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The Warrior Poses | Finding Strength To Battle Anxiety

April 2, 2019 | Yoga

My late 20s have felt like a decade of suffering and depression.  Two (beautiful) babies, one soul-crushing marriage and a two-and-half year long divorce took every bit of strength and courage I had to keep moving forward.  When life is that hard, moving is painful.  Thoughts are jagged and exhausting.  I was so overwhelmed by anxiety and trauma that I was basically handicapped and homebound for about six months.   My mind, emotions, spirit and body were sick.   I started doing yoga in 2017 at Dragonfly 360 Yoga & Wellness.  At 27, my right leg was so weak that I couldn’t lift it to put on my pants.  My yoga teacher, Mike Camp, was able to work with that limitation while increasing my range of motion and strength.  A weekly yoga practice over the next year toned me up, physically and emotionally.  But my divorce was still dragging out.  I felt like … Continued

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When I Say Yoga, I Mean…

March 21, 2019 | Yoga

Yoga is commonly known in the US as a form of exercise that includes some relaxing side effects. There are yoga studios everywhere with different hooks for pulling in students – hot yoga, goat yoga, even rage yoga (yes that’s a thing now). Some yoga classes might be very physical (like ashtanga yoga) or physically form specific (like Iyengar yoga).  Other classes may focus on physical restoration or work with a specific group, like prenatal yoga. While the physical exercises of yoga (or asana) are a part of the yoga tradition, there is much more to the practice. Traditional yoga is based on changing the mind more than the body. In this way, reducing suffering and increasing one’s capacity for joy is the fundamental goal of yoga practice. Traditional Yoga Traditional yoga philosophy from Patajali’s Yoga Sutra describes yoga as the process of eliminating the mind’s habit patterns (samskara) and connecting … Continued

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Mindfulness is the Miracle by Which We Restore Ourselves

March 14, 2019 | Mindfulness

Have you noticed that it seems your life is running you instead of you running your life? Are you waking up tired with feelings of anxiety, frustration or dread about what you have to do today? Are you falling into bed exhausted, with racing thoughts and struggling to get a good night’s sleep? Do you often worry about things to come or are rehashing something that happened in the past?If so, you have fallen prey to the stressors of our modern treadmill lives. Most of us are great at doing, but we have forgotten how to be a human being. We are disconnected from our self, who is craving our attention and presence. Most of us are so distracted that practicing mindfulness has become a low priority. Or worse yet, we don’t even know it’s an option for our well-being.If this sounds like you, don’t wait and let an accident … Continued

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Detox Yoga Flow

March 11, 2019 | Yoga

Join Charlie Dewes for this cleansing yoga practice. The first part of this workshop will include a detox yoga sequence designed to make you sweat as you build strength and twist it out. Massage the internal organs and cleanse the body of toxins with this mindful yoga flow for detoxification and digestion. The second hour includes Charlie’s tips for detox techniques, foods, and more. Charlie Dewes is an RYT 200 HR Certified Instructor with the Yoga Alliance.  Charlie strives to give students a creative practice with emphasis on alignment, body awareness, and self-acceptance.Full Yoga Schedule

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6 Tips For Your Best Winter Skin

February 6, 2019 | Naturopathic Medicine

Winter in Indiana.  It’s cold and dry.  The gray days have a big impact on a lot of us.  It all wears on us, and can show up on our skin.  Besides being a protective shell, skin has many functions such as regulating our body temperature, making and storing Vitamin D, and eliminating toxins. In fact, it is responsible for releasing one third of the body’s toxins.Instead of hunching over and waiting for spring to come, keep your skin soft and fresh using these six tips.HydrateWinter is such a harsh season for our skin.  The lack of humidity in the air can cause the moisture on the top layer of skin to evaporate.  Dehydrated skin can look flakey, scaly and cracked.  Staying well hydrated helps our organs to work more efficiently.  When our organs work properly, it helps to relieve the skin from the duty of sweating out toxins.  Easy ways to … Continued

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Balancing Hormones for Every Woman

February 2, 2019 | Naturopathic Medicine

PMS and menopause are a challenge for every woman at some point.  While symptoms of PMS or menopause can be difficult to manage, understanding the many factors that are at play give you the tools to cope.  As a naturopathic doctor, I use natural methods to help balance hormones.Cholesterol and HormonesCholesterol is often high during peri-menopause and menopause to compensate for the decreasing levels of other hormones in the body, such as estrogen.  Cholesterol is needed to make both sex and adrenal hormones. Hormones are the messengers of the endocrine system, and cholesterol is key to transporting hormones to the correct receptor sites on the cells.  If you have low cholesterol, your body isn’t able to transport hormones efficiently, and if you have high cholesterol you may not have enough hormones getting into your cells.   Low hormonal levels caused by cholesterol imbalance can result in symptoms such as fatigue, … Continued

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Beat Sugar Cravings with NAET

January 17, 2019 | Naturopathic Medicine

Who doesn’t have food cravings?  We often think about cravings as a psychological phenomena.  An itch you can’t scratch.  But beating cravings isn’t as easy as practicing self-discipline, although that is an important aspect.  Food cravings can come from physiological issues as well as the mental/emotional pull. Desiring food as comfort can in itself be a symptom of food sensitivities or intolerance.  A food intolerance or sensitivity is an immune response to either immunoglobulin G (IgG) or immunoglobulin A (IgA).  Reactions to food could be delayed up to 48 hours after ingesting the food, which makes identifying the issue a challenge.  Regular stomach discomfort is caused by an inability to digest or metabolize a food completely.  Symptoms may include gas, bloating, nausea, and diarrhea. Oddly enough, having an intolerance to a food may make you crave that food. Having a mild immune reaction to foods may act like an endorphin (e.g., runner’s high) in … Continued

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Tapas – Burn Off The Heaviness

January 2, 2019 | Yoga

The term tapas is derived from the Sanskrit root “tap” meaning “to burn.” Tapas can mean either cultivating restraint or burning away impurities physically, mentally and emotionally.  It implies a sense of fiery discipline or passion. Tapas also refers to the heat that gets our heart pumping and motivates us toward change. Lois Nesbitt (yoga teacher) described the heat of tapas as coming from “the friction generated by going against the grain of habit, of complacency, of doing what is easiest” (2009, para. 5). The purpose of tapas is to burn off the heaviness in our bodies, energy flow, and mental processes to awaken the dormant energy within.  You can activate tapas during asana, pranayama and meditative yogic practices. Tapas in Yoga PracticeDuring asana (the physical practice of yoga), tapas can be the simple discipline of making time for our personal practice. It can also apply to the type of practice we do – … Continued

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7 Tips to Ease into Dietary Changes

December 14, 2018 | Naturopathic Medicine

Eating healthy is a learned habit.  Making dietary changes for health reasons or weight loss can be more challenging than just beating cravings.  Grocery shopping changes.  Meals might go from microwave or eating out to cooking with fresh foods.  Which means more dishes to wash.  Adding breakfast into your morning may feel like yet another task.  So when I recommend dietary changes, I take into account the client’s current lifestyle.  Busy parents and people whose work involves traveling or overtime hours need gradual changes in order to be successful.  My cornerstone belief for healthy diet is to eat fresh, whole foods.  This may seem simplistic, but it goes against the current Standard American Diet.  Reasons I may recommend dietary changes include (but are not limited to): Celiac or gluten sensitivity, food sensitivities, candida (yeast overgrowth), weight concerns, and brain fog.Start with whole foods you already like.  Instead of thinking of … Continued

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Nourishing Your Qi During the Winter Months

December 12, 2018 | Acupuncture

“When one stays in the darkness long enough, one begins to see.”  -C.G. JungWinter is a time of stillness and quietude, when nature’s energy has turned in during this most inward-looking of all the seasons. We call it the most Yin of the seasons.  Trees have dropped their leaves, the sap of the tree has retreated to its roots, outward signs of life have disappeared and the landscape can be covered in snow.  There is still work going on, but is in-doors.  In this state of rest, energy is collected and held in reserve.  It’s cold and dark, which are the qualities that preserve and store.  It is this concentrated, internal force of winter that enable a seed to burst forth in Spring.  A time for internal work, we use this season for rest and the filling of our reserves, gathering strength for the year ahead.  Abundant reserves within us … Continued

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