Guest Post: Yoga for Life

Hi Living Healthy readers!  My name is Maggie and I’m so glad Sagan let me do a guest post.  I blog about lots of random things (yoga, health, fitness, food, recipes) over at Say Yes to Salad but today I’m going to talk more about yoga.

Yoga has been a big part of my life for about a year now.  I took my first yoga class about 8 years ago, but I didn’t become addicted to it until last year when I found Vinyasa yoga. Vinyasa is sometimes called flow yoga or power yoga.  Vinyasa is great because you can get a nice sweaty workout (if you want) or you can use it to relax.  Vinyasa literally means, “moving with the breath”, so there’s a big emphasis on breathing and staying in the present moment.

Yoga can be a great complement to a healthy lifestyle.  I try to do yoga every day, even if it’s only for 10 minutes.  Sometimes this means that I’ll do yoga to stretch after a long walk (my absolute favourite exercise in the world – Sagan would probably agree! Sagan’s note: oh you know me so well!), or a jog, or some fun workout video (my favourite is probably Jillian Michaels’ 30-Day Shred).  I like to use yoga for stretching because it’s a wonderful way to balance out the repetitive forward motion of walking/running.

Sometimes I do longer yoga classes – 60 or 90 minutes.  Most of the classes I take at a studio are 90 minutes, but I don’t get to do that often – they are expensive!  I’ve found many online free yoga podcasts (see my Yoga page for some links) that are just as good as a live class but can be done in your own living room.

Recently I haven’t been able to have the focus to get through the longer classes, so I’ve been doing short sessions.  But that’s okay! Part of being a yogi is listening to your body.  If my body doesn’t want to do 90 minutes of yoga, I shouldn’t make it.  I made a short (5 minutes) yoga video a few months ago that’s great for the morning or for settling down at night.  Check it out HERE.

There are so many benefits to doing yoga – here are just a few…
–Relaxation
–Improved blood flow (inversions are wonderful – and I heard they can prevent wrinkles)
–Better connection to your body’s needs and wants
–Patience (long holds are annoying, but they help you learn to be patient in other parts of your life as well)
–Flexibility (this decreases the chance of injury from other forms of exercise)
–Strength (you use your own body weight as resistance – think plank position!)
–More friendships!  (I’ve formed so many relationships because of my love of yoga – it’s a wonderful way to connect with people)

I hope you get a chance to try yoga.  I look forward to my yoga practice every day, even if it’s just 10 minutes.  It keeps me happy and healthy 🙂  Thanks again for letting me post, Sagan!

Thanks to all guest posters (Maggie, Liz, and my dad) for your contributions here at Living Healthy in the Real World! Regular posting will resume next week when I’m home from traveling.