Berkhamsted yoga
Many people think about the physical benefits of yoga and tai chi, but have you considered how they can also support your mental health? Here are 4 ways they can help.
Most exercise triggers the release of “feel-good’ chemicals in the brain such as dopamine, serotonin and nerepinephrine, which help to boost our mood. Whether you practice in a more dynamic or a gentle way, the movements can elevate your heart rate, get your muscles working and stimulate the release of these brain chemicals. As a result, you might feel happier, which can make these practices a great addition to your mental health toolkit.
Did you know that yoga and tai chi can support your mental health by moving you from the sympathetic nervous system to the parasympathetic nervous system, or from flight-or-fight to rest-and-digest? When we’re in the rest-and-digest mode we enter a more relaxed state.
As we practice, we get to know ourselves and cultivate a more nonjudgmental relationship with ourselves. Practices like tai chi and yoga and really help to us to be kinder to ourselves, and develop a healthier, more balanced relationship with ourselves.
The tightening and relaxing of muscles can reduce tension, and the breath training included can be especially helpful as there is a relationship between stress relief and learning how to breath properly.
If these inspire you to give yoga or tai chi a try, grab a 2 week unlimited pass now.
Yoga for insomnia
I wanted to share with you my insomnia hell, does that sound too strong? Maybe, but that’s what it has felt like over the past few months for me. I’ve been suffering with insomnia for many years on and off, but mainly it has been short-lived and recovery fairly quick. This time however, has been a whole new experience!
One of the reasons I resisted going to the doctor for medical help was because, being a yoga teacher, I know what to do to relax! To be told by a doctor to do yoga to help me relax was not something I wanted to experience! During the pandemic I’ve probably done more yoga on a daily basis than I’ve ever done in my life before. I’ve been meditating daily too, so getting chronic insomnia seemed totally unfair!!
So this is what I’ve done to help me onto the road of recovery…
So, which of the above changes have helped me sleep a little better? No idea! I do all of them, and I’m still not quite there, but it’s improving. The only addition to this is that on Thursday evening this week I didn’t take the inulin, or do my yoga for sleep sequence, and I didn’t have a good night. However, we are all different! Some, or all of the above, may help you if you also suffer with insomnia.
I’m not an expert, but if you think it might help, I’m very happy to chat with you about my experience. For those of you that don’t have difficultly in sleeping… please pass this on to an insomniac!
This is a sound track that is said to help you sleep too. As I don’t ever have my phone in the bedroom I haven’t tried it, but it has come highly recommended.
Sweet dreams…!
yoga for insomnia
Photo by Megan te Boekhorst on Unsplash
At BAYoga studio, we’re so excited to be welcoming everybody back to in studio yoga, tai chi and meditation.
To celebrate, we want to invite new clients to try out some bitesize classes!
Whether lockdown has left you feeling stiff or inflexible, stressed out or unfocused – or you’re just keen to start moving your body and connecting to your breath – we have a style of yoga or tai chi that will suit you.
We’ll also have some tea and cake after the session if you’d like to stay for a few minutes to ask questions… plus a special offer for all attendees to get a discount to continue your yoga, tai chi or meditation journey with us.
Book yourself onto a taster class for just £5 per 30 minute taster session. ALL proceeds will go to support COVID relief in India.
Our taster timetable:
Saturday 22nd May
Sunday 23rd May
Book yourself in for a taster class (or more than 1!) on our timetable.
Our studio is COVID secure, well ventilated and masks are worn unless we are at our designated mat spaces. If you have a yoga mat at home please bring it to your taster class.
We are the Berkhamsted yoga & tai chi space, and we are celebrating re-opening on 17th May by giving away 3 two week unlimited yoga & tai chi passes available for use in studio and/or online.
We’re so excited to get back into studio, having been offering online sessions throughout the pandemic. We love online, but it’s going to be amazing to get back in safely with you all.
There are many styles of yoga so this will give you a chance to try everything we have to offer. We believe there’s a style of yoga for everybody, you just have to find yours. And it’s such a fun journey. Check out our timetable to explore the different options available.
Whether you practice yoga or tai chi already, or not, this is for you. Our teachers are ready to guide you from your first wobbly downward dog into a full practice. You don’t have to be flexible. All you need to be able to do to start yoga or tai chi is breathe. Flexibility comes as you continue your practice, but more importantly, you build your own relationship with yoga. Yoga means different things to different people – from strength to flexibility, stress relief, connection or purpose. It’s all yoga.
Come and celebrate being able to practice in a serene, calm space with supportive, experienced teachers. Move your body, relax your monkey mind, and be a part of the welcoming community. Learn how yoga and tai chi can benefit your day to day life, and even help you to be a better person.
Our studio is COVID-secure and safe, with social distancing measures, plentiful hand sanitiser and excellent ventilation. We can’t wait to welcome you back or to meet you if you’re new!
To enter, head on over to BuzzHubCo’s instagram post where you have the instructions. Tag your friends, the more tags, the more entries!
Good luck!
Friday 8th November 6.15 – 7.45 pm
Join Molly for an introduction to Kirtan, the yoga of sound and voice. Chanting mantras together as meditation is an ancient practice within the yoga tradition and this workshop is here to introduce and orient you to the amazing benefits and joys it holds!
Kirtan is the yoga of heartfelt connection to self, connection to community and connection to life.
Kirtan sees the human voice as a sacred expression of the deep heart of life that connects us all. It harnesses the simple, yet amazingly uplifting and universal power of people getting together and singing together. Kirtan brings together melody and rhythm and the infectious joy of live music, instruments and voice… It feels great!
You do NOT have to be a singer, or even to like your own voice. Kirtan is not a performance and not remotely about ‘sounding good’. It’s about joining in and FEELING good.
Kirtan is about feeling connected as part of a bigger whole, and about celebrating our aliveness and belonging through sound. Kirtan is part of Bhakti yoga, which is the branch of yoga focused on love, devotion and belonging, and it can be a profoundly liberating, transformative and all-round nourishing practice.
Kirtan is evocative, lyrical, moving and expressive – its origins lie in the beautiful poetry of tantra and the revelation that the divine lives in the temple of our own hearts, not outside of ourselves. People typically find Kirtan to be a deeply empowering, freeing, emotionally cleansing, restorative and enlivening experience, and one that fosters subtle yet profound inner transformation.
FREE – You can donate at the Studio, all proceeds goes to Doctors without Border https://msf.org.uk/
Wednesday 28th October, 7.30 – 9pm
This workshop is designed for anyone who wants to unlock and release tension in their neck and back, and increase flexibility through the wrists and shoulders.
We will begin with a deep warm up to prepare those areas and then progress to techniques to help improve your flexibility and mobility to help alleviate discomfort and prevent injuries. We will cover all the basic elements so that you can progress in your practice.
In studio: £18 non members, 15% discount for members (£15.30)
Online: £15 non members, 15% discount for members (£12.75)
Saturday 26th September, 1 – 3pm
Lean to backbend with ease and freedom, decompress the spine and feel rejuvenated. Whether you are a backbend lover or hater, this is the workshop for you.
The first part of the workshop will be dedicated to learning strengthening techniques for the core, legs and bandhas in order to create a stable and safe base for your backbend practice.
The second part will concentrate on increasing the flexibility of the shoulders, chest, hip flexors and spine to deepen our backbend. We will learn to use our breath and fundamental alignment techniques to achieve a healthy, deep beautiful backbend. We will break down the different components of the backbends and explore safely various variations of these wonderful poses.
This workshop is designed for all levels and degrees of flexibility, especially a lack of!
For more information about Ambra click here
£28 IN STUDIO
£20 ONLINE
Here’s a guest blog post from our yoga therapist, John Grimes, about men and the practice of yoga:
Throughout the history of yoga, which has been around for hundreds of years, it was most often practised by men. Yoga was Primarily introduced into the UK by BKS Iyengar, who started by teaching yoga to the Indian army, Swami Rama and Richard Hittleman who brought the first Yoga tv program to the UK.
Yoga is also practised by countless modern celebrities and sports men. Male stars such as Orlando Bloom, Colin Farrel, Tom Hanks, Ryan Goslin, and Russel Brand, footballers Ryan Giggs, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and David Silva, basket ball superstar LeBron James.
There are many styles and practices of yoga, there are strong and sweaty ones, there are slow and structured ones, there are gentle and kind ones. We have to find the one that suits us.
Most, if not all, people who practice yoga regularly experience improvements in their mental and physical health.
These benefits can include:
These benefits can be particularly appropriate for helping to prevent conditions to which men are more vulnerable.
Heart disease is the leading cause of male death in the UK, with 119,000 men having a heart attack each year, compared to 69,000 women.
A study published in the European Journal of preventive Cardiology found that risk factors for cardiovascular disease improved more in those doing yoga than in those doing no exercise. The study showed improvement in blood pressure, cholesterol and weight which can all add up to a lower risk of hypertension, Stoke and heart disease.
In the UK, the male suicide rate is its lowest since 1981 – 15.5 deaths per 100,000. But suicide is still the single biggest killer of men under the age of 45. And a marked gender split remains. For UK women, the rate is a third of men’s: 4.9 suicides per 100,000.
The Harvard medical school says that by reducing perceived stress and anxiety, yoga appears to modulate stress response systems. This, in turn, decreases physiological arousal — for example, reducing the heart rate, lowering blood pressure, and easing respiration. There is also evidence that yoga practices help increase heart rate variability, an indicator of the body’s ability to respond to stress more flexibly.
The report ‘Diabetes in the UK 2009’, found men aged 35-54 are almost twice as likely to have diabetes compared to their female counterparts.
Diabetes UK say that Yoga is considered to be a promising, cost-effective option in the treatment and prevention of diabetes, with data from several studies suggesting that yoga and other mind-body therapies can reduce stress-related hyperglycemia and have a positive effect on blood glucose control
Controlling mental stress (stress management) is one of the keys of diabetes treatment When we’re stressed, our blood sugar levels increase and elevated blood sugar levels increase the chances of serious complications such as heart disease.
Using controlled breathing techniques, meditation and body postures, yoga and other mindfulness-based programmes train participants to invoke a relaxation response.
This response helps regulate cortisol and other stress hormones, which increases blood pressure and blood glucose levels Both play a big role in the development of type 2 diabetes and related complications.
In the case of type 2 diabetes, yoga can prevent the disease from developing by Rejuvenating pancreatic cells – Yoga postures that aid relaxation stretch the pancreas, which can stimulate the production of insulin-producing beta cells.
So yoga clearly has health benefits, but you don’t have to think about them, they will happen. Yoga will also help you with your other activities, making you more flexible, balanced and agile. And for me it helps to totally switch off and forget the day I’ve had or what I’m doing tomorrow. And most importantly it is fun.
Stuart was and sometimes still is a student of mine. He has trained with many Ashtanga teachers that some of you may recognise. I was speaking with him recently and the conversation turned to who his teacher was and he said this to me, “my 1st Ashtanga teacher was you Cathy, then my ex wife and now my partner. That is my lineage. I have trained with Lucy Scott, David Garrigues, Kino Macgregor, Tim Miller, David Swenson amongst many others. People like to lay claim to a famous, ‘their teacher’. You are my teacher and always will be whether and how often I practise under or alongside you. My practise isn’t perfect, consistent or amazing but as a teacher i now hope what I have learnt I impart but with the influence of those that have guided me and it would be remiss of me to lay claim to lineage just because I have trained with some “famous” yoga teachers. Whatever that is? I hope my teachings are as open and humbling as those that you offered to me.” – Cathy
As a former bodybuilder, power lifter, gym bunny and runner I NEVER thought I would be into namby pamby yoga, after all it’s for women! Right?
It’s not a strong practice, you don’t get strong, you just get bendy and can kiss your own butt or you become a naval gazer, hahahahaha that’s right isn’t it? Wrong. At best it’s arrogant and actually very judgemental over something I knew virtually nothing about. At worst damn right ignorant.
Some of THE STRONGEST people I have ever worked with have been women and more over, women who do yoga! Why? Honestly? Because most men can’t handle that they are not as strong or “good” as women but that’s just their EGO’s and boy men have BIG EGO’s! How can I be sure? Well the last time I looked down my yoga shorts I still had a penis which means I still have an ego, all be it, perhaps not a very big one.
Unfortunately my first experience of yoga was with a sleeping bag, candles and chanting Ommmmmm at the end of a class, as an 18 stone bodybuilder it didn’t quite work… Anyway, 7 years later Ashtanga was introduced to me and again I pre-judged it, they do handstands and jumping. I am not a gymnast and I am not flexible, it’s a stupid practice, in fact ridiculous.
What all forms of yoga do is reflect you to you. It was ME who was stupid, ridiculous, judgemental and had that BIG EGO. Yoga has taught me much. And reflected more to me, about me, than any form of therapy could. It is therapy and in fact the 1st sequence you learn in Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga is called Chikitsa – Sanskrit for therapy.
I am Stuart and I am 47 years old, I carry multiple injuries from my years of stupidity harming my body. By training in Ashtanga and listening to my body I am able to work with it. This practice is NOT easy, it can seem harsh, it will make you challenge your perceptions of what it means to have “health and fitness”. You will get angry, frustrated and sometimes emotional.
What a man…emotional, even in this day and age? I don’t think so. It’s an outlet guys, it serves a purpose, among many purposes. Look, I still love pies, beer, coffee and cake. Oh cake…even a take away! This is about moderation and yoga somehow modifies your responses to the stuff you, “think” you want or, “think” you need.
There is a freedom in there and space, it is unique and liberating, once the sweat finishes dripping off your nose (did I mention you will sweat?). Think you are fit, can run 12 miles, do spin classes? Try Ashtanga, it will meet you where you are, believe me it will be an experience. It won’t suit everyone and if you do take this up and are a little like me, you will leave it and come back to it, perhaps many times.
In my 13 years with yoga, I have had 3 major layoffs, twice for 9 months and once for 18 months but I keep coming back to it and each time I do, the mat welcomes me and my body thanks me (after being sore for days!). Try it. You will look at things differently, maybe it will change you life. It did mine! I now teach that stupid, ridiculous, pointless thing called Yoga and for me it is a gift that I am thankful for every day.
6 week Adaptive yoga course
Tuesdays 10 Sep – 15 October, 12 PM – 1.15 PM
Adaptive Yoga makes yoga accessible to everyone, regardless of their mobility level. The practice is adapted to individual needs and everyone is welcome. Adaptive Yoga brings classical poses to the student by teaching the inner experience of the poses using props and adaptations. This way, everyone can live in their whole body. Practising Adaptive Yoga regularly stimulates the mind and body connection, people can experience improved stability and ease of movement, with steady and deeper breathing. Working together provides the opportunity to discuss, workshop and play with our practice, improving physical and mental health, fostering community, and promoting inclusivity. Adaptive yoga is suitable for anyone and can often provide the opportunity to experience Yoga more consciously and connectively.
Covering the principles of;
Grounding – 2 directions of the postures.
Expansion – Moving outwards and greeting the world.
Balance – Not an accomplishment, but a sensation.
Rhythm – sensation and the parasympathetic nervous system.
Alignment – Effortless form.
Space – Inspiration and ease of being.
Breathing techniques – to focus, encourage wellbeing and create components for a healthier, robust, practice.
Tara is a qualified yoga therapy teacher and has taught regular classes in Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire for over 10 years. Tara completed the first UK Adaptive Yoga training at Stoke Mandeville Stadium, home of the Paralympics, in June 2019 and has continued delivering this inclusive and empowering practice ever since.
“The Principles of Yoga do not discriminate, Yoga poses do.” Is a quote from Matthew Sanford (a pioneer of the adaptive yoga movement). Tara is inspired by this in her teaching which emphasises reaching your potential and experiencing Yoga poses from the inside.
People with the following conditions and not limited to these can attend this class (MS, trauma, anxiety, disability, spinal injury, stroke, ME, fibromyalgia) and also the principles are applicable to anyone who might feel that they do not want to attend a general yoga practice.
If you have any questions before signing up, please do not hesitate to contact us.
£96 for 6 week course
Pregnancy yoga Berkhamsted