by Jasmine | Jun 12, 2014 | Alternative Health, Yoga DVDs, & Podcasts
I was reading a Yoga Journal review about Jill Miller’s Kneehab video and decided to go ahead and order it but didn’t give much credence to ordering this. Her Kneehab video is divided into 5 parts that give exercises, poses and moves for people that are just recovering from surgery to seasoned athletes. Not all of the poses will be accessible if you are in a lot of knee pain and the moves are designed to help you progress, stretch and strengthen and you will be able to start doing more of the moves. After doing a few of the segments for about a week, I woke up in the morning and my knees were not on fire. ( I don’t know why but my knee pain was always the worst first thing in the morning)
I started to do the moves every day and each day my knees were yelling at me less and getting quieter.
So I decided to order her DVD for upper body pain. This DVD is divided into 5 segments specifically for pain in different parts of your body such as your neck, shoulders, hands, wrists and back. The segments range from 5-10 minutes so they are very easy to fit into your day. I actually do some of the moves when I am watching tv or on the toilet (am I sharing too much again?) I found that my pain and tightness had gone down considerably. I have been teaching many of these sequences in my yoga classes and love seeing the look of relief and delight on my students faces when they are able to manage their own health through these moves.
Even though it is called Yoga Tune Up it actually feels more like a yoga-flavored physical therapy session. So if your primary purposes is to have a more traditional yoga practice with the emphasis on meditation, mindfulness and breathing then this is not the tape for you. If your primary purpose is to find a very-low cost way to find your own relief from neck, shoulder, hand, wrist or knee pain and you are willing to make your health and body a priority in your life (you are going to have to carve out time to do these moves on a regular basis) It’s less time to do this tape then to have to see a acupuncturist, chiropractor or physical therapist though a few times a week.
I had also bought a few years ago Desiree Rumbaugh’s Yoga to the Rescue for Neck and Shoulders and that does have a more flow-y and yoga-like but I did not get a significant or long-lasting relief with it. I do love how she shows how to do the pose the right way and she also shows the (very common) wrong way to do some traditional yoga poses.
I actually plan on going to some of her seminars in Boston ( driving 6 hours each way) so I can become more of an expert in Yoga Tune Up and help other people find an escape from chronic physical pain that they can manager themselves. I love to empower people so they can take charge of their own health.
The poses, sequences and routines of the Yoga Tune Up Program are designed to stretch, strengthen and heal from head-to-toe. With a focus on finding your body’s “blind spots” – areas that have become weakened due to overuse, underuse or misuse, and are now prone to pain and injury – these specialized routines will help balance out your entire physiology.
by Jasmine | Jun 9, 2014 | Gift Baskets
Here’s a some history on how Father’s Day got started from History.com. We also have our list of the Top 8 Best Gifts for Dad.
On July 19, 1910, the governor of the U.S. state of Washington proclaimed the nation’s first “Father’s Day.” However, it was not until 1972, 58 years after President Woodrow Wilson made Mother’s Day official, that the day became a nationwide holiday in the United States.
- Mother’s Day is a holiday honoring motherhood that is observed in the United States and various parts of the world.
- Memorial Day, observed the last Monday of May, honors men and women who died while serving in the American military.
- The Fourth of July commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.
- The last major holiday of summer, Labor Day celebrates the American worker.
Did You Know?
There are more than 70 million fathers in the United States. Click here to see our Top 8 Best Gifts for Dad.
Mother’s Day: Inspiration for Father’s Day
The “Mother’s Day” we celebrate today has its origins in the peace-and-reconciliation campaigns of the post-Civil War era. During the 1860s, at the urging of activist Ann Reeves Jarvis, one divided West Virginia town celebrated “Mother’s Work Days” that brought together the mothers of Confederate and Union soldiers. In 1870, the activist Julia Ward Howe issued a “Mother’s Day Proclamation” calling on a “general congress of women” to “promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, & the great & general interests of peace.”
Mother’s Day did not become a commercial holiday until 1908, when– inspired by Jarvis’s daughter Anna, who wanted to honor her own mother by making Mother’s Day a national holiday– the John Wanamaker department store in Philadelphia sponsored a service dedicated to mothers in its auditorium. Thanks in large part to this association with retailers, who saw great potential for profit in the holiday, Mother’s Day caught on right away. In 1909, 45 states observed the day, and in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson approved a resolution that made the second Sunday in May a holiday in honor of “that tender, gentle army, the mothers of America.”
Origins of Father’s Day.
The campaign to celebrate the nation’s fathers did not meet with the same enthusiasm– perhaps because, as one florist explained, “fathers haven’t the same sentimental appeal that mothers have.” On July 5, 1908, a West Virginia church sponsored the nation’s first event explicitly in honor of fathers, a Sunday sermon in memory of the 362 men who had died in the previous December’s explosions at the Fairmont Coal Company mines in Monongah, but it was a one-time commemoration and not an annual holiday. The next year, a Spokane, Washington woman named Sonora Smart Dodd, one of six children raised by a widower, tried to establish an official equivalent to Mother’s Day for male parents. She went to local churches, the YMCA, shopkeepers and government officials to drum up support for her idea, and she was successful: Washington State celebrated the nation’s first statewide Father’s Day on July 19, 1910.
In 1916, President Wilson honored the day by using telegraph signals to unfurl a flag in Spokane when he pressed a button in Washington, D.C. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge urged state governments to observe Father’s Day.
Father’s Day: Controversy and Commercialism.
During the 1920s and 1930s, a movement arose to scrap Mother’s Day and Father’s Day altogether in favor of a single holiday, Parents’ Day. Every year on Mother’s Day, pro-Parents’ Day groups rallied in New York City’s Central Park– a public reminder, said Parents’ Day activist and radio performer Robert Spere, “that both parents should be loved and respected together.” Paradoxically, however, the Depression derailed this effort to combine and de-commercialize the holidays. Struggling retailers and advertisers redoubled their efforts to make Father’s Day a “second Christmas” for men, promoting goods such as neckties, hats, socks, pipes and tobacco, golf clubs and other sporting goods, and greeting cards. When World War II began, advertisers began to argue that celebrating Father’s Day was a way to honor American troops and support the war effort. By the end of the war, Father’s Day may not have been a federal holiday, but it was a national institution.
In 1972, in the middle of a hard-fought presidential re-election campaign, Richard Nixon signed a proclamation making Father’s Day a federal holiday at last. Today, economists estimate that Americans spend more than $1 billion each year on Father’s Day gifts.
by Jasmine | Jun 1, 2014 | Alternative Health
Grilled peaches: A lazy cook’s dream.
The sugar-plus-heat combination makes for a seductive caramelizing effect. Peaches are a natural for the grill, where quick cooking brings out juiciness and intensifies sweetness.
- Start with peaches that are firm with just a little give when you give them a gentle squeeze with your whole hand.
- Cut the peaches in half and pit them. You can grill entire peach halves or cut them into wedges.
- Cook peaches over a medium fire on both sides until grill marks show and peaches are tender but not falling apart.
Serve grilled peaches plain or in salads. You can also try pairing grilled peaches with cool soy yogurt or with scoops of soy or rice-milk ice cream.
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by Jasmine | May 29, 2014 | Beauty, Reviews
My Review of No More Dirty Looks. The Truth About Your Beauty Products. The book the Beauty Industry DOES NOT want you to read.
Natural beauty organically, how do you find it? Toxins and poisons in cosmetic and personal hygiene products….how do you avoid them?
Why am I slathering formaldehyde on my eyes?
The book the Beauty Industry DOES NOT want you to read.
I run away from the perfume counters when I go to the department stores. I’m actually terrified those waif-girls, dressed in all black with their hair slicked up into a bun will spray me with the latest scent du jour. When they do that, I will not only smell like I just stepped out of a whorehouse, but will have a raging migraine the rest of the day.
I noticed my sensitivities to many large brand name beauty products and perfumes. I had even started avoided going to the movies since if I sat behind someone that slathered them self in some rose scented lotion, even that would give me a headache.
Working in the spa business, I was often offered complimentary beauty treatments such as facials and massages but I would always decline mani-pedis since going into those places would mean insta-migraine. I would often give an instant negative review for any spa where I was greeted with the scent of nail polish. Why do those workers always wear masks, like they are working at a nuclear reactor? If those environments seem so toxic, why is it that women feel it is a treat (and often an excuse to get together with a girlfriend) to get their nails done?
What is in these products I was wondering? Why don’t these beauty products affect other women they way they do me? Am I just more aware or is there something wrong with me, Am I oversensitive….I would often wonder.
I started to seek out products with no scents, botanically based and with the USDA organic seal of approval. The word “natural” in the beauty (and food product industry) has no regulatory or legal merit behind it and is probably the most cliched, abused and meaningless term in both of these industries. I guess using ingredients that have been proven to cause birth defects can render something “natural”, some well-compensated executive started thinking and slapped this moniker on every synthetic formulation and put some flowers and green leaves on the packaging to make it appear like it was made directly with ingredients that came from virgin soil.
Even using some of the major very expensive high-end beauty products would start to make me feel heady and yuck-brain. Working in the aesthetic medical business, I was exposed to some of the best and the worst practices and products. I became increasingly more aware of the toxic melange that was added to most of beauty products and started to have a deeper appreciation for the cleaner lines – Jurlique, Juice Beauty, Soleo, Bare Escentuals, John Masters, Waleda, Burt Bees, Avalon Organics, Evan Healy, Dr Hauschka, Jane Iredale, Josie Maran and a few others (as mentioned in the book).
Reading this book made me rethink all of my choices related to how we buy (or why we don’t buy) cosmetics.
So many of my paranoid conspiracy theories about the poisonous ingredients were confirmed. This book is well researched, written in down-to-earth language and is filled with great tips on how to beautify ourselves with both home-made tips which range from using egg whites for hair mousse, avocados to moisturize our bodies and hair, to using beets for lipstick. It also lists which beauty brands are ones that are made with cleaner ingredients that also perform just as powerfully. They also include well-known stores, such as Whole Foods and Target that carry some of these more pure beauty lines.
What is in these products I was wondering? Why don’t these beauty products affect other women they way they do me? Am I oversensitive?
This book also gives a few tips on advocacy at the end on what we can do to incite the FDA and our politicians to start to regulate and police this industry so that our bodies and faces are better protected. It’s written in a no-nonsense but entertaining fashion that makes it a compelling and informative read.
Let’s not forget the most powerful tool all of us have – our wallets. Buying products that are made with our health and lives in mind is the most daring action we can all take. The authors of this book are to applauded for the daunting task of researching this gigantic almost unregulated industry that affects our bodies and faces in the most intimate of ways.
by Jasmine | May 22, 2014 | Spirituality
Using affirmations to shift finances
Every wonder why we have the same thoughts every day? Every day the same fears? The same hopes? Why is it that 99% of our thoughts are the same thoughts every single day? Do you wonder how much power your thoughts have? Ever wondered how you could create new thoughts?
I’ve been reading one of Wayne Dyer’s books on and off over the last 6 months, although other spiritual leaders such as the ones who wrote “The Secret”, Deepak Chopra, Tony Robbins, Lynn Grabhorn who are all about of gratitude and self-love. I wondered…. instead of these mundane things that seem to jump run, race and jump like a track event in my head what if I didn’t let those thoughts frolick and swim amuck inside. This personal self-help guru and master teacher of the power of thought has been very influential to me lately. Before I go to bed, I have been making it a point to consciously create thoughts that could marinate in my unconscious. I started to choose thoughts using the power of your own mind to alter your destiny. My hubby and I have a rule about what we talk about right before we drift off to sleep – no business talk in bed. I don’t want profit and loss statements dancing in my head in my slumber.
What would happen…. I bemused out loud… instead of wondering if I had enough money left in my bank account to pay all my bills and how I was going to get more…… what if my predominant thought was ” I love myself”. So for the last few weeks, this has been my predominant thought…. when I go to sleep, when I wake up and often during the day. My wild-elephant-that-just-escaped-from-the-circus-mind always wanted to come back to thoughts of my Verizon balance, emails to check, my endless well of Twitter feeds, laundry to change or groceries to buy. I would sometimes catch myself and then use my own Jedi mind trick on myself to not indulge in thoughts of the mundane, errands, work or my declining bank account.
Using the Power of Thought
So what are the results? I feel like I am starting to get results in areas of business and finance with less pushing and more allowing. Instead of feeling like I have to hustle and pressure, I just detach from the outcome and let my thought of ” I love myself take” over. I am especially mindful of my thoughts first thing in the morning so I can plant seeds of positivity that can sprout during the day and at night where these uplifting mantra can marinate and percolate. I’ve found that instead of struggling so much with finances that for the first time I had 4 digits in my account by the end of the month instead of 2 digits. Wow! That has not happened in awhile. YAY!
So I am just in the beginning of my own science experiment.
Have you ever done a thought control experiment? What was your internal monologue? What ended up shifting for you?
