Balancing for Physical and Mental Health

Balance is the ability to maintain the body’s centre of mass over its base of support. When this is all working as designed, the fully functioning balance system allows us to maintain clear vision as we move, orient with respect to gravity (ie continually gauge where we are) and determine direction and speed of movement. All of this in the blink of an eye, whilst making the automatic body adjustments to maintain posture and stability in changing activities and conditions.

The challenge that balancing brings constitutes a ‘good stress’ (eustress) for both mind and body. This is a stress (or provocation to a reaction) that prompts us to adapt, focus and have no choice but to stay with the task. It does not tip us over into survival mode or readying for a full-on threat (distress), but does help to raise resilience, where we can handle challenge coming in with more capacity to stay present and open to what the situation needs...

"What does strength with ease mean?" It's a fairly broad question which myself, Leah Barnett and Leonie Taylor have been discussing.

We have been considering this question within the yoga philosophy, coming from this yoga sutra Sthira Sukham Asanam (meaning “postures should be steady, stable, and comfortable”) as a guidance to this idea of ease or comfort and steadiness in terms of practise. The scope of answers to this question are extensive, especially considering that we all have different experiences in many different practices, whether they are still or more fluid, internal or external. This question is very contextual and open to interpretation. It can be considered in terms of where we are in the physical strength of a pose, or where we are emotionally in our lives.

Strength with ease can be looked at in terms of finding our own boundaries, both internally and in the way we meet the world around us. We...

Movement plays a vital role in our body’s natural detoxification functions. Understanding the various ways in which we clear out toxins from all cells and tissues (making space for nutrients to come in) illustrates how a sedentary lifestyle can leave us feeling sluggish, stagnant and somewhat ‘stewing in our own juices’.

The factors that affect your detoxification capacity

If you are making change to your nutritional habits for the new year, then it is vital that you bring in movement habits and patterns that allow these adjustments to fully rid yourself of the waste that builds up.  Every day our bodies are bombarded with toxins from both outside (exotoxins) – the polluted environment, medications, alcohol, cigarette smoke, car exhaust emissions and toxins from within the body (endotoxins) – the by-products of nutrient breakdown, hormones and bacterial waste products from the intestines.

The liver is not the only organ of detoxification, each cell...

If you are feeling the heightened stress of expectations of achievement, constant decision-making and information overload, you are not alone. In this age of disjointed social groups and generations, building awareness and practices that help soothe our frazzled systems is more important than ever.

Self-soothing is the mechanism our bodies use to bring us back down to calm, after or even during the jolt of stress. This can mean the space to decide the most compassionate and helpful reaction in a crisis or feeling all systems back to rest after being revved up and reactive. When we’re in chronic stress and life has become one big hyper-vigilant ‘constant alert’, we can feel we’ve lost this route back to settling down and finding the peace we need for recovery.

Without healthy self-soothing abilities, living in continually heightened states can be exhausting, lead to whole host of stress-related symptoms (anxiety, insomnia, IBS and weight gain to name a few)...

In her book Yoga Therapy for Digestive Health, Charlotte Watts explains the connections between how we move, how we feel and the deep mind-body connections with digestive conditions. Here she explains how any form of conscious movement has the potential for unravelling the loss of internal movement and stress in tissues that play such deep roles in conditions such as IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), IBD (inflammatory bowel disease) and diverticulitis.

Five key digestive factors can be affected by trauma, chronic stress, sedentary habits and postural issues, and in turn relieved by some simple movements:

1.  Gut motility

Action throughout the whole digestive tract relies on peristalsis, a wave-like, spiralling muscular motion. This is the basis for ‘gut motility’, that if seized, interrupted or spasmodic, can be the basis for many digestive issues. The speeding up or slowing down of gut motility is a feature of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) where a go-slow means...

Listening to our hearts

“The intimacy that arises in listening and speaking truth is only possible if we can open to the vulnerability of our own hearts. Breathing in, contacting the life that is right here, is our first step. Once we have held ourselves with kindness, we can touch others in a vital and healing way.”
― Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

Compassion is an intrinsic part of Buddhist and yogic cultures, where there is an emphasis on feeling a deeper connection through non-violence and kind attention to the present moment. Metta Bhavana is one of the core Buddhist meditations and translates (from Pali), with Metta meaning loving-kindness and Bhavana to cultivation or development. With our tendencies for self-criticism and judging inner voices, this practice is gathering interest and respect from Western ideologies and researchers. For those practising it is not news that the practice sows the seeds to take a more...

Turn your world upside down - simple inversions to support heart and circulatory health

We inherently know that ‘putting our feet up’ is a restful place to be, but fully changing our perspective on the world can have even greater repercussions for our heart health and stress-coping capacity. In this article we explore supported inversions that can offer a truly calming space in your day.

Many people associate inversions as more acrobatic, like the handstands, shoulderstand and headstand seen in so many yoga pictures. But whilst these more dynamic postures have their benefits, to reverse our usual relationship with gravity so we don’t need to hold up our body weight, offers a soothing and releasing mind-body effect. 

Whichever way we practice inversions, placing our hips above our head, aids the lymphatic flow so important for immune function and detoxification. This fluid system that runs throughout the whole body alongside the bloodstream. It relies on our...

Following the huge success of Yoga Therapy for Digestive Health comes Charlotte Watts’ timely exploration of our immune and respiratory systems, and how yoga and somatics play an integral part in maintaining whole-system health. We take a look inside the book, available to purchase here…

When the UK went into its first Covid lockdown in 2020, people were abruptly separated and restricted from social contact. It wasn’t simply the virus itself that had devastating effects on global health but the ensuing reactivity, the effects of which are still rippling through our nervous systems. It was at this flashpoint of collective and individual trauma, stress and societal breakdown that Charlotte felt compelled to write Yoga and Somatics for Immune & Respiratory Health, knowing how vital the free flow of movement and social engagement are to mental and physical wellbeing. She was struck by the irony of how the focus of so much anxious attention at this time –...

Yoga for Respiratory Health

Breath is life and our quality of breathing determines the energy and vitality we feel. Whether you have a respiratory condition such as asthma or simply feel you grasp for breath and don’t quite feel your full breathing potential, supporting how you breathe through movement and exercise can help you thrive, body and mind.

Put most simply, breathing inhales oxygen into the body and exhales carbon dioxide out. This happens on a large scale through the lungs, but also for each and every one of the cells throughout your entire body. It is the respiratory system that provides the means for vital oxygen to enter bodies via our lungs, into the blood stream and ultimately through the whole body. The carbon dioxide excreted is the by-product of each cell’s breathing or ‘respiring’ – much like the body’s exhaust fumes.

Healthy lungs working optimally take in about ½ litre of air roughly 12-15 times each minute. They meet...

First published in What Doctor's Don't Tell You Magazine.

There are pros and cons to standing upright, yes our arms and hands are free to use as tools and to help us communicate with others, but the pay-off for bipedal living is inherent weakness in the lower back and neck. This often means that holding ourselves up from gravity translates into tension into the upper back, shoulders, neck and jaw.

When we get locked into work or stress postures (or even feeling protection in cold weather), our natural range of motion through the shoulders and neck can become compromised. Lack of flexibility in the neck region is associated with pain (BMC Musculoskelet Disord. 2015; 16: 56) and the more we can simply move, the less tension has a chance to build up.

The effects of stress on the shoulders, neck and jaw

Stress is expressed in body tissues as tightness, holding and viscosity. We can feel its physical, emotional and psychological effects most keenly through the state of our breath,...

From environmental pathogens to modern diet, our cells are inflammaging – aging through increased inflammation. How can yoga help?

By Leonie Taylor and Charlotte Watts, co-authors of Yoga & Somatics for Immune & Respiratory Health

‘Inflammaging’, a term coined by Italian researcher Claudio Franceschi in 2000, refers to the low-grade chronic inflammation that often characterises the ageing process. This may partially explain why some older people suffer more from diseases such as COVID-19. Beyond this pandemic, many refer to the creeping symptoms related to inflammation – such as joint pain, loss of mobility or issues related to immune and respiratory health – as an inevitable sign of ageing.

‘Ageing is often described as the progressive accumulation of deleterious changes over time leading to a loss of physiological aptitude and fertility, an increased susceptibility to disease, and ultimately to death’^[1]

While ageing is a...