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Annie B Kay

telehealth holistic dietitian, yoga therapist

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Begin a Yoga Practice: Tips for a Happy Launch

February 18, 2019 //  by annie//  Leave a Comment

begin a yoga practice

Thinking of adding yoga practice to your lifestyle? Lucky you! The first exposure of yoga is a profound experience (but for those who have a poor first match, a decidedly not-so-profound).
Here are some tips for what you can do to increase your odds of having an enjoyable and beneficial first experience as you begin a yoga practice.

1. Know yourself.

Your age, fitness level, and relative interest in physical or spiritual development will all influence your best class choice. If you are 50 and not in great shape, a level 2 Ashtanga class may be stressful and painful enough to turn you away from yoga forever. A gentle Kripalu class, however, may start you on the path to actually enjoying the Ashtanga class once you have some experience under your belt.

2. Start slow. 

Choose a class that seems easy and doable first, and then progress to more strenuous styles or more advanced classes after you have learned a few basics. Learning the basics of how the body works in yoga, and how to do postures safely as you move deeper, is essential to being able to sustain a long-term practice. Please don’t skip that step! Many studios offer a series of basic classes.

3. Learn a little yoga lingo. 

If you are young and fit, more active styles of yoga may be a great introduction to the practice. These include Ashtanga, Bikram, Vinyasa, and Power styles. If you are older or less physically active, begin with Kripalu, gentle Hatha (usually a blend of styles ), Viniyoga, or another gentler style. Yin yoga and Slow-flow yoga tend to be deep and meditative with longer holdings. If you enjoy an intellectual approach, you may enjoy the Iyengar style with its precise alignment and detail. Kundalini yoga features chanting and song, lots of fiery breathing, and postures which can be scaled up or down to match your physical ability. Ananda, Shivananda, and Integral yoga tend to feature spiritual development more than postures. You will, however, likely hear some yoga philosophy in any style of yoga, depending on the background and preferences of your teacher.

4. Chat with your teacher. 

Here are a list of questions, excerpted from my book Every Bite Is Divine, (p 140), that will help you get to know your teacher better:

  • What type of yoga do you teach?
  • Do you work with individuals with medical issues or special needs?
  • How long have you been studying yoga?
  • How long have you been teaching?
  • Do you have students like me (e.g., unfit, overweight, disabled, or with other issues) in your classes?
  • Do you do individual instruction?
  • How much does that cost and what would I get out of that?

5. If the first match doesn’t work, try try again.

Don’t be discouraged if you do not enjoy your first class. Try several before giving up your quest.
Here is an excerpt from Every Bite Is Divine (p 58) on beginning a yoga practice:

Before launching a new health regimen, talk it over with your physician. If you have an existing medical condition, work with your health team to adapt this work to honor your medical needs.
Professional yoga instruction is recommended for beginners. Wear loose, comfortable clothing that does not inhibit movement for practice. Find a quiet space large enough to stand with wide legs and to move your arms in all directions. A towel or yoga mat and a cushion or blanket can help make you more comfortable.
Principles for safe yoga practice include moving slowly and with awareness, maintaining smooth, easy breathing through the nose unless otherwise instructed, and not straining to achieve a position. Your yoga practice is a time to pay attention to your physical abilities and limitations and to make compassionate adjustments accordingly.
Please note that there are several types of yoga postures not recommended for an overweight body just beginning to practice. For example, inversions (going upside-down) facilitate the cleansing processes of the body, which is of particular benefit to those with hypo-digestion (slow digestion in relation to appetite) and the resulting buildup of body mass, toxins, and so forth. But the primary inversions of yoga—headstand and shoulder stand—can be injury-inducing for beginners with excess body weight and low muscle strength. So, if you are overweight, especially if you are not regularly physically active, you may need to adjust postures in order for them to be safe and beneficial. But, no matter who you are, each asana (posture) may be done safely with skillful adjustments. Working with a skilled instructor will help you learn how to make inversions and every other yoga posture safe and beneficial. Enjoy!  It requires awareness and an attitude of taking your time to cultivate a beneficial practice.
If you are not regularly physically active, begin slowly so that you prevent injuries related to overdoing it. One yoga principle says that practicing for 10 minutes every day is preferable to practicing for 3 hours once a week. It’s showing up for regular daily practice that holds the magic.
A yoga practice usually contains a period of centering or settling down and turning your awareness inward, warming up or preparing the body for practice, a period of asana (physical postures) with pranayama (awareness to breath and energy movement), and relaxation/integration. There is, however, no “recipe” for a practice, and the elements listed often blend together. A period of meditation often follows a yoga practice.

May you have a life-long yoga practice that leads to happiness, health and your own true self.

Namaste.

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Category: Yoga TherapyTag: Getting started, yoga

What is Medical Nutrition Therapy? Real Food As Medicine

October 18, 2017 //  by annie//  Leave a Comment

What is Medical Nutrition Therapy? Real Food As Medicine by Annie B Kay - anniebkay.com

What is Medical Nutrition Therapy? Real Food As Medicine by Annie B Kay - anniebkay.com
We are in the era of the nutritionist. There is so much confusion around food and nutrition, and so much wacky advice flying around. This while Americans are just not able to make it to the basics of healthful eating. Nutrition-related chronic diseases continue to be the primary health issues, and each of us has our own variation of health and disease.
Because we are in a time when so much that sounds like nutrition is actually marketing and bluster, and so many who call themselves experts are so far from it, confusion reigns. Enter RDNs (Registered Dietitian Nutritionists) and MNT (Medical Nutrition Therapy). If you know me, you know that I am a mind-body therapist – I use things like meditation and gentle yoga practice as tools to help us cultivate the best of ourselves, and soothe us as we gather our courage and strength to sing our song, to sing our note.

What is MNT?

There is a large body of evidence that tells us how to manage a range of health and medical conditions with food and nutrition. MNT, or medical nutrition therapy, uses that evidence and through a qualified therapist, translates that evidence into healing. While there is a range of nutritionists operating today, with various levels of education and experience, and I honestly believe there is room for everyone, I am partial to those who have a 4-year science degree and access to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Knowledge Center for working with people with a medical condition. I am biased for sure, being one who sweated through all that nutritional biochemistry and worked in an ICU (intensive care unit of a hospital) writing TPN (total parenteral nutrition) orders to keep people alive until they could eat. Then I taught at Kripalu for nearly a decade, watching how mind-body used skillfully helped people with the will and knowledge transform. The combination of clinical skills and experiential practice are, in my opinion, the sweet spot when it comes to healing nutrition-related issues.

What conditions are we talking about?

There are guidelines for a range of medical conditions. Those I am well-versed in include:

  • Weight gain – from adolescents to adults, and family-based, for any reason
  • Eating Disorders, emotional eating and disordered eating
  • Unexpected weight loss due to cancer, HIV/AIDS or other chronic condition
  • Pre-diabetes and diabetes
  • Cancer – prevention, management and prevention of recurrence
  • Heart Disease – prevention, management
  • High Blood Pressure
  • High Cholesterol
  • Digestive approaches to auto-immune conditions (Fibromyalgia, Rheumatoid Arthritis, and others)
  • Digestive distress due to:
    • Irritable Bowel
    • Crohn’s Disease
    • Colitis
    • Constipation
    • Reflux/Heartburn
    • Food Intolerance (lactose-intolerance, gluten, and others), and Allergies

I use an individualized approach. That includes an initial assessment of nutrition-related symptoms and medical history, review of nutrition-related labs and reports, and development of a custom way of eating that you enjoy and that adheres to evidence-based practice.
We then co-create a plan to get there – your way. There is no such thing as failure, no such thing as relapse in this world – but there is learning, through loving self-compassion, how to navigate your life in its fullness. It’s a dance of mindful skillful effort, and surrender (that’s yoga!).

Within that list, do you specialize?

While I can help address any of these conditions, and they all have relating threads, I particularly like to work with weight, women in midlife, and digestive issues. I have also had a personal experience with cancer, so helping people with that interests me.

How much does it cost?

Depends. I am a licensed nutritionist in the state of Massachusetts. If you have a medical condition and live in the great state of Massachusetts, or another state that does not have state licensure, it is worth it to give your insurance company a call to see if our work together can be reimbursed. For this, you will likely need a referral from your primary care doctor.
If you are not insured, in another state with licensure or your insurance doesn’t cover, then you are what clinicians call private pay. It’s likely that our work together could be included in your health spending account if you have one.
Bottom line, if you value your energy level and lifestyle, it’s worth it to have a skilled coach to help you move forward.
My rates are $150/hr, and most people I work with do an initial assessment, then a half-hour twice monthly for 2 months, then monthly for 4 months.

Tell me about telehealth

I’ve partnered with a practice-management group called Healthie. They provide an interface for us to work through, including journaling, billing and video conferencing. So, we can meet face to face in the comfort of your own home! I think telehealth is part of the future of medicine, and I am excited to be part of it.
Ready to make the change? Let’s do it – Make an appointment now .
Questions? I’m all ears.
Be well,
Annie
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Category: Nutrition Tips, Yoga of EatingTag: Annie B Kay, change, conscious mindset, healthy eating, Medical Nutrition Therapy, nutrition, science, yoga

Non-attachment While Caring: Book Review

April 26, 2017 //  by annie//  Leave a Comment

Non-attachment While Caring- Book Review by Annie B Kay - anniebkay.com

Non-attachment While Caring- Book Review by Annie B Kay - anniebkay.com
Since I’ve started reviewing books, I should mention the book that I carry with me. It’s in my bag, everywhere I go. All. the. time.
I pulled it out in Vieques when I felt left out for a few moments and ended up having lunch alone while my husband lunched at the next table over with a most attractive woman of his own age (we were all in love this one hot 65-year old Alaskan woman).
I pull it out when I see someone in a leadership position act, well, not like the leader we’d hoped for. I carry it with me. I pull it out when I feel outraged or like I’ve been unheard or cheated or judged.  It helps me and reminds me to keep on keeping on the path I’ve chosen.
How to Be Happy All the Time by Paramhansa YoganandaIt’s How to Be Happy All the Time by Paramhansa Yogananda. The basic lesson is non-attachment. The message is there is absolutely nothing to get too excited about.
That doesn’t mean don’t care. Care. Please. Care enough to be loving and deeply connected with those close to you who are easy to love as well as those you don’t yet know enough to love, and even those you decidedly do not love in this moment. Just know when you get riled up, that’s your signal to practice. Calm down, look around and practice.
The set of reminders include excellent old saws: cultivate a positive state of mind, take care of your body, keep practicing and should difficulties comes along, know that we all have them, they are not personal (though they feel that way) and look for the good in challenges. Do your best to continue your practice.  It’s a long explanation, really, on why we should meditate and how it makes us happier.
Here’s what Yogananda had to say:

“The most important condition for lasting happiness is even-mindedness. Remain ever calmly centered in the Self within. As a child’s sand castle disintegrates before invading waves, so does a restless mind, lacking strength of will and perseverance, succumb to the pounding it receives from the waves of changing circumstance.”

It’s a challenging path and at times an impossible practice. We, humans, have a pretty seriously stormy and tempestuous nature. Have you noticed? I get triggered a hundred times a day. But I find, if I practice, it makes life better – it makes me better. I make more reasoned decisions and can be more compassionate when people act in human and imperfect ways. I calm down and get clear. I can work on myself, take care of my side of the street.
Pick up a copy, carry it around and dip into it. Let it remind you to meditate. Let it remind you to practice self-care. Let me know if it helps.
To quote a Real Housewife of NJ: Namaste bitches!
Non-attachment While Caring- Book Review by Annie B Kay - anniebkay.com

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Category: For Health Pros, Heal with YogaTag: book, How to Be Happy All the Time, mindfulness, yoga

Shall We Meet in Paradise? Tropical 2018 Retreat

March 29, 2017 //  by annie//  10 Comments

Shall We Meet in Paradise? Tropical 2018 Retreat by Annie B Kay - anniebkay.com
Sign up now. Space is limited and this will sell out quickly. 
Those of you who know me know that I absolutely love to combine vacation and learning. In 2018, I’m offering it to you: let’s meet at a beautiful spa in the tropical clouds of Costa Rica for deep support and directed self-inquiry.
In this 5-night retreat, you will have the opportunity to:

  • Deepen your relationship with your physical body with gentle progressive yoga and meditation.
  • Enjoy food and all that nourishes through mindful practice and interactive learning.
  • Gain insight about your one precious life through conscious group share, guided imagery, and Shamanic journey.
  • Get clear about and support your full, true, gorgeous expression of you.

Leader:  moi – Annie B. Kay – nutritional biochemist/yoga therapist/plant alchemist
balanced happy blessed retreat with Annie B KayCosts:
Tuition: $380
Room & Board: Ranges from $702 (double in a glam-tent) – $1627 (single in the fanciest rooms). Prices subject to change (a little).
Check out the venue: https://puravidaspa.com/accommodations/
Pura Vida is a gorgeous retreat about 20 minutes from the San Jose airport, has spa treatments (separate), hosts excursions (separate). If you go you might spend a few days at the beach before or after the retreat. 
NOT included: Airfare.
To hold your space: $400 deposit



Shall We Meet in Paradise? Tropical 2018 Retreat by Annie B Kay - anniebkay.com
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Category: Balanced, Happy, BlessedTag: Annie B Kay, Costa Rica, nutrition, Pura Vida Spa, retreat, travel, yoga

Curvy Yoga by Anna Guest-Jelley Book Review

February 19, 2017 //  by annie//  Leave a Comment

Curvy Yoga by Anna Guest-Jelley Book Review by Annie B Kay - anniebkay.com

Curvy Yoga by Anna Guest-Jelley Book Review by Annie B Kay - anniebkay.com
Since I’ve been blogging regularly, I’ve somewhere, somehow gotten on the radar of a number of book publicists. As a lover of books and authors, I’ve been overjoyed, and have a stack of the latest greatest by my bed. Sadly, there are not so many that I can recommend to you, my beloved tribe. Yet I read on, and there are definitely gems coming out every day.
Curvy Yoga by Anna Guest-JelleyHere’s one! Curvy Yoga. Love. It is beautifully produced, good to hold, well-written, contains needed messages, and features a great author.
As a nutrition clinician for decades, I’m seeing body hatred on the rise. It seemed that there were a few years when women (and men!) were feeling better about their bodies just as they are, but the last few years have felt like a bit of a backlash of the media-perfect. Too, I’ve crossed the 50-year-old mark and going through menopause was a powerful experience, not only within my own body, but sensing (while I feel fantastic and at the top of my game) that I was plopped into some less valuable category by…many. So I am sensitive, yet not too, methinks.
It takes no small amount of courage to show up as you are these days, but Curvy Yoga is a manual to do just that. If you find yoga too….whatever, here’s a read for you. In fact, if you’ve been injured in a yoga class, or can’t find a yoga class, please take a read before giving up on yoga. If you wonder if you belong in the spandex-wrapped perfect-yoga-body competitive yoga world (you don’t!…neither do I….or most people for that matter) here’s a book for you. And if you, like me, used to be a flexible yogi, and find yourself less so, but still interested in having yoga in your life, check it out.
Curvy Yoga focuses mostly on the integrative how of practice, focusing on accessibility from a physical, mental and energetic perspective. You’ll get to know the author, with personal stories of how yoga has impacted various areas of her life. As an author of a book in a similar genre (Every Bite Is Divine – it’s the food companion to Curvy Yoga) I feel a definite kin-ship sisterhood with this author. This book, as I think of it, is a lovely companion to Yoga & Diabetes.
Ms. Guest-Jelley provides a collection of aids for doing various yoga postures with a round goddess body and using props including (my favorite) a wall to support your safe and effective practice.
If you haven’t purchased a yoga book in a while, and you’d like a lovely and accessible guide written by a fresh voice, here you go.
Curvy Yoga by Anna Guest-Jelley Book Review by Annie B Kay - anniebkay.com

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Category: For Health Pros, Heal with YogaTag: book review, self-love, yoga

RDN/RYT? Let Me Brag About You at FNCE

June 29, 2016 //  by annie//  Leave a Comment

RDN/RYT? Let Me Brag About You at FNCE by Annie B Kay Pinterest

RDN/RYT? Let Me Brag About You at FNCE by Annie B Kay
Are you a dietitian who teaches yoga and uses it in your professional nutrition practice? Well, Namaste dear ones –  our numbers are growing!

FNCE 2016: Boston

I have been honored to share on this new (and several thousand years old) field of yoga in dietetics at FNCE twice thus far. My presentation colleagues are Dr. Sat Bir Khalsa from Harvard and Anu Kaur, an RDN/RYT dietitian with the NIH and in private practice. We are delighted that we’ll be presenting again in Boston in October. Our session (#203) is Sunday morning first thing – be there!

Please take 10-20 minutes to complete this survey exploring how nutrition professionals are using yoga in their practice: RDN/RYT FNCE Survey

Please complete the survey by August 1.

This year, as part of the presentation, I am hoping to collect some developmental data on just how many of us are out there, who we are and our range of training and practice experience. I’d also like to get a sense of what this group would like now for support to develop this field. I will be presenting the data from this survey, and will also feature as many of you as I can – your beautiful websites, active communities, training and books appreciated.
Thank you so very much for participating, and for your work in this area. Can’t wait to see how RDNs across the country are weaving their expertise with the wisdom tradition of yoga.
Annie
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Category: For Health Pros, Integrated LifeTag: nutrition, professional, RDN, yoga

Your Dreams are Alive. Now What?

April 8, 2016 //  by annie//  Leave a Comment

Your Dreams are Alive. Now What? by Annie B Kay Pinterest

Your Dreams are Alive. Now What? by Annie B Kay
What if your dreams are as important and as real as your waking life? What if your dreams are alive?
Leading psychologists actually say they are. Dr. Stephen Aizenstat (as well as many great yogis and thinkers such as the Dalai Lama and Eckart Tolle) says that you can awaken to your dreams, be deeply informed by them, and even change the outer world through your dreams.
This blows my nutritional biochemist’s mind! I want to learn more, hear what he has to say and explore it in my own dream life.
Sing it with me people – you know the tune:

Row, row, row your boat,

gently down the stream.

Merrily merrily merrily, merrily,

Life Is But A Dream!

Are you interested in awakening to your own dream life? I’ll be teaching with Dr. Aizenstat and the great yoga scholar, Stephen Cope, the last weekend of April at Kripalu – Yoga and the Global Dream Initiative.
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Category: Balanced, Happy, Blessed, Integrated LifeTag: consciousness, dreams, yoga

Just What Are Dreams?

March 6, 2016 //  by annie//  2 Comments

Just What are Dreams? by Annie B Kay
Can awakening and tending our dreams help us be creative enough to solve our greatest global issues? And if anyone can and should get involved with constructive dreaming, isn’t it those seekers of transcendence, the yogis? Can dreams help yogis save the planet? Stephen Aizenstat, Chancellor of Pacifica Graduate Institute, thinks so and I have to agree.
I’ve always been a pretty good sleeper (well, until menopause but that’s another story). For most of my life, I’ve slept the dream-free sleep of the dead. Close eyes, relax, zzzz, open eyes, off we go. However, as I’ve journeyed through life with a sleeping partner who truly struggles (he’s inspired by my ability to go offline so quickly and completely), I’ve become more curious as to what is happening during sleep consciousness, and if I am as dream-free as I think. So just what are dreams and why do we have them?
It’s great to be human. For so many reasons. One is that we can change our consciousness. We can go through our day be our beloved distractable selves, but then we can slow down, shift and drop into a meditative state – we can and do change our state of consciousness. Waking, sleeping, dreaming, meditating. While just what dreams are and why we dream is still a bit of a mystery, those of you who join us end of April for Yoga & The Global Dream Initiative, will be in the know after a weekend with some of the nation’s foremost thinkers on dreaming, yoga and consciousness.
I am endlessly curious as to what helps us realize who we truly are, and what gives us the clarity and courage to move toward that life. When I met Dr. Stephen Aizenstat at Pacifica last year, and heard him speak about the possibilities that waking up to our own dream consciousness has for our own and global healing, it was a “this is it!” aha for me. I have been concerned with how challenged we are with the global environmental crisis, and how even the most engaged vacillate between despair and delusion. Might this be a practical way for us to shift from despair to creative action? Don’t you want to find out?
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Category: Balanced, Happy, Blessed, Integrated LifeTag: consciousness, dreams, psychology, yoga

Can Yogis Save the Planet?

October 15, 2015 //  by annie//  Leave a Comment

Is there an inner path to environmental change?
I believe so – Yes and Yes. If there is an inner path to outer change, including healing our very planet, who better for the job than those who have navigated their inner landscapes for years, decades? Yogis to the rescue. Let’s save the planet the inner way,
In May of 2014, during a Kripalu “shutdown” (when we don’t have guests in the house so that we can build, revamp and make a lot of noise), I traveled to Southern California to visit friends and attend an Imagination and Medicine Conference at Pacifica Graduate Institute. That’s where I met Stephen Aizenstat, Chancellor of the Institute, and developer of Dream Tending, a method of deepening awareness of dreams as a means of more fully awakening to our own consciousness.
Dr. Aizenstat spoke on the last day of the conference.  I was mesmerized by his stories of how we have all witnessed environmental degradation: he described how the grass used to stay green in Santa Barbara while now grass is a memory replaced by brown dust.  He described working with gifted local youth who, after hearing recent news such as the oceans will be devoid of life within the first part of their lifetime, have dropped out, cancelled college plans – why bother?
So many of us are in deep grief and deep denial about what is happening around us. Might working with our dreams to expand our consciousness be a way forward?
Aizenstat has a lot to say (and do) about this.

“To develop a respectful and sustaining relationship with our dreams, we must return to a more “indigenous” sensibility, one that is informed by the psyche of nature—an awareness that our own essential psychological spontaneities are rooted most deeply in the psyche of the natural world. We are born out of the rhythms of nature, and to ignore these rhythms is, ultimately, to deny our psychic inheritance.” – Stephen Aizenstat

As he described how tending dreams helped these young people suffering nightmares (and I’m afraid children everywhere share these nightmares), I thought – here is a practical tool for an impossible problem.

 If more of us can awaken more deeply to our dreams as a means of becoming more creative, can we back away from the tipping point of environmental degradation?

So, I invited him to Kripalu. Then I spoke to my colleague and gifted scholar of yoga and consciousness, Stephen Cope, who agreed to be involved and signed on to spend time during a weekend. And Dreaming the Earth, Tending the Dream was born.

Save this date: April 29-May 1, 2016. Come to this one.

Please join me in this psychic global experiment with the modest aim of coming into balance with the planet.

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Category: Balanced, Happy, BlessedTag: consciousness, dreams, planet, yoga

Yoga & Diabetes is Here!

August 5, 2015 //  by annie//  Leave a Comment

Yoga & Diabetes by Annie B Kay

I spoke with my friends at the American Diabetes Association last week, and they said that my and Lisa Nelson MD’s new book, Yoga & Diabetes: Your guide to a safe and effective is practice is off to a great start!

The book is on bookstore shelves across the country. We’ve been hitting the airwaves and the blogosphere too, lots of interviews, lots of excitement for the science of yoga and the book itself. Stay tuned!
The design is beautiful, the flows are great, and if you or someone you love has diabetes, here’s a guide that will help you get started, no matter what the medication or issue you’re working with, from fatigue to peripheral neuropathy to gestational diabetes.
Here’s what Stephen Cope, bestselling author of Yoga and the Quest for the True Self had to say:

Yoga & Diabetes is an extraordinarily accessible book, and there are no two better guides than Annie Kay and Lisa Nelson.

Get your copy and please write a review – at the ADA site (if you purchase it there it will most benefit the ADA – a great organization), on Amazon or where ever you travel online.

If you don’t see it at your local bookstore – ask for it!
If you are a health professional and want to get a copy for your office, or tell your purchasing manager about it, here is a sheet to help:

Yoga & Diabetes – Health Pros.

Product details

Spiral-bound: 250 pages
Publisher: American Diabetes Association; 1 Spi edition (June 23, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1580405576
ISBN-13: 978-1580405577
Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7.2 x 0.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Big big thanks to all of you who supported Lisa and I through the process, and to those of you helping us get the word out. 

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Category: Balanced, Happy, BlessedTag: diabetes, yoga, yoga diabetes

Meditation improves gene expression

December 5, 2014 //  by annie//  3 Comments

This year there are a smattering of studies suggesting that meditation, yoga and mindfulness practices improve gene expression. Gene expression relates not only to family traits like hair color, but to the smooth operation of every cell and tissue in your body for the rest of your life.

Gene expression and epigenetics

Epigenetics is the big news in genetics that no one seems to be talking about. Me and my colleagues at Kripalu, however, are very excited. The concept is that we each have an internal environment, and we have much more control over that internal “soup” in which our genes unfold that we’d thought, is good news for those of us in the yoga lifestyle world. Everything you do in life – the food you choose (and choose not to) eat, the way you work relationships, how you feel about yourself and everything around you – influences your internal environment. Epigenetics is the environment – the internal environment – you create through lifestyle.
There’s a shamanic teaching that you become the result of all the vibration you surround yourself with. So, love that car. Love that apartment, and really love all the foibles of your spouse. Life (and your health) will be better for it. This ancient teaching sounds modern and true in the age of epigenetics.
These are early, small studies but are fascinating enough to point the way for larger trials.  There is geek drama here. In one study, in the journal Psychoneruoendocrinology, a group of 19 people with a regular ongoing meditation practice were tested before and after a day of intensive mindfulness meditation practice. A control group of 21 people who did not meditate were tested before and after a day of leisure activities. At the beginning of the study, people in each group had similar test results for genetic markers.  After the intervention the meditation group had  significantly improved levels of  epigenetic regulatory enzymes, lower expression of pro-inflammatory and other chronic disease promoting genetic markers.
After one day.

The take home

Everything that you do matters. You create much of who you are by what you do and how you feel.  Eating a whole-foods plant-based diet, learning how to deal with the ever-increasing levels of stress in our worlds, and doing what you can to enjoy your life matters. There are a growing number of quality resources to help you – find an author or teacher of yoga, meditation or mindfulness that resonates with you, and practice.
Here are just a few:

  • Kripalu is filled with wonderful teachers, many of whom now have CD practices and books available in addition to offering workshops.
    •  Check out Stephen Cope, Aruni Nan Futeronsky, and Bhavani Lorraine Nelson.
  • I love Sally Kempton. She has been practicing and teaching for decades, and has a rare combination of wisdom, kindness and clarity. She’s in the zone.
  • Then there’s me. My book, Every Bite is Divine uses yoga and mindfulness in combination with nutrition awareness to help find peace in the war on weight.
    • Yoga and Diabetes: Your Guide to a Safe and Effective Practice, my second book, with co-author Lisa Nelson, MD comes out this summer. More on that later.
    • I put time and energy into my almost-montly newsletter that aims to inspire and guide a mindful and botanical integrative whole-foods lifestyle. Yoga, Botanicals, Nutritional Science, Fun and Creativity. That’s me. Check out the newsletter here.
    • You might also enjoy:
    • Begin a yoga practice: tips for a happy introduction.

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Category: Balanced, Happy, Blessed, For Health ProsTag: conscious mindset, genetics, meditation, yoga

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