Lifestyle practice descriptions

Just Breathe
Start in a comfortable seated position. Allow your sit bones to rest on the edge of a folded blanket or pillow. Drop through the tail and lift through the breast bone. Feel your chin lightly draw into your Adams apple to sense the length in the front as well as the back of your neck. Your shoulder blades should hug gently onto your rib cage with distance between your ears and your shoulders. Close your eyes and begin to notice the natural flow of your breath. When you are inspired, begin to draw the breath into the bottom of your lungs, filling from the bottom and expanding upward. Sense the breath in your belly, then expand the rib cage and allow the chest to lift. Exhale and allow you lungs to empty from the top downwards. Allow your breath to lengthen with each successive breath cycle.

Sun Salutations
Scott Blossom suggests Sun Salutations – a series of 12 postures performed in a continuous flow and coordinated with the breath – inhale with each extension or stretch and exhale with each fold or contraction. Sun Salutations are a great way to warm-up the body, lubricate the joints, and promote circulation. To practice: Start in a comfortable standing position (mountain pose with your feet hip-width apart, torso long, pelvis tucked and chin parallel to the floor. On your inhale, sweep your arms out by your sides reaching up for the ceiling. Exhale, and swan dive toward the floor, hinging at your waist. On your next inhale, place your hands on the floor or on your shins then look half-way up, elongating your spine while keeping your neck relaxed. On your exhale, forward fold and step your feet back into a plank position. Lower toward the floor, keeping your elbows in toward your body. Resting on the floor, inhale up into cobra by pulling your chest toward your hands, keeping your low-back relaxed and legs active. Exhale and push-back into downward facing dog, by moving your sit bones toward the ceiling, elongating the spine, and activating your chest muscles. Stay here for five breaths. On your next inhale, gently step forward into a standing forward fold with your feet hip-width apart. Inhale, look half-way up with your hands on your shins or on the floor (keeping the spine long), and exhale forward-fold. Inhale, sweeping your arms out to your sides. Come up to standing with your palms touching above your head. And exhale, releasing back into mountain pose.

Head to Knee Pose
Sitting on the floor, straighten one leg in front of you, bring the opposite foot into your groin. Place a belt around the ball of your extended leg. Maintaining a release in the neck and shoulders and length in your spine, fold at your hips (not your waist) and lengthen the back of your knee to bring flexibility into your hamstring. Forward folding helps with digestion and massages the stomach. Switch to opposite leg.

Bridge Pose
Lie on your back with your feet and knees parallel, heels next to your sit bones. Keeping your chin gently drawn to your Adams apple and fingertips reaching to the pinky toes (so the shoulders stay away from the ears), press into your heels and tuck your tailbone; lift one vertebra at a time, starting with the low back, coming onto your shoulders. This pose opens the front of the body and is a gentle inversion to the organs, allowing oxygen-rich blood to reverse direction. It is also a great pose to balance the thyroid and the parathyroid.

Lying Twist
Lying on your back, bend your knees and bring them above your hips. Open your arms out to the sides; rotate your gaze over one shoulder and your hips and knees the opposite direction. Hold for a few breaths and then switch sides. This pose brings suppleness to the spine and balances the stomach and spleen as you look left and the liver and gallbladder as you look right. It also helps aid in digestion.

Legs-Up-the-Wall Pose
Start with your support about 5 to 6 inches away from the wall (a folded blanket about 4 inches thick will do). Sit sideways on the right end of the support, with your right side against the wall. Exhale, and bring your legs up onto the wall and your shoulders and head lightly down onto the floor. You should be lying on your back with your legs on the wall. Your sitting bones don’t need to be right against the wall, but they should be in the space between the support and the wall. Make sure that the front of your torso gently arches from the pubic bone to the top of the shoulders. Open your arms out to the sides and breath into the pose. Hold for up to 10 minutes. This posture is wonderful for alleviating anxiety and helps to reverse the blood flow in the legs, alleviating swollen ankles and restless leg syndrome, and helping to prevent varicose veins.

Dry Brush
Jeanne Maryak, director of education for the Golden Door Spa at the Boulders Resort in Arizona suggests a daily pre-shower dry brushing with a natural bristle brush for 5 minutes. This will help to stimulate the lymph glands near the surface of the skin, encourage circulation, and gently exfoliate the skin. Using a bristle brush, loofah, or even a wash cloth, gently brush from your feet up to your shoulders, always brushing towards your heart in an upward motion. (Note: All of the spa therapies recommended in the detox are provided by Maryak.)

Seaweed Soak
Enjoy a seaweed or herbal bath (such as nettle, ivy, or Melissa) from Kneipp. www.kneipp.com Soak for at least 25 minutes in medium warm water right before bed.

Salt Scrub
Make a sea salt scrub with avocado oil and grapefruit essential oil that you apply once you get into the shower in order to further enhance the dry brushing’s detoxifying effects.

Indulge at the Spa
Allow yourself one day to really indulge at the spa with a professional reflexology or lymphatic massage treatment.

Shake your Body
To elevate your metabolism and your spirit, Scott Blossom recommends a dynamic form of dance like Samba, Salsa, or African.

Journal
Ann Louise Gittleman believes that you need to know what your internal nemesis’s are in order to cleanse both your body and mind. Journaling can help you acknowledge and release your thoughts, helping you to clear both physical and emotional clutter. You can choose to begin or end your day with journaling.

July/August 2006