Archive for month: May, 2017

It’s May (can you believe it?!), which means everyone’s thinking about spring cleaning their homes, lives, and bodies. We’re interested in the body part, which includes your mind and soul, as well.

Cleansing the body is all about elimination. Whether it be elimination of waste, stress, or unhealthy habits, it’s about losing what doesn’t serve you and creating better habits that do. Here’s how to get started:

Spring Cleaning with Fuel

The fuel you choose to put in your body is directly correlated with your health and wellness. We recommend plenty of whole and fresh foods, and tons of water. Specifically, limited fresh fruit, loads of vegetables (a variety!), beans, raw nuts, seeds, and lean, wild, organic meats.

Remember this: you don’t need to starve when cleansing; it’s not about drastically cutting calories or drinking lemon water with cayenne and honey. Just listen to your body, and place emphasis on hydration and nourishment.

That’s it. That’s the secret.

Spring Cleansing with Movement

Moving your body is always an integral part of any cleanse. The secret is to combine the following two forms of movement—gentle and vigorous—to take full advantage of the benefits:

Gentle: Gentle movement is always a good idea. The consistency of it is very cleansing and great for detoxifying the digestive system and bowels. Gentle movements such as yoga can also help to detoxify the liver, along with other vital organs.

Gentle exercises like walking, restorative or stretch yoga, and tai chi are also great for mental health and emotional detoxification.

Vigorous: Sweating is very important when it comes to cleansing, because it’s how our skin eliminates toxins and unwanted waste. Vigorous movements may include cardio workouts, weighted exercises, and sports.

If you want to practice yoga as your vigorous form of movement, try our Strong or Tone and Tame classes.

Spring Cleaning with Sleep Hygiene

When it comes to creating a great sleep schedule, there are two components: quality and quality.

Quality: Although people often focus on the number of hours they slept, the quality of that sleep is even more important. If you’re not going through your sleep cycles properly, you can wake up feeling groggy and tied, even though you had 8 hours.

Some things you can do to create great sleep hygiene for yourself if begin a healthy routine. This routine should include powering down visual devices well before bedtime, some stretching, a 5-minute meditation (more on that later), maybe a bath, and perhaps some lavender essential oil to contribute to the overall environment of calmness.

Quantity: Honestly? You should be sleeping 8 hours of quality a day. Various research may conclude differently, but 8 hours is the norm.

Spring Cleaning with Mental Health

Emotional cleansing is often overlooked in the process of cleaning up your wellness habits and placing better emphasis on ‘whole health’, but it’s vital to cleanse emotionally and spiritually, too.

There are several ways to consciously aid your body in emotional cleansing, including:

Therapy: Cognitive behavioral therapy has always been and still is a powerful tool when it comes to emotional cleansing and improving mental health. Although it’s unfortunate, there can sometimes be a stigma surrounding the use of a therapist—but that’s ridiculous.

Having an objective person in your life who will listen and encourage you is incredible. And that’s what a therapist does!

Meditation: Incorporating 5 minute meditations into your daily routine can help clear your mind and increase focus throughout the day. In fact, many top world leader swear by the effectiveness of meditation, and what the practice does for their entire body.

Conscious Breathing: Conscious breathing is exactly what it sounds like—breathing with awareness and intent. By doing so, you automatically slow your parasympathetic nervous system, which creates a more zen-like state of being.

Try this: slowly breathe in for a count of five, then hold your breath for three, then slowly exhale for a count of five. Repeat this action of conscious breath ten times.

Click HERE to read an article we collaborated with Alive Magazine on, about conscious breathing.

Creativity: Creativity is something we all posses, and it can be incredibly emotionally rewarding to practice it. This might mean writing, painting, colouring, making something, redecorating a room in your home, or even creating a new game to play with your kids or pets.

Bottom line? Unleashing your creativity can make you happy, so do it! Cheers to spring cleaning your body!

To view our spring class schedule, click HERE. Namaste.