Yoga & Wellness

Cool Your Practice With Sheetali Breaths

Practicing yoga during the summer months has its benefits. The warm weather can help to relax muscles and joints providing ease with flexibility and mobility. If you’re a morning practitioner, the early sunrise can give your morning practice an energetic boost. Summertime also provides  many wonderful opportunities to practice outdoors in nature.

The summer months can have their challenges though, particularly when it comes to heat and feeling overexerted. Luckily, through the practice of pranayama- breath control, which is large part of the yogic practice, you can learn to balance and counteract heat inside and outside of the body.

 Sheetali Breath is deeply cooling and rejuvenating and is known to cool both our internal temperatures and tempers. Sheetali breath is best practiced with a curled tongue, but if that’s not a possibility, there is a modification.

 

To practice Sheetali breath, curl your tongue if you’re able and slide it between puckered lips. Inhale deeply through the mouth as if you’re drinking through a straw (your tongue serving as the straw) allowing the cool air burst to enter the body creating a sense of expansion. To exhale, release the breath completely, also through the mouth, taking your time to fully empty yourself. Repeat for several rounds. 

 

If curling the tongue is not an option, pucker your lips as if you’re preparing to whistle. Allow your jaws to relax and your tongue to soften against the lower palette of your mouth. To practice this variation of Sheetali breath, inhale deeply through the mouth as if drinking in the air and when you’re ready to exhale, release the breath completely. 

 

Since the Sheetali breath practice is so cooling and filled with the elements of air and ether, it’s a wise idea to practice this breath in seated cross legged position, which is extremely grounding and stabilizing as it will create balance by adding earth and water energy. To find comfort in seated cross legged position, you may opt to elevate your hips on a blanket, pillow or bolster, so that your spine lengthens and the hip flexors find ease. Invite your limbs to relax and draw your shoulders away from your ears. 

 

Once you’re comfortable and still, it’s time to begin your cooling Sheetali breaths. 

Amethyst: The Incredible Healing and Calming Gem

If I had to choose one and only one crystal to have and to hold and be my companion, I would, without a moment of hesitation go with AMETHYST... the Incredible Healing and Calming Gem!

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A rough, deep purple amethyst to be specific.

 

Ever since childhood when I mistakenly identified my birthstone as amethyst, (alas, June is actually Alexandrite…) I’ve been attracted to the radiant purple gem.

 

It’s not a natural choice since purple is not a color I usually vibrate towards. Some people are unabashedly attracted to the color purple,  I’m not one of those people. Green and turquoise have always been my spirit colors. Color preference aside, amethyst is still my soul gem.

 

Maybe it was my natural attraction to healing work, my connection with the moon, the pitta portion of my Ayurvedic constitution in constant need being tamed, but whatever the case, amethyst, it turns out is the perfect gem for yoga instructor, reiki healer, writer, and lover of quiet, me.

 

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Amethyst: The Incredible Healing and Calming Gem

·             Amethyst calms, protects and cleanses the spirit

·             Amethyst is grounding and balancing

·             Amethyst aids in meditation as it correlates directly with and stimulates the crown chakra and is known to heighten spiritual and psychic awareness

·             Amethyst eases anxiety, emotional imbalance and agitation

·             Amethyst helps to bring about clarity of thought

·             Amethyst is known to emit energy to help strengthen the adrenal glands, the reproductive organs and the respiratory system

·             Amethyst boosts the immune system

·             Amethyst helps with grief and loss

·             Amethyst is known to energize and foster creativity

·             Amethyst has been used to attract abundance and prosperity

·             Amethyst is a heart opener

·             Amethyst helps to free anger and repressed emotions

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I use amethyst jewelry when I’m engaged in healing work, I sleep with an amethyst next to my bed, there’s an amethyst at my yoga altar, I place amethyst around my plants and there’s an amethyst stone at my writing desk.

 

I adore my soul stone and choose amethyst, when it comes down to it, above all others.

What's your favorite stone and why?