PALADART

DETOX DIET-WHAT YOU CAN DO FROM YOGA JOURNAL

2009-06-09T09:24:00.000-07:00

The Ayurvedic Detox Diet from
The Council of Maharishi Ayurveda Physicians
The cusp between winter and spring is the ideal time to do an at-home internal cleansing program, to allow your body to release the toxins that may have built up over the long cold winter.

A complete ayurvedic cleansing program includes 15 days of preparation and 45 days of actual cleansing. Ayurvedic healers recommend paying special attention to your diet during these two phases to avoid overtaxing your digestion and to enable purification to occur easily and completely. Maharishi Ayurveda does not recommend fasting or entirely liquid diets such as juices, because that may cause your digestive agni to become imbalanced.

Here are some suggestions from The Council of Maharishi Ayurveda Physicians for diet management during detox:

Avoid ama -producing foods

Ama is the product of incomplete digestion--it represents sticky toxic matter that can clog the channels of your body that carry nutrients to the cells and waste out of the body. Since cleansing is done to clear ama out of the body, you'll want to stay away from foods that build more ama in the body. From the ayurvedic perspective, leftovers, and "dead" foods such as processed, packaged, canned and frozen foods all create ama because they are very hard for your body to digest.

Non-organic foods, genetically modified foods, foods grown with chemicals, pesticides and chemical fertilizers, and foods with chemical additives also introduce toxins into your body and are confusing for the natural "intelligence" of your digestive system and should therefore be avoided.

Avoid heavy dairy products such as aged hard cheese or yogurt, foods that are deep--fried or oily, raw foods of any kind, heavy desserts, and foods that contain refined sugar and honey as these are harder to digest and create ama. Avoid yeasted breads and dry breads such as crackers, and fermented foods.

Eat ama -reducing foods

Favor vegetarian foods that are light, warm, cooked and easily digestible. Freshly made flat breads, freshly made light soups and dhals, organic vegetables cooked with spices, and freshly made grains such as quinoa are ideal. Mung bean soup pacifies all three doshas and is nutritious yet easy to digest.

Certain fruits, vegetables and spices are especially helpful during cleansing, so you'll want to eat a serving or two every day during the preparation and cleansing phases:

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Fruits: Eat cooked prunes and figs at breakfast along with a stewed apple or pear. In general, most sweet juicy fruits are excellent cleansers.
Vegetables: Eat lots of cooked leafy greens. Chop the greens and cook them with detoxifying spices for best results. Brussels sprouts and cabbage are also helpful.
Grains: Light yet nutritious whole grains such as quinoa, barley, amaranth and small helpings of rice are recommended. Kanji, made by boiling rice with lots of water is an excellent hot beverage and helpful for flushing toxins out of the body through the urine.
Spices: Ginger, turmeric, coriander, fennel and fenugreek help open up the channels of the body and support the flushing of toxins via the skin, urinary tract, colon and liver. Add spices to soups and dahls as they cook, or sauté the spices in a little Maharishi Ayurveda Ghee and add to dishes when the cooking process is completed.
Lassi, made by combining fresh yogurt with water and digestion-boosting spices, is an excellent lunchtime beverage.

Choose foods according to your body type or imbalances

Ayurvedic healers recommend tailoring your diet year-round to your constitution and your imbalances. This is particularly true during cleansing to help regulate your digestive fire (agni). For detailed information on diets and foods for pacifying each of the three doshas, visit Vata, Pitta, or Kapha.

Drink plenty of hot water through the day
Warm water helps flush toxins out of the body through the urine. To derive healing benefits from the water you drink, add detoxifying spices to the water. Here is a recipe for "Detoxifying Tea" from The Council of Maharishi Ayurveda Physicians:

Detoxifying Tea

Boil two quarts of water in the morning.
Add 1/4 t. whole cumin
1/2 t. whole coriander
1/2 t. whole fennel to the water and let steep for ten minutes with the lid on.
Strain out the spices and pour the water into a thermos.
Sip throughout the day.
Make a new batch of tea every morning.
After the 45 days of cleansing are over, take a few days to gradually introduce heavier foods and ease back into your regular diet. This is also the perfect time to start taking rasayanas (ayurvedic formulations for overall health and vitality) like Amrit, Digest Tone or Vital Man or Lady. Now that the channels of your body are clear, your body will make maximum use of the overall healing benefits of these tonics.

THE REAL RESON TO PRACTICE YOGA CONSISTENTLY

2009-06-08T06:38:00.000-07:00

Build Strength from the Inside Out

BY YOGA YOURNAL

Many of us come to yoga to build strength. There's no question that when you're physically strong, you're better able to handle the demands of your day with grace and ease. But you can build endurance and power through almost any athletic pursuit. The beauty of practicing yoga is that it builds inner strength—which you need to ride life's emotional currents with faith and equanimity—even as it tones your body.
One way to build inner strength is by practicing regularly, whether you're feeling inspired or not. That simple act develops your capacity for commitment and for not letting the rest of life get between you and what you know to be essential to your well-being. By being true to yourself in your yoga practice, you enhance your ability to be true to yourself in other situations.
Of course, maintaining a consistent home practice is, in itself, an exercise in strength. At home, the notorious obstacles of procrastination, distraction, and skepticism come up all the time. To help dispel these stumbling blocks, choose a regular time and create a sacred space for your practice. It also helps to have several sequences on hand for those days when you're unsure of what to do next.

YOGA OF WRITING

2009-06-06T19:02:00.001-07:00

All the writers I have ever known or read about want to write without edit, without self. That is, we desire to write without interference or distraction from the mind. If only we could enter a state of effortless concentration, where words flow and the writing is—to borrow a term from Zen Buddhism—nondual, not separate from the writer. In this state, we become one with the subconscious, with the pen, with the keyboard. It’s like a runner’s high. Time is suspended. Every moment seamlessly yields to the next without noise from the mind—no rationalizations, no doubt, no distortion—and the writer experiences at-one-ness with his or her craft.

This much sought after experience of free and complete absorption is what author and University of Chicago professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes as a “flow” state. According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow is “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”

Intuitively, most writers sense that a writing flow state can exist. Some have even experienced it. Unfortunately, most of us struggle to develop a rhythm. We become obsessed with the profundity of a novel idea that hasn’t been written before. So we prioritize activities, reduce commitments, restructure our schedule, clear the desk, get up early, sharpen the pencil, and in a state of complete disquiet, sit and stare at the blank page.

Many books have been written on the subject of writer’s block and many more techniques developed to help artists attain free-flowing expression. And yet we still have difficulty putting ink on the page.

Why?

Because the space where writing happens is more than a creative space: it is the space—what the pious describe as the place of divine union with God. Some theologies express this idea as non-dualistic Oneness: we are both the witness and the observed. We are the mind having the thought and we are the thought itself. This non-duality of the mind, in which the mind is no longer divided against itself, is called samadhi, a state of profound peace.

For many, writing is a ritual that helps to realign us with our higher Self. When we experience a “flow state,” and our authentic voice rolls forth without caution or self-judgment, the doer and the doing merge into one. And for a moment, maybe longer, we experience something sacred. We become quiet, we begin to feel. We remember what moves us. We find the words.

The Yoga of Writing is the organic, ever-changing process of personal reintegration—a state of personal clarity when we feel a sense of love for all. It is the freedom from chronic disturbances and symptoms of stress that effect our immune system. It is bringing the mind, body, and spirit into harmony. As a focusing tool for writers, The Yoga of Writing can help flush the psyche of habituated thoughts in order to write from a space of receptivity instead of will. It can help writers cultivate internal silence, so they can look more deeply into the nature of their thoughts and emotions, void of analysis and subjectivity. The Yoga of Writing techniques are tailored and adapted to meet the individual needs of each writer so that we express ourselves with our whole body and not just the mind. The result is an unlocked, open door to the subconscious, whose power can then emerge.

The Yoga of Writing is the key to accessing this place of no-thought from which creativity will leap—as if from a diving board, onto the vast white page. In this state, the writer’s job then becomes that of the scribe, putting the words on paper as they appear on the breath of consciousness, without effort, like clouds on the horizon—organic, alive and weightless. To be in the flow is to simply write, without edit, without thought. That’s it: no spiritual jargon, no religion to join, just your best stuff, readily accessible.

BACK PAIN? LEARN HOW TO HELP AND DONT HURT MORE

2009-06-05T06:21:00.000-07:00

By Julie Gudmestad
A young woman sat uncomfortably in my physical therapy office, her face drawn with pain. "I had heard stretching would help my lower back pain," she said. "But after a few weeks of daily stretching, my pain only got worse. What did I do wrong?"

With further questioning, her whole story came out. She had experienced intermittent lower back pain for two years before starting the stretching program she remembered from a P.E. class—a sequence consisting primarily of various leg stretches performed sitting on the floor, bending over her legs, and reaching for her toes. When the back pain became worse and was further complicated by severe hip and leg pain, she consulted her physician, who diagnosed her problem as a bulging disc in her lumbar spine.

As a physical therapist, I have heard this unfortunate story many times. Sitting forward bends are probably the best-known leg stretches, and are therefore likely to be included in a beginning stretch routine, whether in a public yoga or aerobics class, or in a book or video. Surprisingly, there seems to be widespread misunderstanding about the role of stretching in the care of back problems. And the irony is that certain types of stretching can actually worsen some back problems.

A yoga practice with too much emphasis on aggressive forward bending can be risky, particularly if the student has tight hamstrings and a flattened curve in the lower back. A well-constructed yoga routine, however, can be an ideal way to learn to stretch without creating or exacerbating back pain, and a chance to practice good alignment and movement patterns which help protect the back from injury.

Under Pressure
To understand how stretching can improve or aggravate disc problems, let's look at how a disc works and how it gets damaged. Intervertebral discs function as shock absorbers, cushioning the brain from jarring as we walk, run, and jump. Each disc consists of two parts: the inner disc, the nucleus pulposus, made of a shock-absorbing gel-like substance, and the annulus fibrosis, the rings of ligament that surround and support the center.

A normal lumbar spine has a mild curve forward, and in this position, weight is evenly distributed throughout each disc. During toe-touching, the lower back flexes, losing its normal curve, and more weight is put on the front of the discs. The gel-like centers get pushed backward, into the now stretching support ligaments. While this can happen during forward bending even if a person tends to have excessive lumbar curve ("swayback"), it is especially problematic if the spine has lost the normal curve and become flattened.

With repetition, or if great force is applied as in heavy lifting, the ligaments weaken and may "bulge" like a bubble in the wall of a tire. Or the ligaments may tear, allowing the gel-like inner disc to leak out, resulting in a herniated disc. The bulging or herniated disc may cause lower back pain or, if it is pressing on an adjacent nerve, pain can be referred into the hip and leg. Bulging and herniated discs may be treated conservatively, with physical therapy, exercise, and other noninvasive treatments, but a badly herniated disc is a serious medical problem which may require surgery and a lengthy recovery period.

While heavy lifting is a well-known cause of back injuries, disc damage is just as frequently caused by the smaller but repetitious forward-bending movements we make during daily activities at work and at home. For most of us, half of our body weight is above the waist. Just as a child "weighs more" as he or she slides away from the center to sit at the end of a teeter-totter, our own upper body weight exerts greater force at the disc as we bend farther forward. This tremendous force on the disc, added to the strain on the supporting ligaments, sets the stage for damage.

In our society, opportunities abound for repetitive forward bending: child care, yardwork, housework, shopping. Even sedentary work may exert strain on the lower back; for example, someone bending and twisting from a sitting position to lift a heavy object out of a bottom desk drawer. The greater the weight being lifted (and the weight of one's own body), the greater the pressure on the disc.

Forward bending activities, especially combined with lifting, are also the most common cause of back "strain." While much less serious than disc injuries, back strain is responsible for most of our lower back pain, including the Monday morning ache after weekend gardening.

How Are Your Hamstrings?
Repetitive forward bending may also occur in exercise routines, including yoga. These routines can be particularly risky for people with tight hamstrings, the muscles extending from hip to knee on the back of the thigh that receive much of the stretch in forward bends. The hamstrings attach to the sitting bones—the two large bones at the base of the buttocks (called the ischial tuberosities). In a sitting forward bend, the pull of tight hamstrings keeps the pelvis from rotating forward over the legs. In fact, tight hamstrings encourage the pelvis to rotate backward, in a position called "posterior tilt." If your pelvis is held in a posterior tilt and you reach toward your toes, all the forward movement occurs by hinging through the lower back.

Doing a series of sitting forward bends, then, can put prolonged or repetitive strain on the disc, causing or contributing to disc bulging or herniation. Ironically, the people who most need to stretch their hamstrings, to help improve posture and movement patterns, are most at risk for injuring their backs practicing forward bends.

Tight hamstrings affect posture and the health of the lower back by exerting a constant pull on the sitting bones, tipping the pelvis posteriorly and flattening the normal curve of the lumbar spine. Overly strong or tight abdominal muscles may also contribute to a habitually flattened lower back. Tight abdominal muscles pull up on the pubic bones, again contributing to posterior tilt, especially if combined with tight hamstrings. They also pull down on the front rib cage, contributing to forward-slumped posture. This posture, with posterior-tipped pelvis and forward-slumped trunk, puts chronic strain not only on the discs, but also on the lower back muscles.
r yoga practice is helping, not hurting, your back.
By Julie Gudmestad
Many who suffer from lower back pain have heard or read that strong abdominals are the key to pain relief. It is true that the abdominals are important support muscles for the lower back, especially for problems like arthritis and swayback.

Problems arise, however, when the abdominals are strengthened with regular exercises like sit-ups or crunches, but the back extensors—the long muscles running parallel to the spine that support it and maintain and increase the normal lower back curve—are ignored.

Over time, a muscle imbalance develops: The abdominals become stronger and tighter, while the back becomes relatively weaker and overstretched. Unfortunately, many current exercise routines emphasize several types of abdominal strengthening, and a series of sitting forward bends to stretch the legs. The end result of years of this type of exercise will be a rounded, slumped posture with a weak and vulnerable lower back.

When faced with challenging poses, students are likely to fall back on familiar positions and muscle patterns. If your usual posture is rounded forward, with a flattened lower back, posterior-tilted pelvis, and tight hamstrings, you are at risk for back injury in forward bends and need to take special care as you prepare to practice them. Your goal is to be able to stretch the hamstrings without a posterior tilt of the pelvis.

To check your readiness, lie on your back with one leg stretched out flat on the floor. Stretch the other leg up to the ceiling with a straight knee. Look in a mirror or have someone else check to see if you can bring the leg to vertical, perpendicular to the floor.

If you can't get to vertical, your pelvis will be posteriorly tilted in a sitting forward bend, and it's possible that you would strain your back muscles or injure a disc if you reached for your toes. You should avoid sitting forward bends, especially if you have a history of lower back pain or injury, until you can stretch your leg straight up to 90 degrees or more. If you are in a class where forward bends are being taught, you can always substitute some simple leg and hip stretches like Supta Padangusthasana and Supta Baddha Konasana.

Pass the Test
My plan for building towards safe forward bends involves six basic poses:

Modified Supta Padangusthasana (Supine Hand-to-Foot Pose, Variation I) practiced with the raised leg up the wall and the straight leg through a doorway

Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana (Extended Hand-to-Foot Pose) practiced with the raised leg on a chair back.

Prasarita Padottanasana (Widespread Forward Bend)

Supta Baddha Konasana (Supine Bound Angle Pose) practiced with the pelvis against a wall and the feet up on the wall, pressing gently on the thighs.

Modified Supta Padangusthasana (Supine Hand-to-Foot Pose, Variation II) practiced with the raised leg extended to the side and the foot on a wall

Savasana (Corpse Pose) practiced with blanket support for the spine.

Taking only 10 to 15 minutes daily, these poses will begin to reshape your body by lengthening your hamstrings without compromising a normal lumbar curve. Included in the sequence are two poses that stretch the inner thigh muscles, the adductors, which can also factor into forward bends.

Start Meditation-5 minutes is enough by SPIRIT WALK BLOGG

2009-06-05T06:05:00.001-07:00

The quickest way to find one’s spiritual path is to meditate. I absolutely love to meditate. It is amazing to me how much I enjoy meditating. Me, the queen of multitasking, the busy Mother of two small children, a full time job and always a million things to do. I get almost giddy when I get five minutes to sit down and think about absolutely nothing. The
sweet calming peace that washes over me as I clear my mind of all thoughts is pure bliss. Believe me, it’s a little difficult to do the first few times. I could only clear my mind at for about 5 seconds at first.
Those seconds have slowly turned into minutes. I justlearned that it is ‘okay’ for those thoughts to wonder into my mind, I just let them go on through and get back to the beautiful relaxing abyss. The key to learning how to meditate is to just start doing it,
and you can do it anywhere. In bed right before you go to sleep, in bed right after you wake up, in a comfortable chair, in a special meditation spot. One of my most favorite places to meditate is on the bus going to work in the morning. It really is what gets
me through the day. If I start calm, it is much easier to find my calm during the hurricane of insanity at work. Once you get the hang of clearing your mind, you can move to the next level, which is to meditate on a subject. One of my favorite subjects to
contemplate is ‘what is God’. I have had several personal revelations about what is God to me and how much I want God to be part of my life.

RESTORING YOUR ENERY WITH Baddha Konasana

2009-06-04T07:50:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when you're tired, the best medicine is a restorative, rather than an active, yoga practice.

Almost nothing feels as good as relaxing into the floor after a stressful day. If you're in need of a little renewal, take a break with this restorative version of Baddha Konasana (Bound Angle Pose).

Enter Bound Angle Pose by sitting up tall on your sitting bones and bending your knees. Place your feet against one another and bring your feet as close to your body as your knees allow.

Leaning back on your hands, lower yourself to the floor. (You may support your head and torso on a pillow, bolster, or blanket along your spine, to help open your chest, if you like.)
If your knees don't easily release toward the ground or if you feel any strain in your groins, support each of your thighs on a block or folded blanket (phone books or dictionaries also work well).
Rest your arms on the floor or place the backs of your hands on your thighs.
Relax, breathe, and hold for five minutes if possible.
To come out, use your hands to bring thighs together, roll to one side and push yourself away from the floor, allowing your head to follow the torso.

REVIEW...Dalys Restaurante-Volcan

2009-05-31T16:04:00.000-07:00

El Restaurante DALYS es em primero que escoji para escribir mis comentarios. La propietaria es una Panameña, Sra DALYS, quien administra y entrena todo el personal de la cocina.
Junto a ella el jef

Sin Duda, me enamore de sus precios pero mas aun de la variedad de tes que ofrececen, entre los cuales empeze probando los St Dalfour, de origen francesa, EARL GREY -con esquisito sabor de frutas citricas y hierbas finas. Para los amantes del Te Verde, de la linea organca de St Dalfour, recomiendo el verde con menta.

Junto a el, pude saborear el frezco muffin de banana y chocolate, una mezcla de sabores frescos. Pero la especialidad de la casa son los rolls de canela, los cuales fueron desarrollados localmente.

Childs Pose

2009-05-31T15:48:00.000-07:00

I want to start my Blog Talking about Yoga Poses- so we can start understand each pose in order to practice with better results.

Quiero empezar my Blog hablando de YOGA Posiciones -para que entendamos cada posicion y podamos practicar con mejores resultados.

Childs Pose:
es una posicion utilizada despues de hacer los estiramientos de la espalda o asanas dificiles. Es buena para relajar y alongar los quadriceps y la espina.

Como hacerla ?
Sientate en tus tobillos, reclinate hacia adelante desde tus quadriceps, descansa tu pecho en cima de tus piernas. Relaja tus manos en el piso, hacia arriba, y deja tus ombros en el piso. A medida que expiras deja que tus quadriceps relajen hacia el piso mientras tu cabeza, cuerpo y ombros relajan en el piso.
Mantente aqui por 5 a 10 respiraciones o mas, luego usa tus manos para levantarte.

Child's Pose is a simple counter pose after backbends and a nice resting posture after difficult asanas. It's also a restful way to stretch the hips and the spine.
Here's how to enter this pose:
Sit on your heels, then bend forward from the hips, draping your torso over your thighs. Rest your arms on the floor alongside your torso, palms up, and release the fronts of your shoulders toward the floor. As you exhale, let your hips drop toward your heels as your head, arms, and shoulders relax forward.

If you are very stiff or have knee problems, place a folded blanket between your hips and heels or rest your upper body on a folded blanket.

If you are in early stages of pregnancy—or
if you have a round body—

you may want to spread the knees apart and let your belly release between your thighs.
Stay and breathe for five to 10 breaths or even longer, then use your arms to press back out of the pose.