Supernatural Botanicals

A quick 15-20 minute nap can recharge your day and your mind.  Slow your mind and body down to deeply relax and de-stress.   You’ll have better mental processing, stress less, have better reaction time, create a brain that’s hungry and susceptible to learning, and have better overall health.

   Nothing is more stressful than being unprepared.  Get organized so you’re ready for the next day, taking a few minutes to make a to-do list of all you want to accomplish the next day.  Knowing you’ve got everything covered means you’ll be less likely to think (and worry) about work in the evenings.  When you start the day, you’ll have the sense that you’re in control of your life and your day, and are being proactive in your battle over stress.  This sets a positive tone for the day, which can help you get more accomplished.

So it’s Friday, and I like to talk about interior design on Fridays because it gives me an opportunity to (A) talk about one of my favorite subjects, and (B) it allows me to connect with my friend Julia over at Hooked On Houses. Love her blog!

In every home I’ve ever lived in, I’ve loved leaving my mark on it from a design standpoint.  Settling into my new-ish home of three years, I’ve definitely transformed it to where the previous owners wouldn’t even recognize it.

I was so excited about this new home because there were so many areas that had such huge potential to be developed into something fantastic.  I love creating those spaces, finding niche areas in your home and turning them into a favorite place to be.  Since working out is my thing (could you tell?), I was super excited to create a home gym.  Between my design and my carpenter’s expertise, we created one of the haven’s in my house…my home gym!

Previously, this was a basement with no walls and concrete floors.  We (okay, the carpenter) installed dry wall, lighting, and a rubberized floor…which made me a very happy girl!  It’s truly one of my favorite places to be.  It’s a guy’s gym, it’s a girl’s gym, and even the kids love playing on the stability balls on the padded floor in the gym.

I’ve even grown to love the elliptical machine.  Although my favorite cardio still remains step aerobics, dance, hip hop dance, etc., I’ve grown to appreciate the old ellip.

So welcome to one of the favorite spots in my house!  It’s a major stress-free zone, and you know you are going to leave this room looking better than when you entered it.  For that reason alone, you have to love it!

So you’ve mastered Downward Facing Dog pose in yoga, let’s keep going!  This is Dolphin pose.  This is a super-deep stretch that opens up your shoulders and digs deeper into stretching those hamstrings and glutes.

Benefits of Dolphin pose are:

Benefits

• Calms the brain and helps relieve stress and mild depression
• Stretches the shoulders, hamstrings, calves, and arches
• Strengthens the arms and legs
• Helps relieve the symptoms of menopause
• Relieves menstrual discomfort when done with head supported
• Helps prevent osteoporosis
• Improves digestion
• Relieves headache, insomnia, back pain, and fatigue
• Therapeutic for high blood pressure, asthma, flat feet, sciatica

So the next time your head is pounding from a stress headache, forgo the Tylenol and center yourself with some postures to relieve tightness from the neck and shoulders.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1.  Come onto the floor on your hands and knees. Set your knees directly below your hips and your forearms on the floor with your shoulders directly above your wrists. Firmly press your palms together and your forearms into the floor.

2.  Curl your toes under, then exhale and lift your knees away from the floor. At first keep the knees slightly bent and the heels lifted away from the floor. Lengthen your tailbone away from the back of your pelvis and press it lightly toward the pubis. Against this resistance, lift the sitting bones toward the ceiling, and from your inner ankles draw the inner legs up into the groins.

3.  Continue to press the forearms actively into the floor. Firm your shoulder blades against your back, then widen them away from the spine and draw them toward the tailbone. Hold your head between the upper arms; don’t let it hang or press heavily against the floor.

4.  You can straighten your knees if you like, but if your upper back rounds it’s best to keep them bent. Continue to lengthen your tailbone away from the pelvis and lift the top of your sternum away from the floor.

5.  Stay between 30 seconds to one minute. Then release your knees to the floor with an exhale.

Looking for more great yoga stretches?  Head over to Yoga Journal and find 117 more moves just like this.

In an economic time when most magazines are packing their bags and calling it a day, Organic Beauty magazine comes along.  Organic Beauty magazine is a new, eco-conscious magazine not exclusively focused on beauty products.  Organic Beauty is, in many ways, a complete lifestyle magazine, well-rounded with articles on style, health, fitness, parenting and business—but always with its lens on beauty.  I love the idea of an eco-chic magazine!  It’s truly the wave of the future, so get in touch, get in tune, and find out what eco-friendly is all about.  Organic Beauty is on newsstands now.

You don’t have a be an experienced Yogi to to feel the effects of this move, called Downward Facing Dog.  It’s the go-to pose in between Yoga postures.  I probably do DFD at least 10 times a day througout the day.  The key is to get your hips up, up, up as far as you can.  Then stretch your hamstrings and calves right into the floor.  Elongate your back, your neck (don’t hyper extend here), your shoulders, arms, even your fingers.  Keep your heels on the floor…the natural tendency is to go up on the balls of your feet, and resist the urge and keep those heels pressed to the floor.  If you are interested in learning Yoga, start here.  Learn this move.  This is a move that you’ll constantly come back to throughout your Yoga session, so learn how to do it properly.  Make a home with it.  Even if you aren’t that interested in Yoga, learn it anyway.  It feels so great, keeps you limber, and stretches everything!

This step by step is courtesy of my friends over at www.YogaJournal.com. 

Step by Step

1.  Come onto the floor on your hands and knees. Set your knees directly below your hips and your hands slightly forward of your shoulders. Spread your palms, index fingers parallel or slightly turned out, and turn your toes under.

2.  Exhale and lift your knees away from the floor. At first keep the knees slightly bent and the heels lifted away from the floor. Lengthen your tailbone away from the back of your pelvis and press it lightly toward the pubis. Against this resistance, lift the sitting bones toward the ceiling, and from your inner ankles draw the inner legs up into the groins.

3.  Then with an exhalation, push your top thighs back and stretch your heels onto or down toward the floor. Straighten your knees but be sure not to lock them. Firm the outer thighs and roll the upper thighs inward slightly. Narrow the front of the pelvis.

4.  Firm the outer arms and press the bases of the index fingers actively into the floor. From these two points lift along your inner arms from the wrists to the tops of the shoulders. Firm your shoulder blades against your back, then widen them and draw them toward the tailbone. Keep the head between the upper arms; don’t let it hang.

5.  Adho Mukha Svanasana is one of the poses in the traditional Sun Salutation sequence. It’s also an excellent yoga asana all on its own. Stay in this pose anywhere from 1 to 3 minutes. Then bend your knees to the floor with an exhalation and rest in Child’s Pose.

   December can be maddening.  Almost every day of the month is dedicated to making someone else happy…which is a great thing, but don’t forget about yourself.  Take some time to reflect, to appreciate your life, your family, and the good things around you.  Make this year your “first annual” whatever.  Make some memories, start some traditions, do something to make people remember you when you’re gone.  Stay positive and happy this month.  That’s what it’s all about, after all.  This holiday was created around a great and joyous event (remember?)  Fill your home with great scents, indulge in at home spa treatments, take a nap, just take a second for yourself.  Throw an hour of Yoga or Pilates in, and you’re set, girlfriend.  Now go on and take a sec! 

   Have you had enough yet?  The cooking, the entertaining, the cleaning, the Black Friday shopping, the pleasing everyone under the sun…have you had enough yet?  Remember to take some time to calm your mind from the madness during the holiday season.  Whether you are a fan of Yoga or not, this pose, Child’s Pose, helps to calm your mind and quiet your body.  Find a quiet spot, breathe deeply, and relax into Child’s Pose to regroup your thoughts, recharge your batteries, and calm the stress.