Author credit Helen Bradford

It has long been known that our well-being, including our mental health, is influenced by what we eat. Nutritionists generally draw a distinction between fats, carbs and proteins, while yogis classify foods based on how they affect our mind and body. They believe that the foods we eat are a reflection of our conscious development because the food is the creator of a life force they call prana. Yoga suggests a vegetarian diet which encourages love and peace with all beings. If we don’t eat with care and gratitude, then all other aspects of our lives will endure strain. A diet with healthy eating habits is important for yogis and non-yogis alike. Here is a list of some foods which you are encouraged to enjoy and others you should avoid.

Foods to Enjoy

Author credit Bella Hardy

You must have heard people saying, “There is some purpose in pain.” Only a person in pain will know what that means. Back pain, whether it is severe, acute, or continuous numbing pain, makes you feel tired, depressed, and sometimes angry.

Every day when you wake up, you try to feel your back, and you wish that the pain would magically go away. This mental trauma can aggravate your pain, and it starts to get you down.

Sometimes the back pain can be due to sleeping on the wrong side, over-training of some sport or physical exercise. This may cause inflammation of muscles, and you get severe pain in your back. Similarly, there are chronic back pains which are severe, and it makes life difficult.

Author credit Jennifer Dawson
Photo by Antonika Chanel on Unsplash

Have you recently taken a yoga holiday? With estimates of 300,000-460,000 people in the UK  practicing yoga, you are not alone. Like countless yogis before you, a yoga retreat was the ideal experience for you to create space for personal growth, meet like minded individuals from all over the globe, and connect with your inner self in a structured and focused way. The great news is, your yoga holiday doesn’t have to stop at the end of your stay. You can take your yoga holiday home and enjoy the benefits of your retreat any and every day. 

By Susan Perry-Livett

Most of us, especially in busy cities with equally busy lives, feel that they need a serious break sometimes. Some of us would normally say that we need a holiday, but is a holiday enough? Maybe we need more than just a cocktail, a beautiful beach and a good book.

Yoga, meditation, massage and other holistic healing retreats can be just what you need when a holiday is just not enough. Yoga retreats can really create a platform for transformation and self-discovery. Here some fantastic reasons why to take a yoga retreat:

By Susan Perry-Livett

Yoga is all about discovering that much-required awareness of your body in both space and time. When you are first staring out, it can seems quite awkward and thanks ok, you just need to create space for learning and to be patient with yourself as you discover yoga. Here are some things to keep in mind when you are first staring out in yoga:

Listen  to Your Body

A little challenge can be good at times, but yoga is not about pushing yourself. Advancement in asana comes slowly, little by little. Yoga is a practice, not a perfection. Also if you experience a sharp pain while in a pose, stop and tell your teacher about it. Yoga is not supposed to be painful. Mild pleasant pain when stretching is ok, shooting pain is not ok. Don’t push yourself too hard, take it slow, and you won’t injure yourself.

Author credit Jennifer Dawson
Photo by Thao Le Hoang on Unsplash

Yoga may be a highly spiritual pursuit, but that doesn’t mean you have to forego your love for fashion at your next yoga retreat. There are so many brands specialising in yoga gear that it can be a little confusing to narrow your choices down. The good news is that with just a few updates to your sports wardrobe, you can look chic while harnessing yoga's soul soothing benefits in a dream destination that will enrich your spirituality and enable you to meet people with shared interests. By mixing and matching, bringing items that work as well in class as during leisure time, and by choosing comfortable, breathable fabrics, you will feel like a pro yogi in no time.

Want to know what to expect in your first Yoga class? Well, you can expect a lot of things to happen over time, but most people don't know what they might expect to see.

We will let you know more about the things you are going to see during the first yoga class, and you will have the information you need to do the job pretty well Don't forget to have fun with your peers while in the yoga class because that is what the class is about.

The article will focus on the studio, how to pick a class and things like that. We will also talk about what you have to eat or not to eat before the yoga class, and things like that will become pretty important for you to recall down the road too.

Author credit Jennifer Dawson
Photo by Marion Michele on Unsplash

Combining relaxing breathwork and meditation with gentle poses to stretch and strengthen muscles, yoga can prevent and treat chronic pain. In fact, a recent study found yoga just as effective as physical therapy for reducing chronic pain intensity and left participants 20% less likely to use pain medication, Reuters reports. The causes of chronic pain — prolonged pain persisting long after the injury heals — include arthritis, past injuries, nerve damage, and back problems. Chronic pain isn’t only physical; it often has mental and emotional symptoms including low mood, stress, and fatigue. Beneficial on both mental and physical levels, yoga decreases physical pain and improves pain perception.

Author credit Katerina Weissova

It is not really easy to identify the causes of your back pain because of the different activities that you do every day. This specific kind of pain may affect your posture and even your productivity. This is why you should not be taking it for granted. It is very important to determine how all the things that you do can affect your health. Always look for ways on how you can do your activities in a way that will not make your back suffer.
Aside from the preventive measures including using an inversion table to avoid back pain, there are also some activities that you can actively take to fight the pain. Here are some of the best ones:

Author credit Jennifer Dawson
Photo by David Hofmann on Unsplash

Around three in four British people  feel overwhelmed by stress, and encounter a host of symptoms including impaired sleep quality, a racing heart rate, low energy, aching, and insomnia. Sources of stress for adults include the state of the nation, money, work, the political climate, and violence, but statistics show that children, too, are succumbing to pressure. According to a survey carried out by the charity Barnardo’s, two thirds of children in the UK are stressed out about life at secondary school, while a third worry about social media. It is important for families to learn to deal with stress in powerful yet natural ways. In this post, we provide just a few reasons why a yoga retreat is ideal for parents and kids alike.

Author credit Jennifer Dawson
Photo by Rima Kruciene on Unsplash

Yoga is an exercise, a form of alternative medicine, and traditional form of relaxation and meditation dating back centuries. One part of your body that can benefit from yoga, in particular, is your skin. New forms of yoga, such as hot yoga, can help improve circulation and give you clearer skin in moderation. Approaches to yoga similar to facial yoga can decrease wrinkling in your skin. And yoga users may have less stretchy skin and obesity-related skin conditions.

Author credit  -  James Hirlehey

Have you ever wondered how wellness and Astrology can go together? Whether you use Western or Vedic astrology you can use your Sun sign to enhance your overall health, yoga practice, or wellness routine! Medical astrology is one of the earliest forms for practical uses for astrology. Each zodiac sign has a specific vibration that matches certain foods, exercises, and health needs. Here are different styles of Yoga paired with each zodiac sign!

Aries ♈︎

Aries is a fire sign and therefore has a lot of excess and impulsive energy. Doing a Yoga practice, such as Hot Yoga, is perfect for this zodiac sign. You do not mind the heat and will love to break a sweat while you work out.

Author credit Jenny Johnson.

From the Grapefruit Diet to the Cabbage Soup Diet to the Paleo Diet, it seems that every decade (and maybe even every year) there’s a new fad diet promising shortcuts to health, energy, and above all, weight loss. Sometimes seemingly appearing out of nowhere, more often than not in conjunction with a handful of celebrity endorsements or the release of a new book touting their benefits, these diets seem at first glance almost too good to be true. Unfortunately, deeper research into the benefits of these styles of eating tends to confirm just that – while they may produce some immediate, short-term effects on the body that give the illusion of lasting change, they are no substitute for the lasting health benefits of a yogic practice. As a matter of fact, these fad diets can actually inflict serious damage on the body.

Aurhor credit  Emily Brathen

We all know that yoga offers a myriad of amazing benefits not just for the body but also for the mind and soul. However, while we’re sure that it does strengthen the muscles and improve your flexibility and balance, you might still wonder: does yoga help you lose weight? If so, how exactly? Continue reading to find out the answer!

Great discounts now available with Adventure Yogi in Santorini and Cornwall

Santorini holiday 30th June - 7th July and 7th  - 14th July. 
Twin room to share: Was £989pp Now £695pp  
Single occupancy: Was £1400pp. Now £995pp

Cornwall retreat 14th-21st July 
Twin room to share with ensuite. Was £475pp. Now £395pp
Twin room to share with shared bathroom: Was £445pp. Now £375pp

https://www.yogaholidays.net/yoga-holidays-and-retreats-by-date/join-adventureyogi-on-a-sun-soaked-yoga-swimming-hiking-boating-and-wine-tasting-holiday-in-santorini/818/ 

The In Sabina programme in Italy has had a change of teacher.

Author credit Amanda Bentley

Yoga is quite popular today.
It can trace its roots back to India where there are strong mystic and religious traditions. Today, yoga is popular as a form of exercise and for keeping people fit. It has very little to do with its religious origins and more people are doing it every year.
Since everyone seems to be doing yoga these days, the question is whether you should be teaching it to your kids. The answer is yes and here are 5 reasons why you should:

In India where it originates from, yoga is more than a physical or spiritual task. It is a tradition and a culture. History says yoga began in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE. However, its popularity as a form of physical exercise only spread to the western world in the 1980's.

 Yoga is a form of physical practice that involves stretching the body and working the muscles through specific angles. Yoga also involves working the joints through certain positions. In India, Yoga is believed to be of great spiritual, mental and health benefits. In fact, yoga has become so popular that many sportsmen and women engage in it.

A recent survey showed that the number of people that practiced yoga in the United States of America increased from four million in 2001 to about twenty million in 2011. In fact, former American leader Barack Obama approved yoga as an effective form of physical exercise. He once stated "Yoga has become a universal language of spiritual exercise in the United States, crossing many lines of religion and cultures,...

Adaptogenic herbs are a loosely-related class of plants that impact a variety of body systems, usually by reducing stress hormone production in the adrenal gland. Chronic stress, anxiety, and depression are common in modern society. Worldwide, folks are overstimulated with electronics and inundated with hectic schedules. The adaptogens in this article can help relieve stress.

If you’ve been doing yoga for a while, chances are you are pretty comfortable with the mechanics of most of the basic poses and are aware of the tremendous yoga benefits for women and man. You know how to draw your navel into your spine to engage your core. You know how to use your breath to help you sustain a challenging pose or work toward one that seems difficult. You have learned most of what you need to know about your own body to be able to suit the poses to the places that work for you. As you go through a practice, you feel like you are pretty much secure in the major anatomical points of each of the poses.

While this doesn’t mean you feel like you have “mastered” yoga, it’s a major milestone for most yoga students. It might come after months, or even years, of practice, but you’re probably aware of each step along the way, as poses become more accessible and your knowledge deepens.

That’s an exhilarating feeling, no question. But, it can also trigger a sense of frustration, especially for driven yogis. The more you become adept, the more challenging it can seem to search for the next step in your yoga journey.

Look at this as an opportunity to delve into the next level of yoga. This can mean taking a closer look at the details of your physical practice. It can mean intensifying your meditation. Maybe you want to enrich your knowledge of yogic tradition. Whatever it is, now is the time to look past the “what” and explore the “why” and “how” behind your yoga. Here are five tips to do just that.