Reassuring News That Yoga Is Truly A “Super Practice”

I first fell in love with yoga nearly five years ago after having my first child. It was a hard pregnancy, which had landed me in hospital and on bed-rest for the two months leading up to the actual birth.

Needless to say, by the time I had my baby via emergency c-section my body felt like it might never recover after the months of doing nothing followed by such an invasive surgery.

Once my baby (a preemie) was strong enough to start getting out and about, I knew that I had to do something to regain control of my health. I had dabbled in yoga before but nothing you could call a regular practice. I needed to start with something gentle, so I looked up the yoga schedule at our local gym and despite my postpartum lack of enthusiasm, decided to give it a go.

Nurturing for the Nurturer: 6 Self-Care Rules to Adopt Now

Spa professionals are nurturers by nature.

Your soothing hands deliver therapeutic massages, delicately perform facials, and carefully apply nail lacquers, among other much-needed services.

The world is a hectic place, and you know that taking time-outs is important for your clients.

It benefits their physical and mental well-being, and it’s good for business.

Heading For Harder Ground: Why Sleeping In The Open Air Is Always Good For You

In the early morning before six, that time of skim-milk light that precedes dawn, my sleeping bag is covered with a skiff of frost.

I barely open my eyes and look toward the dinosaur-back ridgelines of Blair Valley in the Anza-Borrego desert, where the yucca spears march in silhouette against a cirrus-rumpled sky.

At that moment I thought of an open-air bed in an apartment house in Berkeley, but I’ll come back to that…

This is the way I like to wake up: head hidden by folds of down-filled nylon and an old wool watch cap, hands so bound by the mummy bag that I must unburrow myself from the cocoon, shoulder stiff where the collarbone tries to tell me that it is not a shock-absorber, it won’t give, it won’t yield in any way to the hard ground quite the way I want it to.

A New Way To Take A Walk: People Are Really Stepping It Up For Fitness

Do you enjoy taking a nice stroll around your neighborhood?

Then you’re lucky—you’re halfway home on a new exercise trend that has proven to be more effective than high-intensity interval training.

Can you walk fast for 3 minutes, knowing that you will then relax and walk at a normal pace for the next three? Sure you can. 

During this past week, I tried it, and the only problem was my early arrival at my destination: a coffee house where I read the morning paper.

It used to take me about 20 minutes to get there, and the same for the return trip.