During times of stress and when a world-wide pandemic is upon us, it is very important to keep up ones immune system.

Attached is a yoga sequence that BKS Iyengar recommends.   It is particularly good at building and keeping the immune system well.  Inverted poses are central to this sequence and so are "timings" (staying in the poses for the times indicated).  These timings help to calm the nervous system and help the para-sympatheic nervous system arise.   If your practice doesn't include these inversions yet, or you have a condition for which inversions are not recommended, please ask Lauren at OSYC, and she will give you modifications that are appropriate for your level of practice.

Spine health affects our whole being (physical, mental, and emotional).  When the vertebrae aren’t doing their designated tasks then the organs, our thinking and our emotions can all be severely compromised, in many cases without our conscious awareness. 

Each region of the spine has its own essential function and way of moving. When compromised by poor posture, accidents, health issues, or lack of exercise, the nervous system becomes frayed; we can experience exhaustion, heaviness, and lack of enthusiasm for life.  Yoga encourages overall well-being through spinal health.  Individualized problem areas can be identified and students can move in the direction of optimum health and vitality.

Spinal Regions & their Purposes

Coccyx (tailbone)...

TRAIN-ING & THE MIND

Think of a train rolling along the railroad tracks.  If one of its two rails was to go missing, the train couldn’t perform its proper function, its clear direction, or its designated purpose. In short, there would be a disaster!

In the human realm, the mind also has two parallel “tracks”.  Both are essential.  Together they distinguishthe unique human realm of sentient experience.  We cannot function optimally in life if these two tracks are not distinct one from the other AND if they are not in optimum balance, alignment and harmony.

One of these tracks is our capacity to think, to reason.  The other is our innate capacity to be Aware.  Most of humanity has only the slightest functional recog...

We live in a world bombarded by noise, toxicity, a degraded food system, and heaps of stress. We also live with less attention on how we're doing than what we're doing, how we look to  ourselves and others, and our own self-image (colored our habitual patterns - mostly unconscious). There comes a time for many of us when our bodies, minds, and emotions try to tell us something is wrong or out of balance.  But we don't listen very well. So our autoimmune systems begin to speak very loudly, or begin to attack us in various ways and so strongly, that we have to stop because the pain is too much to override anymore. 

This attack can be on our nervous system (MS), on our joints (Rheumatoid Arthritis), on our organs (Thyroid imbalances);...