by Lucinda Staniland I used to think that alignment and biomechanics were the answer to the riddle that is chronic pain. If only I could work hard enough to correct my hyperlordosis, strengthen my weak glutes, and reverse my scoliosis then my pain would ease - right? At least, that’s what I was told. Now, I’m not so sure. In fact, I’ve found that I’ve been able to reduce my chronic pain significantly without changing my biomechanics or alignment at all. In fact, I now wonder if my focus … [Read more...]
Search Results for: chronic pain
The challenges of Yoga and pain management.
More questions than answers on how we view and work with pain in yoga By Veronica King A recent post about a pain relief ad in a pharmacy sparked a lively discussion around yoga and pain, one which I was interested in exploring further. It seems to have created more questions than answers. A topic dear to my heart as I tore my hip labrum in a yoga class, this injury and the subsequent pain management was to become my greatest teacher. Many teachers and students have been injured in … [Read more...]
Donna Farhi on How to Release the Psoas & Resolve Back Pain
by Donna Farhi, co-author of Pathways to a Centered Body: Gentle Yoga Therapy for Core Stability, Healing Back Pain, and Moving with Ease. A recent collation of several back pain studies in America revealed that 8 out of every 10 Americans will have back problems at some point during their lifetimes, yet only one in ten people find out the primary cause of their pain. A further 54 percent of Americans who experience low back pain spend the majority of their workday sitting, a position that … [Read more...]
Sanctuary Hill Retreat
The Soothe Method: Somatic Restoring Education, with Bhavani Davies E-RYT® 200, RYT® 500 This Training is designed for Yoga Teachers, Therapists or Individuals who wish to receive an education to reorganize the nervous system, calibrate and reset the body. This Training consists of a blend of:• Somatics• Restorative Yoga• Breathing techniques• Yoga Nidra• 6 days in-person immersion• 3 post-training online monthly meetings to follow up the trainingYou will learn the Restorative Yoga style … [Read more...]
Top 10 Best Yoga Articles of 2019
by Lucinda Staniland As the new year begins, I like to take a moment to reflect on all the amazing content that has passed through my hands in the last twelve months. As Editor of The Yoga Lunchbox, I'm blessed to regularly engage with a range of yoga teachers, thinkers and writers, many of them based right here in New Zealand, and to share their reflections with our community of yoga-loving readers. This year, our most popular articles covered some topics that were big talking points in … [Read more...]
Can Yoga Help with Better Sleep? A Q&A with Mark Stephens
by Lucinda Staniland In a restless world, sleep has become something of an elusive creature. Increasingly few of us get enough deep, restful sleep and as a society, we're starting to see the consequences in our declining physical and mental health. My personal experience of sleep has changed dramatically in recent years. After a lifetime of watching TV, using computers and being exposed to artificial lighting in the evening, I started to become conscious of how profoundly this affected my … [Read more...]
When Yoga Isn’t Enough: The Importance of Varying Your Movement
by Lucinda Staniland Movement. It’s a big deal. Humans move often, and in varied ways, and when we don’t do this (like when we sit for 8+ hours a day which is the norm in many countries now) there are consequences. Most of us will have experienced some of these consequences in our own bodies to some extent, whether that's through pain, injuries, disease or other physical challenges. In recent times, yoga has become increasingly popular as a way to get moving. Of course, there’s much … [Read more...]
Being Wonder Woman: Yoga & Feminism
By Sam Loe, Originally published on samloe.yoga I will admit that I thoroughly enjoyed the Wonder Woman movie featuring Gal Gadot. I loved watching a super-goddess with powers of courage, strength and age-defying perfection on the big screen. It makes a change from the usual Hollywood, male-dominated super-heroes anyway. In fact, I went to see it with a bunch of my good girlfriends last year and we came straight home from the cinema and raided the kid's dressing up box and used the … [Read more...]
12 Things You Must Know About Kambo Before Getting Pricked
by Chris Kelly, If you’d told me years ago that the slimy secretion from an Amazonian tree frog - sometimes called “ordeal medicine” - was incredible for my health, I’d think you were a little nuts. If you told me it was applied directly into the lymphatic system through small little burn marks on the skin, I’d think you were completely nuts! I never would have believed that I’d be applying these very same burn marks and this slimy frog secretion to myself, let alone regularly serving it … [Read more...]
What Is iRest® Yoga Nidra Meditation and How Can It Help You?
by Neal Ghoshal, Sacred Moves As the popularity of Yoga continues to expand, more and more people are being drawn into practices beyond Yoga asana (posture), into breath work, into meditation, into the subtler aspects of the tradition. One of the practices that is becoming increasingly lauded is Yoga Nidra. I first came across Yoga Nidra back in 2003 when learning to teach at the Ashram Yoga School in Parnell, Auckland. Ashram Yoga, a Satyananda style inspired Yoga school, included Yoga Nidra … [Read more...]