Integrative Health Blog

If you’ve ever walked through a beauty, perfume or lotion store, you may have felt a sudden wave of nausea or a throbbing headache as you inhaled and your entire system is assaulted by an overwhelming concentration of chemicals.

The synthetic fragrance and other chemicals in beauty products are often incredibly toxic, so much so that many of them are banned throughout Europe and other western countries.

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Many people love yoga and find the benefits to their health – both mental and physical – are tremendous.  How in the world a few simple poses and some deep breaths can bring up and release so much buried emotional baggage for me continues to baffle me.  There is no doubt that my mind is much more centered, as is my emotional state, when I have a regular or daily practice.

When I first started going to class I felt a bit self-indulgent.  I had a million things to do and going to class meant something on that mile-long list wasn’t getting done.  But after a few classes my husband was practically pushing me out the door.  He knew taking time for myself was allowing me to be more patient and present in the home.  What’s that saying? Something about “when momma ain’t happy…?”  So yes, I stuck with my yoga practice.

Aromatherapy and Yoga

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1. Food is Fuel

What you eat and drink during the day has a lot to do with how well your body can rest at night. Start the day with a large glass of room-temperature water to properly hydrate you and get your digestive juices flowing.  There is a unique opportunity to hydrate the body after a night of fasting that cannot be duplicated once something else has entered the digestive tract. 

After that I like to fast on bulletproof butter coffee and green juice until lunch.   I try to eat a healthy lunch and dinner, and minimize or eliminate sugar and white carbs.  We crave stimulants like sugar, caffeine, and alcohol when we are tired, so once you start getting adequate sleep you’ll find your cravings will diminish significantly.  So will your waistline because the cortisol levels (stress hormones) in your body will lower, too, and cortisol is known for packing on belly fat (and we certainly don’t need any more of that!).

I also like to avoid eating after 8 p.m.  The body sleeps better if it doesn’t have to focus on digesting food during the night.  Digestion takes a ton of energy, and during sleep you want the body focusing on repairing microscopic muscle tears, neural connections, and detoxification.

2. Exercise

I once met a doctor who said she wouldn’t see me if I didn’t agree to daily exercise. It’s THAT important.  If you’re over 50 and not exercising, you could really be in trouble.  I could go on and on about the benefits of exercising, but there are hundreds of benefits and thousands of blog posts to teach you all the “whys”.  Seriously, just work it in.

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