Our Planet isn't the only thing that's overheating!

In today's world, with industrial toxins, genetically engineered foods, reduced ozone and mineral depletion in our soils, cell phones, blackberries, new adjuncts to our ever-expanding technologically dominated world, there are myriad sources of distraction and as a result, increased stress. Our excessive multi-tasking, over-ingestion of caffeine, alcohol, fast foods, and sedentary lifestyles lead to a condition in Chinese medicine called "excess heat," which leads to indigestion, heart disease, headaches and chronic joint conditions such as arthritis and early on-set osteoporosis, and the list sadly goes on and on. So like our beautiful planet, we are suffering from a microcosmic version of global warming. What we need is "cool." We need modalities that literally help us to leave the world of intense distraction and multi-tasking, stress and heat-producing activities behind. We need to engage in mind-body movement that both heats the body and then cools it. We need balance. We need to learn to live defensively and to find modalities that increase our ability to cultivate a new kind of consciousness and enable us to live more holistically.
So how do we do this?
We need to engage in exercise that combines both yang (hot) and yin (cool) in order to balance and harmonize the body's energy systems providing a powerful antidote to today's modern world and it's ills.
Some of my very favorite mind-body exercise techniques like Yoga (specifically Yin yoga) and "Waking Energy" (more about Waking Energy in my next blog!) involve deep breathing and total mind-body intention, leading to an ever- deepening awareness of our inner landscape, helping us to return to a more natural rhythm, helping us to slow down and COOL off.
Yin yoga is a cooling and gathering "un-workout," one that will calm and ground your energies whether at the beginning of your day if you feel stressed and get you off to a steady start, or at the end of a long day to better prepare you for a good night's rest. Yin yoga involves long held, deeply relaxing "stretching" poses that target the deeper connective tissue of the body, the fasciae. The poses stimulate and open the meridians, or energy pathways in your body, restoring youthful joint mobility as you quietly harmonize your body and mind, restoring and recharging your batteries. You literally "cool" your internal heat by moving slowly and calmly and enhance your flexibility like never before and build your energetic reserves--increasing your ability to cope with stress and the demands of your daily life. Because we are able to find a kind of calm and stillness inside, we not only improve the quality of our every day, but we may have a better chance to stop an illness before it takes root in our bodies. Yin yoga and Waking Energy are techniques that nourish and rejuvenate something called "kidney" energy in our bodies--our primary energy source according to Chinese medicine theory. These techniques provide the "cool" to our overabundance of excess heat. Not to say that Power Yoga or running or step class isn't great--they are all beneficial pursuits as long as you balance them with something like Yin or Waking Energy. These magical mind-body modalities I mention reduce stress, increase your energy and calm you down because of a unique chain of physiological events that take place when one engages in the work which yield tremendous health benefits. (more about this when I discuss Waking Energy! :)
These benefits mean a mind and body that comes together in a unified and harmonious way, striking a balance that leads to greater sense of self, peace and harmony, enhanced immunity and stronger energy to ward off pathogens and worldly "energy suckers," technological and other assorted stressors. You know how people tell you to "cool off!" when you're angry or upset? If you practice Yin yoga and Waking Energy, you won't even get angry that often, you'll already be cool as a cucumber!!! :)