Five hot new YOGA trends

More people than ever are rolling out their mats and turning to this ancient tradition to enjoy a multitude of benefits.

It's estimated that as many as 12,000,000 people do
yoga on a regular basis in the US alone.
Practice is as popular there today as aerobics was in the 1990s,and with this popularity we see a whole new set of trends emerging.
It's no secret that yoga provides physical and emotional support for many different situations and circumstances. But it is now possible to find classes that focus on very specific areas such as yoga therapy,   practice for back pain, stress relief, core yoga,practice for sports, pregnancy,cardiovascular workout, and so the list continues.
Despite the huge mix of ancient and modern styles, there are constantly new ones emerging.
Some require elaborate equipment while others are more closely related to the original Hatha practices.
Yoga is for everyone. You do not need to be flexible or strong to begin.
Whatever your chosen goal it's now possible to find a class that will help you achieve it, in the way that most suits you.

1 Anti-gravity yoga
Fast becoming popular, antigravity yoga requires just one piece of equipment:  an antigravity hammock suspended from the ceiling.
You practice suspended three inches from the ground and postures can be performed with or without making contact with the floor.
The technique was created over a seven-year period by the American director, choreographer and performer Christopher Harrison and new classes are popping up globally.
Benefits: Provides all the benefits of a regular yoga class and allows the body to perform inversions without any stress on the neck or spine.
Anti-gravity offers a new and exciting way to increase core strength, encouraging you to move deeper into postures while in a supported environment. Conquering something new in this way can improve self-confidence.
It also adds a new dimension to your practice and you are able to enjoy a real sense of freedom as you move through a series of postures while suspended.
Laura Armada-Buch, an anti-gravity master trainer, says, “In today's world so many people take life too seriously.
This type of practice aims not only to decompress spines via inversions, but also fight against the seriousness
of life and bring some happiness to people. It's the only class where you will flip, swing, relax and smile.”

2 SUP or indo yoga board
SUP (stand up paddleboard) yoga is a great test of balance and requires core strength to help you maintain the postures without getting wet! This type of class is very popular with those who have a love of water and water sports.
If you don't like the idea of potentially getting wet, you could try an indo yoga board.
These provide an unstable base similar to a SUP and will give the same benefits without bringing water into the equation. A typical class includes 30 minutes of paddling and 30 minutes of yoga postures on the board.
Benefits: SUP fans say practising outside develops and enhances their connection with nature and natural rhythms. “I love SUP Yoga as practicing outside in nature is such a calming and liberating experience!” says Gerry Bloom, a leading SUP teacher. “The board is unstable and you have to constantly adjust your balance
which engages your core.” There are also a growing number of classes being held in swimming pools.

3 Yoga for sport training
Athletes all over the world are turning to regular practice and incorporating it as part of a crosstraining or multi-sports training regime.
Yoga works the entire body equally, improving posture and mobility which is so important for competitive sport.
It helps eliminate muscular imbalances and increases strength and flexibility. Your focus and concentration also improves and you have time for both your body and mind to relax.
Benefits: Regular practice will minimise the risk of injury. The breathing techniques, called pranayamas, increase oxygen levels and help to reduce the amount of lactic acid in the working muscles.
When you combine the breathing with exertion your muscles will have more oxygen and you should remain cramp-free.

4 Virtual studios
Thanks to the internet it is now possible to discover a whole new world of teachers.
Online yoga studios provide classes for all abilities and requirements.
Location is no longer an issue; you can practice with a massive selection of teachers all over the globe at a click of a button. Classes come in the form of video or MP3 audio, and you can download or stream from hundreds of sites.
Through the internet there is now no excuse to ever miss a practice.
Audio yoga classes are extremely popular as little equipment is required and the tuition becomes 100 percent portable, plus there is no visual distraction.
Benefits: They are great value as you can purchase one class and use it over and over again, at a time and place that suits you. This could be while you're on holiday,travelling or away working. You can load your class onto any portable device and take it with you anywhere.

5 Eco yoga fashion
As practice continues to grow so too does the demand for clothing.
Yoga fashion is becoming more and more mainstream. Yoga pants are as much a fashion item as a practical one.
Fairtrade fashion is fast becoming big business and this has in part been driven by yoga students considering their core principles when it comes to buying a mat or a pair of pants.
Get involved: For a great selection of ecofriendly yoga clothing and products, check out Yoga Bliss UK. It supports businesses from the global yoga community, making sure items are fairtrade and are produced by co-operatives in countries such as India and Brazil.

WRITE to be Happy Unleash your imagination for a healthier

What can make wounds heal more quickly and improve your chances at a job interview?
The surprise answer is creative writing. We already know that engaging in any kind of creative activity is good for our mental and physical wellbeing. Creativity is hardwired into us: as soon as a toddler walks she dances, as soon as she can hold a crayon she draws and as soon as she has words she wants stories.
However, there’s now a growing body of evidence to indicate that writing our own stories has a range of unexpected benefits

HEALING WORDS
As a writer, who also teaches writing, I’ve seen the results in the classroom in increased confidence and renewed self-belief. So, I wasn’t surprised to learn there are also tangible physical benefits.
One New Zealand study found 75 percent of otherwise healthy senior citizens who wrote about a traumatic event healed more quickly than those in a control group. In the early 1990s, Texas researchers divided redundant  engineers into three groups:
group one didn’t write, group two wrote about time management, and group three kept a journal of their feelings.
Three months later, less than five percent of groups one and two had new jobs, but over a quarter of group three had found work – they weren’t going to more interviews, but they were better at getting the job.
Similar results have been repeated again and again.
One study conducted at Bristol Royal Infirmary, found that any kind of creative writing reduced anxiety and the need for tranquillisers.
Sometimes we need to write about things which we have never encountered and go beyond our own experiences. In my latest book Back to Creative Writing School,
I use the Wikipedia feature that allows you to select articles at random, to show how magic can happen when unconnected ideas rub against each other in surprising ways.
The Lord Mayor of London, an insignificant brown butterfly native to India and a list of Gambian diplomatic missions can became the main ingredients in the plot of a poignant love story.
Imagination can go anywhere and do anything, but like a muscle it has to be worked!
Writers don’t have to reinvent the wheel however. In another exercise I explore how one of the world’s oldest tales, which is found in most cultures, can be easily transplanted to today,making it new and relevant
and exciting.
Creative writing isn’t just a workout for the imagination.
It can remove mental blocks and allow you to better understand yourself, others and the world around you. And when that happens there’s a positive physical reaction.
It’s win-win... before you even think about publication, bestseller lists and J K Rowling!

TRY THIS
Not sure how to begin writing? See where this very simple exercise takes you...

* List all the names you’ve ever been called (the ones you liked).
Think about the playground in the first school you ever attended, your first kiss, your first job.

* Pick a name from your list and write about why your parents chose it or why friends fell into the habit of using it. If you aren’t sure, speculate. Write about the world where that name was first spoken. Write about the questions it throws up. And the answers you don’t always have.

* The only rule is that you have to write it down, because something happens when you think with a pen in your hand.

six steps to be happiness

Do you believe our female power can be good and beautiful, and we can heal ourselves and the world?
Author Carol P Christ says: “This is what the goddess reminds us:
that the world is our true home, calling us to enjoy life in our bodies and to live in harmony with all beings in the web of life.
Try Carol's six steps to connect more deeply with this spiritual power, learning to love yourself and others for happiness, energy and a healthier life!

1 LOVE YOUR BEAUTY
Every living thing is beautiful. Most of us have been taught to 'love our neighbour as ourselves,' but not that this means to love ourselves too! In fact, we've been given a narrow definition of beauty.
Beauty has nothing to do with our age, or our facial symmetry.
Beauty is the energy of the life Inner Self | HAPPINESS force in our bodies, in everybody, that connects us to others.
Love and beauty cannot be separated, for we cannot help but love that which  we find beautiful. Life is meant to be enjoyed!

2 NURTURE LIFE
None of us would be here without the care, nurture, and great generosity  of our mothers and mothering figures in our lives. Life is a gift from our mothers, from our ancestors, from the evolutionary process, from Mother Earth.
When we understand life is a gift, we can begin to understand that caring for others should be an ideal for us all.

3 TRUST YOUR BODY
Have you been taught that your body is imperfect – even 'dirty' and sinful?
Our bodies are ourselves, and they respond to pleasure and pain and communicate important information to our minds. When we are dominated, violated, or punished, we close the connection to the wellsprings of knowledge  our bodies offer us.
Then we need healing therapies. We don’t have to act on everything our bodies tell us, but when we don’t know what our bodies are saying, we cannot act wisely.

4SPEAK THE TRUTH
When we are in touch with the knowledge of our bodies, we say 'no' and 'this hurts'.
Being schooled to obey our parents, teachers, and other authorities, we may learn to 'shut up', but when we keep silent, we allow ourselves and others to be harmed.
When we live fully in our bodies, and when our bodies are connected to our minds, we will find ways to break the silence.

5 TAKE ONLY WHAT YOU NEED
Our culture is based on consumption, but in fact everything we eat and everything we buy is part of a process of 'taking' from others in the web of life.
Indigenous traditions understood this. What would it mean if we as individuals and communities thought about what we really needed and thought about the lives of others too? Some of us would become vegans or vegetarians, some of us would work less and enjoy life more, some of us would give even more of what we have to others.

6 REPAIR THE WEB
If life is meant to be enjoyed, why is there so much pain in our individual lives, why are so many people poor and hungry, and why is our world riddled with war? We have been told that suffering is necessary, that it is part of life.
Some degree of conflict is inevitable in a world with more than one individual in it, but we human beings have created a great deal of unnecessary suffering ourselves.
As John Lennon sang: “Imagine all the people living life in peace”. If we all dared to join together, we could create a different, better world for all of us.

Detox your HOME / healthier home

Now that we find ourselves in the glorious British summertime, my
thoughts turn to my environment and what I can do to make it more
conducive to my wellbeing.

Better health now will always support better health in the future. And,
naturally, ensuring that our direct environment is healthy and non-toxic
is part of a sensible anti-ageing, rejuvenation lifestyle – helping us
to age more slowly and even in some cases even rewind our body clock! So where to start? By taking stock of the potential toxins in our home environment.
In fact,I’ve noticed in my practice that lots of people have been coming to me with all sorts of strange conditions nobody can really seem to explain in conventional medical terms. These include allergies, headaches, asthma,  neurological disorders, depression, unexplained weight gain and much more.
The truth is, just a few decades ago these nebulous conditions that are difficult to diagnose were rarely seen and, in some  cases, didn’t even exist.
Today’s doctors and complementary medical experts who practice environmental medicine believe that the stressors we’re exposed to on a continual basis could be the underlying factor in the huge growth of these conditions.
So what are these environmental stressors?
Two major issues which affect many of us are environmental pollution and electro smog.  Here’s what they are and how to deal with them:

ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION
What’s the problem?
We’re be aware of the problems that external environmental pollution  causes; earlier this year we had to contend with smog, Saharan dust and pollution coming from France and other European countries.
Admittedly, the air pollution that we experienced in April was not as intense as that which blanketed the country in 1952, when it was  estimated that between 4000 and 8,000 people died as a direct result
of the smog!
External pollution presents a serious health problem and the WHO has data which shows that it definitely shortens our lifespan –so we need to try to avoid it if at all possible.
However, smog is rare in this country.
The more insidious problem for us exists within our homes.
We are surrounded by artificially produced items which exude chemicals, including furniture, carpeting, upholstery and even pesticides in our food.
The colourless and odourless poisons that are on, in and exuded by these items have become part of our lives for the last 30 to 40 years.
The problem is that our exposure to these chemicals is relentless: whereas acute exposure to chemical substances can cause an immediate reaction, such as an allergy which, while inconvenient and uncomfortable, often won’t do any long-lasting damage to our overall health. However, chronic, relentless exposure over a longer period of time can be much more deadly,simply because we are not aware of it.
So, we don’t produce any noticeable symptoms as such, but the negative effects,which are thought to be cumulative, may not appear for decades.
This chronic exposure to chemicals that are completely synthetic and do not exist in nature can, over time, compromise our health and especially our immune system activity and this, in turn, makes it much more of a struggle to remain healthy.
There is strong evidence which suggests that chronic chemical exposure actually shortens our lifespan
The most proactive thing you can do is to reduce your consumption of  chemicals in your home and use natural cleaning products; white vinegar, lemon juice, and baking soda. These are all incredibly useful cleaning agents, they’re cheap, non-toxic and they work! Beware of cleaning agents that claim to contain ‘natural’ ingredients, and check the label closely – a study conducted a couple of years ago showed
that many of these did not stand up to scrutiny.
Choose furniture and furnishings made from natural materials.
Use non-bio washing powder or none at all. Use a good quality water filter and, last but not least, choose organicdecorating materials

ELECTRO SMOG
What’s the problem?
Electro smog is a condition caused by electromagnetic fields which are believed to be dangerous. These include the emissions from human made sources such as radio wave signals, microwaves, wifi and mobile phone masts.
These frequencies are believed, by an increasing number of scientists and lay people, to be harmful.
The EMFs around our homes represent a growing health hazard and it is thought that the reason for this is because they have an unnatural resonance that is completely out of sync with our body’s natural rhythms.
We’re not all affected by the EMFs to the same degree – some of us are far more sensitive.
However, it is a wise idea to reduce your exposure to mobile phones, transmitters and electricity supply lines all of which could possibly cause problems in the body.
Turn off your wifi at night, unplug as many items as you can and never sleep with your mobile phone switched onand near you.
I personally believe that we won’t really fully understand the damage that these cause until several decades into the future.

DON’T PANIC
Before I go, just one final thought.
It’s incredibly important not to get too hung up on negativity.
Sure, it will take a little time and effort to cleanse your environment  of toxins so, start small: in the short term, declutter your home, getting rid of anything that you suspect that might cause you problems.
Also, think about what you can do on a personal level to reduce your own environmental footprint. Don’t get stressed out by worrying about toxin exposure,  just address the issue step by step. Stress will not help – and actually can be a huge hindrance to a happy and healthy life.
Finally, embrace nature, and,providing we haven’t got another smog attack, throw open your windows, let the sunshine in,treat yourself to a beautiful bunch of flowers, put your favourite music on and simply delight in life,knowing you’re doing the very best you can.