health – Page 4 – The Branches

Yoga Tips from QSY: Everyday Calf Stretch

This quick Yoga Tips video with Leena discusses why you probably need more calf stretching in your life, and how to do a basic stretch. Add this stretch to your everyday routine to help counteract the effects of sitting, positive heeled shoes and walking on hard flat surfaces. And go find some fun trails to walk on too!

Get your calf stretches in without taking precious time out of your day by doing them while you’re working at a standing desk, brushing your teeth or doing dishes. You can use a rolled yoga mat, a halfdome, or even a Yoga Tune-Up ball. Or, if you’re outside on a walk (Woo! Good for you!) use a stone, a curb, a tree stump or fallen branch. Walking uphill is also a great way to stretch your calves and load your feet, ankles and legs in a new way! Continue reading “Yoga Tips from QSY: Everyday Calf Stretch”

Roll Out Relief – Keeping Your Feet Supple during Boot Season

Last Sunday I was delighted to try Yoga Tune-Up for the first time at Queen Street Yoga. Guest teacher Tara Kachroo took us through massage techniques from our feet all the way up to our necks, and I left feeling as wiggly as a noodle. I was happy to find that some foot pain I have been experiencing recently had lessened the next day! I am really looking forward to participating in Tara’s upcoming 6-week course at QSY (see below for more info) and learning more ways to incorporate “rolling” (with grippy Yoga Tune-Up balls) into my yoga/movement/strengthening practice.

Here is a short video created by Yoga Tune-Up founder Jill Miller. There are all sorts of great videos on her channel for using the Tune-Up balls for all different areas of the body. I’ve chosen one that outlines a few exercises for the feet. Especially in this snowy weather, when we are wearing heavier boots, it’s important to make sure our feet get enough movement.

Continue reading “Roll Out Relief – Keeping Your Feet Supple during Boot Season”

Regaining Core Strength After Twins – A Post by Kris

This post was written by longtime QSY teacher Kris Lekin. In this post, Kris offers some insight into re-gaining core strength and support after pregnancy.

Just before I got pregnant in 2013, I was more physically fit than I had ever been. I was deepening my yoga practice, running and cycling daily, and even going to the gym (ok, that was only occasionally – I’ve never loved the gym). Then came the pregnancy (dun, dun, duuun)…with twins! My belly grew large and fast, and so did the rest of me. I accepted it as all being part of the process, but I was troubled by the size I would inevitably be and what that would do to my core muscles. I was aware of the condition diastasis recti (separation of the rectus abdominus muscle into left and right halves) and knew that this was inevitable with a twin pregnancy that went to term. It is a condition that occurs from 30-40% of all pregnancies. While pregnant, I studied with Jill Miller (of the Yoga Tune Up method) to help keep my inner baby carriage (a.k.a. the deep core) strong to support pregnancy and birth. However, the more my belly swelled, the less optimistic I was that I would ever be able to plank again, let alone do a handstand.

I carried my babies for 40 full weeks, and they grew and grew. I couldn’t have been more proud that I had “made it” that long, despite the fact my body had completely changed. A couple of months after delivery, I eased back into my yoga practice and tried to run once again. My body felt foreign. It also felt like my insides were falling out and that my middle wasn’t being supportive in my movements. Continue reading “Regaining Core Strength After Twins – A Post by Kris”

#tbt Throwback Thursday – How I fell in love with the Tensegrity Repair Series

It’s Throwback Thursday here at Queen Street Yoga, and today we are throwing back to August of 2014 when Leena wrote about falling in love with the Tensegrity Repair Series. Later this month we are looking forward to a day-long workshop all about the Tensegrity Repair Series with Vancouver-based teacher Trudy Austin. If you’ve ever been curious to learn more about the flowing movements that Emma and Leena sometimes incorporate into their classes, consider joining us for Trudy’s workshop on October 24.

Grease for your Rusty Parts

Photo by mtneer_man on Flickr

Ever get up from your desk, and feel your joints creak like a rusty old car? Perhaps due to the amount of time we spend sitting in chairs, seats, and couches in North America, the average person I see has core weakness. This instability in the core is often coupled with tightness and lack of mobility in the hip joints and shoulder joints (and by core, I’m not solely referring to the abdominal muscles, but also muscles of the pelvis, deep core and back muscles.)

The Tensegrity Repair Series is a set of 20 simple exercises designed to restore healthy range of motion to the hips, shoulders, and spine. It helps to build supple strength in the core muscles, and balance and stabilize the pelvis. Overall, I’ve found it to be an amazing antidote to the most common structural and postural imbalance issues that I have personally, and that I see in the general population. It brings that little bit of grease back to our creaky parts.Continue reading “#tbt Throwback Thursday – How I fell in love with the Tensegrity Repair Series”

Cool It!: A short practice to calm the nervous system & release the lower back and hips

This post and sequence was created by Leena as a follow up to last week’s post on #Selfcare, Restorative Yoga & Community Acupuncture.

The first few weeks of September are this funny in-between time. We’re on the threshold of transitions: the end of vacations, the weather turning (eventually) from summer to fall, back to school, back to routine, etc. Here at the studio we are gearing up for a packed fall schedule of special offerings, including lots of great pre-registered courses and a nearly sold-out Yoga Teacher Training program.

Here’s a quick little practice to help you cool off and calm down in this early September heat wave. It’s a great sequence for helping to soothe an over-reactive nervous system and find more ease in the lower back and hips. It would be nice as a before-bed sequence to help you get a good night of sleep. You can even do the last pose, legs up the wall, against your headboard. Enjoy!Continue reading “Cool It!: A short practice to calm the nervous system & release the lower back and hips”

#Selfcare: Community Acupuncture and Restorative Yoga at QSY

We are excited to introduce weekly Community Acupuncture at QSY with Registered Acupuncturist Nir Saar! In this post QSY director, Leena, explains the primary functions of the nervous system, and how exhaustion of the nervous system can lead to a myriad of health problems. Leena is a big proponent of restorative yoga and acupuncture, and she details how restorative and acupuncture can help regulate and heal an exhausted nervous system, and boost your health on many levels. Read towards the end of the post to get a sense of how Community Acupuncture, which is super affordable, will operate at QSY.

Stress is a dirty word in our busy North American, urbanized society, and no doubt many of us experience stress on a regular, if not daily basis. But more technically speaking, at the level of the body and nervous system, stress is actually neutral. It’s how we process stress that makes all the difference.

Stress is what your body/mind does to adapt to change. Our bodies evolved in environments where responding to change usually involves some amount of muscular action, like to run away from a tiger (muscles spring tighter to take action, eyes focus, heart rate increases), and the mode of your nervous system called the sympathetic mode is utilized.Continue reading “#Selfcare: Community Acupuncture and Restorative Yoga at QSY”

Yoga & The Importance of Touch: Self Massage and Massage Therapy

This post is from Katerina, one of our Registered Massage Therapists. Katerina attends regular classes at the studio and in this blog post considers the relationship between yoga practice and therapeutic touch.

Queen Street Yoga is a place of many things for me. It is a workplace, a third place (a place between work and home) and a spiritual place. It is a place where my understanding of anatomy and kinetics of the human body is deepened. It is a sanctuary where my learning from all these faculties meets and marinates and becomes the type of knowledge that can only be called embodied wisdom.

The Importance of Touch

Lately I have been contemplating the question, “How can massage and yoga work together to help us heal?”. This has lead me to think about the role of touch in the health and healing. As a massage therapist my job is to create an environment where my clients feel safe and relaxed with my touch; an individual on my massage table should always feel like they are the one in control. In massage, touch plays the role of a tool in a tool-belt designed to help us journey towards a healthful relationship with our body. Massage can be used as a tool to decrease a muscle spasm, scar tissue and pain, and during the last year I have also seen massage used to help Alzheimer’s patients return to a sense of self and aid anxiety sufferers in feeling control over their symptoms. Massage with a trusted therapist can be an experience of healthy and safe touch. As adults we may experience less touch in our lives than we did as children, and therapeutic touch can be an important part of experiencing our bodies.Continue reading “Yoga & The Importance of Touch: Self Massage and Massage Therapy”

Water Kefir – post by Leena

Gut health has been in the news a lot lately. It seems like every week I come across a new piece of research about the inner environment of our guts and implications of the levels of good bacteria and probiotics in the gut for our overall health. And I’m not just talking about physical health, new studies are showing that probiotics may even improve mental and emotional well being and decrease anxiety. This interview I heard on Science Friday from NPR News discusses how probiotic-laced broth reduced anxiety and stress in mice.

In humans, this interesting study found that four weeks of regular intake of probiotic yogurt by healthy women affected activity in the brain regions that control central processing of emotion.Continue reading “Water Kefir – post by Leena”

Tips for Going Upside Down — A Handstand Post from Aimée

I love doing handstands. I love kicking up and feeling my heels tap the wall. I love pressing down through my hands and up through my tailbone and my feet. I love the way the reversal of gravity feels on my spine. I love how free my toes feel. I love that feeling of trying out my (very wobbly) balance and feeling the whole length of my legs balancing from my pelvis. I love that a tiny wiggle of one of my fingers can send me all the way over to one side or another.

I do handstands as often as I can, just for the sheer joy of it.

I used to take gymnastics when I was a kid (I was never any good at it at all, ever, but I LOVED it) and as a result was always doing cartwheels and somersaults and wheel poses and handstands at the wall in my living room during the commercial breaks of TV shows. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t do this. I know I was still doing it in high school–here’s a picture of me doing a headstand against the wall that somehow wound up getting taken and ultimately placed in a family album.

Continue reading “Tips for Going Upside Down — A Handstand Post from Aimée”

Dreamy-Creamy Coconut Chickpea Curry

This recipe was created by Leena, and she thought it was so easy and delicious that it might be worth sharing with the QSY community! This dish is very allergy friendly, which makes it great for potlucks… It’s vegetarian, dairy free, gluten free, nut free, but still super delicious!

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Continue reading “Dreamy-Creamy Coconut Chickpea Curry”