Daily Cup of Yoga

How we choose to start our day can be a vital factor in determining how the rest of our day would probably turn out. Mornings are a time when we can influence how we are going to think, act and respond for the rest of the day, so it only makes sense to shape that time in a positive and inspiring manner. If I’m rolling out of bed and going straight to work, the first beverage I reach for is a big cup of coffee. It is the way most of us start our day but this widely accepted everyday practice can take a toll on our well being. Too much coffee can lead to sleepless nights, anxiety, anger, and a case of the jitters. So if not for caffeine, what’s the best way to dust the cobwebs off of our brain and get our body ready for the day at hand? Could the magic potion be YOGA?

Practicing Yoga early in the morning has a myriad of benefits. A mere 15 minutes practice of Yoga everyday centers the mind, balances the body, and jolts us awake with more lasting energy than any espresso can provide.

1. Yoga helps us have a good day

The way we wake up sets the floor the rest of our day. If we wake up late, overtired and grumpy, we carry these emotions to the rest of our day, and they create an impact on how we see the world. If we start our day with yoga, we wake up to a dose of positivity. When we centre ourself on the mat, we create a more calm and balanced internal environment that will probably lead to clarity of mind.

2. Early morning Yoga regulates sleep rhythms

An important key to establishing a consistent sleep pattern is to get up every morning at the same time, so that our body can become accustomed to the routine. Getting up every morning to start the day with yoga regulates our circadian sleep rhythms, allowing us to fall asleep more easily, and stay asleep for the duration of the night.

3.  Early morning Yoga has a soothing effect

Do you ever wake up and already have a to-do list running through your head? Start your day with yoga and allow it to clear your mind. Focusing on your breath in conjunction with the movement of your body will relax you and give you a calmer outlook of your day.

4. Morning Yoga increases metabolism and improves digestion

If we start our day with Yoga, it helps regulate our appetite throughout the day. Also, the early morning circulation boost will help nutrients move through our body quickly and jump start our metabolism, and keep it elevated all day. Certain poses stimulate the digestive system and metabolism naturally, particularly twisting postures, throat chakra poses, and dynamic flows. First thing in the morning, before we have eaten or added caffeine to our bodies, we get to fire ourselves up in a completely natural way using breath and conscious movement. Start your day with yoga and burn more calories for the rest of the day.

5.  Morning Yoga lets you make healthy food choices for the day

Once you make it a habit to start your day with Yoga, it’s easier to make healthy choices throughout the day. When it comes to food choices, it easier to stick to the mindset that you wake up with. When you start your day with Yoga, you start your day with a health boost that will keep you going all day. When you have taken time early on to nourish your body and mind with Yoga, you will be less inclined to eat emotionally and far more likely to make balanced and healthy choices throughout the day.

6.  Exercising in the morning builds our discipline

If we exercise in the morning, we are more likely to stick to this routine. Our lives get pretty hectic and if we wake up and think “I’ll do yoga tonight”, a million things might come up that would discourage us from going to class. When our day starts to get demanding, exercise is often the first thing to slip. In the morning, the only thing preventing us from exercise is our discipline. When we start our day with yoga every day, we build discipline that will last throughout the day.

7.  All your exercise for the day is done

Its only 8 am and you are already done sweating it out. This is one of the best parts of exercising in the morning. You can take pride in how much you have already accomplished. Even if nothing else goes well, you can think, “Atleast, I already did yoga today!”At the end of a long and tiring day, it’s all too easy to skip your yoga practice and make a beeline for the couch. Incorporate Yoga in your early morning routine and you can dive onto the couch guilt free.

8. Yoga helps awaken our creative chakras

Poses that stimulate the energy at the ‘Sacral Chakra’ (Swadhisthana) can get our creative juices flowing. We don’t necessarily need to be an artist, writer or musician to appreciate that energy because creative expression can have a positive effect no matter what we do. Bhujangasana (Cobra), Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (Upward Facing Dog), Uttanasana (Standing Forward Fold) and Paschimottanasana (Seated Forward Fold) are all sacral chakra poses.

9. We are at our strongest in the morning

We are stronger in the first half of our day, before we become exhausted and weakened from work. Doing Yoga in the morning is a great way to capitalize on this strength, and you may find that your arms and legs are more strong and relaxed.

10. Expansive quality of breath

When we wake up, our body and nervous system are more calm and settled. Without the stimulation of the day, we can float straight into quality, expansive breathing and set ourselves up with plenty of oxygen and prana from the very first moments.

Even on those mornings when you can barely drag yourself out of bed (we have all been there), come to your mat or simply your living room rug and practice simple Yoga sequences (no experience or toe-touching flexibility required). Not only do these feel-good poses perk you up, but they will also open your hips, stretch your shoulders, and lengthen your spine. The result: You will walk away feeling centered, focused, and ready to own the day. So ditch that ‘Cup of Joe’ and get high on Yoga for a dose of wellness!

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Lifestyle Decisions Ruining your Health

Ever realized we do so many things in our daily lives without realizing their repercussions? Right from our ways of living, personal choices, work culture; everything has a direct impact on our well-being. Unfortunately, most of our lifestyle decisions are adversely affecting our physical, emotional and mental health. We have let our modern day lifestyle come in the way of a healthy life.

A lifestyle choice is a personal and conscious decision to perform a behavior that may increase or decrease the risk of injury or disease. If we exercise every morning then we have made a positive lifestyle choice to increase our physical wellness. If we choose not to drink alcohol then we choose to avoid serious potential consequences, such as a car crash while driving drunk or damage to our internal organs, such as our liver. These are all active lifestyle choices that benefit our health.

Bad Lifestyle Factors

Of course, many choices also harm us. Just take the alcohol consumption example. If we choose to drink, especially in excess or at the wrong time, then we increase our risk of death from something like a car crash. If we smoke, then we increase our chances of developing various diseases including cancer.

Let’s examine some lifestyle decisions that are ruining our body and health on a daily basis.

Skipping Meals

Most of us do not follow a proper diet regime. We only eat when we have time and not when we should be eating. Sometimes we even skip an entire meal altogether. Such practice can interfere with our body’s metabolism, leading to health concerns such as low appetite, blood pressure, acidity to name a few.

Erratic Sleep Patterns

Blame it on technology or late work hours, most of us find it difficult to sleep on time. We may hit the bed on time but don’t fall asleep easily because we are either on our phones or laptop. Getting a sound sleep is more essential than we may realise. Lack of proper sleep creates a mental imbalance and affects our productivity and the body’s ability to function actively the next morning.

Eating junk and outside food

‘You are what you eat!’ This phrase has been around for who knows how long and quite frankly, it’s not too far off the mark. If we eat well, we are much more likely to have a healthy body and mind. If we choose junk food over fresh vegetables, then this is less likely to be the case. Fast food often contains higher calories and highly saturated fats that the body does not need.

Lack of Physical activity

Chairs – we sit in them, work in them, shop in them and eat in them. The fact that most of us have sitting jobs; we do not get to move around much. Once we are home, we just lie around, watch T.V., or use our laptops. With a routine like this, we tend to become lethargic and gain body weight. Even a little bit of physical activity easily exhausts and tires us out. Sitting for long periods is bad because the human body was not designed to be idle. Lack of movement slows metabolism, reducing the amount of food that is converted to energy and thus promoting fat accumulation, obesity, and the litany of ills—heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and more—that come with being overweight.

Smoking and excess Alcohol consumption

Quit smoking and you’ll be healthier and your skin will look better. Stop excess drinking and you will feel better, stay healthier and stay in shape. Next time you light up, feel your pulse. It will start rising within a minute. That’s extra work for your heart. Instead of oxygen the blood cells carry carbon monoxide. Apart from increasing the risk of heart disease, smoking causes many serious medical disorders including lung cancer and emphysema. Moderate drinking is not a problem but if you drink more than the recommended daily limits, the risks of harming your health are increased. The harm caused by alcohol usually only emerge after a number of years and by then, serious health problems may have developed.

Stress can be deadly

You may feel there’s nothing you can do about stress. The bills won’t stop coming, there will never be more hours in the day, and your work and family responsibilities will always be demanding. But you have more control over stress than you might think. Stress causes deterioration in everything from your gums to your heart and can make you more susceptible to illnesses ranging from the common cold to cancer. It’s vital that we learn to relax and take it easy every once in a while. Identify the triggers that are causing you to stress out and figure out healthy ways to deal with them.

Over exposure to Gadgets

Your thumb and wrist are throbbing, your eyes are bloodshot and you’re pretty sure you have “text neck.” Sitting hunched over and tapping away at your smart phone comes with its share of consequences. The human eye is not adapted for staring at a single point in space for hours on end. If you log significant time in front of a computer monitor, you’ve probably experienced computer vision syndrome: eyestrain, tired eyes, irritation, redness, blurred vision, and double vision. Over exposure to gadgets can retards brain health, cause frequent headaches, disturb the sleep cycle and can lead to many more debilitating changes to the body.

Many of the risk factors described above won’t kill us suddenly or irreversibly hurt us right away. This means that we can still help our-self, our health, mind and body by altering some of our poor lifestyle decisions and incorporating some new healthy ones.

A few key ways to achieve better health and subsequently a better lifestyle are through physical activity, exercise and a healthy diet. Exercise aids cardiovascular and respiratory functions, slows the loss of muscular strength, increases bone mass, aids digestion and bowel functions, promotes sound sleep and prevents depression.

So instead of “treating” yourself to something like an ice cream or beer that will do more harm than good, treat yourself to good health.

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Reinvent yourself! Take the first step. Sign up https://goo.gl/FWnXfG  with us for your Trial Class.

For more information, visit www.fitnessfightclub.com