Healthy Living

Boosting Your Yoga Practice on a Budget
Healthy Living, Mental Health, Personal Wellness

Flexible and Financially Savvy: Boosting Your Yoga Practice on a Budget

Yoga is one of those sports you just fall in love with. Equal parts physical activity and meditative practice, it’s the perfect exercise for those looking to strengthen their bodies, improve their flexibility, and increase their mind-body connection. For many, once you fall for yoga, the drive to improve your practice becomes inescapable.

For those of us on a budget, however, this drive can be a little disconcerting. After all, extra classes, equipment, and training can all cost a pretty penny. So, how can you improve your yoga practice without breaking the bank? Here’s a look at several budget-friendly yoga tips.

Set Goals and Track Progress

Having solid, achievable, trackable goals is a necessary step toward improving. It’s one of the simplest things you can do, but it will make a massive difference. There’s a straightforward reason for this: when you know exactly what you’re trying to achieve, getting there is much easier. Make your goal as specific as possible. “I want to practice three times a week” is better than “I want to practice more.” Find ways to quantify your goals so you can know for certain whether or not you’ve achieved them.

Once you’ve set your goals, you need a way to track them. You can use a journal, phone app, or another device to visualize your progress. An Apple Watch, for example, is a great device for tracking fitness goals. However, they can be pretty pricey — look for online deals and an Apple promo code on refurbished devices to save money if you decide to get one. Whichever way you track your goals, make sure you review your progress to see how far you’ve come. This will encourage you to keep moving forward.

Focus on Meditation 

One of the most beneficial parts of practicing yoga is coming to develop a better understanding of your own body. Mindfulness is an essential part of yoga, and making an effort to focus on it will pay off. Not only will it improve your confidence during flows and reduce your risk of injury, but it will also have lasting effects on your mood.

Studies have shown that regular mindfulness practice reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety. It can also lower blood pressure and improve your energy levels. By learning how to focus on the moment, you can let go of stress-inducing intrusive thoughts. This is a completely free way to turn inward, improve your practice, and boost your health.

Release the Urge to Compare 

In today’s social-media-driven world, we are given plenty of chances to compare ourselves to others. However, little to no good can come of this practice. When you compare yourself with others, you’re almost always going to come up short. This is because our brains are very good at finding the best in others and the worst in ourselves. This means you’ll come to conclusions that are neither fair nor a true representation of the world. Moreover, it can cost you money by driving you toward buying unnecessary stuff in pursuit of being like another person.

Even if we could see others and ourselves completely objectively, however, there’s still little to gain from comparing. After all, someone else’s success does not invalidate your progress. If your friend started yoga after you and is nailing more challenging poses, that doesn’t mean anything bad about you; they’re just progressing at a different rate.

Improving your yoga practice takes time and dedication. But yoga is about so much more than finding balance in a pose or moving confidently through a flow. The journey toward mindfulness, body awareness, and inner peace is the true benefit.


Blog post courtesy of Sheila Johnson @ Well Sheila

Photo Credit: Unsplash

Healthy Living, Technology

Technology to Reduce Back Pain and Help You Sleep

When you have back pain, falling and staying asleep can seem impossible. Lack of sleep can cause a number of complications in your life, and can negatively affect your mental and physical health. What’s more, lack of sleep can actually make your back pain worse, dropping you into a seemingly endless cycle of sleeplessness and pain. Fortunately, technology offers some useful solutions to help you break the cycle and get a good night’s rest.

Yoga and Stretching

Back pain is easily caused and exacerbated by daily activities. Whether you are doing a great deal of lifting or sitting at your office computer, a typical workday can take a toll on your back’s health. If you find that your back is tight and painful at the end of the day, focus on stretching. Doing some stretches with yoga is an excellent tool to ease back pain throughout the day.

To get a better night of sleep, be sure to do a nightly yoga or stretching routine to relax your muscles before bed. Apps such as Down Dog and Daily Yoga offer a wide range of poses for different needs, so you can loosen and relax your back before you lie down. There are poses for students at any level, and you can set and track goals to increase your skill level. For more support, you can access worldwide yoga communities with questions, to help you focus your practice where you need it most.

Yoga for Insomnia takes your evening routine a step further with soothing and relaxing yoga poses geared specifically toward quieting your mind and body before sleep, to reduce insomnia and help you find a more restful sleep. This app focuses on Hatha style yoga and breathing techniques that can help reduce tension and stress.

Meditation and Relaxation

In addition to stretching your muscles to reduce pain and spasms, mindful meditation and breathing exercises help you to relieve tension at the end of the day, making it easier to fall into a peaceful slumber. According to the Cleveland Clinic, meditation can also help to relieve back pain by redirecting your thoughts from the pain itself to focus solely on your breathing. There are numerous apps and guided meditations that you can access online to help you master your meditation and deep breathing techniques.

For example, the Headspace app is one of the most popular meditation apps on the market today. The developers of Headspace pride themselves on conducting clinical research on their techniques, to ensure that users have access to scientifically validated relaxation techniques. Their guided meditation has proven to reduce stress through the use of meditation to increase mindfulness and focus.

Restful Sleep

Once you have completed your stretching and meditation, you can drift off to sleep with the assistance of sleep apps like the Slumber or Quell Relief. These apps offer a range of guided meditations, soothing music and soundscapes, and even relaxing bedtime stories to ease you into a peaceful night of uninterrupted sleep.

For apps that run through the night, it is important to ensure that you have sufficient data on your smartphone plan, so you can be sure that your sleep apps do not lead to overage charges. Be sure to look into wireless phone plans that offer unlimited data, which you can find at a monthly rate that fits your budget.

For persistent back pain sufferers, there are many treatment options they can try aside from medications. With these up-to-date apps for sleep, meditation, and yoga, you are sure to find tools to reduce your back pain and guarantee a good night’s sleep.

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This post was submitted by Cheryl Conklin @ wellnesscentral.info.

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