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Counting calories won’t make you healthy. Here are ways to be fit and get healthier without dieting.

Pop quiz. How many diets can you name off the top of your head? If you are like most people these days, you can probably rattle off at least half a dozen without breaking a sweat. Some of them may dominate TV advertisements, and others may tend to be passed around by word of mouth. Still others tend to survive in the pages of self-help books and are splashed across the internet.

You have likely noticed that some people simply seem to have more willpower than others. They manage to avoid eating junk food and instead snack on carrot sticks or celery. Their willpower may seem incredible, but if you looked inside their cabinets, you would probably find that they do not have chips, candy or cookies in the house.

More Sleep to Be Fit

When it comes to staying healthy, sleep is perhaps the most commonly ignored requirement. Almost everyone is aware on some level that they need to get enough sleep in order to remain healthy, but that does not stop most people from acting as if they are convinced that they can teach themselves to go without sleep entirely.

If you read any sort of health columns, parenting advice or technology news, you have almost certainly heard that spending too much time using your electronic devices is terrible for your health. Overuse of electronics tends to keep people sitting down for even longer periods of time than they were already prone to doing.

When you think of your energy level, your first thought might be of reaching for some caffeine—coffee, tea, or soda. But boosting your energy might be even easier. And cheaper!

Do you find yourself barely making it through the day? Are you exhausted long before it’s technically time to fall asleep? It’s not surprising that stress is a major cause of fatigue and yet this is the state of being many people have become accustomed to living. It’s important to start exploring ways to use the body and mind in ways that help you thrive rather than just getting by on fumes when you feel sluggish.

If you want to learn how to have more energy, it all starts with just a few simple habits. You may be accustomed to seeking outside yourself for a solution when there is a wealth of natural vitality within you just waiting to be tapped into.

It’s possible to live a life full of optimism and vigor by consciously adapting your choices and practices that invite more energy rather than decrease it. So, ditch that cup of coffee, stop hitting your snooze button and keep reading for healthy ways to boost your energy.

1. Get Good Sleep

According to Ayurveda, sleep is the nursemaid to humanity—for good reason. A good night’s sleep helps the body and mind recover from the stresses of the day, allowing you to wake up feeling refreshed and energized.

It also helps to sustain your energy levels throughout the day so you don’t fall prey to the “afternoon slump” quite as easily. Unfortunately, with the chaos of the world, good sleep can be elusive. Insomnia and lack of adequate sleep is a real health epidemic.

While there are countless sleep aids available on the market, it’s important to try and restore the body’s natural sleep-wake cycles. Stay conscious of how many hours of sleep you get each night. In doing this, you activate the body’s own healing intelligence, which leads to a good night’s sleep. Ayurveda offers helpful tools to achieve more restful sleep. It’s important to make this a priority in your life for good health and vitality.

2. Establish an Inspiring Morning Routine

How you start the day sets the trajectory for how the rest of your day will unfold. If you start off feeling apathetic and sluggish, it tends to be the theme of the day. If you start off frenetic and scrambling to get ready, you might feel like you spend the rest of your day trying to catch up. Both are extremely tiring to maintain for an entire day. Instead, it’s helpful to anchor yourself through a morning routine that enhances the type of day you wish to have.

You have your morning ablutions, which you move through pretty mindlessly—waking up, drinking coffee, taking a shower, brushing teeth, and then the day begins. This is not inspiring. Start to think of morning rituals you can do to add some energy in your life. Here are a few ideas to help you get out of bed each morning:

• Prepare the night before—a morning routine runs smoothly if you have it planned out ahead of time.
• Meditate.
• Splash cold water on your face as soon as you wake up.
• Journal—It’s a great way to release worry and tension, which are energy zappers.

• Stretch and move—perform a few rounds of sun salutations.

Of course, the first obstacle you might have to overcome is that you don’t have enough time. Set yourself up for success and start with small things. Ultimately, you end up having more time in your day because of the energy you have to complete tasks faster, leaving time for the fun stuff too.

3. Perform Self-Massage To Boost Energy Level

Doing a self-massage might be the last thing you think of when deciding how to have more energy in your day. It is, however, one of the cornerstones of maintaining good health and longevity according to Ayurveda. Good health also means more energy. In Sanskrit, the language of Ayurveda, the word for oil is sneha, which is also the word for “love” or “affection.”

Doing a warm oil massage on oneself, or abhyanga, is one of the most important expressions of self-love. When performed with intention, it feels like you received a warm, loving hug. As a result, self-massage is known to promote numerous health benefits— physically, mentally, and emotionally.

There are many reasons why self-massage is so valued, one of them being that it is an effective way to clear energy channels in the body by moving and dislodging toxins and balancing the energy centers or chakras.

When your body is able to rid itself of waste or anything that is preventing it from functioning optimally, you have more energy. Anything you can do to help “lighten up the load” will always be beneficial in some way, even if it’s subtle. Here are more benefits of self-massage that help improve energy levels:

• Provides better circulation
• Reduces levels of stress hormones
• Increases immunity and stamina
• Promotes restful sleep

Completing a self-massage can take anywhere from five to 15 minutes, depending on how much time you have, though the longer the better. There are different oils you can use and application techniques depending on if you need calming, soothing, or invigorating. When in doubt, listen to your intuition to determine what suits you best in a particular moment. Start loving on yourself today.

4. Breathe Deep

Next time you feel low on energy, take a deep breath. Without breath, there would be no life. It connects the inner world of the mind with the outer world of the body and environment. Notice how stress causes your body to constrict and your breath to become shallow—bodily functioning becomes more of an effort, making you feel fatigued.

On the other hand, during physical activity (running especially) you’re forced to take in deep breaths, which contributes to a “runner’s high” and a feeling of being enlivened. Just as your state of mind and body influences breath, the breath is able to shift the state of mind and body as well.

When directed consciously, the breath can be used as a great tool for stoking energy and vitality when you feel tired. The effects are felt immediately.

Your body craves it, especially during times of low energy and is also why you may find yourself sighing. Pranayama is the Sanskrit term for control and governance of life force (prana) through the breath and is used in Ayurveda as an important tool for everyday health. To help give you a taste of the power of your breath, try this simple breathing exercise.

Quick Breathing Exercise

Take a moment to close your eyes and place one hand on your belly. Breathing in through your nose, take a slow deep breath in and feel the belly rise. At the top of your breath, exhale through the nose and feel the belly slightly contract as you squeeze all the air out. Continue inhaling and exhaling in this manner for three to five rounds. When complete, remain with your eyes closed and notice how you feel.

An effective pranayama exercise to gain an energy boost is called the bhastrika breath. You can incorporate this as part of your morning routine or use it when you feel depleted during the day. Yoga instructors can usually offer some instruction or you can find videos on the internet that demonstrate how to perform it. The techniques might vary a bit, but the effect is the same.

5. Have Some Fun

It’s easy to forget how important it is to have fun and maybe get a little silly when you’re busy. If you can’t change a particular situation right away, you can change your reaction to it and seek out experiences that boost your energy and clear your mind. Here are a few activities to help re-energize your life when you feel sluggish:

• Regularly connect with good friends.
• Go on a nature walk.
• Try laughter meditation.
• Listen to music that gets you moving.
• Use some energizing essential oil.
• Try feet up the wall pose.

Some of these are quick energy boost ideas and some are nice to incorporate on a regular basis for ongoing good health and happiness. The important thing is that you are getting out of your head and enjoying the moment.

In addition to the five ideas above, don’t forget to pay attention to your eating habits. The different foods you put in your body can also affect your energy levels. Try to eat healthy, leafy greens that are full of nutrients to give you a boost.

Additionally, be conscious of what you drink, and know that energy drinks and your daily cup of coffee aren’t your only options. Try to drink green tea to achieve a more natural energy boost, or just stick to water instead!

These are just a few of the ways to help increase your energy throughout the day. You’ve heard of the importance of exercise and a healthy diet, and it’s more a matter of doing it and sticking to it. It’s also important to take care of your emotional well-being; when you are happy there is infinite energy, but when you are sad or depressed there is little energy to pull from.

Any of the recommendations mentioned here will help support and nurture all aspects of your life, not just increase your energy. You might be surprised by what you discover.

Follow these ways and boost your energy level all day. When your energy level is high then you are ready to be productive for the whole day. Make sure to check your energy level from time to time. You need to have a good energy level especially if you deal with a lot of people. Keep your energy level healthy.

Original article by Rachelle Williams, Vedic Educator.

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5 Easy Steps To Listen To Your Body & Make It More Resilient

Some things are easier said than done, especially if your fitness routine falls by the wayside. If you haven’t worked out for a while, here are some useful tips and tricks to help you get back on track with full body exercises.

1) Start with Visualization for your full body exercises.

Sometimes the first step can be the hardest. This is why the power of visualisation can be the key in the first step to taking up a consistent workout routine again. Having recently undergone a minor surgery myself, I can only speak from experience when I say that visualising yourself doing what you’d like to do is key before starting any kind of routine.

Your mind is a powerful tool and can aid in preparing your body for any upcoming activity. Ideally, it would be highly recommended to practise meditation, as it in fact helps your mind to become focused on any tasks ahead of you.

2) Simply Breathe.

Another possibility to ease yourself back into your workout routine would be simple breathing techniques. After my surgery I was very restricted in my physical capabilities and I was not allowed to move about a lot. However, I still had my breath. And guess what…lungs need to be exercised too!

One of my go-to breathing techniques in this case is Nadi Shoda, also known as alternate nostril breathing. What may sound simple is actually quite challenging: While holding one of your nostrils closed, you breathe in through the open one.

Once you take a deep breath, you close both of your nostrils for a brief moment before you open the nostril that was previously closed and then you repeat this for at least ten times. Trust me, this will not only challenge your breathing muscles but also strengthen your concentration!

3) Walk, Forrest, walk!

If you haven’t noticed already, I believe in small but consistent steps. So if you feel like you are totally unfit and need to take it easy or need to recover slowly like me, I would strongly encourage you to start going for little walks.

Whether you measure those with a step counter or by minutes, the important thing is not to overdo it. Aim to walk a little further everyday and you will see that you will build up some strength. Promise!

4) Work it! 

Last but not least, the only way to build up a workout routine again is by exercise itself. However, you should not overwork yourself as pain and sore muscles on the next day usually discourage people from continuing to exercise again.

And if you have just undergone surgery like me, it is best to start exercising those muscle groups which you can work and move fully.

Overall, the above steps do not need to be followed strictly and can be combined in whichever way you want to. Just remember: Be kind to yourself and take it easy.

Workout and keep your body fit. Bounce back to full body exercises immediately. Whatever you do it is always good to do full body exercises. It keeps you fit and once you’re fit, your mind will be healthy. These steps here are easy to follow for full body exercises. Whether you go to a gym or you do workouts at home, these steps will help.

Keep your body strong and healthy at all times. Full body exercises will help. Find a way to do these easy steps every day.

Original article by  Dr. Natasa Brasik.

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People are never born as yoga experts. They all learned and became experts from exercising frequently.

There are a few ways in which we can improve our yoga practice. They are going to help us actually to get more profoundly in our practice, or to experience better results. These ways are very helpful and easy to perform for each yogi.

These are the three ways in which we can improve our advanced yoga practices:

We should relax.

We can improve our yoga practice if we relax our mind and body. We should do a specific pose and find its edge. Also, when we are stretched and in the right position, we should take a profound breath and then relax.

We should feel everything that this pose is doing to us. Also, we should observe our muscles contracting, however, not struggling. This type of relaxing is going to help us hold on the pose longer. It will help us to improve our balance too.

We should find the length in our spine.

When we elongate our spine, our yoga Asanas is going to become easier. Also, when our spine isn’t relaxed, we will find the poses more challenging to perform. Our spine does not give us space. It will make every pose an enormous struggle.

However, when we start finding our spine’s maximum length, everything will become easier. Also, any pose that we are going to try is going to seem and even be safer and better than before. However, exercising certain warm-up poses from yoga will also be helpful.

We should find our own roots.

When we stay in some yoga pose, a few body parts are going to ground. This is an easy way which will help us improve our yoga practice and find stability. For each yoga pose, roots are quite important.

When our foundation is strong, we are going to make the pose easier, more stable, and safer too. For instance, when in the mountain pose, our feet will be our roots.

However, when in the downward facing cat or dog/cow pose, our hands will be our grounding. In some poses when we sit down, our sitting bones will give the foundation.

The three methods from above, which are meant to improve our yoga practice, are going to amuse us in our following yoga session. Also, it is going to seem more relaxing and easier.

However, besides the three helpful ways, we will also need some practice. So, we can get used to the poses and to their influence and importance on our body.

Practice makes perfect. So, even if you are already good at yoga, you still need to improve your advanced yoga practices. The ways here are easy and quick ones to improve your advanced yoga practices. Once you master the tricks to improve your advanced yoga practices, you can do everything smoothly.

Yoga makes your body flexible. It is very important that you always aim to improve your advanced yoga practices. Once you improve it, you’ll find it easy to move your body to any yoga pose. Make your advanced yoga practices regularly. Make it last to keep your body flexible at all times. Once you’re good at your advanced yoga practices, you find your way to a great wellness.

The Original article is from Conscious Reminder.

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Top 10 Power Yoga Benefits For Us To Learn Right Now

Yoga eases your body. it relaxes the mind and soul. Learn all the power yoga benefits now. These are ways you can use everyday.

“Yoga is the suppression of the activities of the mind” – Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, c. 4th century CE.

Yoga is a mental and physical practice of exercises, poses, and meditation techniques that originated in ancient India about 5,000 years ago. Many individuals turn to yoga to switch up their fitness routine because it is a great workout and strength builder, but there is so much more to gain from this practice far beyond the physical benefits.

Yoga has been described in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali as the pursuit of the self, by the self, through the self, which I believe to be completely true, at least, it has been true for me. In Sanskrit, yoga comes from the root word yuj, and means to attach, join, harness, yoke. This is referring to the mind-body connection that’s achieved through regular yoga practice.

Yoga is a spiritual, physical and mental process that connects the mind, body, and soul. Through physical health, mental health and clarity of the self are discovered.

In yoga, you will be challenged, delighted and humbled all at the same time while strengthening the mind and the body.

Like many, I turned to yoga many years ago in pursuit of a new workout, but the benefits I received went far beyond that and these are the reasons that keep me coming back to my mat. I think that consistency is what lead me to achieve some of my wellness goals more so than any specific type of workout could because I actually stick to it. Yoga makes me feel healthy, well and peaceful and that’s what got me hooked.

I have compiled this list of the top 10 benefits of yoga both from my personal experience of 12 years of regular yoga practice and literally scouring hundreds of websites of content to deliver to you.

Top 10 Power Yoga Benefits

1. Improves Mental Health and Overall Well-being

Yoga can provide a welcomed escape from the hustle and bustle of busy, everyday life. This alone is relaxing. Even just 10 minutes a day can be enough to de-stress and carry a sense of calm with you throughout your day.

Many asanas (yoga poses) are designed specifically to improve relaxation and decrease stress and anxiety, while others (like inversions) create a sense of uplifting energy for your day. Regular yoga practice has been clinically proven to lower the symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression.

2. Improves Quality and Quantity of Sleep

A good night’s rest is imperative to overall good health and well being, and many adults aren’t getting enough sleep every night. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one-third of adults in the United States don’t get enough sleep on a regular basis.

Yoga has been proven to improve the quality of sleep and help with insomnia. This is achieved mainly by reducing stress and providing a challenging physical workout. A national survey conducted by Harvard Medical School found that 55% of survey participants who did yoga said that it helped them improve their sleep, and 85% said yoga helped reduce their stress levels.

3. Increases Energy

Yoga, like many types of exercise, can increase your daily energy levels. I can personally attest to this, especially when I do yoga first thing in the morning. Unlike more intense forms of exercise that can drain you, yoga tends to be a more gentle way of getting the blood pumping and will release endorphins in the body which increase energy levels for the rest of the day.

Backbends and inversion poses can be especially energizing because they stretch and awaken the spine while increasing oxygenated blood flow to the brain.

4. Builds Strength

Yoga is a great example of an effective bodyweight exercise that can build strength just as efficiently (if not more) as lifting weights. Many adults have 150+ pounds of bodyweight that when positioned in various asanas (yoga poses) can be used to build significant strength.

Arm balances build powerful upper body strength, while the warrior series can really burn up your lower body. Poses like boat pose and forearm plank are great core strength builders.

5. Increases Flexibility

Want to feel more youthful and get rid of that stiff, achy feeling in your limbs? Many exercise programs neglect the importance of a good stretch. Yoga is a great way to stretch those muscles and make them feel more limber and pliable again.

6. Lowers Blood Pressure

Yoga has been clinically proven to help patients dealing with high blood pressure. According to a study conducted by evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine in 2011, “12 weeks of Iyengar yoga produces clinically meaningful improvements in 24-hour systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure.”

7. Improves Diet

Yoga encourages participants to eat better by making them more mindful and appreciative of what their bodies can do. This awareness and connection to the body naturally makes yogis want to nourish their bodies better and in a more healthful way. You just don’t really feel like downing a burger and fries after a good yoga session…trust me on this one.

8. Improves Immunity

It’s true, doing yoga can actually help the body fight off illness. Yoga practice is known to decrease inflammation in the body by improving circulation, all of which supports and improves the immune system. Also, yoga is known to lower stress hormone levels in the body, and since these hormones impede immunity, yoga’s destressing effect makes both the body and mind more healthful and disease-free.

9. Supports Joint Health

All the stretching and strength-building regular yoga practice achieves will improve joint health. In fact, recent scientific studies of people with various types of arthritis show that regular yoga practice can help reduce joint pain, improve joint flexibility and function in addition to lowering stress and tension to promote better sleep.

10. Improves Confidence

Yoga can be a humbling experience, sure, but once you’ve accomplished a pose you’ve been working towards for weeks, months even – that’s a huge boost in confidence. Yoga also encourages body awareness and appreciation which helps yogis feel more confident and comfortable in their own skin.

These are some of the power yoga benefits you can learn daily. When you do yoga, you’ll enjoy these power yoga benefits for your ideal body.  Find more power yoga benefits when you do yoga everyday. you’ll feel your body and mind change in a good way. you become healthy. Your body needs these power yoga benefits.

Original article by Jen Doyle. Jen believes you must bring your whole self to the table if you want to thrive in today’s crazy world; your personality, your sense of humor, and most importantly, your heart.

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