Yoga is so much more than poses on a mat. In fact, did you know that yoga can literally change your health? Anywhere from reducing anxiety, to lowering blood pressure, to balancing hormones, to alleviating pain from fibromyalgia, to lowering blood sugar in people with diabetes. The list goes on and on. This week, let’s focus our attention on the benefits yoga has on diabetes.

I learned the phrase “protect your punch bowl” from success coach, Darren Hardy. It immediately resonated with me and I wanted to share it with you. It’s Mardi Gras season here in New Orleans, so there will be many parties and many punch bowls filled with probably more liquors than the creator will admit to. But once you get that perfectly flavored Mardi Gras punch, the last thing you want is for someone to say, “I think it needs more pineapple juice!” And now it’s ruined….

This past week, in my yoga class, we talked about the discipline of sadhana, the first Yoga Sutra in the second chapter of the Yoga Sutras text written by Sage Patanjali. The Yoga Sutras or in English, Verses on Yoga, are a scripture of 196 sutras (verses) that represent the Philosophy of Yoga.

Have you chosen your word for the year yet? Or maybe I should ask, do you plan to choose a word for the year? Personally, I like choosing a word in addition to my goals because the word is usually tied to a feeling, whereas our goals may not be, or let me say the feeling associated with our goals may be harder to identify. I would argue then that you picked the wrong goal if it’s not tied to a feeling, but we’ll save that discussion for another day. Let’s stick to your word for the year.

Hello December! Since December is my wedding anniversary month, I thought I would start the month by talking about love. This year my husband and I will have been married 7 years and together for many years long before that. While marriage, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful expressions of love, the other being motherhood, it is not without difficulty. I think we get so caught up in the fairytale of love sometimes, we forget that it takes work to make love work.

I recently had a request to do a training for a group of pharmacists and I had to say no. It was a great opportunity and something I love to do, but I didn’t have the bandwidth to take it on. What’s interesting though is I knew that as soon as the request came in, but I thought about it for a while before saying no, trying to rationalize how I could do it. And when I said no, I felt like I had to offer an explanation as to why I was saying no.

I recently started my 300-hour Yoga Teacher Training. You might remember I completed my 200-hour training this past May. There is so much still to learn so I couldn’t help but do another training. I’m a little bit of a nerd in that way…The initial phase of my training is focused on teaching yoga therapeutics, which is a type of yoga focused more on the clients than the practice. It’s designed for students with specific conditions for whom we design a yoga session that’s tailored to their specific needs. 

One of my friends recently celebrated her birthday. She’s in her first year of her medicine residency, her intern year which is unbelievably busy, so she had to celebrate her birthday on call. When she told me she was on call for her birthday, I responded with “that’s a bummer…” She quickly responded with, “No, I’m good. I worked really hard to get to this point, so I don’t think it’s a bad way to celebrate my birthday at all!”

It’s the second post in my “Yoga Can” Blog Series! This series is all about the stuff you never knew yoga could do. And this week we’re talking about your genetics. Yes, yoga can change your gene expression! I think it’s important to share this kind of information about yoga to really broaden your knowledge and empower you to change your health. You have no idea how much control you can have over your health and your family history and how it will impact you in the future.