Spinach and Yoga

Interview With Dr. Lissa Rankin

Last week I shared my experience of writing my own prescription. It was a great reminder that my body know what it needs to feel vibrant and healthy. If you want to learn to write your own prescription, order Lissa’s Rankin new book Mind Over Medicine.

While you are waiting for your book to arrive, I have a very special interview with Lissa to keep you learning and inspired! Enjoy!

You’ve become quite the advocate for mind-body medicine. Was there a major turning point that left you questioning the conventional approach to medicine?

When I was working with sick patients from the inner city of Chicago, it made sense that they weren’t healthy. They ate poorly, smoked, drank, and never exercised. But then I took a job at an integrative medicine practice in posh Marin County, where my patients religiously followed organic, vegan diets, worked out with personal trainers, got 8 hours of sleep every night, took their vitamins, and spent a fortune on the best health care money can buy – and they were still sick. It got me wondering, what if there’s more to health than what they taught me in medical school?

Around that time, I became fascinated with case studies in the medical literature of spontaneous remissions from seemingly “incurable” illnesses – stage 4 cancers that disappeared, an HIV positive patient who became HIV negative, people whose heart disease vanished. I got curious whether there was any scientific validity to what some New Age gurus teach – that you can heal yourself.  I wondered whether we might have control over whether we’re blessed with spontaneous remission from illness – or whether we stay sick. (Spoiler alert – you can influence the outcome!) Mind Over Medicine is a compilation of the mind-blowing data I compiled from the scientific literature regarding these inquiries.

What do you mean when you say “you can heal yourself?”

The medical establishment has been proving that the body can heal itself for over 50 years. We call it “the placebo effect,” and we’ve been trying to outsmart it for decades.  We know that in clinical trials, patients being treated with sugar pills, saline injections, and even fake surgeries get better anywhere from 18-80% of the time!

The placebo effect is a thorn in the side of modern medicine. It’s an inconvenient truth that gets in the way of proving that new treatments are more effective than letting nature take its course.

But the placebo effect is nothing to be avoided. It’s something to embrace, because it provides concrete evidence that the body is equipped with innate self-repair mechanisms that have the power to cure.  When you cut yourself, your body knows how to mend the cut. When your bone breaks, the bone knows how to stitch itself back together again. We all make cancer cells every day – and the body disposes of them. Infectious invaders, foreign bodies, broken proteins – the body can handle it, assuming those self-repair mechanisms are functioning properly.

So that’s what I mean when I say “you can heal yourself,” that the body has natural self-repair mechanisms that can be flipped on or off based on thoughts, beliefs, and feelings that originate in the mind.

What do you mean when you say you can flip your self-repair mechanisms on or off? If the body knows how to repair itself, why would we ever want to turn them off?

This was one of the most shocking things I discovered. The nervous system has two modes of operation – the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system is dominant during what Walter Cannon at Harvard termed “the stress response,” also known as “fight-or-flight.” The parasympathetic nervous system is in charge during what Herbert Benson at Harvard called “the relaxation response,” which is the opposite of the stress response.

Only when the relaxation response is in effect do the body’s natural self-repair mechanisms function properly! It makes sense. When your body is preparing to fight or flee, it needn’t worry about preventive maintenance.  Why bother eating up cancer cells or repairing broken proteins when you’re about to get eaten by a cave bear?

The stress response exists to protect you. It’s meant to get you out of harm’s way when your life is in danger. But these days, the average person has 50 stress responses per day. It’s no wonder chronic illnesses are at epidemic levels. Every time you have a stressful thought, belief, or feeling, your brain spits out harmful, disease-inducing stress hormones like cortisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine that shut off your body’s self-repair mechanisms. On the other hand, every time you have positive thoughts, beliefs, or feelings, you release healing hormones like oxytocin, nitric oxide, dopamine, and endorphins that shift you to the relaxation response, where your body can get to work repairing what’s broken.

So should we just ditch modern medicine? If the body knows how to repair itself, why bother going to the doctor?

To say that you can heal yourself is sort of a misnomer because the scientific evidence concludes that the role of the healer is essential.  When a doctor, nurse, or alternative health care provider tends and nurtures you, believes in your capacity to heal yourself, and promises you that you won’t have to navigate your healing journey alone, your relaxation responses are activated, and self-repair becomes more likely.

But even so, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take advantage of the miracles of modern medicine.  Yes – there are documented cases of people who have experienced spontaneous remissions from cancer, coronary artery disease, stroke, even a gunshot wound to the head left untreated. But I don’t recommend tempting fate.  By all means, get treatment for your cancer. Go to the ER when you’re having a heart attack or stroke. Call 911 if you’re injured in a car accident.

My husband cut two fingers off his hand with a table saw. No amount of mind-body medicine would have reattached those fingers, so God bless Dr. Jones, the microsurgeon who reattached all those bones, nerves, arteries and muscles! Medical care, especially emergency medical care, saves lives, and we should take advantage of it.

What I’m saying is that we shouldn’t depend on it exclusively. It’s important to get to the root cause of why you might be sick or injured in the first place. What predisposed that cancer to grow? Why were you susceptible to that infection, when there were probably many others who were exposed to it but didn’t contract an illness? What in your life might be causing that chronic pain?

When you can identify – and rectify – issues in your life that make you susceptible to illness, you’re more likely to experience full, lasting cure.

So are you suggesting that if someone is still sick, in spite of medical treatment, it’s his or her fault?

There’s no place for blame, shame, or guilt on anyone’s healing journey. Those kinds of pointless emotions only trigger stress responses that make it harder to heal.

No, I’m not suggesting that illness is anyone’s fault. What I am saying is that your body is your business, and you can take active measures to influence whether you get – and stay – optimally well.  Too many patients just hand their bodies over to doctors the way they hand their cars over to mechanics. But unlike cars, our bodies do know how to heal themselves, at least a percentage of the time, and we can make changes in our lives to reduce stress responses and increase relaxation responses, thereby making our bodies ripe for miracles.

That’s the real ticket. It’s all about changing the ratio of stress responses and relaxation responses in the body. You can do this by either reducing stress responses or increasing relaxation responses – or ideally both!

So how do you reduce stress responses? How do you increase relaxation responses?

In Mind Over Medicine, I teach the 6 Steps To Healing Yourself, which teaches you exactly how to diagnose the root causes of your illness and write The Prescription for yourself. But in short, you have to tap into the part of you I call your “Inner Pilot Light”, the part that knows what’s true for you and can act as your inner doctor. (To get more in touch with your Inner Pilot Light, sign up for the Daily Flame here. Your Inner Pilot Light will help you assess what in your life is triggering your stress responses. Is it your toxic marriage? Your soul-sucking job? Your two hour commute? Your nagging mother-in-law? Your chaotic living environment? Your anxiety or depression? Your pessimistic way of viewing the world?

Once you’ve identified what is triggering your stress responses, it’s time to think about how you might increase relaxation responses in your body. Which scientifically-proven techniques for activating relaxation responses will work for you? Meditation? Creative expression? Playing with animals? Laughter? Yoga? Massage? Engaging in work you love? Getting a hug? Being with friends? Sex? Seeing an alternative medicine practitioner?  Exercise?

Once you’re clear on how you can reduce stress responses and increase relaxation responses, it’s time for the fun part – writing The Prescription for yourself. But this isn’t like any prescription you’ve likely ever gotten from a doctor. Perhaps part of your overall Prescription will include drugs or surgery, but The Prescription you’ll write for yourself is a series of action steps you’ll be taking to reduce stress responses and increase relaxation responses.

Then comes the brave part – putting your personal treatment plan into action! When you do, you make your body ripe for miracles. Anything – including spontaneous remission – is possible.

You’re on a mission to heal our broken health care system. How do you plan to do that?

If everyone involved in the health care system – patients and health care providers alike – expanded how they view health in the way I teach in Mind Over Medicine, our entire health care system would start to shift. I believe our health care system is badly broken because we’ve lost respect for the body’s ability to heal itself. As health care providers, we’ve gotten arrogant about our power to control disease, and we’ve forgotten the healing power of love. Somewhere along the way, we’ve decided that a patient who heals himself is threatening. Even if we know, as physicians, that the body has natural self-repair mechanisms, we cling to believing that we’ve achieved a level of mastery over nature. Spontaneous remissions prove that, sometimes, we just haven’t. This is a narcissistic wound for physicians, but it’s something we simply must get over if we want to heal health care.

But the responsibility for healing health care lies not just with doctors, but with patients. If, instead of mindlessly handing our bodies over to doctors, we viewed illness as an opportunity to bring our lives back into alignment with our truth, illness would become a compass leading directly to our true north. As a patient, you must trust that you have within you natural self repair mechanisms that are under the control of your mind.

It’s going to require a quantum shift on the part of both patients and health care providers in order to rescue our broken health care system. But I believe it’s possible. It’s going to take a grass roots effort. It requires healing the doctor-patient relationships and reclaiming the heart of medicine. I know it seems hopeless to think that health care can reclaim its heart, but just like I believe there are no incurable illnesses, I also believe there are no incurable systems.

In the documentary I Am, filmmaker Tom Shadyac shared that when animals decide to switch watering holes, it all starts with a shift of consciousness. They drink out of one watering hole until 51% of the animals decide to drink from a new watering hole, and then the rest of the animals all jump.

I think we’re getting close to that 51%.

You can help! Join the revolution to Heal Health Care Now. And buy Mind Over Medicine here, not just for yourself, but for your family, your doctor, and anyone else who might help heal care. Be the love you wish to see in health care, and miracles really are possible.

Lissa Rankin, M.D. is an integrative medicine physician, author, speaker, artist, and founder of  the popular online health and wellness communities LissaRankin.com and OwningPink.com. Her research led her to discover that patients have self-healing powers beyond our wildest imaginings, which we can effectively manipulate with the mind. She is on a mission to heal health care, help patients play a more active role in healing themselves, and encourage the health-care industry to embrace and facilitate, rather than resist, such miracles. Lissa is recognized on the Huffington Post’s Top 16 Health Experts to Follow On Twitter, Top Ten U.S. Twitter Doctors, and Forbes.com 20 Inspiring Women To Follow On Twitter lists.

Let’s Talk About Poop

You can still get your own throne toilet:)

Usually, only boys discuss poop with each other and make a big deal out of being constipated. Girls are not supposed to get involved into the dirty boys’ talk. Well, I will break this rule for today.

Our modesty around bowel habits is a relatively recent development. In the 1600s King Louis XIII had a toilet bowl built directly into his throne, says Carolyn Dean, MD, ND, and coauthor of IBS Cookbook for Dummies (Wiley, 2009). She also notes that “because we don’t talk about bowel movements, a lot of people don’t know what’s normal and what’s not.”

According to western doctors going to the bathroom once in 3 days is considered ‘normal’. Practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda disagree. According to the naturopaths the Western pooping norm is abnormal. Ayurveda and TCM claim that digestion is a cornerstone of health. They say that you got to cleanse your pipes at least once a day to maintain good health.

Constipated Society

The reason that I want to talk about this hush-hush subject is because by some estimates anywhere between 30-70% of the US population is constipated. The statistic is even worse for women and elderly.

Americans spend over $725 million is spent on laxatives each year. Plus add in endless fiber supplements, herbal colon cleanses and other digestive aids and you have a booming billion industry!

If you want to check on the gravity of the situation, ask your coworkers or friends if they went to the bathroom this morning. There is a very good chance that a person sitting next to you (especially if it is a female) is literally full of shit!

If you are not making a perfectly shaped banana every morning, something is not working right. Rock hard candies and soft serve is not what supposed to come out.

If you think that your digestion is perfectly healthy because you go to the bathroom after your morning coffee or strong tea, wrong! Caffeine irritates colon and makes you go but it does not mean that your elimination process is working well! It has to happen on its own and not be dependent on caffeine.

Why Should You Care About Your Poop?

Constipation can be scary!

We are used to hearing that ‘We are what we eat” but in reality “We are what you assimilate and eliminate“. If you can’t assimilate nutrients from food and eliminate leftover materials, no matter what you eat, you can’t be healthy. A healthy digestion is a corner stone of health and happiness.

Being constipated can lead to an array of problems: bad breath, weight gain, allergies, bloating, poor nutrient assimilation, fatigue, migraine, breakouts, heart burn, lower back pain and sadly, the list goes on, then you need to clean up your act and fast before disease sets in!

Healthy efficient digestion leads to:

• Clear mind and no foggy feeling
• Glowing skin (your skin is the reflection of your digestive system)
• Good energy
• Better self-image (since there is no bloated belly to worry about)
• Great sex (sex organs and elimination organs are really close and interconnected)
• Happy positive mood (good poop makes everyone happy!)
• Better health and stronger immune system (since there are less toxins in the body
• No bad breath

How to Restore Regularity

I wrote an extensive article on restoring regularity for Kris Carr’s Crazy Sexy Life a few months back: How to Put Your Stomach on a Regular Schedule. It got quite a few comments and a good discussion going. If you have irregular elimination habits, check it out!

Here are some more ideas for restoring regular elimination:

• Stop fighting with your body, start cooperating: Do not ignore the urge. Sure you’re busy, but it’s important to respect your body’s rhythms and answer its calls to action. If you ignore those urges too often, or delay responding to them for too long, you can wind up desensitizing your body. As a result, it will be less likely to cooperate or respond to your cues when you finally decide it’s “a good time” to go.
• Stop constant snacking: Don’t eat until the previous meal is digested. Do a quick check in with your belly before and after eating.
• Stop eating non-food items: Packaged, processed foods that have an extremely long shelf life do not deserve to be on your plate.
• Simplify your meals: The fewer ingredients, the easier it is to digest. Avoid bad food combinations
• Stop eating dry shit!: One of the reasons you get constipated is because you are dehydrated. When your body is dehydrated, your colon is the first to suffer. A healthy colon has a very high % of moisture/liquid and in extreme situations like dehydration, your body takes liquid from colon to support other bodily organs.
• Surprising dry foods. You might be eating way more drying foods than you realize:
• Nuts
• Sandwiches
• Beans
• Chips
• Bars
• Cookies
• Fiber cereal and bars. Fiber is great but it needs liquid to move along – Hydrate your colon
• Help everything to move along
• Exercise – Being sedentary compounds constipation, while exercise increases the gut’s blood flow and improves gastrointestinal motility. Taking a short walk is often all it takes to convince your body it’s time to go. Certain yoga asanas are helpful in nudging sluggish systems into gear.
• Abdominal massage – Agnisar kriya is a great option for self-massage. Ayurvedic massage therapists or holistically trained digestive specialists can be of wonderful help.
• Breathe deeply (especially when stressed)

What It Comes Down To

The name of today’s post ‘Poop Big or Go Home‘ is catchy but does not fully reflect the idea I was trying to convey. It would be better to say ‘Poop Big and Regularly To Go Home‘.

Our body is our Home. It is a place that should feel comfortable and cozy for us to live in. When we fail to maintain our Home in a clean condition, it is impossible to be comfortable living in it. It becomes anything but cozy and welcoming!

When our body is clean and light, we feel ‘at home’ living in it. To find this amazing feeling of being ‘at home’ in your own body, you need to keep its systems functioning well! You need to take care of your body and clean the sewage system if it gets plugged up!

If you have been ignoring your digestive issues and feel like it’s about time you fix your digestion but not sure where and how to begin, sign up for the 40 Day Journey to Bliss. Your belly will thank you!

For more details about the program, read here or email nadyaand @ gmail dot com

To receive more health tips, ayurvedically-inspired recipes and to just stay in touch subscribe to Spinach and Yoga! Please Like Spinach and Yoga on Facebook and follow health and yoga tips on twitter @realyoganyc.

If you are would like some help getting started on your health and wellness journey, take a look at how I can help you. It is easier when you are not alone!

NOTE: big thanks Gerry for a great title:)

To Your Happy Clean Belly!

How My Body Forced Me To Listen (The Hard Way) 

Image Courtesy: http://www.alldeaf.com/jokes-funny-stories/

A few days ago I wrote about listening to your body when it comes to finding a perfect personalized diet. Today I want to share my story about finding a perfect personalized workout method using your body’s feedback and some common sense.

After moving to New York 7 years ago, I got addicted to working out. Six days a week of hard core cardio, boot camps, body pump, kick boxing, you name it, I did it all! More always seemed better. If I skipped a day, I felt guilty and failed! While working out at the gym, I did yoga every day, too. An hour long yoga routine was my restoration time, not a workout, like it would be for normal people.

I felt proud that I could push myself to workout even on a 4-5 hours of sleep, that I never gave in to excuses, and that no matter where I went I always found a way to exercise. Social life, my personal relationships, sleep, all were secondary to a good workout…

After 5 years of 90min+ of daily workouts, my body started requesting rest. When I didn’t listen, it started to break down. My periods stopped, I was constantly tired, and always hungry. Ignoring my body, I kept pushing through, thinking that if I stop, I will turn into a fat lazy lady.

The worst thing was that exercise didn’t make me that happy anymore, it turned into a chore, something that I had to do before moving on with my day. One of the reasons I was afraid to workout less is a widely accepted concept that “you get what you work for”, and that the more you workout the better shape you are in. What I didn’t understand is that having a fit body that is tired all the time is not any better than having an unfit body.

Another thing that I didn’t understand is that exercise is a tool not a goal of its own, unless you are a professional. Exercise as a tool that helps to create an optimal, healthy body that allows to enjoy life and never feel constricted by the physical discomforts.

After a few conversations with my ayurvedic doctor, Vasudha, and an enlightening book by Claudia Welch “Balance Your Hormone, Balance Your Life” I slowly started to warm up to the notion of nourishing exercise. As all things in Ayurveda, fitness in Ayurveda is personalized and based on your body type. We all are unique and our bodies have different needs for exercise. Daily activity level, stress, type of food, and health condition will also play a role when creating a personalized fitness program.

Sport By Body Type

John Douillard describes fitness preferences by body type really well:

• Vata types will  typically excel in sports requiring quick, short bursts of speed and agility. They love fast, vigorous activity but can’t handle too much of it if they are going to stay in balance. If anything, Vatas need to slow down and nature often forces them to, since their endurance is not great and they tire quite easily.
• Pitta types excel in individual competition requiring strength, speed and stamina. They are fiery both in personality and desire to win. They are highly motivated and driven and are often not satisfied unless they have won. They are natural leaders and are attracted to individual sports because of their strong ego and natural competence in most sports. Pitta types must be careful not to get overheated and must learn how to enjoy themselves regardless of the final score.
• Kapha types excel in endurance and mind-body coordinated  skills. They are great under pressure and are naturally calm, stable and easy-going. Because of their hypometabolic nature, they will tend to be more lazy and need motivation when exercising. They love team sports but must be sure to get plenty of stimulating and vigorous exercise as well.

Nourishing and Depleting Exercise

Most of us do not realize that high intensity exercise can be a stressor. Our body responds to exercise as an emergency. The fight or flight nervous system gets activated and this emergency  response during each workout not only produces stress fighting degenerative hormones. Considering that most of the big city dwellers have drained adrenal glands and don’t have time to stretch after a workout to calm down the nervous system, extreme workouts over time can do more harm than good. This is even more true for women.

Ayurvedic Exercise Solution

It all comes down to what makes you feel healthy and vibrant. Here are some ways that I used to find what works for me.

BREATHE – To reap all the wonderful benefits from working out without harming your body and your nervous system, one has to be very mindful and listen to body’s feedback. It might mean turning off the loud pumping music or the news while you are on the elliptical and instead listening to your breath. If you breath is shallow and incomplete, slow down and bring it back to slow deep breathing. It doesn’t mean that you have to go at a snail’s pace. You can still run 10 miles and hour sprints and breathe deeply! Getting to that point might take some time though, so start easy.

BE MINDFUL - Pay attention to how you feel after a workout. If you are exhausted for 2 days after, ask yourself if it is worth it. I strive to feel energized, alive, and light in my body after a workout. If you are a data junkie, create a workout log and write down how you feel before and after. This way you will be able to observe trends.

STRETCH – I can’t stress this one enough! Stretching is good for your muscles but it is also very calming to the entire nervous system. Do it slowly, mindfully, and regularly!

What I Do Now

After quitting Body Pump classes, cutting down on Bootcamps, and limiting High Intensity Interval Training, my body didn’t turn into a pumpkin, instead, it feel healthy and energized.

gym rat - 2010

yoga, running on the beach, and hiking - happy and relaxed 2012

My periods are back to normal and my constant hunger is gone. I still love a good workout but I became a lot more mindful of my body’s signals and don’t feel guilty taking breaks. My yoga practice is more active since I have more energy and don’t need to spend an entire hour in restorative asanas, even though I still do it sometimes:). Sometimes I still err on the intensity side and push past my comfort level but my body reminds me quite quickly to stretch, rest, and restore.

Questions to YOU: What type of workout makes your body feel alive and healthy? How do you know when you are pushing too much or not challenging yourself enough?

Stay connected by subscribing to email updates about new post from Spinach and Yoga (on the top right) and please check out Spinach and Yoga page on facebook!

Stay mindful and breathe whether you are at the gym, a yoga studio, and walking on the street!

Nadya

Hey guys,

I have a few exciting things to share with you – I made my first real gluten free, vegan, sugar free chocolate raspberry cake which turned out amazingly well and there are a few new articles that came out this week.

Here is my cake:

The recipe for this wonder cake will be coming soon!

For now, I will share 2 articles that came out this week:

3 Certain Ways to Get Regular - a post on Kris Carr’s Crazy Sexy Life

A Warming Quinoa Oatmeal - one of my favorite winter breakfasts on Modern Hippie Mag

Let me know what you think about the new articles and please comment, I love to chat with you about all things healthy!

Nadya

Immune Boosting Travel

Many people get sick after being at the airports and taking long flights. Traveling can be a real challenge to our immune system: stress, breaking the routine, not-so-great food, exposure to sick people, environmental toxins, and a ton of bacteria circling through the A/C. Jet lag and heavy holiday dinners can make the matters even worse.

Of course washing hands with soap and using a hand sanitizer can help, but it won’t save you from getting sick if your immune system is weak. A strong immune system is what will keep you symptom-free even if everyone around is coughing and sneezing. If you prefer to spend the holidays doing what you love rather than being sick in bed, there are a few things you can do to stay healthy even after exhausting travel. Read more in my article in Modern Hippie Mag here

Helping Your Belly Heal

Recently, many of my friends were complaining of increased bloating and digestive un-ease. Not a pleasant feeling but quite expected during the cold windy Fall! While there are some effective bloating-busting tricks, food is one of the main ones. During the times when your belly feels overtaxed and not happy, one of the ways to help it heal is to be kind to it. Easy-to digest food made with foods that combine well together and spiced with digestion stimulating spices is the best way to go!

When the climate gets cold, our bodies need food that is warming, grounding, and soothing. Ayurveda tells us warm foods with sweet, sour, or salty tastes calm and balance out vata—the cool, dry, restless energy that tends to become excessive in the fall. Your body knows this intuitively, which is why a steaming bowl of soup and a piece of fresh bread is so appealing on a chilly autumn evening. A warm soup is a great dinner choice since, our digestive fire weakens towards the end of the day. Keeping dinner light will improves the quality of sleep and free up energy for the body to cleanse and repair itself. Dense cauliflower makes a great base for a hearty but easy soup. Keeping the ingredients simple and few ensures easier digestion.

Try this soup and share other favorite easy to digest dishes that your belly loves!

Kind Curried Cauliflower Soup (gluten free)

Yields 4-5 cups
1 large head cauliflower, chopped
1 large handful of arugula leaves
1 tbsp ghee (substitute for sesame seed or grape seed oil for a vegan version)
¼ inch fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups water
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp turmeric powder
3 tbsp hemp seeds
3 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
Sea salt and pepper to taste
To garnish:
Flax seed crackers or good quality whole grain bread

1. Heat the ghee in a large pot over medium heat. Add garlic and chopped ginger, stirring, until translucent. Add the curry powders, turmeric, and salt to taste. Cook for 1 minute. Add the cauliflower and stir to mix well. Add enough water to cover the cauliflower; bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes, or until the cauliflower is just tender.
2. Using a blender or food processor, puree the cauliflower mixture with hemp seeds and toasted sesame seeds. Add more hot water if the soup is too thick. Transfer back to the pot and bring to a simmer and season with black pepper. Add chopped arugula and mix
5. Serve over crumbled flax seed crackers or a toasted piece of bread.

Happy Belly – Happy You!

Nadya

Related articles

• Liver Detox Salad (spinachandyoga.com)
• Recipe for Curried Sauteed Cauliflower (kalynskitchen.com)
• Creamy Cauliflower Soup (pkcooks.wordpress.com)

Candy, chocolate, cookies, and cupcakes… Cacao, spiced apple cider, and pumpkin spice lattes… Mmm… Halloween weekend is here along with its colorful multitude of sugary treats and fall-inspired drinks. While ghouls and goblins might be scared away by half-naked girls running around the Halloween party circuit here in New York City, us yogis are probably scared of falling out of sync with our wellness routines — which is, unfortunately, often a consequence of the upcoming holidays.

Halloween is just the beginning of a two month holiday parade with endless parties, dinners, and cocktail hours. It’s the time when staying true to clean eating can become challenging to say the least. One of the reasons is the constant availability of sugary treats. At the office, at home, at your relatives… everywhere you go there will be piles, baskets, and mounds of sweet — where can a poor girl find enough willpower to not overindulge in sugar?! … read more here

Fall Kitchen Experiments 

I rarely follow any recipes, my creative side constantly wants to create something new and experiment. If something doesn’t come out, it’s a lesson for the future. If something turns out amazing, I make a big batch to share with my clients and friends.

Farmers markets abundant with pumpkins and squashes, I couldn’t pass by. How could I? According to ayurveda, pumpkins are soft, they build ojas ,and also have beta-carotene which is useful for the regeneration of tissue. As a cooling demulcent and laxative, pumpkins are restorative to the GI tract. Beta-carotene gives pumpkins an orange color and acts a tonic to the liver, purifying the blood. The rich orange color is a dead giveaway to the nutrients present in pumpkin. Pumpkins are also considered to be a sedative and can help reduce stress which can come very handy when Vata is out of balance. Pumpkins are loaded with potassium and zinc and studies suggest that people who have a potassium rich diet are at lower risk for hypertension. Zinc provides a major boost to your immune system and aids in bone density support for people at risk for osteoporosis. Pumpkins are great for skin due to a high content of anti-oxidant vitamins A and C, as well as zinc and alpha-hydroxy-acids which helps to reduce the signs of aging. Not sure about you but the only aspect of a pumpkin I dislike is cutting it. It seems that the best and sweetest pumpkins have the hardest skin as if mother nature was trying to protect them.

Well, a few days a ago I decided to stick an entire pumpkin in the oven and see what comes out. It turned out to be the easiest baked pumpkin ever! In 40 min it became soft, skin easily peeled off, and flesh was a breeze to scoop out and leftover seeds could still be used for roasting.

If you like pumpkin pie but don’t like the idea of eating sugar mixed with cream and eggs, you are going to love this recipe!

Pumpkin Chia Pudding 
2 cups baked pumpkin pureed
2 cups almond milk
3 tbs chia seeds (say yes to fiber and omega 3′s)
1-2 tbs ground flax seeds
1 scoop raw protein powder (it’s optional)
A handful of washed, preferably soaked raisins
5 sliced into small pieces turkish apricots
Raw dried pumpkin seeds
A generous sprinkle of nutmeg, dried ginger powder, cinnamon
Tiny bit of celtic sea salt

Mix together, leave in the fridge over night and enjoy in the morning. I like mine warm but it is probably good cold, too.

Pumpkin seeds didn’t’ go to waste either!

From the rest of the pumpkin I made chocolate pumpkin macaroons. The recipe will be up in a couple of days. To make sure you don’t miss it, sign up on the top right and you will get it straight to your mailbox.

Enjoying the Fall!

Nadya

Cover via Amazon

I started reading an interesting book on meditation by John Kabat-Zinn. It is called “Wherever you go, there you are: mindfulness meditation in everyday”. It is a simple guide on how to introduce breath-focused mindfulness meditation into a busy daily life. Every chapter has a “TRY THIS” section. One of them read:

The next time you feel a sense of dissatisfaction, of something being missing or not quite right, turn inward just as an experiment. See if you can capture the energy of that very moment. Instead of picking up a magazine or going to the movies, calling a friend or reaching for something to eat or acting up in one way or another, make a place for yourself. Sit down and enter into your breathing, if only for a few minutes. Don’t look for anything – neither flowers nor a beautiful view. Don’t extol the virtues of anything or condemn the inadequacy of anything. Don’t even think to yourself, “I am going inward now.” Just sit. Reside at the center of the world. Let things be as they are.

It is such a precious advice and a very powerful practice! Just “being” in the present moment seems like a lost art in our world. Find a moment during this long weekend to try this exercise and let me know how it goes! I did it this morning and feel very at-peace with myself:).

Be Present,

Nadya

Hey guys,

Hope everyone is well and that you are finding calm and peace even during this financial market turmoil. Usually when the markets go down the blood pressure of a huge chunk of population goes up and anxiety sky rockets.When we are stressed, our breath becomes short and constricted. When the breath is short or incomplete the flow of energy or as yogis would say prana is constricted as well. When the energy is not flowing well parts of our body and mind become malnourished.
It can lead to a poor mental and physical health. One of the goals of yoga is to make breath full and complete, to let it be natural and not forced. Free-flowing breath will clear out all obstructions and will create a free flow of energy to feed the entire body.

If you pay attention to your body and mental state, you might notice that when you are agitated and stressed, your right nostril predominates. When you are tired or depressed, the left one will take over. When both nostrils are working evenly, you are in physical and emotional balance. High blood pressure, fever, anxiety can also be associated with the predominance of the right nostril. So when you watch financial news or read a scary article in a morning newspaper you can create an internal energy (prana) imbalance if you breath is affected by the bad news. Very few of us have the power to stay indifferent to the world around us. Yoga, especially pranayama (breathing techniques and meditations) can help us stay balanced even in the middle of a financial turmoil. The goal is to stay balanced, focused, and content without ruining your health, nerve cells, and relationships no matter what happens in the market.

Throughout the day, take a moment to check in with yourself and notice your emotional state and your breath. If you feel that some balancing is in place, try an ancient yogic technic Nadi Sodhana. Nadi Sodhana is a breathing exercise that is said to balance hormones, internal thermostat, mood, and blood pressure. It creates internal equilibrium in all the bodily systems. It can fuel a person on a physical, mental, and spiritual level.

James Bailey, in his article for Yoga Journal describes Nadi Sodhana practice in the following way:

To practice Nadi Shodhana, sit in a comfortable meditative position. Make a fist with your right hand, then partially reextend your ring and little fingers. Lightly place the pad of the thumb on your nose just to the right and below the bridge; lightly place the pads of your ring and little fingers on the corresponding flesh on the left side of your nose. Gently pressing with the ring and little fingers to close the left nostril, exhale fully through the right. Then inhale fully through the right, close it with the thumb, release the left nostril, and exhale through it. Inhale through the left nostril, close it with the fingers, release the right nostril, and exhale through it. This completes one round of Nadi Shodhana.

Nadi Sodhana has multiple benefits:

• Lowers heart rate and reduces stress and anxiety
• Said to synchronize the two hemispheres of the brain
• Said to purify the subtle energy channels (nadis) of the body so the prana flows more easily during pranayama practice
• Said to balance out sex and stress hormone (especially important for women)

I have been practicing Nadi Sodhana daily for the last 3-4 years and always find it very calming and balancing. It even helps me with craving sometimes, probably because cravings are a sign of imbalance… Anyway, give it a try and let me know what you think.

Start with 5 minutes of Nadi Sodhana in the morning or any time when you feel anxious or stressed!

Stay strong and don’t let things that you don’t have control over spoil your mood!

From Russia with love,

Nadya

Note: James Bailey, L.Ac., is a third-generation physician. His professional practice incorporates Ayurveda, Oriental medicine, Tantra Yoga, and the emerging field of yogic medicine.