One of the most common complaints I hear from clients is how stressed they are. This is true for people coming in for all sorts of reasons, often not even related to those stresses!
It seems that our lives are now so full that we are living in a state of low level (and sometimes a high level) “fight or flight”. We are always focused on what is right in front of us, and therefore long term priorities fall to the backburner.
This is sometimes referred to as being “sympathetic dominant,” but in Chinese Medicine, we think of this as stagnation. As we continually incur ongoing stresses, bodily energy gathers up, waiting in the ready for some kind of action. In this gathering mode, though, it is stagnant—not moving freely as it normally would, to be used as needed by various bodily functions.
This response can be natural and good: if you are about to run a race, give a presentation at work, or have an altercation with a sabre tooth-tiger. If it becomes too constant, however, the de-prioritized functions will start to weaken, or even crash.
This can lead to other kinds of health complications, such as:
While it is clear that constant stress can have far reaching negative effects, most of us cannot weed every bit of difficulty or jaggedness out of our lives. Work, family, money: these have stressors built-in. The solution, then, lies not in changing the stressful input, but in managing bodily reactions better. In order to become less reactive to stress, in order to manage stress-related symptoms, the body must switch over from the sympathetic “fight or flight” to the parasympathetic “feed and breed” (also known as “rest and digest”) mode. I often think of this state as the “healing mode.” In Chinese Medicine we understand this state as one where stagnant energy is unblocked, so that it can circulate smoothly through the body. When energy is regulated and moving well, it is optimal for self-repair.
Acupuncture is a particularly effective to help manage stress and help reduce reactivity because it can provide short-term symptomatic relief, and also be used preventatively to manage stress, anxiety and all the related issues.
Acupuncture can help you take control of your health and keep anxiety at bay—allowing you to rest, relax and heal. With regular acupuncture treatments, you can retrain the negative patterns caused by acute and chronic stress, and start addressing problems at their root.
BOOK WITH JONATHAN AND EXPERIENCE THE BENEFITS OF ACUPUNCTURE
Svitlana August 15th, 2019
Posted In: Uncategorised
Tags: acupuncture, anxiety, Breathe Profile, stress, wellness
We all know the benefits of flexibility and good posture but did you know yoga also improves your health in these 5 ways?
Strong muscles are more than good looking. They protect us from chronic conditions like arthritis and back pain, and help build balance and stability. And when you build strength through yoga, you are also gaining flexibility. If you just go to the gym and lift weights, you may build strength without flexibility.
When you contract and stretch muscles, move your organs, through yoga postures, you increase the drainage of lymph (a bodily fluid rich in immune cells). This aids the lymphatic system in fighting infections, can destroy cancerous cells, and clear out the toxic waste products of cellular function.
Yoga quells the fluctuations of the mind, according to Patanjali’sYoga Sutra. In simpler terms, it slows down the mental loops of frustration, rumination, anger, fear, and comparison that can lead to stress. And since stress is connected to so many health problems—from migraines and insomnia to many autoimmune disorders, high blood pressure, and heart attacks—if you learn to calm your mind, you’ll be likely to live healthier longer.
4. Yoga is the Beginning of a Healthy Lifestyle
Move more, eat less—something that is key to any diet. Yoga can help with both. A consistent Yoga practice gets you moving and burns calories, and the spiritual and emotional connections of your practice could lead you to address any existing eating and weight problems on a deeper level. Yoga may also inspire you to become a more mindful eater (a part of the new Canadian Food Guide).
In reading and personally experiencing all the ways yoga improves your health, you probably notice a lot of overlap. That’s because our mind and body are so connected. Change your posture and you change the way you breathe. Change your breathing and you change your nervous system. This is one of the great lessons of yoga: Everything is connected—your hipbone to your anklebone, you to our community, our community to the world. These connections are key to understanding yoga. Yoga is a holistic system that simultaneously taps into many parts of the mind and body that have additive and even multiplicative effects. This synergy may be the most important way of all that yoga benefits your health.
Svitlana January 27th, 2019
Posted In: Uncategorised
Tags: Breathe Profile, Julia Gallagher, Lindsey Gallagher, Mother Daughter
1. Renew your commitment. Stepping out of a comfortable routine can help you appreciate your practice all over again. Good times to shake things up are seasonal shifts, holidays, birthdays or whenever you need renewed energy and a fiercer focus on your practice.
2 .Alignment and technique. A workshops allows you to deep dive and go over the alignment and technique you are taught in flow classes but don’t have the time to explore as you will in a workshop.
3. Shift your awareness. You already know that stepping out of your comfort zone to try a new teacher or class can inspire a fresh perspective. The focus of a workshop will answer questions you didn’t even know you had, and help you feel established in a yoga lifestyle. Building strength and stamina isn’t just physical—focusing on yoga for an entire afternoon or throughout a weekend also shifts your awareness, training you to sustain a yogic perspective on and off the mat.
4. Neuroplasticity. A fancy word for pattern formation in the brain. As you learn how to do poses in an integrated way, your brain is rewiring itself. Over time, you can say, “Wow, it feels completely different this way!”
5. Dip your toes into teacher training. A longer workshop can help you decide whether or not you’re ready for the big plunge, teacher training. Breathe Workshops encompass a variety of activities along with teachings about alignment, anatomy and yoga philosophy. Will this ignite something inside you? Will there be a new fire lit for a yearning to go further? Our current Summer Session for Yoga Teacher Training is underway with a group of dedicated students under the guidance of our Director Christine Felstead, this session filled up quickly and our Winter YTT is sure to as well. If this is something that interests you a Workshop is a great way to get a taste. More information of Breathe Yoga Teacher Training can be found here.
Svitlana August 10th, 2018
Posted In: Uncategorised
Mother-daughter duo Julia and Lindsey Gallagher have discovered stillness in yoga.
Julia, a busy mom who suffered from body pain and Lindsey, a 16-year old dancer and student, explain why practicing yoga at Breathe has completely transformed them: body and mind.
Photo by Waverly Wyld
How did you discover yoga?
Julia: It was an incredibly stressful few years so I needed to do something mentally and physically. Yoga just seemed like the logical thing. Because of the stress, my hips were giving me problems, my whole spine, I would have back pain. I was trying to discover what would be gentle but challenging and something mental as well as physical.
Lindsey: My mom. I was excited to do it just because I saw how happy my mom was and how much she talked about it. I was excited to explore different parts of my body and well being and to see what the hype was about. Where’s mom? Oh she’s at yoga.
Photo by Waverly Wyld
How has yoga changed your life?
Julia: The chronic pain in my hips and shoulders is gone. I was having problems walking too. That completely resolved itself within six months and I sleep better. I have better energy through the day. I used to feel exhausted all day. I don’t feel that anymore.
Lindsey: It’s helped me as a teenager. There’s a lot of stress with school, social life…when you’re a teen everything is stressful. Doing yoga and learning how to breathe helps me calm down.
Julia and Lindsey say that practicing mat to mat has brought them closer together.
Lindsey: Practicing with my mom is nice and we’re close. I feel comfortable with her. It’s not embarrassing to me.
Julia: I love it. I think yoga is such a great thing for us to do when we’re not just rushing around. We can take an hour together to enjoy the quiet time.
Julia says her teachers at Breathe have helped her the most in learning how to… well, breathe!
“Funny enough, one of the most important things I’ve learned from teachers at Breathe, is to just breathe. And I pass that along to my dance students. Focusing on your breath and slowing things down. I feel very nurtured in Margot’s restorative classes. And as a mom who nurtures 24/7, it’s extremely meaningful to me to take a class that nurtures me. Also, in so many classes, I feel like I’ve learned the very factual anatomy of the human body and why certain poses do what they do, and how to use that in every day. I’m kind of an information junky, so I love Suz’s Yin class where I can hold a pose and settle in and listen to her fill the room with knowledge. Lindsey likes Waverly’s Yin class the best. Learning to slow down. It’s comfortable and relaxing for her, as well as challenging.”
Thank you to Julia and Lindsey for sharing their amazing story. We love having you as part of the Breathe family.
Breathe_Editor March 22nd, 2018
Posted In: Uncategorised
Tags: Breathe Profile, Julia Gallagher, Lindsey Gallagher, Mother Daughter
Lioudmila Tanda started yoga and strength training over a year ago and says her life has never been the same.
“I heard yoga and strength training were important but I never practiced before.”
She credits longtime Breathe yoga teacher David Good for, “opening up a completely new world” for her and explains that now, there isn’t one aspect of her life that hasn’t been positively impacted by her practice at Breathe.
“It feels good. I feel my body is very different. My mind is more calm.”
Her new mission? To convert others to do the same.
“It’s a life-changing experience.”
The proof came in two surprises when Lioudmila sat in her car one day and something just didn’t feel right.
“I had to adjust my car back mirror was the first surprise. The second surprise was when I had to adjust my chair in the car because of my posture changed. It feels really good.”
Sitting and standing taller, Lioudmila says it’s all thanks to her teachers at Breathe.
“I want to say a huge thank you to all the teachers here: David, Andrea, Scottie, Rami and Margot. All teachers are very friendly and very knowledgeable. I really enjoy the classes. Give yourself a gift and try Breathe yoga.”
Breathe_Editor March 5th, 2018
Posted In: Uncategorised
Tags: Lioudmila Tanda, Strength Training, Total Body Dynamics
Photo by Waverly Wyld
When was the last time you played?
No seriously, when was the last time you let your guard down, grabbed a friend by the hand and laughed until your belly hurt?
For Lynn Kerrigan, it was when she was immersed in kids yoga teacher training.
At first she was nervous and shy, but slowly Lynn began to relax and be present.
“It brought me back to having fun.”
Lynn now teaches kids yoga at Breathe.
“It’s this connection to be able to share with the children. They get it. They experience love, joy and it’s empowering for them as well. I teach them about their breath, their body, moving and how that all feels.”
She explains she’s the lucky one: getting a front row seat to transformations in each class.
Photo by Waverly Wyld
“I see confidence, connection to themselves and connection to others,” said Lynn. “Being able to deliver yoga to other little human beings is just the most rewarding thing because they get it. They have no inhibitions. They do it and they love it. It’s so natural.”
Photo by Waverly Wyld
Lynn’s next goal is to become a certified mindfulness educator.
“It was a lightbulb moment especially having three children. Everyone is addicted to their devices and at some point, we need to counterbalance it.”
“The ultimate goal is that mindfulness and yoga will be part of children’s lives just like brushing their teeth. We are turned on all the time and we need to learn how to turn off and balance.”
Lynn Kerrigan is a graduate of Breathe Yoga Teacher Training 300 Hrs (2017) and is a mother to 3 active girls.
Breathe will be hosting Family Day Yoga on February 19th. Click here for more info.
Breathe_Editor February 13th, 2018
Posted In: Uncategorised
Tags: kids yoga, Lynn Kerrigan
4:45 a.m.
Getting up at this hour sounds daunting. For Breathe owner Svitlana, the early morning wakeup call was her biggest deterrent to trying Mysore Yoga.
What is Mysore? Learn more here.
“I had heard so many positive things about Mysore but was convinced that I wasn’t an early morning practice person. My body was achy that early and the thought of practising at 5:30 a.m. was crazy to me. But one day I decided to challenge myself and grabbed one of our senior teachers Christine (Felstead) and asked if she would join me in a Mysore challenge for a month.”
Christine agreed.
That was roughly 8 years ago.Now Svitlana continues to practice and teach Mysore daily.
“My personal yoga practice has been absolutely transformed since beginning a Mysore Yoga practice. I think it’s because of the discipline of practicing every day, it opens up your body in a way that practicing intermittently just doesn’t give you. The mind becomes disciplined and focused and after a period of time, the practice has become very meditative for me. As opposed to being in a room where I was listening to a teacher, I was listening to my own breath.”
Although Svitlana still loves other forms of Yoga, she says the Ashtanga system works for her. And the days of dreading the alarm are long gone.
“One of the things that kept me in the Ashtanga system was the change that it had on my sense of well being every day. I couldn’t wait until practice the following morning and to get out of bed at 4:45a.m. and practice because of the absolute elation that followed throughout the day for me.”
What inspires you to practice Ashtanga yoga? Have you found gratitude on the mat?
Breathe_Editor February 6th, 2018
Posted In: Uncategorised
We’re so excited to have our owner, Svitlana, as the very first blog feature.
Why the blog?
“I’ve wanted to start a blog for a while because there are so many of our students whose lives have been transformed through yoga. They’re meaningful and motivational stories that I think the whole world needs to know about.”
When and how did yoga become a part of your life?
“I started yoga when I was transitioning from an overseas job and returned back to Canada. I made the decision throughout that year that yoga was going to be my life not just as a practitioner, but I wanted to create a community. Once I decided that, a studio was open within two months.
We opened three days after 9/11 which was quite an auspicious and necessary time for the community to have a yoga studio.
As a business owner, I was concerned about the economic crash and people not being in the mood to do anything after 9/11 but it was the exact opposite.
“People were looking for community, looking for a space to perhaps grieve and that’s how we started. Our studio started out of a tragedy and brought us closer together because of it.”
For the first ten years, Breathe was located in Bloor West Village.
“We quickly outgrew the space but had nowhere to move to. We had a lot of dedicated students who put up with things like having to wait in the stairwell before classes. We didn’t have anything. The reception was in the studio. The change room was about the size of 1/4 of the size of our current change room. It always amazed me.”
Construction before our Junction location opening.
Now, Breathe welcomes 2018 and it’s 6th year in the Junction: a spacious centre that houses a newly expanded treatment room, sauna and two state-of-the-art practice rooms.
“My wish has always been for Breathe to be a place where students are introduced to yoga in a meaningful way with the best teachers that I can provide to the students so they can truly experience what yoga is and what it can do on a physical, spiritual and mental health level. Providing yoga as close as possible to what my definition of what yoga is with the teachers we have available has always been my goal.
I’m incredibly grateful for the community we’ve created here. I feel incredibly fortunate to have the staff that helps me run Breathe every day. And of course, I’m grateful for the student body for trusting us with their yoga practice and I hope that yoga brings all the benefits that it has brought to my life to everyone.”
Bookmark us and get ready for more stories from Svitlana, our staff, teachers, and students.
Breathe_Editor February 6th, 2018
Posted In: Uncategorised
Breathe_Editor January 31st, 2017
Posted In: Uncategorised
