Entries from September 2007 ↓

I go to a really awesome yoga class once a week which has a ‘yoga teaching’ at the end of each session. A couple of weeks ago we learnt about a particular Asana (yoga position) that is good for reducing the Ayurvedic constitution ‘vata pitta’.

For those of you who think I’m talking in some weird yoga code, ‘Ayurveda’ or ‘Ayurvedic medicine’ is an ancient Indian form of medicine and healing that I guess is similar in a way to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). In Ayurveda, there are three ‘doshas’ – vata (air), pitta (fire) and kapha (water). Everyone is a combination of these three doshas, and ideally the three should be balanced. Often one or two will be out of whack, and will cause disturbances and possible illness in your body.

When you do a dosha constitution test (to decipher what imbalances you have), your predominant dosha isn’t necessarily just ‘vata’ or ‘kapha’, it may be a combination of two, such as ‘vata kapha’ or ‘pitta kapha’.

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I’ve been attending a yoga class once a week for the past few months now. From the beginning we were encouraged to continue the yoga practice at home, preferably on a daily basis. I really struggled with trying to do even one day at home on my own. The thought of doing the warming exercises and holding the Asanas for a length of time felt like it needed a lot more patience then I actually had. I tried a few times but my efforts were really poor. I’d race through the warming exercises and hold the Asanas for a ridiculously short amount of time. It was better than nothing I guess, but I don’t think it was really doing a lot.

It probably took a good three or four months of classes before I started daily practice at home. It happened all of a sudden too. I went from not practicing at all during the week to practicing at least once a day, sometimes even twice.

Why I made the transition

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I’ve become a victim of healthy peer pressure. I have a good friend who is a complete health freak and I find her healthiness is rubbing off on me. I almost feel like I’m trying to keep up to her standard. I’m thinking it’s a good thing though, perhaps everyone needs to hang around a few healthy people to get a bit of a kick to healthy it up.

I’ll give an example. This particular friend of mine has decided to give up all forms of caffeine. This includes tea and chocolate, two of my favourite treats. There’s no way I’m giving up chocolate, but for some strange reason, I automatically started drinking herbal tea instead of my normal caffeinated English tea every day at 10:30am. Why did I break my routine so easily? It must have been the peer pressure!

I’ve also found myself trying to keep up with everyone else’s yoga routine. So, you’re doing yoga and meditation twice a day? Well, so can I!!

Quite frankly, this is the kind of peer pressure I’m happy to have. My advice to you is to go and find yourself a healthy friend and start talking about health stuff. In my opinion it’s the most effective and easiest way to be healthy. The conversations you have with this friend will get you motivated and you can share how much better you feel for each change you make in your life. I’ve started to surround myself with very health conscious people and it’s definitely making a positive impact on my life. Who knows what I’ll be giving up next!

Frances Kerr

I discovered a new natural makeup brand while reading one of those free health magazines that’s always floating around outside my local health food store. Minerelle sparked my interest for a number of reasons – it was created and is made in Australia, is a natural product, is not tested on animals, and most importantly …is designed to cover acne or pimples, allergies, rosacea, sun damage, eczema, dermatitis, pigmentation and redness.

When I first found out about this product my skin was probably in its worst acne state. The very expensive makeup brand that I was using at the time was making my skin break out even more. I felt like it was doing an okay job at covering my pimples but also doing an okay job at spreading them as well. A couple of natural foundation products I tried were thick and gluggy and felt like I was plastering stuff on my face and clogging up everything which felt really bad.

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Stay away from this evil liquid. You’d think the worst thing in soft drink is sugar but it’s actually a lot worse than that. In my opinion soft drink is one the worst ‘foods’ you can put into your body, here’s why.

1. Sugar

We all know that refined sugar is not good for you and should be avoided as much as possible. Soft drink in particular is full of the stuff. I mean, literally full of it. One can of soft drink contains approximately twelve teaspoons of sugar! And we give this stuff to children, that’s a scary thought.

Do not drink diet soft drinks!

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