Yoga, Yoga, Yoga

I first discovered moksha yoga and the sequence of flows while on a long summer vacation back in 2009. After going to 10+ classes, I was hooked. I had trouble with the heat the first time around and I blogged back then that I almost fainted in class. Luckily, I didn't. I simply was unaware of how much more hydrated I had to be before, during and after the class.

I'm now on the third year of daily yoga practice and I have never felt stronger. I feel like I get a better workout than even doing my other favorite activities: running and windsurfing.

Yoga is a commitment, however. If your schedule says you're going to a 9p class even though you've had a very busy day and you don't feel like it, you need to simply go. Discipline is an indispensable component of daily life and the more I live, the truer this notion becomes. In a matter of minutes I feel as good as I could possibly feel and I'm always amazed at how quickly yoga boosts the mood.

I also believe in tracking my yoga practice as well much like I track my running (favorite app for that is MapMyRun). For instance, when my yoga studio does challenges, I make sure to end up at the top of the leaderboard. Right, because yoga is meant to appeal to your competitive instincts. Well, I didn't say I was aiming for perfection. For now, I'll settle for more flexibility and stronger muscles.

The average number of yoga classes I go to per year is 230 and I can unequivocally say I'm a much stronger thinker, worker, and all around individual thanks to the time I spent on the mat.

So, this Fall season as we're embarking on another cold winter season, try to balance it all out with some yoga. This is just a quick ode to the sequence of moksha which I can now clearly attest is, by far, the most effective workout I've done as an adult. Namaste!

Practice & Repetition

Practice and repetition are two things that pop up in my head every time I'm out in the ocean surfing.
I am deeply in love with windsurfing. Still. Actually, more than I was when I first picked it up.

As my favorite surfing instructor once told me: "you'll know in your gut when you get it." He was right. 100%. The moment you feel like you've struck a good, functioning relationship with the wind, the sail, and the board, you feel invincible.

But the only way to manage a sport like this is by giving in to practice and repetition. Much like everything else in life, practice makes perfect. In this kind of activity though, there's little to no tedium to constant repetition.

Pick something difficult, get to the point where it makes sense in you gut, and sail on! The music I set this clip to is to Xavier Rudd's Spirit Bird. My yoga teacher made me aware of him. Much of my media listening centers around podcasts now and I've put one of my other loves, music, in the back seat for a while. Time to bring it back to the front seat where it needs to be. Give Rudd's music a listen. Worth it.

Nature Exploring and New Spring

Happy Spring Season!
We did some nature-exploring this weekend. First, since the weather was most docile, I decided to spend a part of the weekend biking, about 15 miles or so, on the Olentangy trail. A note about the trail. There is some construction on some of the trail and it is perhaps best to go North rather than South. Detours aside, the trail looked especially nice and, for the most part, quiet. The next day went to some farm- and nature-exploring and the weather was most congruent with the nature of the activity.

Personally, I cannot think of anything better to use to recharge the batteries and get new visual input than nature. Being in the company of fresh air, high trees, the right company, and a good trail is something that language cannot really justly capture. There's something to be said about being around the elements of nature and taking a cue from them. And since the temperature in this neck of the woods was in the mid- to upper 60's, it made perferct sense to spend the whole time outside.

Here are a few pictures taken from the Slate Park Historical Farm and Chestnut Ridge Metro Park. The highlight of the day had to be being around the big horses, the newly born twin lambs, and the breathtaking trees of Chestnut Ridge. The tip of the hat this time around goes to nature and, of course, the most indulging Spring weather.

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Yams, Thanksgiving, and Good Sociality

I don't really eat sweet potatoes. I rarely consume the normal ones, actually. I tend to go for steamed food, for the most part, so potatoes don't always make the cut.
But this Thanksgiving holiday I learned something surprising about myself. I approve of yams and sweet potatoes. Funny that! I especially like them when they're cooked just so. Which is what my friends are experts in. After the first helping, I turned to my party and said, 'I'm definitely having seconds. Maybe even thirds.' 'Thirds?' 'Heck, yeah. These are out of this world!' And that's what I did. I had seconds and then thirds.
I don't know what the combination of herbs consisted of or how they managed to be so silky smooth. What I know is I experienced my full conversion to my newly found friend, the sweet potato.

Good thing I suggested road biking as a mode of transport to the party as I anticipated some heavy work-out would be necessary afterwards.The ride entailed passing through one of my favorite trails as well as some uphill areas in the city of Upper Arlington. Ventura and I hit 25 mph at some point of the trail at which point I could revisit the taste of the beautifully cooked sweet potatoes. I don't know how the friends cooked the sweet potatoes. What I know is that it was in a way that made me miss them after I was done consuming them. And generally I'm not a foodie and I don't miss food.

So, the tip of the hat this Thanksgiving goes to culinary expertise that is just so, good friends to watch Charlie Chaplin's Gold Rush wish, and, of course, riding the trail almost free of traffic and distractions.

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graph per google images

Exercise More, Stress Less

As a believer in consistent physical exercise, I also maintain that after a heavy workout routine, I feel strangely relaxed. And this new study says there's a good reason for it. A paragraph says:

"“It looks more and more like the positive stress of exercise prepares cells and structures and pathways within the brain so that they’re more equipped to handle stress in other forms,” says Michael Hopkins, a graduate student affiliated with the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory Laboratory at Dartmouth, who has been studying how exercise differently affects thinking and emotion. “It’s pretty amazing, really, that you can get this translation from the realm of purely physical stresses to the realm of psychological stressors.”"

Read more here.

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Olentangy Bike Trails and Adrenaline Junkies

This weekend was the perfect time to hit the slopes. I wish I had gone snowboarding. But, since we're in Central Ohio and I won't be out West till late Winter, I thought I would do the next best thing. I grabbed my red iPearl Zumi jacket and laptop and headed to Upper Arlington instead, to meet up with my friends, watch the Ohio State vs Michigan game (we won for the sixth time in a row!) and then go on a long ride down the Olentangy trail.

This trail is breath-taking in the Spring and Summer. However, it felt even more breathtaking this weekend since even though it is the end of November it feels like crisp, sunny Spring. Being on my Ventura felt even better this time around. What I like about the trail is that I get to soak in the green around me, the at-times tummultous water of the little river which accompanies the trail, as well as feed off the energy of the other bikers and runners. My most favorite thing to do on the trail however is to get to the bridge that crosses the 315 highway, ride my Ventura hands-free, look up and let the adrenaline run its natural course. What's underneath me is the highway traffic and cars going an average of 70/75 miles per hour and the river running parallel to the road.

No matter what I'm thinking before I reach this point of the trail, when I ride the bridge, I feel, to quote the Perks of Being a Wallflower, infinite. I am including pictures of the bridge and the trail and, if any of you are fellow adrenaline junkies, do try it. Ergo, the tip of the hat this week goes to the Olentangy Bike Trail for always making me sense of clarity and happiness.

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Marry Well, Live Longer? New Study Says Yes

In a nutshell the study says that "... long life and good health have nothing to do with a man’s education and everything to do with his wife’s. Men married to smart women live longer — simple."

Another paragraph of note:

"However, before you ring up your girlfriend to tell her that the man who left her for a bimbo will drop dead of brain atrophy, this is not a victory for women’s intelligence in general. It would be nice if our stimulating observations about FlashForward and the Tory agenda were keeping our men alert and full of life. Unfortunately, it’s simply our skill at processing advice about healthy lifestyles, and passing it on. All it boils down to is that “educated” married women have long since banned their men from eating pork pies at every other meal. They instinctively know about the importance of breakfast, the downside of dips (men think hummus is a diet aid) and the virtues of Green & Black’s 85% (the chocolate that doesn’t count)."

Read more here.

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How to Get More Swedes to Use More Stairs

Brilliance can be healthy and entertaining.

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tip of the hat to MR for the pointer

NO, It's Not Hip to Be Round. I'm Calling 'Lazy.'

What a ridiculous premise this NY Times article has!
So, just because the economy is bad, we should forget about health and well-being. Since when was taking care of one's self a sign of decadence and having too much time?
I don't know Guy Trebay nor have I ever seen him in person but I would bet that he has, at least a mild form, of bicep-envy.

A bit says:

“I sort of think the six-pack abs obsession got so prissy it stopped being masculine,” is how Aaron Hicklin, the editor of Out, explains the emergence of the Ralph Kramden. What once seemed young and hot, for gay and straight men alike, now seems passé. Like manscaping, spray-on tans and other metrosexual affectations, having a belly one can bounce quarters off suggests that you may have too much time on your hands.

“It’s not cool to be seen spending so much time fussing around about your body,” Mr. Hicklin said.

And so guys can happily and guiltlessly go to seed.

No way, man, no friggin' way! How ridiculous is this?! Are the Times out of serious writers with credible stories and premises?
More here.

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Science of Sleep

Those who are troubled sleepers value sleep more than those who find themselves in dream-landia two minutes after their head hits the pillow. Why? Well, don't we tend to value the things that come our way with a higher degree of difficulty a tad more?

I also have a theory about general compatibility issues. A troubled sleeper will find her/himself more emotionally comfortable when in relationships with good sleepers than with other malaise-sharers. Misery does not love company, after all. The yang seeks the ying. And so forth. Imo, at least.

Having had sleep troubles since, well, birth, I have an active interest in sleep studies and new research. One of the best gifts I received this past birthday was a computer program called Pzizz. Two of my friends purchased the power nap/sleep program for me and this is a product I heartily recommend.

If you travel a lot as well and find yourselves in different time zones and areas with some measure of consistency, Pzizz will come in handy. It doth work! Turn it on and you will be able to catch a few zzz's. And rather quickly.

The Times had a piece on yet a new sleep-monitoring gadget called Zeo. David Pogue reviewed it and he concludes the piece by noting:

"Just watching the Zeo track your sleep cycles doesn’t do anything to help you sleep better. Plotting your statistics on the Web doesn’t help, either.

But the funny thing is, you do wind up getting better sleep — because of what I call the Personal Trainer Phenomenon. People who hire a personal trainer at the gym wind up attending more workouts than people who are just members. Why? Because after spending that much money and effort, you take the whole thing much more seriously.

In the same way, the Zeo winds up focusing you so much on sleep that you wind up making some of the lifestyle changes that you could have made on your own, but didn’t. (“Otherwise,” a little voice in your head keeps arguing, “you’ve thrown away $400.”)"

Read more here.

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Meaning of Life and Dietary Choices

NY Times' Roger Cohen has a very interesting and well-written piece on life, health/longevity, and daily gastronomical decisions. To support the premise of the article, Cohen uses two rhesus monkeys, Canto, 27, and Owen, 29. There's a basic differences between the two friends and it consists of what kinds of food they consume. Canto gets a restricted diet with 30 percent fewer calories whereas Owen gets to eat whatever he chooses.

The end result: Owen looks much happier than Canto.

While I tend to be more of the school of thought of gastronomical moderation and I highly privilege fitness and vegetarian choices, I have to candidly admit, that the paragraph I enjoyed the most from Cohen's piece was the following:

"Well-fed Owen, by contrast, is a happy camper with a wry smile, every inch the laid-back simian, plump, eyes twinkling, full mouth relaxed, skin glowing, exuding wisdom as if he’s just read Kierkegaard and concluded that “Life must be lived forward, but can only be understood backward.”

I suppose Kierkegaard had something to do with it.

Read more here.

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Yoga, Moksha, H2O

A few years ago I got into yoga.
This is about as far away from my hyperactive nature as it gets.
For someone who lives the motto agito ergo sum, yoga is a bit of a stretch. But, I thought it was time to conquer it.
Right.
Such a thing to say for a hyperactive.
A lot of the people in my circle were practicing it so in an effort to put an end to their solicitations, I gave in.

The first time I went to class I remember having this strong urge to look at my watch, check my text messages, and be on my computer which is basically as far away from a yoga frame of mind as it gets. Then, towards the end of class I remember wishing to be there a little longer. I can sort out my daily problems better lying on the mat here. Hmm.
Naturally, I went back.
We were doing yoga daily, or nightly, I should say. Incidentally, those of you who have trouble sleeping, might consider taking up yoga and more importantly, practicing it night.

Then, I switched to another workout routine after I found myself in a new setting. I thought I'd give massages and yoga classes a rest as I was sure not to find another Heather or Scott, (respectively, my masseusse and yoga teacher) in my new setting. I'm a loyal type of gal, I suppose. Or 'loyalty by convenience' as the person calls it.

The new workout regimen now consisted of what seemed to be more congruent with my nature: fast cardio, in other words. The routine consists of weight-lifting, swimming, and biking.

The body has been asking for a change, however. Ergo, in an effort to acquiesce its request, I took up yoga again. This time around I switched it up a bit, however.
I went for Moksha.

Well, I tried, at least.
The Moksha class takes place in a very hot setting. Moksha means "to release." It's the liberation from samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth or reincarnation and the sum of the suffering and limitation of existence. That's a paraphrasing of what it means, anyway.

I don't think I've perspired that much since the day I challenged a friend of mine to a match of tennis thinking that I could beat him simply because I was sure to have a stronger work ethic and more will power. I didn't win. But I did get a great work-out and yet another lesson in humility.

But I digress.

So, I find myself in a Moksha class. Here I am in a different setting, different city, different country, perspiring like it's nobody's business. After completing the warrior pose I realize I had forgotten to bring my water. And the class was 75 minutes. 75 minutes of heat intensity.

Towards minute 60, I start getting light-headed and I thought I better relent and find a way to water. Fast. The teacher brought me some and all was fine and dandy, of course, and in a minute I was back in a downward facing dog position again.

"I dig this," I thought. Cool, it's challenging. Now, I'm not sure if a reaction of this kind is what yogis generally have in mind. It was how I reacted at least.

Now, my usual workouts are not a walk in the park. I like to push. This class, however, takes the prize as the heaviest workout I've had in recent years. The body was much more challenged in the space of a little mat where movement is limited than it ever is at the weight room or the pool.

So, I give Moksha yoga classes my thumbs up. Don't forget to bring water and light outfits. I was told that I'm much more mellow after it. And I'll take mellow. Well, not every day but with some regularity, yes. For sure.
And, by the way, that's not me in the picture.
I still have short hair.

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Spring Cycling

We biked about 20-25 miles today on a few trails in Central Ohio. While much of Ohio is quite flat, it does have some very good trails.

My tip of the hat today goes to the beauty of well-kept trails and solid engineering of bicycles made with care. Thanks, Cannondale.

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Southern Utah

The Times has a nice spread on Southern Utah today. Those of you who have not yet experienced Southern Utah, love the outdoors, hiking and biking, and are thinking about vacation ideas, might I suggest Southern Utah? It will amaze you.

Read the piece here.

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Michelle Obama's Sleevelessness

I find that Michelle Obama performs her gender quite interestingly. I might even suggest an adverb I've rarely verbalized to my folk and that is: exquisitely.
Some people are having a hard time dealing with her sleeveless tops. Experientially, I do not get this. Cognitively, (and sadly) I do.

There is even a new term that explains her fashion choices: Sleevegate.

I wish I were joking.

Let's, for a moment, consider her clothing choices. Well-sculpted arms are code for something: disciplined self-respect. Good genes only take one so far, I find.

I admire her corporeal presentation because, as a bit of a gym rat myself, I experientially get how much of a time and effort investment it is to present one's self a certain way aesthetically.

So those who are bothered by her sleevelessness, might I respectfully suggest that they transform their intolerance of well-sculpted arms into, well, an intolerance of unhealthy habits that eventually lead to a lack of 'well-sculptedness'?

Now, I was not around when Jackie O sported a lack of sleeves. I was a teenager in the 90's, so what do I know, (experientially that is!) about Jackie O. But I suppose I could comment about sleevegate.

I have long maintained that form and aesthetics at large are code for rich content. I find nothing inconsequential or trivial about the kind of fitness that is rooted in healthy moderation. It's after all a beautiful thing to observe and, more importantly, experience.

Tip of the hat to well-sculpted arms, I say.

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graphs per huffpo

Marriage Makes One Fat? Study Says: 'Yes, It Does.'

Uri Gneezy and Jason Shafrin's study is entitled: "Why Does Getting Married Make You Fat? Incentives and Appearance Maintenance."

The abstract says:

"Married individuals weight more on average than non-married individuals. We suggest that exiting the dating market decreases one’s incentive to maintain their appearance and thus leads to an increase in body weight. The paper uses a 13 year panel data set and exploits variation in the type of domestic relationship in order to pinpoint how exiting the dating market affects body weight. We find a positive correlation between the strength of the domestic relationships in terms of probability of termination and weight gain."

A couple of paragraphs from the study say:

"In this paper we test the appearance maintenance hypothesis empirically using a 13 year panel data set from the Netherlands. We exploit variation in the type of domestic relationships to see whether individuals in domestic relationships with a higher
probability of termination will gain less weight than those who enter into domestic relationships where the probability the relationship will terminate is lower. We find that individuals who enter into cohabitation relationships gain less weight than those who enter into traditional marriage relationships.

Further, we observe that having a child reduces the probability that a relationship terminates. The marginal impact of having a child decreases the probability a couple separates more for cohabitators and marriages with a prenuptial agreement than for couples in traditional marriages; traditional marriages already had a lower separation probability so the marginal effect of having a child is less than is the case for cohabitators or marriages with prenuptial agreements. As our theory predicts, married individuals with a prenuptial agreement gain more weight after having a child than would be the case when an individual in a traditional marriage has a child. For cohabitators the results are imprecise because fewer cohabitators have children than married couples. Overall, our results show a correlation between the probability a domestic relationship will terminate and subsequent weight gain.:

Read it all via Tyler Cowen blog, MR.

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graph per google images

Kaiser Chiefs and Current Favorite Playlists

I have gotten a lot of questions the past few weeks about the kinds of playlists I am using the most these days.

So, to answer your questions, this is what the playlists include currently. True to nature, I will be switching to other sounds soon, but for now, this is what they look like:






Work-out Playlist

1) My Friend Dario by Vitalic
2) Come Mona Lisa by Mango
3) Dreamworld by Rilo Kiley
4) Bawitdaba by Kid Rock
5) Busy by K's Choice
6) Destroy Everything
You Touch by Ladytron
7) Angel in Night by Basshunter
8) Gone, Gone, Gone by Robert Plant and Allison Krauss
9) Black Burning Heart by Keane
10) Depeche Mode Remix

Writing/Work Music

It's mostly the Kaiser Chiefs. Because they're great! I think of the Kaiser Chiefs as Oasis on vitamins and melatonin. Their sound is unequivocally indie while retaining a good measure of 'mellow' as well. If you have not checked out their 2008 album, Off With Their Heads, you are, indeed, missing out. It's one of the best albums of 2008. And I'm not just biased. I'm being as fair as my nature allows me to be. Beautiful sound. Wonderful depth!

Cycling Music

Mostly Radiohead.

However, I am shifting gears soon and I will most likely revisit Stereophonics for a couple of days. And Verdi's Requiem will be given some attention too. As will Debussy.
graph per wiki

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