After a busy Christmas season, our blog has now returned. This week we focus on how to restore balance after the holiday season and prepare our bodies and minds for a new year.
Practice: Antidote Yoga for Holiday Excess
During the holiday season many of us indulge in sweets, fats, and alcohol. We spend time with family and friends and have many social experiences. This can be both good and bad. One way to restore balance to your body after many rich meals, and many lively social gatherings is to turn inward and to twist. A yoga practice with forward folds helps provide time for ourselves and for looking inwards. A yoga practice with twists is also very important for clearing out the digestive system which can become overstimulated from an onslaught of fat and sugar rich foods. There are many excellent practices designed for the purpose of restoring your balance after the holidays. You can join Felicia Tomasko on YogaGlo for a special practice that will help you recover from the holidays.
Cleansing Recipe: Lemon and Warm Water
After days of siting, eating, drinking and indulging you may be feeling lethargic and stagnant in your body. Holiday stress may have left you with an unsettled stomach, a head cold, or stress related acne. One of the easiest and most simple antidotes to all of this is having a cup of warm water with lemon in the morning before ingesting anything else. According to Ayurveda warm water with lemon is purifying and helps cleanse the liver, kidneys, blood stream, digestive tract and organs. It can help boost your immune system by giving you a dose of Vitamin C and antioxidants. Try having a cup of warm water with lemon each morning for one month after Christmas and witness a clearer completion, regular bowl movements, and the ability to ward off seasonal colds.
1 cup of boiling water
2 slices of organic lemon with skin on
Let sit for 5 minutes and drink in the morning on an empty stomach.
How to wear your mala beads: Amethyst mala beads for Purification and a New Year
Amethyst mala beads are excellent for this time of year. Amethyst is believed to aid in purification of the physical body. To this end, amethyst is believed to help clear the body and is typically used to counter overindulgence. As such it is a good gemstone to use while meditating after too much holiday food or alcohol. If you are setting New Year’s resolutions for 2013 amethyst is also excellent. Amethyst can help assist in quitting smoking, drinking, or drug use. From an emotional perspective amethyst is believed to help clear negative or addictive emotional patterns. Therefore, if you are trying to change your eating habits or motivate yourself to undertake more physical activity, or if you are resolved to move away from relationships or habits that no longer serve you, amethyst could help you with your affirmations for 2013. The Wisdom Mala Bracelet is made from amethyst mala beads which is one of the best gemstones for purification and clearing negativity. Moreover, these mala beads help overcome addictive and negative emotional patterns. The guru on this piece has OM Mani Padme Hum inscribed on its surface, a mantra that helps to purify the 6 realms of existence. As such, this mala bead bracelet is excellent for anyone looking to start 2013 with a fresh outlook and a new meditation practice.
Mala Beads for the New Year by jmedalye
For more information on Amethyst see Robert Simmons (2011), The Pocket Book of Stones, North Atlantic Books: Berkeley.