Winter guidelines

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 8th December 2014

Inside Yoga 124 Have you ever wondered why we feel so low emotionally, so physically tired and so short of get up and go during winter? Perhaps it is because while the rest of nature has gone into either hibernation or inactivity, we continue to plough on with our 24/7 activities. Our ancestors didn’t live like we do now, as […]

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Dalai Lama cautions military and business

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 5th November 2014

Inside Yoga 120 (5/11/14) Back in the 1980s the Dalai Lama began working with cognitive scientists who were studying mindfulness meditation and Buddhist insights, and he welcomed this with open arms, but he probably did not imagine businesses and even the US military would one day want to harness some of those insights. Last week, the Dalai Lama attended a […]

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When ‘rush hours’ can help us

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 28th October 2014

Inside Yoga 119 (28/10/14) Scientists have discovered that the body has a pair of daily “rush hours” which affects the way tissues throughout the body work.  The animal study, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, monitored the function of cells, in 12 tissues, through the day. It found large shifts in activity just before dawn and dusk. According […]

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Meditation helps reduce migraines

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 15th September 2014

Inside Yoga 115 (15/9/14) A few days ago a couple of publications were highlighting the effectiveness of meditation in reducing headaches and migraine. The news stories were citing a recent study that had discovered that meditation can reduce the number of migraines a person suffers from and also the length of migraine can be shorter by as much as  3 […]

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In memory of a master

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 27th August 2014

Inside Yoga 114 (27/8/14) RIP BKS Iyengar “Words fail to convey the total value of yoga. It has to be experienced,” said the yoga teacher BKS Iyengar, who died last week, on August 20, at the age of 95. This short quote summed up a lot of what was important to this influential yoga teacher, because he lived and breathed […]

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Organic food is better for us – official

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 14th July 2014

Inside Yoga 113 Finally, science has caught up with experience: with recent reports that scientific research has found “significant differences” between organic food and conventional food. Some of us who have already on the side of organics must be found mumbling to ourselves that “we told you so”! But this is how the science establishment operates – needing scientific and […]

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Life of a chai wallah

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 30th June 2014

Inside Yoga 111 (30/6/14) If you visit India there is one aspect of life which you will come into contact with and even sample from time to time, or even daily – the ubiquitous chai wallahs (tea sellers) who can be found on most streets selling tea by the bucket (well, more precisely, vat) load. Is there more to life […]

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We already know but keep forgetting!

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 18th June 2014

Inside Yoga 110 (18/6/14) For many people who have heard about yoga and meditation, but don’t know anything about it, what it actually entails can appear to be very other worldly, demanding mastery along the lines of the most agile of martial arts, or can feel complicated and steeped in mysticism and wonder. When I am asked about yoga and […]

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Antibiotics will be the death of us

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 4th June 2014

Inside Yoga 109 (4/6/14) We have tried so hard to protect ourselves from infections and diseases with antibiotics we have overdone it – sounds like a familiar human trait? – and now the antibiotics are causing us to be more unwell, more sick and even kill us. This is the view of scientists, such as Martin Blaser who has published […]

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Are we in touch with our body clock?

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 19th May 2014

Inside Yoga 108 (19/5/14) Last week the BBC ran a special Day of the Body Clock 24-hour exploration of our body’s rhythm through the course of 24 hours. I was interested in this because the practice of yoga helps us to become more aware of our rhythms and those of the world around us. The exercise revealed several things about […]

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