by Jasmine | Feb 15, 2017 | Meditation, Spirituality
Life can be incredibly hectic – work, family, kids, and friends all vie for your attention. All of these people and experiences add something to our lives, but they can easily steal our calm and joy also.
Mindfulness – How to Be Aware of the Present Moment
No one is able to completely disconnect and become a hermit in order to find their true center. The good news is you don’t have to! A simple meditative practice of being aware of each moment can bring you the calm and joy you long for – even in the midst of chaos.
Mindfulness – How to Be Aware of the Present Moment
A lot of us spend our lives thinking of either our past or our present. When we think of our past, we are bound to it. Bad memories cause us to never leave painful places. Even clinging to good memories can keep us from moving forward and experiencing new things. When we think of the future, we often worry about things that will never happen. We also long for future changes in circumstances, and that longing can make us forget everything we have to be thankful for in our present lives.
Being aware of every moment – also called ‘mindfulness’ in many circles – is not something we are good at right away. However, with practice, it will become a more and more natural part of your life. Here are several practices that can help you in your quest to be more aware of each present moment.
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Breathe.
All of us breathe each and every day. However, most of us aren’t mindful of our breathing. How does it feel? Take a few moments each morning or during a break to close your eyes, breathe deeply, and focus on those breaths. Feel it fill you, and then leave you. As you practice this, you will find yourself able to focus for longer periods of time, and you will feel more centered and peaceful.
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Focus on what you’re doing right now.
Whatever you’re doing – reading this article, typing an email, or talking to a friend – focus on that activity only. Don’t allow yourself to think ahead to what you need from the store, or think back to a previous experience. It may help you to say to yourself, “Right now, I am typing,” or whatever you are doing. When you really drill down, what are you doing at this moment? Being aware of your activities without racing ahead will help you feel less stressed each day.
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Feel without judging.
Many of us have emotions that we label as OK and others that we label as unacceptable. We enjoy the emotions we like, but we often try to ignore or bury the emotions we don’t like. However, that creates inner tension as our emotions try to rise up past our barriers. Instead, feel your feelings without judging them. You don’t have to give in to them, just acknowledge them. It may help once again to verbalize this and say, “Right now I am feeling angry,” or whichever emotion you have. You will find yourself able to identify but not overreact with your emotions. Best of all, you won’t be repressing what’s truly going on.
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Make a thankfulness list.
There’s no better way to acknowledge the present moment than to look around you and list all of the things you are thankful for. I’m thankful for my job, for the shining sun, and for the good food I’m eating for lunch. What are you thankful for in this present moment?
Being present in every moment is a big challenge. Don’t get frustrated when you get distracted and go back to old patterns of behavior. Just center yourself, take a breath, and once again acknowledge the present moment.
by Jasmine | Jan 29, 2017 | Alternative Health, Fertility, Yoga Health
It is possible to increase fertility with yoga poses: restorative fertility yoga postures encourage human body to be more open to conception. It is not about being more flexible and being able to curl your left leg over your right shoulder: this will not boost your fertility: yoga is about balancing body and mind and not only improving your physical conditional and body flexibility. There are additional external factors that contribute to the fact you might have problems trying to conceive, and these include caffeine, alcohol, smoking, stress, including communication between partners and financial worries etc.
Many people are diagnosed with unexplained infertility, treating infertility with yoga can change that diagnoses. Usually a contributing factor for infertility is stress and stress related issues. Yoga not only tones your body but it is an excellent stress reliever. It also targets specific areas of the body including organs, glandular and circulatory systems. If you start using a yoga practice for fertility your chances of overcoming infertility are three times greater than not using yoga at all. A practice specific for fertility will focus on stress relief, strengthening and toning muscles, and balancing the reproductive organs and hormones. Stress, however, has been shown to reduce the probability of conception.
Alice Domar, who has a Ph.D. in health psychology and is the director of mind-body services at the Harvard-affiliated center Boston IVF, said of yoga: “It’s a very effective relaxation technique, and a great way to get women in the door to get support. It’s a way to get them to like their bodies again.” In 2000, she, published the results of a study in Fertility and Sterility (Vol. 73, No. 4) that showed women who participated in her program, which included relaxation and yoga, were almost three times more likely to get pregnant than women who didn’t. A Gentler Form of Exercise Dr. Domar has an interesting theory about one of the ways that some women seem to benefit from yoga. “I believe that vigorous exercise may reduce fertility in some women,” she says. “We can’t predict whose fertility is exercise sensitive.
Yoga is something they can do that will reduce stress without impacting their fertility. For really chronic exercisers, my clinical impression is that at least half that stop get pregnant. Yoga is the best tool I have for these women.” According to Rahul Sachdev, M.D., a specialist in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, New Jersey, incorporating the health-enhancing benefits of yoga with traditional and innovative medical intervention can relieve the stress associated with infertility, thus vastly increasing the chances for conception. Treating infertility with yoga is a natural and cost effective way to conceive. Did you know that the treatment for infertility business is $2 billion dollar business. Many couples spend thousands of dollars for various treatments that can cause painful side effects, financial strain, and additional stress. Many of these treatments are not successful and the couple continues trying different treatments becoming more frustrated and financially troubled.
The Mayo Clinic recently acknowledged that chronic stress can lead to a variety of health and emotional problems. Yoga is an effective method to reduce stress and anxiety. But in addition, yoga for fertility can help to detoxify the body while relaxing tight muscles and connective tissue. The specific areas in Yoga for fertility of the low back (sacral plexus) hips, groins and pelvis begin to improve in blood flow and circulation-which can aid in healthier gynecological function. As the body relaxes, the mind calms and the nervous system is aided by the breath to help lower stress hormones like cortisol, which can impede reproductive hormone function. This can potentially be beneficial for fertility. Learning to listen to the body’s natural rhythms through yoga and breathing can bring a deep sense of peace and connection to our own innate healing capacity, helping women and couples feel more empowered on their journey.
To treat infertility with yoga there a some basic steps you can take to get you started. This first thing is to make a commitment to start lifestyle practices that will reduce your stress level. Stress can cause your hormones and organs to become off balance. When you are not in balance your body is not working to it’s full potential. Yoga breathing will help calm the body and mind replacing the negative thoughts with positive. There are specific poses in yoga that focus on your reproductive organs and pelvic area to increase blood flow and stimulate energy. There are also poses that soften the abdominal area clearing tension from the uterus, ovaries and fallopian tubes which will increase their productivity.
Yoga will bring balance to your body, mind, and soul specifically your hormone levels. These poses will improve your glandular function which will stabilize hormones. In order for the reproductive process to occur your hormones must be in balance. Yoga is a natural way to treat your infertility by decreasing the stress from month after month of trying to conceive. When your body is stressed and tense so are your organs causing them not to work properly. Yoga will calm and release the tension specifically in the pelvic region which brings increased blood flow to your reproductive organs and allows the energy to flow freely opening and softening the pelvic organs.
See part 2 and 3 for Top Fertility Poses in Yoga.
by Jasmine | Jan 27, 2017 | Romantic Date Ideas, Valentines Day
With Valentine’s Day around the corner, hearts and flowers are everywhere you turn, but is love really in the air or is it just another Hallmark holiday?
To gain insight on this year’s Valentine’s Day, online dating site AYI.com surveyed over 1,000 people and analyzed over 55,000 responses to some of their most popular multiple-choice questions. Here is everything you need to know about the upcoming holiday…
Although 68% of women and 60% of men agree that Valentine’s Day is all about love—opposed to it being a superficial holiday—of those surveyed, over one in five (22%) said they had been dumped and one in six (17%) said they had been cheated on or that they cheated on Valentine’s Day. Talk about bad timing!
Don’t worry though, there’s still hope for budding romance, as 51% of women and 70% of men would go on a blind date on Valentine’s Day. And somewhat surprisingly, both women AND men prefer a romantic dinner to everything else. Here’s how the responses broke down:
· What women want for Valentine’s Day:
o Romantic Dinner: 44%
o Flowers: 24%
o Nothing: 15%
o Jewelry: 8%
o Sex: 6%
o Candy: 3%
· What men want for Valentine’s Day:
o Romantic Dinner: 35%
o Sex: 26%
o Nothing: 25%
o Flowers: 9%
o Candy: 3%
o Jewelry: 2%
Fair warning: Men taking their dates on a romantic dinner should be prepared to shell out some cash. 64% of women and 71% of men think the man should pay for the date on Valentine’s Day, and 35% of women and 30% of men think they should spend up to $50.00 more on a Valentine’s Day date than a regular date.
by Jasmine | Dec 5, 2016 | Couples Yoga, Date Night, New Age, Partner Yoga, Romantic Date Ideas, Spirituality, Yoga Retreat
Teaching Yoga for Couples at a Spiritual Retreat near Philadelphia and Tantra in Pennsylvania
What Happens in Yoga Couples Classes
A lot of people ask how we decided to teach couples yoga. Actually it was because of my sweetie… my best friend, partner and hottie hellenic hubby.
I have been practicing yoga for over 15 years. When we first started to live together I used to practice to yoga DVDs in the living room. Occasionally he would practice with me but then he said once, ” I really want to do the poses where we are touching each other and helping each other get in the poses.”
So I started to research more couples and partner yoga poses. Most of the partner poses that were out there were fairly acrobatic, very challenging and demanding physically and there didn’t seem to be many poses that were geared towards people that were nonathletic and that didn’t want a Cirque Du Soleil audition.
I wanted to find a mix of poses that were silly, giggly, challenging, strengthening, bonding and once in a while a little scary (adrenaline can add really add some spice and passion to a relationship that is in a long rut) and where you could get that sense that you were beyond gravity in some of the poses. I bought tapes, DVDs, book, went to other partner yoga trainings and classes. I practiced the poses with other yoga teachers.
Almost every Friday night we teach couples yoga in Philadelphia.. in Manayunk, a hip, happening part of town and we teach them quarterly at Temenos in West Chester as a couples spiritual retreat as well.
Although it is work for us to promote the classes, set up, clean up, prepare and organize the classes, we mostly do it because the two of us get so much out of it. It has sort of become our date night although we are sharing it with other couples, most of which we have met for the first time.
At the beginning of class there is usually a mix of giddiness, anxiety, nervousness and excitement. I work with a lot of yoga newbies and people that do not have a regular exercise practice.
I never know what poses I am going to teach since I have to gage the ability of the group before I teach a pose. I’m not going to teach a bunch of crazy balancing poses to someone that just had hip replacement. I don’t want to teach a lot of weight-bearing poses, where one partner has to put all their weight on the other’s body if there is a big weight difference or especially if the woman is a lot heavier than the man.
If the couples are pretty athletic then I want to make sure the moves are fresh and challenging enough to keep it spicy so I’ll avoid the easier poses. If the group is really wound up and edgy, I’ll teach a fair amount of yin or restorative poses so they start to become more tranquil.
Teaching Couples Yoga
I also like to position students in class so that two dudes are not looking right at each other, I think men don’t want to appear vulnerable in front of other men so if they are not looking right at each other then it makes for less performance anxiety for the couples at a spiritual workshops or spiritual retreat.
by Jasmine | Dec 1, 2016 | Couples Yoga, Date Night
Dating Ideas in Philadelphia for the Recession Wallet
Here is a list of some of the top things to do in the city of brotherly love. I’ve limited my list to thing that are wallet-friendly.
Take a massage class together. The Mt Airy Learning Tree probably has the most economical option. My sweetie and me did this last year and we left all mushy brain since we were so relaxed.
Grab a camera, charge the batteries, put on some nice clothes and ladies spend some time on hair and makeup and go to a beautiful place and take a bunch of pictures together. Don’t worry about asking someone to take pics of you guys. You can bring a tripod and have it go off on an automatic timer, you can grab the camera and stretch your arm out and do a self-portrait.
You can take turns taking pics of each other. Good times to take pics are around sunset, lighting is very flattering then. Mid-day the sun is at its brightest and will be a bit more harsh. Take a walk around Fairmount park or in front of the Art Museum. Best times of year to do this are spring when the flowers are blooming or fall when the leaves are brilliant and falling.
We are going to go to Longwood Gardens, Take a massage class, whale watching at the Jersey Shore, tubing in the river, go on a Winery Tour of Bucks County and even go to the Pennsylvania Ballet for at least 50% off. There are certain restrictions on when you can use these deals so just make sure and read all the terms of the deal noticing any dates you can’t use the the deal. Make sure to notice the expiration as well. I would check out some online reviews though yelp.com, citysearch or their google reviews before you buy as well.
Philly Date Ideas
If you have a Twitter account then I would set up an alert for something like “Stephen Starr Restaurant” if you really want to go to this restaurant but waiting to see if they offer a deal first. Often when these deal sites run their deals they will show up on all kind of social media, especially Twitter. Since no one could possibly read all their Twitter updates, I just set up alerts for certain terms like “yoga philly” or “yoga philadelphia” and Twialerts sends me updates when there is a post out there. So much easier to moniter it this way instead of having to do a search every day or go onto a bunch of different websites to see if there are deals that week.
Want some more recession-friendly date ideas in Philadelphia? I am actually originally from San Diego and had never been to Reading Terminal Market. I’ve never seen a market like this anywhere ( and I’ve traveled to over 30 countries) and was just astounded by the quality and variety.
Check out Meetup.com and do search for a hobby or topic that fancies you. Do you love dogs but can’t get one soon? A fun date would be to go to a dog meetup (I recommend the Pug Meetup) and you can watch the little rolly polly guys chase and frolic…. truly a delight!
