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An old adage says that if you eat fruits and vegetables for 80 years, you won’t die young. I’m pretty sure the same thing could be applied to fostering a life-long yoga practice—even if the only thing you do consistently is keep a journal about it.

Or at least, that’s what Bruce Black recommends in Writing Yoga, a how-to guide and memoir he penned to teach how journaling can deepen your awareness of yoga.

How can daily journaling do that? Through the yogic concept of svadhyaya or self-study. As Black puts it, “Your journal, like your mat, is your refuge, a place where you can let your guard down, discover who you really are, and celebrate that discovery. It helps you answer the question: Who am I?”

Or as yoga teacher and lifelong personal-journal aficionado Mia Park notes, it can simply help you understand how your meditation or asana habits have changed.

Journaling 101

Start simple. Make a habit of keeping a pencil or pen and paper nearby so you can jot down notes or observations as soon as you’ve finished practicing.

Write down anything. “It could be my left hip really hurts,” says Park, or “I didn’t realize I wasn’t supposed to touch my mala beads with my index finger.” She doesn’t limit herself in scope here: “I lost track of space and time and thought I was a cow on the moon” isn’t off limits either.

Don’t over-think things. So you’re having a hard time getting into it. It’s hard enough, with your crazy schedule, to practice every single day, and now you’re supposed to write about it? Do it anyway. Think of journaling as a form of tapas or discipline. Park suggests that you write about everyday experiences, or extraordinary ones, if they surface, or anything in between; you don’t need to have earth-shattering insights.

Be open to sharing. Still not convinced? Keep in mind that a daily journal can also open your heart. To yourself, and others.

Give it a try. Write down one single thing as vividly as you can. According to Black, it doesn’t get any more basic than this: “A journal is another prop—like a block, a belt, a blanket—for you to use in your yoga practice.”

Photo (cc) by Flickr user Amir Kuckovic 

Do you ever skip an opportunity to practice asana because you don’t think you have time, energy, or even enough space? According to senior Para Yoga teacher Karina Ayn Mirsky even just a few minutes matters: for physiology, vitality, and even our everyday habits.

Read on for tips from our interview with Mirsky on how to put together a sequence that’s only 10 minutes long, prepare for a short meditation, or even practice asana in the shower.

Why practice for only 10 minutes?
Because it will help you create good practice habits. I’m reminded of a story that Rolf Sovik shares about how he established a meditation practice. He would get up in the morning and go and touch his meditation cushion and then walk away. He did this for several days.

And then he would go to the cushion and sit on it for a moment. And periodically he would go to his meditation seat and sit on it for a few minutes longer, and before he knew it, he was established in the practice of taking his seat on the meditation cushion.

Even if we can only carve out a few minutes a day, if we make the commitment to practice, even for just a few minutes, we establish ourselves in the habit and that’s what’s really important.

Is there a better or worse time of the day to slip in a few minutes of practice?
It’s funny. My teacher, Rod Stryker says that the best time to do meditation practice is first thing in the morning, according to the ayurvedic clock. And the second best time is any other time. I think it’s true for this as well.

Give yourself 10 minutes, first thing in the morning. It helps work out the stiffness and soreness that may have accumulated over night; and your mind get clear and focused for your day.  Otherwise what happens is you wake up, rush off to work, jump on the email right away and before you know it, your attention gets pulled in a million directions and you’ve missed your opportunity.

What should you focus on if you only have 10 minutes?
I love arm swings—the breath of joy—to get the respiration going. Use strong exhales, and a little bit of kapalabhati with those arms swings. This helps move lymphatic fluid, increase circulation, and loosens up the shoulders and the upper back.

I also like dynamic chair pose. Moving in an out of Utkatasana wakes up the upper back, increases energy, and stimulates the nervous system.

If I only have a few minutes I might move slowly through the sun salutation sequence. But any vinyasa flow will do. You could even move in and out of uttanasana a few times.

If I’m really limited, if I don’t even have ten minutes—there are certain things I’ll do in the shower. Agni sara is one. It’s part of my shower routine now. And there’s even a couple of shoulder stretches, warrior poses, with one hand against the wall in the shower so the hot water can run down the chest and work out any aches and pains or stiffness from the night’s sleep.

How long should someone focus on any portion of the practice?
It’s my understanding that if you’re holding a posture, that it takes about 60 seconds to affect the musculature system. It takes closer to 2 minutes to start making an impact on the nervous system. And more than 2 minutes to make an impact on the endocrine system.

When I do arm swings or breath of joy, because I really do want to get my lymph going, I’ll tend to do that for a few minutes. 2 minutes is the minimum.

But for chair pose, which requires so much muscular energy from the thighs, that I might do 6 to 9 rounds of extending the arms outward and then bringing the palms inward to the heart, moving in and out of the pose.

Listen to your body. We don’t always need to look to the science or look to our teachers.   We can look to our inner teacher.

Do you have any recommendations for preparing for meditation?
Sometimes what we need to do is strengthen the core and the back body. The muscles of the abdomen and the lower back support the sitting posture and the spine, so it’s important to warm up and strengthen those to prevent back and shoulder pain.

Some poses to consider: Pilates exercises for the core. Dynamic locust, shalambasana, and dynamic cobra. These postures are wonderful for creating the stabilization we need for longer sits.

And foot and ankle circles—something most people wouldn’t think of as a warm-up for meditation. To gain the most benefit, circle each foot slowly and deliberately. Flex and extend the toes, extend the arch of the foot, and circle the ankle. You may even feel this simple movement all through the front of the shin, the back of the calf, and down into the hip joints. Foot and ankle circles prevent the feet from falling asleep and also from cramping. This technique increases circulation in the lower leg, supports the knee and the ligament along the outer edge of the leg.

Photo by Andrea Killam

At around 7 am, in an apartment in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, just a few hours before I have to catch a flight from La Guardia to Chicago, I decide to meditate on the edge of a friend’s mattress with my back to the wall. Fifteen minutes later I put my mala beads down and check the time on my phone.

Whenever I travel, I make plans to be productive, to be mindful, to devour books like I did at 21 as a first-time solo traveler in Europe. But what ends up happening is this: an interrupted or somehow abridged meditation practice, lack of attention, anxiety, and at least a little gas.

I can do more nadi shodhanam. I can plot a course—non-stop—to relaxation town. Except on days like today when my mind won’t turn off. Later in the day at La Guardia, I’m too occupied replaying the hits (and probable misses) of my last night in New York to consider doing additional practice.

How do other yoga practitioners and teachers travel the world with their feet still squarely planted on the ground (while flying coach, catching public transportation, and avoiding the likes of airport bars and private town cars alike)?

As it happens you don’t need to buy an inflatable neck rest or seek out public yoga practice on the floor of airports—though, if you’re flying out of San Francisco’s SFO airport, they’ve got a room for that. Keep reading for mindful travel tips to use on any trip, in any part of the world.

1. Stay Hydrated

Because of the lack of humidity on most planes, it’s easy to get dehydrated from a short or long-haul flight. Yoga teacher Kathryn Budig buys a massive water bottle. Just don’t buy one until you clear airport security.

Optional: Mix the water with an effervescent wellness packet or tablet (such as Emergen-C or Airborne) and finish the bottle before you get off the plane.

2. Practice Therapeutic Asana

“It’s not my style to do yoga in airports,” says Jennifer Hoddevik of The Travel Yogi, but even if it’s not your cup of Earl Grey either, she recommends finding a way to practice double pigeon: it can be easily adapted to the confines of an airport gate, or the seats of planes, trains, and car seats alike. Try it at least once—your sore hips will thank you.

Other best bets? “I think legs-up-the-wall is imperative when traveling,” says Budig, who practices it just before bed, and who also gives a resounding commendation of double pigeon and other hip-openers. Among the chief benefits of practice, legs-up-the-wall is therapeutic for anxiety and insomnia, promoting the sleep you need after a long day of travel.

Hoddevik also practices twists, sun salutations, and heart-opening poses after reaching a destination. “It’s not so much grounding as a way to prepare yourself to be receptive to other people,” she says, “I get very tense when I travel so it’s a way to open myself and loosen up.”

3. Keep an Ayurveda First-Aid Kit

According to Ayurvedic Institute founder Vasant Lad, travel disrupts the vata dosha, making the usual suspects—dehydration, anxiety, general spaciness, and jet lag—easy to succumb to and more difficult to overcome. But the good news is that ayurveda offers loads of on-the-road remedies, from digestive herbs that can help prevent traveler’s diarrhea, to jet lag tea.

Get the 411 on these and other remedies here.

Other Holistic Tips:
Cover your throat with a scarf during air travel
Take epsom salt baths (for bloating)
Always carry arnica gel (for muscle aches)

4. Remember that Attitude is Everything

When life gives you delayed flights, mild nausea, or even awkward lunches with relatives you thought you once knew, reflect on the words of famed travel writer (and Dalai Llama bibliographer) Pico Iyer: “We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate.”

Or in other words, travel is transformative—regardless of the immediate feeling of a good or bad experience. “We’re all gonna hit the same hurdles,” says Hoddevik, “But trips in which you have a difficult experience or even a bad experience are maybe even more transformative than trips you look back on fondly.”

Try to approach a trip with the same openness and courage you’d use to approach a challenging pose or asana sequence. “You’re out of your bubble and have to learn about yourself,” says Hoddevik. “Travel forces you to understand more than the small nuclear world you’re comfortable with.”

5. Anxious? Breathe (Seriously)

“I’d get full anxiety the night before going somewhere,” says Budig, of early days as a traveling yoga teacher. “Now I throw my bag together and I’m ready for the journey.” Her advice? “Don’t focus on the potential for things going wrong or get ahead of yourself. That’s where the projection of fear, expectation, and anxiety come from.” Instead, “Be honest with yourself. One breath at a time, one step at a time.”

Remind yourself of your intention for travel, whether it’s to learn about a new culture or to share your message as a yoga teacher. “The only way to do that is to step out into the world,” says Budig, “You can’t stay in one place.”

“Travel” photo (cc) by Flickr user Tal Bright

Every day—or even a couple times a week—we stop what we’re doing, roll out our yoga mat or pull out our zafu from its hiding place, and sit down. As yoga practitioners we tune out the world around us and turn in to our inner world using one of the primary tenets of yoga—pratyahara or withdrawal of the senses.

But off our mat or cushion, how much time do we spend alone, just enjoying the solitude? Probably not much. Our advice: Make that part of your daily routine. Spend time in the garden reading something that inspires you, or write in your journal. “Do everything slowly,” says upstate New York-based teacher Amy Pearce-Hayden. “Even do dishes slowly,” she says, laughing.

According to Himalayan Institute’s senior yoga teacher Shari Friedrichsen, “A lot of people who study yoga think that there are good sides to themselves and bad.” But by holding space for ourselves outside of yoga-approved activities, she says, we can more readily notice, without judgment, all our everyday emotions and physical reactions—the skillful ones and not-so-skillful.

Spend some time alone and then return to your regularly scheduled yoga practice. See if it’s changed. “I notice that I’m not busy trying to unwind quite so much,” Shari says of her own personal practice. “Being alone gives you time to breathe. To know yourself a little bit better outside of just relaxation.”

If you’ve never felt comfortable hanging out by yourself, your yoga practice can actually help you transition to a more at-ease feeling. Take some tips from some of our favorite teachers:

Amy Pearce-Hayden:  A yin practice can help you feel more comfortable in your own skin. It also can show you how emotions change from moment to moment.  “I remain within a pose until I have an emotional change in posture,” Amy says. “Staying for 3 to 5 minutes gives me an opportunity to wait for my feelings to change.”

Shari Friedrichsen: Every time you do yoga, pay attention to your abdomen—specifically abdominal breathing, abdominal squeezes, and agni sara. This will help you develop the strength and courage you need to face negative thoughts and feelings.

Anamargret Sanchez: If you don’t already have a regular meditation practice, take “little bits” of time—10 minutes, then 15 minutes—to sit still until you feel like you can sit longer. “Whenever I feel uncomfortable, my mantra meditation practice becomes my beacon,” says Sanchez. Meditation won’t always be easy—nor will being alone with our thoughts or emotions sometimes—but “as Rod Stryker points out, one of the things we learn on the path of yoga is courage. Tantra is all about how to be able to feel comfortable in the midst of chaos.”

Oh, and don’t forget about this video,  by filmmaker Andrea Dorfman and poet/singer/songwriter Tanya Davis:

Photo (cc) by Flickr user Fe Ilya

Why do people cleanse? For health reasons, I guess. And sometimes, for beauty. Or even, it would seem, for fashion—like the time the New York Times Style section reported on the (alleged) rise of the hand-held coconut, stating that it was suddenly akin to “banh mi sandwiches and sriracha chili sauce” as the “latest formerly humble food to be discovered by New York City’s style set, and elevated — if not quite to the level of a status symbol — at least to that of a prized accessory.”

As for me, I gave up my 5-year fling with vegetarianism halfway through college almost only because I stopped being able to tolerate wheat and didn’t know how to be a vegetarian without it. Or, really, I should say, I didn’t even want to try. I’m 24, and sometimes (a little) immature.

So why is this the first day of my 7-day cleanse? Because I moved to the Himalayan Institute as a fresh-faced editorial intern in 2010 to learn to take care of myself.

I’d later realize I hate relaxing. It’s boring. A little aggravating. And I don’t like the sounds of “gentle voices” or waves, crickets, even the sound of whales slowly moving through the Gulf of Mexico.* At first blush, I come across as an almost textbook manic pixie dream girl. With glasses. Zoey Deschanel-like bangs. And, in my case, a yoga mat.

But, just like the humble coconut has benefits beyond looking-really-awesome-in-the palm-of-your-hand, I really get how beneficial a food-based cleanse can be—in my case, for my own chronic pain and fatigue. For the titanic-like shockwave of congestion I’ve been feeling since the holidays. And to get better in touch with my body, and what it actually needs.

Take that delicious salty popcorn, sriacha sauce, caramels with sea salt, and artisanal coffee.

Though I might be a little afraid to be around other human beings the next several days. (Do people get gassy while cleansing? What happens if someone asks me if I’m tearing that napkin cuz I’m frustrated?) I’m still choosing kitchari over all of you.

[*That one’s actually not true. I love the sound of whales.]

Want more information on the Spring Renewal Challenge? Check here

Photo via (cc) Flickr user Morning theft

We all have different methods of steeling ourselves for a cleanse. Some of us gradually pare down the processed foods in our diets. Others may clean out the fridge, getting rid of all offending eatables, and making room for the beans and rice concoction that they’ll subsist on for the next week. Me? I go to the Philadelphia Water Ice Stand on the corner of 10^thand Church Street for a hand-dipped cup of banana daiquiri sorbet layered with vanilla soft serve.So why am I sneaking off at lunch breaks to order Haagen Daz twice in the same week? Two reasons. First of all, my favorite oasis of dairy deliciousness has just re-opened for the season and second, I have to get my fill before the cleanse starts because I have to get through a whole week without that decadent treat. I’m not exactly a pillar of discipline, but I like to think that I have some control over my cravings.

Over the past few days, as I sit down to each meal, I’ve become keenly aware of my plate and the foods I’ll deny myself for the next week. Spinach lasagna? Nope, it has wheat, garlic, and dairy. Fresh green salad? Uh-uh, it has nightshades and onions in it, and it’s raw. The satisfaction of mindlessly munching on a buttery bowl of popcorn while zoning out to a movie… forget it! No wonder I’m relishing every bite like it’s the Last Supper. The Spring Renewal is a challenge, and we haven’t even started yet!

With 24 hours left on the clock before the whole-foods diet begins, I admit I’m a little nervous. I keep peppering the Scott Blossom team with questions from “participants” about what is allowed and not allowed this week. These are the things they say we can keep: raw honey, green veggies, and basmati rice.  Sour apples are also on the list—doesn’t that sound scrumptious?

And, alas these are the foods I’ve had to cross off my list: caffeine, sugar, wheat, dairy, soy, raw veggies, brown rice, and nuts.  After taking the dosha quiz and figuring out that I have a vata constitution, I’m relieved to discover that at least I can enjoy my breakfast porridge with a splash of almond milk.

Want more information on the Spring Renewal Challenge? Check here

To prep for the Spring Renewal Challenge, I started backing off the coffee, chai, and tea about three weeks ago, thinking I could gradually wean myself without symptoms.  I was down to one cup of tea a day when I quit on Monday. Did all this planning make going cold turkey this week any easier?  Not a bit!  As the headache and dullness clouded my thinking for about 48 hours, I realized the hold my caffeine habit had over me.

Like many, my love affair with caffeine, especially coffee, started in college and often accompanied a cigarette.  I abandoned the cigarettes in my thirties, but I maintained an obsession with the bean until I discovered the creamy sweetness of chai, coffee’s milder cousin.  Half the caffeine, chai seemed like a safer alternative.  My coworkers and friends agreed that I wasn’t as apt to steamroll the office if I stayed away from my first love.

I’m on Day 3 of my no-caffeine kick, and I feel clearer, more focused, and, yes, stronger too.  Will I break up with my chai tea and french press forever? Nah, probably not.  But they won’t have the same hold over me.

Want more information on the Spring Renewal Challenge? Check here

Photo via (cc) Flickr user hans_0l0