Movement
Zippy’s and One Strong ‘Ohana Share the Finish Line at the Honolulu 5K for Kids
May 18th
Clear skies, gentle winds and the peaceful stillness of an early Sunday morning kicked off the 2nd annual Honolulu 5K for Kids on April 29th. Hundreds of Hawai‘i’s families arrived bright and early to race around the Downtown Honolulu area. Created in June 2010, the Honolulu 5K For Kids is a local not-for-profit event that helps promote health and fitness for Hawai‘i’s children, as well as their families, to create a more active and healthy lifestyle. All the funds that were raised through the event go towards providing additional funds to Hawai‘i schools for physical education, fitness, and athletic programs.
We were so grateful to get up and get moving as part of this day with families across Honolulu and Zippy’s Restaurants, a leading sponsor of the event and corporate partner in the One Strong ‘Ohana campaign. Zippy’s generously donated their booth at the finish line to the campaign, where we were able to provide information and resources to families about preventing child abuse and neglect in Hawai‘i.
We at Joyful Heart, as one of the partner organizations of the One Strong ‘Ohana campaign, would personally like to send our most gracious mahalo to Zippy’s Restaurants and the folks at the Honolulu 5K for the amazing opportunity to be at the event. Keeping kids active, spending time with family and engaging in fun community activities are all ways to strengthen the bonds in your own family. We all have a role in preventing child abuse and neglect and this event was a wonderful opportunity to share the message that we can all do something to nurture and protect our keiki.
Children and families gather around the One Strong ‘Ohana table at the Honolulu 5K for Kids.
Wellness Wednesday: Age Well with Yoga
Feb 1st
I’ve heard so many people say they “can’t” take up yoga because they’re too old. So what if you’re not a twenty-something anymore? Yoga isn’t limited to the young—it keeps us young! Here are a few tips for picking up the practice at any age.
xoxo,
Sukey
No one is too old for yoga. If you’re hesitant to try yoga because you think it’s only for the young and naturally limber, think again. Yoga is all about longevity, so no matter what your age, start today and enjoy its benefits—increased energy, strength, circulation, respiration and a better night’s sleep—for years to come. Start with these tips.
Find the class that fits you. Issues like osteoporosis or arthritis keep many older adults from being active, but they are in fact good reasons to establish a yoga practice, as yoga can vastly improve a person’s range of motion and help build bone density. The key is finding a class that works for you as an individual, along with an experienced teacher.
Do it daily. Our bodies and minds benefit most from yoga when we do it regularly. Create a weekly or monthly goal for your practice—better posture or balance, perhaps—and make it the focus of your daily meeting with the mat. As you make small positive changes physically, your general sense of wellbeing is likely to increase as well.
Make props work for you. Yoga poses can easily be modified with the use of props. Can’t touch your toes? Use a strap. Need a little boost? Try a blanket or a block. Chair yoga classes are even available for those who have difficulty standing or sitting on the floor. The bottom line: poses are adaptable, making yoga appropriate for any and every ability level.
Just breathe. Rigorous vinyasa flows only represent a small facet of yoga. A practice centered around breathwork and meditation can be incredibly empowering, and making a conscious effort to be mindful is a great way to stay mentally sharp. If you’ve never meditated before, try this simple exercise.
For more tips on living well, visit The Well Daily, your ultimate guide for creating health and happiness. Get the best wellness techniques, products, recipes and general goodness by signing up. Make sure to follow The Well Daily on Twitter and like it on Facebook too!
Wellness Wednesday: Quiet the Mind Chatter
Sep 7th
Hi friends,
With back to school excitement in the air, fall is the perfect time to refocus. Here are a few ideas to help bring a little more calm this season.
xoxo,
Sukey
It’s a common paradox: you’ve finally got a few moments to yourself to relax or meditate, but your thoughts refuse to be silent. Mind chatter plagues us all, but yoga is here to help. In fact, some say that yoga is the stilling of this mind chatter.
While some see yoga as merely an exercise trend or even a religion, it is often said that yoga has more to do with psychology. Think of your yoga practice as a form of mental training and begin to collect yogic tools that will help you in moments of mental chaos as well as in growing periods of mental clarity. Start with these simple actions.
Let go. Releasing preconceived notions is the first step to accomplishing most goals. You must let go of your expectations for quieting your mind chatter before you can let go of the chatter itself. Just starting a meditation practice? Don’t set a time limit. Sit with yourself and see what happens.
Take it to the mat. During yoga class, let go of your past experiences of each pose and let the pose be brand new. Don’t try to simulate a remembered physical or visual sensation stored away in the grey matter of your mind. Simply accept each action the teacher describes in the present moment.
Practice. Once the skill of letting go during your physical yoga practice becomes second nature, take it into your everyday. Approach work projects and social gatherings with the same presence of mind and open heart with which you greet yoga poses. The worries and lists swirling around your psyche will slowly fall away and you will be free to dwell on that which is most important: right now.
The Well Wisdom: Yoga strengthens us physically as well as mentally. If your thoughts are running a mile a minute because of a stressful or chaotic situation in your life, summon the strength you feel in a pose like Warrior I. Try this powerful yoga sequence to help you face your most difficult moments.
For more tips on living well, visit The Well Daily, a website and free daily email for all things yoga, meditation, nutrition and wellness. The Well Daily’s simple mission: be well, do well, live well—for yourself and others. Join thousands of others seeking more health and more joy by following The Well Daily on Twitter and Facebook and by subscribing for your daily dose of wellness.
Wellness Wednesday: Be Fearless
Jul 6th
Hi friends,
Yoga and meditation do many wonderful things for us and one benefit has struck a chord with many readers of The Well Daily lately: it can help us overcome fear. Read on, and then go ahead and be fearless.
xoxo,
Sukey
Fear can be an obstacle to healthy and happy living. While some fears are warranted and keep you safe—like standing far enough away from the edge of the subway platform—others are irrational and put needless stress on our bodies and minds. You know that yoga builds physical strength, increases self-awareness and expands respiratory capacity, but think about this: yoga can also help you overcome fear.
Many fears are grounded in not knowing; we don’t know and so we fear. Use your yoga practice to learn and grow out of this pattern. Start with these 3 simple actions.
Stand Firm: Establish a solid foundation of standing postures for a safe and grounded practice. Maintaining a firm connection to the ground will build mind-body awareness and strength from which your confidence can blossom. There’s a reason Tadasana is called Mountain Pose: when you truly root down, you’ll feel as if nothing can move you.
Play with Gravity: Inversion poses are a great space to learn about and grow away from fearfulness. Using hands, forearms and heads instead of feet as a foundation can be scary at first, but the more you explore inverting, the braver you’ll be when faced with intimidating situations outside of the studio. Sign up for an inversion workshop to learn the fundamentals so you can practice going upside down with confidence.
Get to the Cushion: In addition to cultivating courage through your asana practice, use meditation to help quell any anxious roaming of the mind. By turning down the chatter in your head, you can make space for calmness to wash over your consciousness. Just a few moments a day of observing your own thought patterns might just help you recognize the source of your fears—and take them on from there. New to the cushion? Start here.
Use yoga to explore the unknown and leave the mat ready to take on anything.
The Well Wisdom: Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras tell us that there are five obstacles that we must diminish in order to realize eventual bliss, or Samadhi: ignorance, egoism, attachment, loathing and fear, and it is written that fear is experienced by even the wise. Realizing this is the first step to using your yoga practice to overcome your fears.
For more tips on living well, visit The Well Daily, a website and free daily email for all things yoga, meditation, nutrition and wellness. They have the simple mission to be well, do well, live well—for yourself and others. The site’s creators, Sukey Novogratz and Jackie MacLeod, know they are not alone in their quest to breathe more deeply, operate more energetically, live more mindfully and age more gracefully. They pass along the ideas that they love, whether they’re the latest or the most ancient–ideas that open the heart, nurture the body and expand the mind.
You can join their circle of friends, yogis, gurus, beginners, experts, sages, vegans, vegetarians, conscious carnivores and everyday people seeking more health and more joy, by following them on Twitter and Facebook and subscribing to The Well Daily.
Wellness Wednesday: Bring Yoga Home
Jun 29th
Hi friends,
Sometimes it’s tough to fit a visit to the yoga studio into your schedule. When you’re pressed for time, try one of these ways to build your at-home practice.
Let us know what you think, and be well.
xoxo,
Sukey
Even if yoga is your life, sometimes life gets in the way of taking a class at a studio. When you aren’t able to travel to a yoga class, open up your home and practice to a multimedia class. Practicing with others – even if they are on the other side of a flat screen – keeps you motivated and committed to your routine.
There are some great yoga sequences on DVDs led by master teachers like Shiva Rea and Rodney Yee that you can add to your repertoire. Choose a DVD that offers more than one class so you won’t tire of the same routine but will have familiarity with the teacher’s style of teaching and vocabulary.
A free yoga podcast is another great option. We like Yoga Download, which offers 20 minute audio and video classes by donation and longer classes for a very small fee. Yoga to the People also offers free hour-long recordings of its studio classes.
For quality yoga videos that you can stream online, try Hulu’s Yoga Zone channel and YogaJournal.com. We also really like Yoga Today; there is a nominal fee but the classes are worth it. They offer a new free class each week, which you can even stream to your iPhone or iPad.
If you travel frequently, consider one of the many quality yoga apps out there. Yoga Journal offers the iPractice app for your iPhone or iPad, which gives you unique and portable classes that you can take with you wherever you go. We also love Pocket Yoga, a cute cartoon yoga app that makes yoga-on-the-go a little more fun. These are great options for those yogis whose home-away-from-home is a hotel.
Don’t let your schedule get in the way of deepening your practice. Find a second yoga community in the comfort of your own home as you learn from master teachers and re-connect with the teacher in you.
The Well Wisdom: Remember that nothing can replace the knowledgeable feedback and guidance of a yoga instructor who can offer modifications and adjustments during a class. When you practice at home, you should be aware of your body and your limitations.
For more tips on living well, visit The Well Daily, a website and free daily email for all things yoga, meditation, nutrition and wellness. They have the simple mission to be well, do well, live well—for yourself and others. The site’s creators, Sukey Novogratz and Jackie MacLeod, know they are not alone in their quest to breathe more deeply, operate more energetically, live more mindfully and age more gracefully. They pass along the ideas that they love, whether they’re the latest or the most ancient–ideas that open the heart, nurture the body and expand the mind.
You can join their circle of friends, yogis, gurus, beginners, experts, sages, vegans, vegetarians, conscious carnivores and everyday people seeking more health and more joy, by following them on Twitter and Facebook and subscribing to The Well Daily.
Wellness Wednesday: 4 Quick and Easy Stress Relievers
Jun 8th
Hello friends,
We at The Well Daily recently asked our go-to holistic expert Dr. Karen Erickson for a few pointers on creating calm. She shared with us simple things we all can do for less stress and more peace. Hope you find them as helpful as we did.
xoxo,
Sukey
Dr. Karen Erickson is the Well Daily’s go-to-expert for all things holistic.
Stress relief does not have to involve a big complicated effort or making an appointment with an expert. There are many simple actions that can turn down the volume in your mind in a matter of minutes. Below are some methods that are fast and simple. You can do them by yourself, anytime and (almost) anywhere.
Alternate Nostril Breathing: Breathe in through the right nostril while closing the left with your ring finger. Then switch and breathe out through the left nostril while closing the right with your thumb. Reverse. Do this for 2 or 3 minutes, and your blood pressure will lower and your body will relax.
Head Hold: Lay the palm of one hand across your forehead and lay the palm of the other hand across the bottom of the skull. Breathe and hold for several minutes. When you release your palms you’ll notice that much of the physical and emotional tension you were holding has been released as well.
Inversions: You don’t have to do a handstand to be inverted. If you have a couple of minutes and a little bit of space and privacy, try lying on the floor with your legs up against the wall. Stay there for two to five minutes and when you stand back up much of the stress you were feeling will be noticeably gone.
Essential Oils: Essential oils are a quick and uncomplicated way to relieve stress, and one of the best ways to use them is to turn them into a ritual. For instance, right before bed take a hotbath or shower. Afterward, when you are completely relaxed and at ease, dab some of the oils onto your skin. If you do this often, you will be anchoring the smell with a profoundly relaxing experience. This will connect that oil to a primitive part of the brain so that when you use the oil in a stressful situation, that part of the brain will know to relax. So, whether the kids are out of control or you are about to walk into a stressful meeting, use your calming oil and your brain will take care of the rest.
For more tips on living well, visit The Well Daily, a website and free daily email for all things yoga, meditation, nutrition and wellness. They have the simple mission to be well, do well, live well—for yourself and others. The site’s creators, Sukey Novogratz and Jackie MacLeod, know they are not alone in their quest to breathe more deeply, operate more energetically, live more mindfully and age more gracefully. They pass along the ideas that they love, whether they’re the latest or the most ancient–ideas that open the heart, nurture the body and expand the mind.
You can join their circle of friends, yogis, gurus, beginners, experts, sages, vegans, vegetarians, conscious carnivores and everyday people seeking more health and more joy, by subscribing to The Well Daily.