Practising mindfulness

It’s been a while since I last blogged. April was a busy month and this busy-ness has got me thinking!

In and amongst all the busy-ness I was lucky enough to take 5 days away on a meditation retreat. I was at the beautifully nurturing Dru Yoga training centre in Snowdonia and, whilst I was there partly to get my continued professional development (CPD) points, it’s also a great opportunity for me to slow down, recharge and take stock. Snowdon Lodge is a fantastic place to do this, calm and peaceful and even better because you can only get a phone signal if you walk a little way down the valley, so checking my phone, text messages and emails constantly isn’t an option. I have no choice but to be still, be present and rest.

I have to admit, it takes me a little while to slow down, however, once I do, my body is so grateful. I always know when I am “due” a retreat because I feel scattered and find it difficult to focus on 1 thing at a time. I’m always looking for the next job to do, my mind is almost constantly planning and thinking, and I can easily start to feel overwhelmed. Of course, I do my daily yoga and meditation practise and this, I know, keeps me going, giving me the energy and clarity I need, but sometimes I just need a little bit of extra help.

So, for me, going on retreat reminds me that I am a human being, not a human doing. It reminds me that I need to balance all the busy-ness and activity with stillness.

There are many methods to help us get into a state of meditation - visualisations, breathing techniques, sense with drawl, mantra, candle gazing….but true meditation is just being, not thinking, not visualising, not listening to music, not focussing on something, just being, just being, relaxed and yet totally conscious, fully awake, fully present, just being.

It’s my experience that this is so much easier to type than do! However I do keep practising! It’s the moments of pure consciousness that keep me practising, because even in that short time I completely recognise, and feel the benefit of meditation. Benefits that spill out into my everyday life.

Meditation is the tool I need to reconnect with myself, allowing me to be still long enough to hear what the real Isabel wants and needs. I whole-heartedly believe that some stillness and silence is essential for our good health and is the only chance we have of really living the life we truly deserve. Without stillness and silence how can we ever hear our inner wisdom?

I hope that has whetted your appetite, as I plan to blog a bit more about the benefits of meditation! Until then, please give yourself the gift of some stillness, even if it’s just for a few minutes. Focus on being a human being not a human doing

How cute is this?!

Last year I posted a popular blog with yoga tips for a healthy spring, well I think Spring is just around the corner (I hope!), so thought you might enjoy reading this again.

After the stillness of winter, energy that has been quietly building, is ready to burst out – the trees demonstrate this beautifully.

Spring is very much a time of renewal, fresh opportunities and new beginnings.

So our spring yoga practice is very much about letting go of the heaviness of winter with flowing and dynamic postures and sequences, with a deeper focus on how we breathe to help clear the lungs of that damp winter energy.

Work with Sun sequences, warriors and the vitality sequences to build stamina and shift stagnant energy. Detoxify with twists, triangles and inversions. Open the lungs and clear phlegm (sorry but it needs to be done!) with strong forward and backward bends. Tree pose, pranayama (breathing practice) and meditation will all help you to find / maintain mental clarity and emotional balance at this busy time.

If you like visualisation, you can further support your lungs by imagining them being filled with gentle, healing yellow. Try it! You might even be able to feel your breathing slow down and deepen as your respiratory system thanks you for paying it some attention!

Here are a few other suggestions for staying vital through spring, taken largely from the Ayurvedic system of good health.

• Have a sauna to sweat out the impurities.
• Body brush to boost the lymphatic system.
• Choose a diet that is full of leafy green veg, asparagus, celery, fennel, brocolli and cauliflower, along with herbs and spices such as ginger, parsley, cumin, cinnamon and chilli – these will help to clear excess moisture (and mucus) from the body and also aid elimination.
• Eat more grains (try quinoa, barley, millet or corn) and pulses.
• Make meals that are warm and light and easy to digest.
• Have a go at salt water nasal washing (jala neti) to clear out your sinus passages.

If you would like further information on staying healthy through spring please do come along to our yoga classes, where we are really focussing our Dru Yoga programme on supporting the body through this vibrant season.

Take care, until next time. Ix

Warming up for the next Inside Out yoga class

I’m always pleased when I see positive media coverage of yoga and especially when it involves men. Ryan Giggs has been getting a lot of attention recently, putting his long and successful football career down to “Hard work, strict diet and yoga”.

Russell Brand and Colin Farrell are frequently snapped with yoga mats under their arms and Tony Parsons wrote a great article in March’s edition of GQ Magazine on how yoga has helped him.

The reason I get excited by such publicity is because men at yoga classes are a rare breed (maybe not in LA, but they are in Batley!). When I first started teaching, over a decade ago I could count the men I saw at classes on one hand, pioneering souls braving rooms full of women, because they could really feel the benefits of practising. The tide though, is definitely now turning and men are slowly but surely starting to venture into the yoga room – I now have to use six hands to count my Inside Out men.

The interesting thing is that yoga was traditionally practised only by men (and any lady who has done the locust posture (Salabasana) will testify that yoga was designed by a man!) and it is only when yoga was brought to the west that women became involved. The view of the middle aged ladies doing gentle stretches is outdated and happily yoga is now, again, being practised by men. In the article mentioned above, Tony Parsons describes it perfectly :

It’s gentle but there is nothing soft about it; non competitive, yet demanding….Real men do yoga.

I’ve seen quite a few body builders over the years, coming to yoga because they know they need to improve their core strength, posture and improve flexibility – big hulking blokes who are shocked to find they can’t lift their own body weight in Boat pose or balance on one leg; or keen cyclists and runners quivering in down Face Dog, desperately needing to stretch out their legs and hips; professional rugby players unable to relax into a forward bend; keen golfers amazed to find that they can only move on one side and then realising how much their game has improved when they become more balanced.

And you know what? They’ve all benefited massively from the practises they’ve been given.

Many professional sports teams and sports men include yoga in their fitness regime. Professional athletes (NFL, NBA, NHL) in the US, have long used yoga to help them prolong their careers. Liverpool FC have been using Dru Yoga particularly to target / reduce hamstring injuries and The All Blacks have practised yoga for years (is anyone going to tell Richie McCaw that yoga’s just for girls?).

So, come on guys and do yourself a favour, get yourself to a yoga class and discover how yoga can help you. I’ve listed below some of the benefits the men who’ve come to Inside Out Dru Yoga classes tell us they’ve experienced.

•  Huge improvement in joint flexibility and back health
•  Learnt how to stretch safely – reduced incidence of injury and improved recovery time
•  Significantly lower blood pressure
•  Improved recovery time from hernia operations.
•  Increased lung capacity – able to train harder, improved stamina, helped with quitting smoking, or simply able to breathe easier
•  Reduced stress
•  Gained calm, focus and clarity
•  Better night’s sleep

I have to admit,  you might still be in a minority at classes, but seriously, don’t the benefits far out weigh the slight possibility of feeling awkward for the first few minutes?

And ladies, encourage your partners to come along, because yoga will also help your man:

• Look after his heart, liver and prostate gland
• Manage weight and tone up a cuddly tummy
• Manage conditions such as diabetes….and…
• Reduce snoring!

Until next time, take care and keep practising your cobras, eagles and warriors – all manly sounding poses and in case you still think it’s a bit soft, I can guarantee there’s no posture called fluffy kitten! For more information on how yoga can help you please drop us a line to isabel@yogainsideout.co.uk Ix

Me, poorly in bed! Cue much sympathy!

I’ve been full of cold this week – cue much sympathy!

Now I like to take to my bed when I’m feeling poorly. I appreciate that I am lucky to be able to do this and appreciate that it is not always an option, which got me thinking about the nature of illness and rest and the pressure on us to keep working when I feel my body needs time to heal.

Being ill when you are self employed is a double edged sword – on the one hand, I don’t get paid if I don’t work, so I don’t like taking time off if I can help it… however… on the other hand I don’t need to justify myself if I do feel I need some recuperation time. And this week I did need some time in bed. Strangely, though, I did notice that I felt guilty for taking time off.

I strongly believe that illness is nature’s way of making us rest. If I had been fully fit and well my immune system would have swatted away the bugs with ease. My cold came on after a very busy work period, which hasn’t allowed me much down time (cue more sympathy please!) followed by a busy social weekend (sympathy not deserved!). I’ve burnt the candle at both ends, become run down, not listened to my own advice (!!) about relaxation and “me” time, and ended up, not surprisingly, with a cold. My body had been giving me the signs for a while to take extra care, which I chose to ignore. Finally illness forced me to slow down and rest.

So where did my guilt come from?

I feel there is immense pressure on us to keep working when we are ill. I hear a lot, from my friends and my yoga students, that employers actively discourage time off sick, and they feel under pressure to go to work even when they know they shouldn’t. I realise employers need to clamp down on “duvet days” but most people I know are loyal, hard working employees who only take time off when absolutely necessary, however they are uncomfortable about taking time off and worry about it counting against them in this current climate of job cuts. I understand this and recognised that felt I was letting my company down by not working!

Next I thought about all those adverts for cold and flu remedies, advising us to mask the symptoms and to not let those pesky “cartoon” virus’s put a halt on our working day. Further encouraging us to believe that if you take a day off you are being lazy and not stepping up to the mark.

These messages worry me for a several reasons.

• Is masking the symptoms always a good idea? Of course we want relief from the blinding headache, painful congestion, aching and shivering, I’m not denying that. However do the symptoms prevent us from “overdoing” things? If we keep going are we in danger of causing ourselves more problems in the future? I know people who have taken pain killers to help ease the pain of an injury, only to go on and cause further damage because the analgesic medication allowed them to continue doing the same activity that caused the problem in the first place. To me this is no different – pain is nature’s way of telling us that something is wrong and needs dealing with.

• Is it fair to go to work, full of cold, and risk passing it on to our colleagues and probably back to ourselves!? Doesn’t it make more sense to have a fully functioning, healthy, productive workforce?

• I know when I’m feeling off colour my productivity is greatly decreased and I am more likely to make mistakes. Is it not counter-productive to keep working when feeling under par? In my experience, if I take time to rest I recover so much quicker than if I just struggle on, therefore I am much more efficient and productive.

I realise that life is not always simple. I understand that it is not easy to take time off and rest. These were just some thoughts I had whilst I was recuperating. I would be interested to hear your views and opinions.

Practising Dru Yoga

The beginning of the year is always a busy time for us at Inside Out. Following the excesses of Christmas many people look to yoga to help them embrace a healthier lifestyle, we get a lot of enquiries and new students coming to classes.

One of the most frequent questions we get asked (after “Do I have to get my legs round the back of my head?” answer “Definitely not!”), is “Why should I do Dru Yoga and can it help me?”.

So I thought I would take this opportunity to tell you a little bit about Dru Yoga and some of the theory behind the practise.

Dru Yoga is a style of Hatha Yoga.

In this context Hatha means physical, under the umbrella of Hatha yoga you get all sorts of styles and traditions, such as Iyengar, Ashtanga, Sivananda, Satyananda, Dru and many more. Whilst there are similarities between the different traditions, each one has its own unique way of interpreting the yoga practises and areas of focus.

“Dru” comes from the Sanskrit word meaning “still point”. A still point when all around is in a state of flux. The calm in the eye of a storm. Dru yoga gives us the practical tools needed to help us keep our calm, our centre of balance, our still point, regardless of what life throws at us. Dru truly is the perfect antidote to modern life!

My students tell me that they find Dru Yoga a very accessible style of yoga that everyone can benefit regardless of age, ability or experience. I would certainly agree with that! I teach all sorts of people, everyone from weight trainers and athletes through to patient groups and physiotherapy referrals, and my oldest student is in her 90’s, yet they all tell me the same thing - that they benefit from Dru Yoga. Here are just a few of the most common benefits our students tell us they experience from practising Dru Yoga with us:

• Increased vitality and energy
• Better sleep
• Relief from physical, mental and emotional tension
• Increased flexibility and relief from back pain
• Improvement in conditions such asthma, high blood pressure, IBS, frequent headaches, arthritis and many more
• Boost to self esteem and confidence

As a natural sceptic myself, I am constantly putting my yoga to the test. Whatever my problem, I take time to find my still point and trust my inner wisdom, and I can honestly say it never lets me down, the answer always appears, which is why I am so passionate about sharing my yoga knowledge and experience.

So, what can you expect from a Dru Yoga class?

We always start our Dru Yoga sessions with some fun and lively activations. These help us to get the body moving and get the energy flowing, particularly important if you’ve been sat down all day. These movements also start the relaxation response by helping us to burn off stress hormones.

One of the unique features of Dru Yoga is our Energy Block Release (EBR) sequences. Our body requires a constant supply of energy (prana, chi, qi), flowing freely, in order to function well. This energy can become trapped, however, so Dru’s carefully designed EBR sequences help to release tension and free blocked energy, which can then be used for healing, rejuvenation and empowerment, bringing us back to a place of balance and harmony.

We also work with classical yoga postures and sequences, all with our added Dru focus, finding that “still point” within the movement. We ensure that the body is aligned within postures, so the muscles are stretched and strengthened correctly, energy can then flow freely without being wasted. We also focus on the beautiful wave like movement of the breath within the body, bringing strength and flexibility to the mind, body and soul. Dru Yoga works on so much more than the physical body.

The breath is key to yoga (and life!) and in Dru we spend time checking in with our breath, feeling the expansion and contraction of the breath, tuning in with the energy of the universe. This naturally brings calm and clarity.

Dru Yoga sessions always end with some quiet time. That could include meditation and / or pranayama (specific breathing techniques) and relaxation. With an estimated 80% of all illness being stress related, what better gift can you offer yourself than learning to relax?

I hope this blog has given you a taste of Dru yoga, if you would like to know more do take a look at our website or visit and like our page at www.facebook.com/insideoutdruyoga and if you already go to a Dru Yoga class please do tell us about how you’ve benefited.

Take care. Ix

Quieten the mind by focussing on a flame

My last blog was all about yoga practises to keep you healthy this winter and I promised you some non yoga winter warmers for this blog – which I would like to point out, do not involve alcohol (!!), as some of you suggested! And no, you can’t dress up a hot whisky toddy as medicinal!

As we know, winter is a wet, cold and heavy season and this can lead to swellings and an increase in mucus (yuk!), so holistically speaking, to stay healthy in winter we need to counteract these qualities. We discussed last time that our yoga practise should include invigorating postures, that boost circulation, warm the kidneys and open the chest, balanced with plenty of stillness and rest. There’s also plenty of “lifestyle” choices we can make too.

Refined sugars, wheat and dairy products are all mucus forming foods, so it makes sense to limit these during the cold season. Avoid cold foods and drinks too. I know that many of us start diets in January, but your body will really not thankyou for feeding it salads (and in my opinion is why so many of us are then tempted by treats – we want / need comfort food!). Winter is a time to really nurture your body with warm porridge for breakfast and nourishing soups and stews, made with root vegetables, lentils and pulses. Mung beans are fantastic for clearing mucus from the body. Include some spices in your diet too to warm up a sluggish system. Try cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ginger. Oh, and according to Ayurvedic medicine, an occasional glass of wine may be beneficial in winter!

We also need more sleep in winter. We naturally want to hibernate. Go with it. If you can, allow yourself to sleep in a little bit longer or get to bed earlier. Try to take time out to relax in the evening (you can make an exception to go to yoga class though!) and make the most of the still winter energy.

It’s also important to get out in the day light too. Even if we don’t suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) many of us feel down in the winter and the lack of natural light is a major part of this. It can be difficult to get outside during the day, particularly if you work full time and the weather can be off putting, however the sunlight affects our pineal gland which naturally boosts our mood and energy. Interestingly gazing at a candle (tratak) can have the same effect. We also need vitamin D, which among other things lifts our mood and energy levels and helps boost the immune system. The best way to absorb vitamin D is from the sun through the skin, so in the cold weather when we are all wrapped up and avoiding being out in the fresh air our vitamin D levels can become depleted. Another great reason to get out in the fresh air. Do speak to your GP, though, if you think you are low in vitamin D or feeling depressed.

One of my favourite winter treats is to massage myself with a warming body oil, such as sweet almond oil or sesame oil (the later is particularly good if you feel the cold or suffer with stiff aching joints).

Don’t forget my other favourite practise too… salt water nasal washing (jala neti), to clear out all those nasty germs and mucus! If you do fall foul of a cold try a steam inhalation. Apparently steam vapour, if 110F or higher, will kill cold germs and help to reduce inflammed tissue at the infection site.

Hope this gives you some ideas of how to nurture yourself this winter and if you have any tips of your own, please do let us know. Take care and stay warm Ix

Focus on a candle flame

Winter is a time of rest and consolidation – recovering from the autumn harvest and preparing for the energetic burst into spring.

I always think it is a bit of a contradiction that we are so busy in winter time - working and partying hard, preparing for the festive season, launching into new year resolutions – when our bodies would really like to be still and hibernate. Then we wonder why we come down with colds, ‘flu and sickness bugs!

So, I thought I’d share with you this time, some of our favourite tips, at Inside Out, for staying healthy during winter.

Winter is a cold, damp, heavy season and Eastern philosophies believe that the kidneys, lungs, pancreas and mucus membranes need the most help during this season.

In winter we also find we are more drawn to warm, comfort foods, which is right if these are wholesome warming foods we are choosing, but all too often in winter we crave sweet things and stodgy foods which do not serve us quite so well.

Our yoga practise, at this time, needs to be a beautiful balance of invigorating, heating postures and sequences combined with stillness and quiet time.

Warm up with these favourite practises:

• Sun sequences (surya namaskar) and Dru’s Inner Fire sequence (agni sarav). These will get your circulation going, boost your immune system, warm up your muscles, give your kidneys a massage (kidneys hate to be cold and really appreciate a bit of tlc) and stoke your digestive fires.
• Use back bends, such as camel (ustrasana), fish (matsyasana) and tiger (vyagrasana) to stimulate the kidneys and help clear mucus from the lungs. Always counter after with a forward bend. Try the seated forward bend (paschimottasana) which has the added bonus of really benefitting the pancreas, great if you have indulged a sweet tooth.
• Try working with pigeon pose (eka pada raja kapotasana), although it can be a challenging pose for many, it has great benefits to offer us in winter.From a kneeling position, extend your right leg behind you. Engage your core muscles, inhale and raise your arms in front at shoulder height, as you exhale rotate towards your back leg (ie. if your right leg is behind rotate to the right), bending the front arm at the elbow so it folds in front of the chest. Look along your extended arm. When you’re ready return to face the front again and repeat on the other side. Work with it slowly, do not tolerate any pain or discomfort and remember you can always use a chair – Sit on the corner of a chair, so that you can stretch one leg back, front leg bent at the knee so the shin is on the vertical.

  Avoid this posture if you have knee, hip or lower back problems.

• Give yourself time to do a proper relaxation. If you struggle to settle invest in a guided relaxation CD, it gives your mind something else to focus on, giving the body chance to relax.
• Focus on a candle flame (tratak) to help alleviate SAD.
• Try Pigeon Breath to help strengthen the lungs and clear the mind.

Do try some yoga at home, between classes, you will benefit and if you find remembering what to do a challenge ask your tutor to take you through the moves in class or ask about our range of CD’s, books and DVD’s designed to guide you through a home practise.

Next time I’ll be sharing some of our favourite non-yoga ways to look after ourselves in winter.

Take care and stay warm Ix

Tree posture helps us stay in balance

Happy New Year! Hope you all stayed healthy and relaxed by following my last blog post!

For my first post of 2013 I’m going to share with you one of my new year resolutions, to be more mindful and the reason I’ve chosen it.

One day over the Christmas holiday, I spent some time (I’m not saying how much!) laid on the sofa, flicking through magazines and watching old films. As I am normally a very active person I am quite happy to give myself time to do this and rest, and feel down time like this is important to my overall wellbeing. What was not quite so important for my wellbeing was the amount of sweets I ate whilst laid on the sofa! I have to confess that they just went in, one after another, until at the end of my sofa sit in, I was mortified to see the pile of sweet wrappers and the, now, empty boxes of confectionery…and then I started to feel sick…and the following day I felt sluggish and irritable. So not a very positive experience at all!

As I sat (on the naughty step) afterwards, feeling sorry for myself, I thought about what I had done and had a lightbulb moment!

I had sat mindlessly just eating the sweets, out of habit. I wasn’t thinking about what I was doing and I don’t believe that I was really tasting or enjoying the sweets. It wasn’t until I looked at all the wrappers that it even registered how many I had consumed.

This led me on to think about how often I actually am present, fully focussed on the now – not too much if I’m honest. It reminded me of a book I read a long time ago “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle. Tolle suggests that if we do not stay in the moment the mind is free wander off and cause distress. In my case I was not focussed on what I was eating, so I  ate (a lot!) of the wrong thing until it made me feel ill and caused me (minor) distress. Had I been totally in the present I would have stopped after a couple of chocolates (as opposed to a couple of boxes!), enjoyed the taste of them, then put them away.

My intention for 2013 is to be fully focussed and mindful of the job in hand, the activity I’m enjoying or the person in front of me. Reading whilst eating, checking my phone whilst dog walking or trying to complete several jobs at once, are my big watch points.

On the plus side, I did realise that one of the things that really keeps me “mindful” is my yoga and meditation practise. I find that when I am practising my postures I am totally focussed on what my mind and body are doing and how I am feeling. Balancing postures are particularly helpful for this, you have to focus to stay upright, let the mind wander and you fall. Whilst meditation is all about being present. So, I now know that I have the ability to be mindful, I just need to practise it more!

Ix

Feel your stress melt away when you watch a candle flame.

For my final blog of the year, I thought I would leave you with my festive season survival kit – yoga focussed on keeping you healthy this Christmas.

If you’ve been at classes the last couple of weeks you will be familiar with the practises, so I hope this will just remind you of some practical yoga you can do over the winter break and if you don’t come to one of our classes I hope it will give you some inspiration.

So, here are some of the things you might need to survive over the next couple of weeks! :

Indigestion and acid reflux

• Try to do a simple twisting pose or the knee press about 20 minutes before you eat.
• Eat fruit about hour before any other food and certainly not after a big meal. Fruit digests so quickly that if you’ve eaten something heavier before it, it just sits in your tummy, fermenting whilst the other food digests, so can cause indigestion.
• Use the Sitting Side Stretch or Beam to stimulate the gallbladder and liver.
• Sitting Forward Bend is beneficial for the liver, gallbladder and the pancreas.
• Try drinking peppermint, camomile or ginger teas to soothe the digestive tract.

Tummy upsets

• Lay in Crocodile to ease a giping tummy. Focus on breathing into the abdomen to help the intestines relax.

Hangovers (not that I’m suggesting any of you will over-indulge, but you might have a friend who does!)

• Use any twist to get assist the kidneys, Seated Spinal Twist is especially effective.
• Drink plenty of water to rehydrate.
• Move! To help you flush the toxins out of your body. Try a couple of rounds of sun sequence (slowly!).
• Do some relaxation, your body needs rest to recover.
• Sitting Forward Bend followed by Cobra will help the kidneys, liver and pancreas.

Colds

• Use sun sequence to boost the immune system.
• Plenty of rest and relaxation to give your body chance to heal.
• Lion helps to keep colds, sore throats, ear infections etc. at bay, whilst Fig Tree helps to clear the sinus passages.
• Try the age old practice of salt water nasal washing (jala neti) to clear out the sinus’ and flush out germs. They even recommend this now at the chemist!

Stress

• Find some time to relax and / or do some abdominal breathing or the anahata breath, just 5 minutes is all you need.
• Be active to help you release stress hormones – go for a walk, dance, or do some brisk rounds of sun sequence (anything that increases your heart rate a bit).
• Lay flat on your back, on the floor, to switch on your body’s natural relaxation response (the parasympathetic nervous system).
• Practise the Earth Sequence – even better if you can do some rounds outside.

Stiff back, aching joints

• Practise Cat or Bridge to get your back moving.
• Do some of our activation moves and stretches to get your body moving. Try shaking out, some dynamic twists, hip circles, shoulder scoops or the beautiful figure of 8 flowing movement.
• Use our unique Dru Yoga Energy Block Release sequences to release tension and stiffness from the back and joints.

Hope this gives you some ideas for how you can practically use Dru yoga to keep you healthy and I hope you manage to find some time to practise your yoga as a prevention rather than a cure!

Wishing you all a jolly Christmas and a peaceful New Year and see you in 2013! Ix

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Quieten the mind by focussing on a flame

Continuing my theme from last time, on making time for yourself, I thought I would look at some of the ways Dru Yoga can help us find space…and we probably need some space more than ever right now!

I often have to remind myself of the benefits I experience if I put aside time just for me. When I tell myself that I can’t possibly find the time, I just read through my list and soon realise that I can’t possibly not find this time! Here is my list:

• Time out helps me to feel re-energised, rejuvenated and creative.
• Work wise, I am much more efficient, make fewer mistakes, find I am more productive, and solve problems much more effectively if I take regular breaks, so actually need to spend less time working.
• I become more discerning and am able to make wiser choices around what jobs take my time up and which I can let go of.
• Regular breaks help me to stay more in control of my emotions – I am less irritable.
• I am physically healthier because I am taking time out to look after myself.
• As I keep recharging my batteries, I can actually give so much more, if I wish to.

I recommend you make your own list and put it somewhere that you will see it regularly - by your work station is a great place.

Yoga has so much to offer us, when we are trying to find space for ourselves. I know I sound like a broken record…but please take time out for some relaxation, it really is worth it. Laying on your back switches off your “fight or flight” response, helps muscles to release tension and boosts your energy levels, mood and immune system. Surely you are worth 5 minutes of relaxation a day?

Try some meditation, and by meditation, I mean just sitting, being still, just being. Clearing the mind creates space in your life. Sitting, looking at a candle or an open fire is very therapeutic.

If I’m ever feeling overwhelmed I always turn to Pigeon Breath. The controlled, focussed breathing practise brings me completely back into the present. Try any of the techniques we use in class which co-ordinate breath with movement – guaranteed to help you feel more relaxed and centred.

Sometimes we have so much on that we feel scattered. It’s impossible to find any space because we have so much to do and so much occupying our minds. In these situations, give yourself a couple of minutes to practise The Tree (vrksasana). In order to balance, your mind has to focus, so when you’ve finished the posture you’ll probably find that you get through your jobs much more efficiently and are able to let go of the things that you don’t really need to do, thereby creating space for yourself. As I mentioned in my last blog, to create space for yourself, you sometimes have to think outside the box. Cat (marjariasana) pose brings flexibility to your spine and your mind, so will help you find creative ways to look after yourself.

My final tip is not strictly yoga but one I’ve always found very useful. I have to keep clutter in my house to a minimum, so I can see space. The less clutter I have around me, the less clutterd my mind is.

I hope this has given you some yoga ideas of how you can develop a spacious, calm mind and in turn some therapeutic space for yourself.

Until next time, take care Ix