for so much that ails so many.
Many of us can reel off the basics of a moderate lifestyle: generally sticking to a way of eating rich in fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins, things like maintaining a healthy weight, avoiding too much sugar and salt, and working with a nutrition professional if your medical condition necessitates lifestyle change.

Physical activity is another anchor of a moderate lifestyle. National fitness organizations recommend we get at least 30 minutes of moderate (there’s that word again) activity on most if not all days of the week. Yet most Americans are not moving this much.
Definitions and examples of a moderate lifestyle are clear and widely available, but the majority of Americans can’t seem to incorporate it into our daily lives. Cultural norms present moderation as passive, a little boring, and even undesirable, as Oscar Wilde’s famously observes: “Moderation is a fatal thing” and “Nothing succeeds like excess.”
Something one of my agents said, a gal who works with big writers, haunts me to this day. She said not to say that word – moderation. No one wants to talk about that, she insisted. We’re not working together anymore, though she’s an amazing agent, but I am so very clear that I’ll gladly leave some worldly success on the table to insist that we need to relax, mellow out and cultivate the middle path between too much and too little.

Yogic Moderation: Standing in the Fire

Yoga’s philosophical framework of the yamas and niyamas richly and clearly describe the mental framework of a moderate approach to lifestyle. While national health recommendations provide general outlines as to what a moderate lifestyle is, the actual how-to is much harder to find. Yoga gets into the nitty-gritty.
In yoga, moderation is not a passive state easily achieved.
The moderate yoga practitioner is a spiritual warrior constantly challenged by his or her own attachments (things he or she is drawn to, appetites) and aversions (things he or she pushes away from, dislikes). If the practitioner can begin to attenuate his or her appetites and dislikes through following the yamas and niyamas, and direct his or her passion (tapas) toward self-study(svadhyaya) or self-care, a more moderate lifestyle may be achieved, and his or her spiritual journey will proceed unencumbered. This cognitive restructuring, the re-weaving of your thinking process, is a difficult undertaking. In yoga it is sometimes referred to as “standing in the fire” between the two poles of attachment and aversion. Or, standing in the middle ground between too much and too little.

Modern yoga culture itself, unfortunately, is not immune to duplicity. With the tremendous gain in popularity of the practice and resultant explosion of commercial yoga endeavors, there is a booming yoga media culture that implies that if you purchase certain yoga products you will easily find unending bliss, happiness, and a perfect yoga butt.
In these image-pitches there is no hint of the hours of sadhana (practice) or the years of self-development necessary for the average practitioner to reach the states of bliss and physical perfection being peddled. This body-ism of getting overly attached to our physical appearance is prevalent in the yoga world (and is one reason we are seeing a jump in eating disorders in some yoga communities), but it is simply another distraction blocking your path to becoming a fully aware human. Look for teachers and practices that focus more on feeling great in the body you have right now, as opposed to practices and teachers encouraging you to aim for something you are not.

Enjoy your fit (or imperfectly fit) body, your vibrant (or somewhat less than vibrant) energy, but remember not to take it too seriously. The journey is the practice, and there is no goal or destination other than being in the present moment in practice and in life.

You are already there, perfect in your imperfections, regardless of your brand of yoga pants.
Dive into the experience of yogic moderation and how that ties into nutrition at my upcoming Kripalu weekend, Every Bite Is Divine.
Here are a couple other articles on similar topics you may enjoy:
How Mindful Presence Transforms
What Is Yoga Therapy?

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