Upper-Chest Breathing Lie on your back, placing one hand on your upper chest and the other on your abdomen. If the hand on your chest moves as you breathe but the one on the abdomen does not, you’re definitely a chest-breather. Anything more than slight movement in the chest is a sign of inefficient breathing.

Shallow Breathing Lie on your back and place your hands around your lower ribs. You should feel an effortless expansion of the lower ribs on the breath in and a slow recoil on the breath out. If your ribs remain motionless, your breathing is too shallow, even if your belly moves.

Overbreathing Lie down and take a few minutes to let your body establish its relaxed breathing rate. Then count the length of your next exhalation and compare it to the length of the following inhalation. The exhalation should be slightly longer. If not, you are an overbreather. As a second test, try to shorten your inhalation. If that causes distress you are probably an overbreather. Because it is easy to manipulate the outcome of these two tests, you may want someone else to count for you at a time when you are not paying attention to your breath.

Holding the breath Holding one’s breath after inhaling may be the most common poor breathing habit. To determine if you do this, pay attention to the transition from inhalation to exhalation. A breath-holder usually feels a “catch” and may actually struggle to initiate the exhalation. This tendency is particularly noticeable during exercise. You can reduce the holding by consciously relaxing your abdomen just as an inhalation ends.

Breathing in reverse Reverse breathing happens when the diaphragm is pulled into the chest upon inhalation and drops into the abdomen on exhalation. Lie on your back and place your hands on your abdomen. The abdomen should slowly flatten as you exhale and rise gently as you inhale. If the opposite occurs you are a reverse breather.

Open mouth Breathing It’s fairly easy to notice if you’re a mouth-breather; if you’re not sure, ask your friends or try to catch yourself at unguarded moments.

Ayurveda,the world’s oldest surviving system of healing, teaches us that the key to feeling in step with the seasons is to harmonize with nature. The rishis (the ancient mystical “seers” who founded the yoga tradition) created rituals and festivals to honor each season and to remind us of our connection to the natural world.

The great yoga teacher Krishnamacharya adjusted his approach to practicing and teaching yoga to correspond with the time of year. You may not have a spring festival or an Indian yoga master to guide you, but by weaving some simple Ayurvedic principles into your life, you can weather this seasonal transition smoothly and emerge feeling transformed and ready to feel springy in Springtime.

Put some Spring into your step

To enjoy a healthy spring, you need to understand the kapha (pronounced CUP-pa) dosha and bring it into balance. Of the three doshas—vata, pitta, and kapha— it’s kapha that endows your body with its earthy-watery qualities. It provides lubrication for joints, it also protects the sensitive tissues of the sinuses, lungs, and stomach; it also determines the size, strength, and suppleness of your muscles.

When kapha is in balance, you feel strong, composed, and stable. When it’s out of balance, you might feel sleepy, mentally dull, or depressed. It’s especially important to balance kapha in the spring, because kapha accumulates during winter and can create diseases by the time spring arrives. As the world becomes colder and wetter in winter, your body mirrors these kapha-like changes. You tend to eat, sleep, and stay inside more during winter, which can result in a “winter coat” of insulation. In spring, you need to shed this excess kapha or risk becoming vulnerable to seasonal allergies or head colds.

Put a bit of spring in your step by developing a rhythm and routine that helps you gradually lighten up without disturbing the stable virtues of kapha. The best approach is multidimensional and includes eating lighter foods, adding certain herbs to your diet, and practicing asana, pranayama and meditation.

.

Arm Stretch

1. Bring your arms behind your back, clasping your hands. Or, hold a tie, sweater, or scarf between your hands.

2. Lift your arms as high as you can. Lift your sternum.

3. Hold for 30 to 45 seconds, relax for a moment, then repeat.

Shoulder Stretch

1. Interlock your fingers and extend your arms outward, straight in front of your shoulders. Your palms should be facing outward.

2. Slowly raise your hands overhead, stretching all the way from the waist. Work on straightening your elbows. Hold for 30 to 45 seconds, relax, and try again.

Chair Twist

1. Sit on the edge of your chair, sideways with your left side facing the chair back.

2. Throughout the pose, keep your feet and knees together and even.

3. Place your hands on the chair as shown.

4. Inhale while straightening your spine. As you exhale, twist toward the back of the chair, twisting from the very bottom of your spine — pushing with your left hand and pulling with your right hand.

5. Repeat the inhalation/straighten, exhalation/twist series several times.

6. Release and change sides.

Deeper Chair Twist

1. Sit in the middle of your chair, sideways with your left side facing the chair back.

2. Repeat the same routine as in Chair Twist 1.

3. Do you feel the twist in the spine at a slightly different place?

4. If you need to, place a book under your feet to keep them flat.

Set an intention, lose the itinerary Commit to staying open during your journey, regardless of what happens. An agenda represents control, which isn’t always possible. Travel guide Elizabeth Medgyesy goes to New York City without knowing where she’ll stay or what she’ll do. Openness to novel experiences lets you attain spiritual insights, she says.

Commune with locals Take a crowded bus, talk with people, observe, learn about local customs and culture. When you talk with people, you get to see how diverse the human race is and how we’re all connected.

Get quiet Your internal experience affects how you see another land. Reserve time for your practice. Pack travel candles, inspirational texts, a picture of a loved one— even a travel altar—so you can reflect and connect with your essential Self.

Go with the flow Turn travel hassles into opportunities. When Phoenix, Arizona, yoga instructor Desirée Rumbaugh had a 10-hour stop in Los Angeles, she met up with a friend she hadn’t seen in years, finding a way to nurture an important connection. The point of travel is to enjoy your time wherever you are.

Is there a way to live that frees us from the cycle of longing for more time, misusing the time we do have, and then blaming a lack of time for our discontent? The answer is yes. I’ve worked with people on improving their relationship with time. Happily, doing so doesn’t require withdrawing from the world. Nor do you need to focus on timesaving tips for scheduling yourself with ever-greater efficiency. Instead, you bring greater awareness to the way you experience time by building small steps into your daily routine that help you savor your life.

To experience time differently, you need to cultivate and practice a new relationship with it, just as you’d nurture a yoga or meditation practice. At first, you may feel as though you’re swimming against the current of cultural cues that push you to do more and move faster. It may not be easy to change, but the rewards are great. This approach can bring you into a deeper harmony with time, allowing you to engage more fully with every moment.

Your first step is  self-study, one of the ethical principles of yoga. This asks you to look inward and get to know yourself better. It teaches you to feel the difference between your own natural rhythms and the world around you. It can teach you what’s practical and healthy to focus on, and what you may need to delegate or drop.

In much the same way that those who struggle with food issues may be unaware of what and how they’re eating, you may not have examined the behaviors and assumptions that shape your relationship with time. Taking a time inventory gives you a window into the values that underlie your time-spending habits. Begin your self-study by asking yourself questions like these: Besides eating and sleeping, how do I allocate my time in 24-hours? Do the activities on which I spend most of my time nourish me, or do they feel obligatory? When I long for more time, what do I imagine doing with it?

Do you feel time starved? Has your yoga or meditation practice helped you deal with any time issues?

The result is a buildup of toxins that can leave you fatigued and suffering from poor digestion, and that may even lead to disease. You can help boost your innate detox functions by practicing cleansing yoga sequences and following a simple plant-based diet during a multiday detox plan. Most people need to detoxify to get these things out of their systems in order to feel healthier. Some benefits of an occasional detox,  include having a lowered heart rate, clearer eyes and skin, better memory and concentration, and improved digestion. Good health invites a calm, clear mind that is free of many of the habits that often lead to toxin buildup.

While there are many approaches to detoxing—including the asana and food guidelines presented on these pages— they aim for one simple thing: to help the body do what it’s already trying to do. Your body is always getting rid of toxins but you can aid that natural process by making detoxing a practice.

A yoga sequence like the one suggested here can support the natural detoxification process by increasing circulation, compressing and twisting internal organs, and encouraging relaxation, says Weill. Inverted poses like Viparita Karani (Legs-up-the-Wall Pose) use gravity to stimulate lymph and blood circulation. Inversions help to drain lymphatic and venous fluids from the legs and pelvis, and so enhance detoxification.

Do you detox regularly or would like to give it a go?

Although they’re not completely understood, tension headaches are linked to muscle tension in the head, neck, scalp, and face. They can be triggered by stress-related habits, such as teeth grinding, or by poor posture and fatigue. Sitting hunched over a desk with the head hanging forward of the shoulders can create a constant contraction of the muscles of the neck , upper back, and shoulders. Repetitive motion—like typing or using a computer mouse—can also result in chronic shoulder and neck tension that can lead to headache pain.

Not surprisingly, yoga can help to release tension and ease the symptoms of a headache. If you have a headache, or feel one coming on, skip the challenging asana practice and try out the postures below.

Yoga can help relieve headaches

PALMING: To relieve an aching head, rub your hands together until warm and then place them over the eyes. Breathe deeply and invite the eyes to soften and relax.

Sukhasana (Easy Pose)

Gentle poses soothe headache pain.

Neck rolls: Sit tall in Sukhasana. Moving with the breath, drop your right ear toward the right shoulder and roll your chin to your chest. From center, drop your left ear to your left shoulder, bring your head back up to center. Reverse, starting on the left side. Shoulder rolls: Lift the shoulders up and back on an inhalation; then, on the exhalation, move them down and forward. Then reverse the motion.

Garudasana (Eagle Pose)

In Savasana, count the breath or mentally recite a mantra, making your exhalation last twice as long as your inhalation.

Sitting tall in a chair or on your mat, inhale as you extend your arms out to the sides. Exhale into Eagle Pose, with the right arm on top. Inhale again as you extend your arms out to the sides. Exhale into Eagle Pose with the left arm on top. Repeat several times, moving with the breath.

For better or worse, within the yoga community there are endless myths asserting what foods help your yoga practice. You’ve probably heard at least some of this yogic eating folklore before: “Feeling stiff? Eat more sweets, have only fruit before you practice. Remember that if you’re practicing in the morning, don’t eat dinner before you go to bed!” To understand the truth that may lie at the heart of these and other food myths which are so prevalent in yoga communities, we could begin by tracing their roots. Many theories stem from yogic scriptures, and others are theories found in Ayurveda, the ancient Indian science of preventative health and healing. To understand the relevancy of these yogic food myths to your diet, it’s essential to examine them in their original context.

Yoga from its earliest inception has been integrally tied with Ayurveda. Central to Ayurveda is the concept of varying body types, each of which thrives on different kinds of foods. Vata types, for example, need grounding foods like oils and grains. Pitta types are supported by cooling foods, such as salads and sweet fruits. Kapha types benefit from heating and invigorating foods, such as hot peppers. A classic premise of Ayurveda is that few people are strictly one type, and most in fact are a blend of at least two types. Each individual must therefore find a personal balance of foods to fit his or her own unique consitution.

Just as certain yoga poses are appropriate for certain people or at particular times, so it is with what you choose to eat. Food should provide energy and clarity. A “good” diet may appear very different from one person to the next, but you will know your diet is working well for you when you feel healthy, sleep well, have strong digestion, and feel your system is supported rather than depleted by your yoga practice.

Do you feel like you create balance through your yoga practice? Which body type do you believe you have?

Bake bread, knit a cap, build a birdhouse, design your own thank-you notes. Creating something may feel like a small way of enriching the world, but making something with your hands can be an active meditation, an opportunity to take a break from conscious thought and allow yourself to freely engage with your creative side. By simply creating a quiet state of being, you begin to notice—notice your thoughts, notice your feelings, and notice the workings of your mind and experience.” Like the practice of yoga, creative acts are about the process, not the result; your sense of satisfaction when you pull on a warm hat you made yourself, mail a beautiful card to a friend, or bite into a sandwich on homemade bread is lust an added benefit.

As an antidote to striving for success in all that you do (including asana), devote one practice a week to poses that quiet, nourish, and center. Begin your restorative practice by sitting quietly for a few moments and connecting with your breath. Next, warm up movement that gently stretches your muscles, such as Cat-Cow Pose and Happy flab Pose. Move into postures like Supta Baddha Konasana (Reclining Bound Angle Pose) Padangusthasana (Reclining Hand-to—Big-Toe Pose), and Viparita Karani, followed by an extended Savasana (Corpse Pose). If doing a restorative practice on your own sounds daunting, try a restorative class and it will take no time to lead you into a more positive state of mind.

WHATS MY LINE?

When a knee that isn’t prone to hyperextension extends, its ligaments—the cords of connective tissue that join the thighbone to the shinbone —pull taut and stop the two bones at the pointwhere they lie directly in line with each other. If your knee hyperextends, that means its ligaments are too long, and so theydon’t stop the bones untilyour leg has moved beyonda straight line. If you’re uncertain about whether your knees hyperextend, stand sideways in front of a full—length mirror, gently press your knees backward until you are unable to move them back any further, and envision an imaginary line running down the side of your leg from your hip joint to your ankle. If the center of your knee ends up behind that line, it is hyperextended.
Standing with your knees locked back in hyperextension can cause a host ofproblems inyour knees and also inyour legs, hips, and spine. In addition to overstretching the ligaments, hyperextension stresses the front of the knee joint surfaces and weakens the quadriceps muscles. Over time, this misalignment may create deeper hyperextesision, ligament strains or tears, cartilage degeneration, and arthritis of the knee joint or kneecap. What’s more, ifyou push the knee back with enough force, you can tear a ligament, most likely the anterior cruciate. Standingin hyperextensionputs excess pressure on your heels and the front of your shins, which can lead to inflammation.