National Yoga Month

The kids are back in school. The weather is becoming crisp. It’s time to start a new routine. Will this routine include yoga? September is National Yoga Month. What better time to begin or re-establish a yoga routine.

 

What is National Yoga Month? – In 2008 the United States health department decided to make September National Yoga Month. The purpose was to educate people on the health benefits of yoga. To support this, yoga studios set up events to educate and welcome newcomers into yoga. This was such a success that National Yoga Month is now observed globally!

 

So what are the health benefits of yoga? This is a very broad question that requires an in depth answer. However, let’s begin with a simple broad answer. To start, yoga helps to improve your fitness level. Moving through the various poses helps strengthen and tone your body, it lubricates your joints and increases your flexibility. This leads into the second benefit, improving your heart health. By improving your fitness level you decrease the stress that is put on your heart. Furthermore, the breathwork used in conjunction with the postures strengthens your heart wall and improves your circulatory system. Continuing, a stronger respiratory system is a third benefit of yoga. Yoga poses encourage the body to stand with an open posture, which opens the lungs and allows them to function more easily. Along with this, lung capacity is increased, taking undue stress off of the lungs. This leads into the fourth benefit, improved mental health. Learning different breath techniques allows the body to calm. This along with practicing poses which help bring focus allow anxiety to become more manageable and the mind to quiet. With stress and anxiety kept at bay, a fifth health benefit can be experienced – healthy organs. Cortisol levels, which spike due to stress and anxiety, can be kept at a healthy level. Healthy cortisol levels means better weight control, which means healthy organs because they do not have undue stress created from belly fat. This also means that there is a decreased risk of heart problems and diabetes. This is just scratching the surface of all the health benefits. In next Monday’s blog I will look at more specific health benefits from yoga.

 

So how is Grimsby Yoga celebrating National Yoga Month? – Fall Back to Yoga Challenge! This is a perfect opportunity to either begin or revitalise your yoga practice. The challenge begins today, and you have up until Wednesday to sign up. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to become a part of the excitement!

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Namaste

Amy

Chakras – What are they?

Chakras – a cluster of energy that metaphysically exists in the body and physically manifests itself throughout the body. Is this a bunch of “spiritual” balogna? Or, is there something more to this? Before you make a hasty judgement take a few minutes to get a better understanding of what chakras are and how they work.

What are Chakras? – Chakras are like little chambers allowing energy to pass up and down throughout the body. There are seven of these chambers metaphysically in the body starting from the pelvic floor to the crown as illustrated in the left diagram below.

       chakra centers            nerve ganglia

Each of these little chambers line up along the spinal column where the nerve ganglia (mass of nerve cells) are located as illustrated in the right diagram above.

Each of these chambers acts as a receptor of energy. The energy is then processed and expressed positively or negatively through physical, mental and spiritual manifestations.

How do the chakras work? – The chakras are like a “rainbow bridge” (each chakra has its own colour) from the material world to the universe. This is a really hokey statement, however if an open mind is kept a journey of body, mind and spirit begins through the exploration of the chakras.

To live a happy and fulfilled life, energy needs to flow freely upward from the root chakra to the crown chakra (mukti), and downward from the crown chakra to the root chakra (bukti). Bukti energy is our connection to the physical world. As the chakras receive bukti energy it is manifested physically in our body. Mukti energy is our connection to the universe/spiritual world. As it flows through the chakras it is liberating, manifesting optimism and achievement. Bukti and mukti energy need to flow through the chakras simultaneously in order for the chakras to be balanced. However, often blocks are experienced in one or more of the chakras which prevents this from happening. This creates an imbalance, physically, mentally and spiritually. If bukti energy is blocked then there is a failure to follow through/complete/achieve anything. If mukti energy is blocked then the body expresses a physical response. When both mukti and bukti are balanced there is harmony and happiness.

So, is this a bunch of spiritual balogna? That’s for you to decide. Need more to think about? Look out for my next blog as I explore each chakra. Also, you can take an indepth exploration of this in the Chakra Journey Course beginning on Sunday September 15th, at our studio. For more information about this course please contact us.

Namaste,

Amy

Introductory Blog

It is with great joy that we at Grimsby Yoga and Wellness Studio are able to share this newly updated website. This new website is not just a fresh version of our previous one; instead, this new site offers so much more! From our photo galleries, to our online store, the live schedule and our blog space, we hope that you will take a few minutes and explore.

For those of you that do not know me, I am Amy Marchese, the owner and primary instructor at Grimsby Yoga and Wellness Studio. I have had the priviledge over the past two years to get to know Grimsby and be an active member of the Grimsby community through my yoga studio. I am very excited to be able to expand on this through my newly created blog – Amy’s Corner. This space allows me to share my knowledge and connect with people in a different forum.

So, keep an eye out for my regular posts, and don’t be afraid to join in on the conversation with your comments and questions.

Namaste,

Amy