Do you frequently wish you had more energy? Do you drink coffee or tea to energize? Caffeine is by far the most-consumed drug worldwide, and the reason is simple: we all want to have more energy. Unfortunately, caffeine is generally not the best way to get it. A few hours after a caffeine-induced energy boost, your energy levels tend to crash to a new low, requiring ever more caffeine. Instead, have you tried energizing yourself with yoga? Yoga can provide you with a sustainable energy boost that does not cause your energy levels to plummet later. All you need to do is fine-tune your practice ..read more

Keeping your knees safe is important but challenging, because the knee joints, despite their size, are rather fragile joints. One main reason is that there is no overlap of the two bones meeting to create the joint. That means the knee joints can move into problematic alignment with relative ease. Crescents of cartilage (the menisci) create a shallow joint socket to keep the two halves of the joint better aligned. However, because the menisci are cartilaginous soft tissue, it is relatively easy to damage them through poor knee alignment. Moving your knees with awareness is important to protect ..read more

Hip alignment can be challenging—perhaps more so than the alignment of any other joint in the body. This is true not just because hip tightness is such a common phenomenon. It is also true because we don’t spend much time bringing awareness to our hips and core. Poor hip awareness in turn makes it very challenging to place the hips intentionally, but learning to do so produces many amazing benefits. None of our joints are as flexible as they were when we were infants. As we age, however, the hips typically lose a greater percentage of their range of motion than any other joint in our bodies. T ..read more

How do you know whether you are working too hard or not hard enough in yoga? How much should you push yourself when practicing yoga? What is the difference between intensity and pain? What is perfect intensity, anyway? And why does it matter? Most people who practice yoga have experienced creating too much intensity, at least occasionally. So how do you learn how far is just right? Ask yourself how goal-oriented your practice is. Do you compare where you are in a pose with your neighbors in class, with the teacher, or with photographs of the pose you have seen? Does your attention typical ..read more

You have probably heard a yoga teacher say something like “come to your edge”. Most often this place is defined as the place beyond which the risk of injury goes up dramatically. In the context of stretching, I define “the edge” as the point beyond which you can no longer savor your breath. To me, that is a definition more in line with supporting balance and wellbeing. However, this week I want to refine our thinking about edges further. What we usually call “the edge” I will call the maximum edge, using yoga teacher Erich Schiffmann‘s terminology. This redefinition allows us to talk about ano ..read more

Back pain is one of the most common physical complaints people have. 80% of Americans complain of back pain at some point in their lives. Learning to stop overusing your spine (which we do to avoid having to stretch big hip and shoulder muscles) can help keep your spine safer. In addition, learning to lengthen and compress your spine intentionally and safely can improve the health of your spinal discs, further reducing the occurrence of back pain.  Herniated discs are a major spinal health concern One of the most common causes of acute spinal trouble is asymmetrical over-compression of on ..read more

“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; or you can live as if everything is a miracle.” –Albert Einstein Making this distinction may seem at first like a contrived intellectual exercise. However, living life from the perspective that everything is a miracle can profoundly change your attitude. It can change your attitude towards yourself, your actions, and the world around you. Even if you don’t change anything about what you do, the meaning of what you do changes profoundly based on your attitude towards it. And as the meaning changes, the actions will eventually ..read more

Do you like speed bumps? (Or speed humps, judder bars, lomos de burro, or sleeping policemen, depending on where you are from.) I didn’t think you did. Who does? I used to dislike them like everyone, but then I received a lesson from a 2-year-old: a lesson in acceptance. Not that my son is (or was) a buddha-like creature in most ways. But when he was 2 and I would take him to daycare on my bicycle, every time we hit a speed bump, he would say “more up-downs?” He’d say it the way he would ask for another cookie. A lesson from a 2-year-old: Learning to love I still don’t love speed bumps. But ev ..read more

Why practice difficult asanas, if the practice of yoga is to be something other than an ego-driven endeavor? Because in the act of doing something challenging, we are compelled to become more present in the moment. In doing something new, we gain an opportunity to break out of our habitual and unconscious patterns. We create an opportunity to learn how to choose inquiry over achievement. Challenge yourself in order to become more present, not to feed your ego However, the danger in practicing challenging poses is that the exercise can deteriorate into cementing our ego’s dominance. We are temp ..read more

In the yogic tradition, spanda is the subtle creative pulsation that manifests in all living and non-living entities. Recognizing and aligning with spanda helps us become more present in the moment, with a greater sense of connection and joy. The ancient yogic assertion that everything pulsates is true in a very literal way: Scientific investigations confirm that everything vibrates, from the atoms that make up all matter, the cells in our bodies, and our bodies as a whole, which expand and contract with our breath, to the stars, and to the universe as a whole, which, according to Einstein’s t ..read more