Today we’ll be tackling a spiritual heavyweight of a topic. One of the most frequently asked of all my FAQs… *drumroll please* ‘What beauty products can I use to get rid of my stretch marks/eye bags/general zombified demeanour during/after pregnancy?’ (AKA What can I buy as a gift for my pregnant or new Mum?) Heaven knows why anyone would want my opinion on beauty picks, seeing as my leading look for AW17 is a heady hybrid of ‘effing knackered’ and ‘dragged through a hedge backwards’ but here we go..! [[Aside: I’m not going into the fundamentals here because they’re kinda boring and I’m ..read more

Insomnia hit me like a truck – more mentally and physically drained than I thought possible. And I’m not alone. More of us than ever before are finding it harder to switch off and get the rest we need, and it has a knock on effect on our general health, relationships, performance at work and our happiness. (Writing this, I’m sat in a cafe where two ladies are talking across the aisle about how they aren’t sleeping very well…) I’ve had a lot of requests for a technique to help with sleep lately – mostly, but not exclusively, from very pregnant students and Mums adjusting to life with new babies ..read more

These deliciously quick, seasonal scones are accidentally vegan – by which I mean they stem from a great recipe that just happens to avoid animal ingredients rather than an overly contrived vegan concoction. You’ll be left with a lovely bake that everyone will enjoy, regardless of dietary preference. We’ve been noshing them in the afternoon with a cup of tea, or as a quick grab-and-go breakfast on the way to work. The scones are an Anglified version of a recipe I found in the latest offering from Thug Kitchen, ‘Thug Kitchen 101: Fast as F*ck’ (not for the easily offended…!). They’re a cinch to ..read more

I don’t really like the telly (except the late Bake Off and anything involving living in Alaksa)… but I do like David Attenborough. So last Sunday night I was happy to hear him accompanying a screen full of bleary-eyed, itchy bears crawling out from their Rocky mountain hibernation to go and find a good tree to scratch on. There was a groovy little beat playing and everyone was having a fine time. Even the little ones were trying a bit of a face-first tree shimmy. This got me to thinking. We are not like bears. (Deep, I know, but stick with me). As well as – hopefully – being less hairy and sm ..read more

It’s pretty rare these days that you’d go to a yoga class and make it out of the door without the teacher saying Namaste. We’ve definitely taken the traditional Indian greeting under our English yoga wings a lot more readily than other ways of closing class, like  group Om-ing or chanting. It is still pretty rare, however, for teachers to expand on what they actually mean when they say it. I’m (really) often guilty of this myself. It’s mostly because I hope that those moments of peace and connection at the end of class speak for themselves. Or that when I try to make eye co ..read more

  Long before my love of all things yoga, pregnancy and lycra there was my love of hard science. And – albeit in a veterinary sense – reproduction was kinda my thing! I even taught it at Cambridge. (Yep, actual Cambridge, the one with dreaming spires, Pimms o’clock and really hard exams. Hard to believe when I’m in my unicorn leggings, I know…). My nerd-ish tendencies have had a few consequences: a) If you’ve ever wondered what species boasts a corkscrew-shaped penis, full-pint ejaculation and the 30-minute female orgasm, I’m your girl! b) I’m really passionate about applying science to m ..read more

Yoga at home is probably one of the most wonderful gifts you can give yourself every day. Even if only for a few minutes, it gives us a chance to check in with our bodies, minds and intuition for as long (or as briefly!) as we want and it really deepens and sustains our practice between classes. Better still, we can do it on our own schedule, we don’t have to drive anywhere and… especially if you don’t live in the city and/or have a job or family to take care of… many days it feels like our only option besides going without. Getting started is much easier than you’d think – you don’t have to f ..read more

This recipe is adapted from one of my favourite cookbooks ‘The Naughtiest Vegan Cupcakes in Town’ by Melissa Morgan, A.K.A. Ms. Cupcake, no less. She has an impressive vegan bakery in London and an even more impressive hat with cakes on. No joke. It’s great. (Not that I’ve ever met her or the hat in person… but I’d really like to). Credit also goes to Ms. Cupcake for the photo as my last batch was eaten before I got chance to artfully arrange and capture them, but I’d already promised to share the recipe after making some for the last Ashtanga Primary Series workshop. Please don’t be ..read more

  March 20th was the spring vernal equinox. For a tiny slice of time the earth span completely upright on its axis, day and night were equal in length across the planet, light and dark are matched and yoga teachers across the globe heed the call to talk about finding balance in our lives as well as our Uttitha hasta padanghustasana. Balance is something of a buzzword in yoga. Studios are named after it, teachers use nifty balance sound-bites and in every yoga class we go to, if we don’t find ourselves standing on one leg and doing strange things with the other one then we’re holding a pos ..read more

… is called ahimsa. Ahimsa is one of yoga’s yamas. It might sound like it involves stretching a hamstring, but to practice ahimsa we’re chasing a totally different kind of high. We’re going after those nice warm moments you find yourself getting when you practice yoga and find yourself inexplicably acting a little better towards other people and yourself… even if it’s just for a few minutes after rolling out of Savasana. And yep, it can be practiced just like any other stretch. Some explanatory background… The yamas are the first of the 8 limbs or ‘practice areas’ of yoga ..read more