Posts Tagged ‘Fitness’

Do you need a mid afternoon energy boost?

Are you suffering from a post-lunch energy dip? Learn how to keep yourself energised throughout the day.

Research shows that the most common time for energy slumps is 2.15pm. This is when many people hit a brick wall – and wish they could hit a soft pillow. Low blood sugar and the body’s circadian rhythm hitting a natural low are the culprits. But you can take action.

Don’t fight it

“Short naps of five to 15 minutes are very effective at promoting energy renewal and increasing cognitive function,” says Dr Nerina Ramlakhan, sleep and energy coach at Capio Nightingale Hospital, London. Studies show grabbing 40 winks boosts memory too. You don’t have to nod off – in fact, you want to avoid deep sleep. “Just sit or lie comfortably in a well-ventilated room, relaxing muscles and breathing deeply from the stomach. You’ll approach a near sleep state without falling asleep and will probably remain conscious of your surroundings,” says Dr Ramlakhan. If you’re afraid to power-nap because it leaves you groggy, fear not. This is so common that it has a name – “sleep inertia”, the inability to shrug off sleep. The trick is not to cat-nap for more than 15 to 20 minutes, because the most you’ll get is light sleep, which is easy to get out of. Or sleep longer, say about 60 minutes, to get out of deep sleep and into REM.

Sleeping on the job was once grounds for dismissal but employers are coming round to power naps. After Cornell University found they increase productivity in the workplace, some US companies, including Nike and Deloitte Consulting, started encouraging employees to add an afternoon snooze to their to-do list, and some firms have installed beds or sleep pods.

Desk Y0ga

Desk Yoga stretches: link your hands, push your arms out in front of you and raise them above your head. Also try extending your legs in front of you and point and flex your toes. Then hug your knees, one by one, towards your chest.

Have an energy snack

This is not an excuse to reach for a whole milk chocolate bar. The high glycaemic index (GI is a measure of how high a food type pushes up your blood sugar) in a sugar-filled snack might give you an energy boost, but your blood sugars will crash quickly and you’ll probably feel more tired than ever, warns nutritional therapist Shona Wilkinson. Opt for a snack with low GI, such as oat cakes or hummus and carrot sticks, to raise your blood sugar levels steadily and keep them up, she says. For more information, visit www.glycemicindex.com. “It is worth a look because, whilst it’s usually sugary foods that are high GI, there are a few unusual ones to watch out for – French baguettes, watermelon, dried fruit and rice cakes,” says Wilkinson.

If you must have chocolate, stick to a few squares of high-quality plain chocolate as it contains less sugar and the richness means you’ll want less. And ideally, eat your snack half an hour before you know you’re likely to slump because it takes the body that long to convert what you eat to energy, says Wilkinson.

Revamp your lunch

Afternoon crashes are often the delayed result of too many simple sugars at a midday meal. Replace white bread, pastas and dessert with protein (chicken, tuna, hard-boiled eggs) and a slow-digesting carb (brown rice, lentils, sweet potato). Eating protein with carbohydrates can bring down the glycaemic load, so a turkey sandwich on wholewheat bread or a salad niçoise is a win-win. “Note that the glycaemic index of some foods changes according to how they are cooked,” cautions Wilkinson. “Baked potatoes are higher in the glycaemic index than boiled.”

Drink some water

Dehydration causes fatigue. It diminishes the capacity of most of our organs, especially the brain, kidneys and skin. “Research shows one in five of us consumes too little water,” says nutritionist Fiona Kirk. The recommendation is 1.5 litres, so aim for eight to 10 glasses a day, preferably keeping a filled bottle on your desk so you’re more likely to drink regularly and can monitor if you’re getting enough.

“If you’ve drunk no water by 2pm but have downed coffee, fizzy drinks and tea, you’re asking for headaches, concentration problems, mood swings and tiredness. The receptors for thirst and hunger are close together in the body, meaning that when you feel hungry, often what you’re really feeling is thirst.”

Never skip breakfast

Low afternoon energy is down to what we eat from the moment we get up and this meal does what it says on the tin: refuels the body by breaking a fast. You’ll need a healthy, sizable breakfast with complex (slow-digesting) carbohydrates and a little protein. Good choices include an egg on wholemeal toast, oats or sugar-free muesli with berries and natural yoghurt, or porridge with semi-skimmed milk and a banana.

Other slump-beating methods

* Essential oils: pop a couple of drops of a reviving essential oil into a tissue and inhale deeply. Citrus scents, along with peppermint and rosemary – are energy boosters.

* Avoid energy drainers: the most common are alcohol, caffeine, low-quality food, obesity, too much chocolate and dieting (slows metabolism, saps energy).

* Get active at lunchtime: if you can’t nip out for a quick walk at the time you feel a slump coming on during work, a preventive measure is an amble at lunchtime to lift your mood for the hours to come.

10 November 2010 Diet, Fitness, Food, Wellbeing, health, yoga Fitness, yoga, yoga wellbeing No Comments

Yoga in Prisons

Yoga in Prisons workshops throw up the philosophical questions such as Who am I? Am I separate from what I do? They investigate basic goodness, identity, and forgiveness as well as develop listening and empathy skills. Leaders also introduce simple meditations to help prisoners learn how to calmly be with whatever emotions arise in the present moment. The boys count their breaths and do body scans to get into their bodies, relax, and find freedom from reactivity.

The idea of spending less time in solitary may lure the prisoners but once he started attending the yoga meetings they start to see the benefits. Each session offered a brief respite from isolation, a glimpse of self-awareness, and a chance to connect to others who had similar lives filled with drugs and gangs.

Thinking it over and talking with others, I was able to sort out my ideas. Using a breathing technique, which he learned in group sessions, to control his temper. My anger and other people just don’t mix. Yoga breathing techniques have helped me cope with everyday life.

24 September 2010 Fitness, Food, New classes, health, meditation Fitness, health, Wellbeing, yoga No Comments

Asana of the Week – Wheel Pose

(OORD-vah don-your-AHS-anna)
urdhva = upward
dhanu = bow

Step by Step

1. Lie supine on the floor. Bend your knees and set your feet on the floor, heels as close to the sitting bones as possible. Bend your elbows and spread your palms on the floor beside your head, forearms relatively perpendicular to the floor, fingers pointing toward your shoulders.

2. Pressing your inner feet actively into the floor, exhale and push your tailbone up toward the pubis, firming (but not hardening) the buttocks, and lift the buttocks off the floor. Keep your thighs and inner feet parallel. Take 2 or 3 breaths. Then firmly press the inner hands into the floor and your shoulder blades against the back and lift up onto the crown of your head. Keep your arms parallel. Take 2 or 3 breaths.

3. Press your feet and hands into the floor, tailbone and shoulder blades against your back, and with an exhalation, lift your head off the floor and straighten your arms. Turn the upper thighs slightly inward and firm the outer thighs. Narrow the hip points and lengthen the tailbone toward the backs of the knees, lifting the pubis toward the navel.

4. Turn the upper arms outward but keep the weight on the bases of the index fingers. Spread the shoulder blades across the back and let the head hang, or lift it slightly to look down at the floor.

5. Stay in the pose anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds or more, breathing easily. Repeat anywhere from 3 to 10 times.

Benefits

Stretches the chest and lungs
Strengthens the arms and wrists, legs, buttocks, abdomen, and spine
Stimulates the thyroid and pituitary
Increases energy and counteracts depression
Therapeutic for asthma, back pain, infertility, and osteoporosis

If you feel like a mini yoga challenge, why not try three legged wheel?

18 September 2010 Asana of the Week, Fitness, Wellbeing, Yoga at work, yoga Fitness, free yoga, health, yoga, yoga pose No Comments

Asana of the Week – Extended Hand-To-Big-Toe Pose

Why not start your week off with a good stretch and give yourself a mini Yoga Wellbeing challenge? This stretch strengthens the legs and ankle, it stretches the backs of the leg and also improves a sense of balance.

Step by Step

1. From mountain pose, bring your left knee toward your belly.

2. Reach your left arm inside the thigh, cross it over the front ankle, and hold the outside of your left foot. If your hamstrings are tight, hold a strap looped around the left sole.

3. Firm the front thigh muscles of the standing leg, and press the outer thigh inward.

4. Inhale and extend the left leg forward. Straighten the knee as much as possible. If you’re steady, swing the leg out to the side. Breathe steadily; breathing takes concentration, but it helps you balance.

5. Hold for 30 seconds, then swing the leg back to center with an inhale, and lower the foot to the floor with an exhale. Repeat on the other side for the same length of time.

16 August 2010 Asana of the Week, Fitness, yoga Fitness, health, Wellbeing, yoga No Comments

Yoga in Sunny London

It’s the paradox of sunscreen. When you dutifully slather on the SPF 30 before heading outside on a sunny day, you’re protecting your skin  from harmful ultraviolet rays. But you’re also preventing those rays from prompting your skin, liver, and kidneys to make an essential vitamin—vitamin D.

For more than 90 years, vitamin D has been known to play a role in bone health. But new research suggests that vitamin D may have many other health benefits. Vitamin D may play a role in reducing the risk of cancer, heart attack, and stroke. Emerging studies are examining the effects of higher doses of vitamin D on depression and autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.

Vitamin D occurs naturally in a few foods, such as salmon, egg yolks, and liver, and many other foods are fortified with  it. The Food and Nutrition Board at the Institute of Medicine deems a vitamin D intake of 2,000 international units per day to be adequate for adults aged 50 and younger; older people need more. In light of new research, those recommendations are currently under review. But many of us aren’t getting enough even by the current recommendations. By some estimates, as many as three out of every four people in the UK aren’t getting enough vitamin D. While some nutritionists recommend seeking vitamin D by going outside for 10 or 15 minutes without sunscreen on a sunny day, dermatologists argue that’s neither a safe nor reliable way to ensure adequate vitamin D levels.

What’s the yogic message today? Read the label of your multivitamin to see if it contains the daily value of vitamin D, and ask your doctor to check your vitamin D levels  at your next physical, if you’re concerned. And don’t forget your sunscreen and hat when you head for the beach.

11 August 2010 Fitness, Food, health, yoga Fitness, health, Wellbeing, yoga No Comments

Yoga for Runners

Here at Yoga Wellbeing we seem to be getting a huge amount of professional runners come to us asking for a little bit of help with flexibilty. One of the main questions is how clients can improve their classic runner’s hamstring tightness. We take classic yoga poses and alter them to take limited flexibilty into account. We play to runners strengths and adress the weaknesses.

One of our clients has ran five London Marathons and has found yoga an excellent cure for the hamstring problem. Yoga postures can correct the muscle imblances that result in high impact training. They help to realign the joints abd stretch and strengthen the muscles to prevent pain and injury. Yoga for runners is about felxibilty, so we’re not running with the brakes on and increasing the chance of injury.

A huge part of the programme is breath. Breathing through all of the stretches is key and yoga helps you to breath through some of the more challenging stretches. Running is wonderful but is not an all rounder. While most runners can run 25 miles comfortably they have difficulty touching their toes. This is because running only works mostly in one plane of motion – forward. In yoga we work in all directions. It brings balance to a running regime, strengthening to the muscles underused in running (such as the back extensors and the abs) and stretching those that get overused like the calves and the hamstrings.

If you would like to know more about our Yoga for Runners programme then please just click here.

21 July 2010 Fitness, New classes, One to one session, Private yoga session, Yoga classes Fitness, One to one session, private session, Yoga for runners, yoga wellbeing No Comments

Yoga pose of the weekend – Camel Pose

This is a great way to destress at the weekend. It opens up the chest and gets the energy flowing. So why not give it a try this weekend?

(oosh-TRAHS-anna)

ustra = camel

Step by Step

1. Kneel on the floor with your knees hip width and thighs perpendicular to
the floor. Rotate your thighs inward slightly, narrow your hip points,
and firm but don’t harden your buttocks. Imagine that you’re drawing
your sitting bones up, into your torso. Keep your outer hips as soft as
possible. Press your shins and the tops of your feet firmly into floor.

2. Rest your hands on the back of your pelvis, bases of the palms on the
tops of the buttocks, fingers pointing down. Use your hands to spread
the back pelvis and lengthen it down through your tail bone. Then
lightly firm the tail forward, toward the pubis. Make sure though that
your front groins don’t “puff” forward. To prevent this, press your
front thighs back, countering the forward action of your tail. Inhale
and lift your heart by pressing the shoulder blades against your back
ribs.

3. Now lean back against the firmness of the tail bone and shoulder blades.
For the time being keep your head up, chin near the sternum, and your
hands on the pelvis. Beginners probably won’t be able to drop straight
back into this pose, touching the hands to the feet simultaneously while
keeping the thighs perpendicular to the floor. If you need to, tilt the
thighs back a little from the perpendicular and minimally twist to one
side to get one hand on the same-side foot. Then press your thighs back
to perpendicular, turn your torso back to neutral, and touch the second
hand to its foot. If you’re not able to touch your feet without
compressing your lower back, turn your toes under and elevate your
heels.

4. See that your lower front ribs aren’t protruding sharply toward the
ceiling, which hardens the belly and compresses the lower back. Release
the front ribs and lift the front of the pelvis up, toward the ribs.
Then lift the lower back ribs away from the pelvis to keep the lower
spine as long as possible. Press your palms firmly against your soles
(or heels), with the bases of the palms on the heels and the fingers
pointing toward the toes. Turn your arms outwardly so the elbow creases
face forward, without squeezing the shoulder blades together. You can
keep your neck in a relatively neutral position, neither flexed nor
extended, or drop your head back. But be careful not to strain your neck
and harden your throat.

5. Stay in this pose anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute. To exit, bring
your hands onto the front of your pelvis, at the hip points. Inhale and
lift the head and torso up by pushing the hip points down, toward the
floor. If your head is back, lead with your heart to come up, not by
jutting the chin toward the ceiling and leading with your brain. Rest in
Child’s Pose for a few breaths.

10 July 2010 Lifestyle, Wellbeing, health, yoga Fitness, health, Wellbeing, yoga, Yoga asana No Comments

Yoga for Athletes

You probably heard at least something about the record breaking three-day tennis match between the US John Isner and France’s Nicolas Mahut, but you may not have heard about the interview with Isner where he clearly qualifies himself as a yogi–immersed in intention without concern for results.

“Especially once the match got past, you know, 25-all, I wasn’t really thinking,” said Isner. “Hitting a serve and trying to hit a forehand winner is the only thing I was doing.”

Many Wimbledon players, including Murray admit that yoga plays a huge part in maintaining there overall Wellbeing.

Yoga has been known to help athletic endeavors in a host of physical ways: it strengthens core muscles (which protected joints), it increases ability to use oxygen, and it keeps the body loose and open long training sessions.

But the most significant benefits from yoga were mental. Yoga taught me how to approach a challenge with equanimity, how to breathe through discomfort, and how to stay centered even when things got rough.

7 July 2010 Fitness, Wellbeing, health, yoga Fitness, Wellbeing, yoga, yoga for athletes No Comments

Yoga pose of the week – Plow pose

From shoulderstand, exhale and bend from the hip joints to slowly lower your toes to the floor above and beyond your head. As much as possible, keep your torso perpendicular to the floor and your legs fully extended.

Plough Pose Step 1

With your toes on the floor, lift your top thighs and tailbone toward the ceiling and draw your inner groins deep into the pelvis. Imagine that your torso is hanging from the height of your groins. Continue to draw your chin away from your sternum and soften your throat.

Plough Pose Step 2

You can continue to press your hands against the back torso, pushing the back up toward the ceiling as you press the backs of the upper arms down, onto your support. Or you can release your hands away from your back and stretch the arms out behind you on the floor, opposite the legs. Clasp the hands and press the arms actively down on the support as you lift the thighs toward the ceiling.

Plough Pose Step 3

Halasana is usually performed after Sarvangasana for anywhere from 1 to 5 minutes. To exit the pose bring your hands onto your back again, lift back into Sarvangasana with an exhalation, then roll down onto your back, or simply roll out of the pose on an exhalation.

1 May 2010 Asana of the Week, Wellbeing, yoga Fitness, health, Wellbeing, yoga No Comments

Asana of the Week – Shoulder Pressing Pose

Yoga Wellbeing Step by Step

1. Squat with your feet a little less than shoulder width apart, knees wide. bhujapidasana1

2.Tilt your torso forward between your inner thighs. Then, keeping your torso low, raise your hips until your thighs become close to parallel to the floor.

3.Snug your upper left arm and shoulder as much as possible under the back of your left thigh just above the knee, and place your left hand on the floor at the outside edge of your left foot, fingers pointing forward. Then repeat on the right. As you do this your upper back will round.

4.Press your inner hands firmly against the floor and slowly begin to rock your weight back, off your feet and onto your hands. As you straighten your arms, your feet will lift lightly off floor, not by raw strength but by carefully shifting your center of gravity.

5.Squeeze your outer arms with your inner thighs, and cross your right ankle over your left ankle. Look straight ahead. Hold for 30 seconds, then bend your elbows and lightly release your feet back to the floor with an exhale.

6.Repeat the pose a second time with the left ankle on top.