Category: Yoga

Adrenal fatigue, COVID-19, Long Covid, Recovery, Self-care, Yoga

New Course: Self-Care for Restoration

Emily
Person doing restorative yoga
Yes! This is yoga!

I’m excited to announce that I will be sharing my new course, Self-Care for Restoration, as a name-your-price series beginning this week!

If you’ve had a viral illness or a prolonged bout of stress, it’s not unexpected to feel tired. But ongoing, crushing fatigue could be a sign of a more serious condition. We’re told to “rest a lot” and “don’t push yourself,” but figuring out how to care for yourself, and then following through, can feel like just another chore competing for your limited energy. This course will help you understand why rest is so important after illness or stress, how this bout of fatigue might be different from normal tiredness, how to measure your physical and mental energy expenditures, and how to pace yourself for complete recovery.

More information

This self-paced online course may be right for you if you:

  • Are exhausted from months or years of chronic stress
  • Have mostly recovered from Covid and still don’t feel back to your usual levels of energy
  • Have a pattern of overdoing it, then crashing
  • Are trying to “take it easy” but can’t seem to get fully rested
  • Aren’t really sick anymore…but haven’t really gotten well

This course has practical advice for giving your body the space it needs to recover and will guide you to build a recuperation program that suits your unique needs. The program has three phases:

  • Radical rest
  • Active recovery
  • Reconditioning

In each phase, I quickly sum up the physiology of what’s happening in your body during that phase, the #1 thing to focus on in each phase, and practical tips for helping yourself progress to the next phase of restoration. Then I share activity recommendations and a physical practice video and go into more detail on the how-and-why behind my recommendations, if you have the interest and energy to explore deeper. I’ve even developed a week of deeply nourishing menus to reduce the work of feeding yourself well at this time!

There is no timeline for recovery – instead, I help you learn to follow your body’s cues for what it needs. Chances are, if you are experiencing the symptoms above, the old rules about what your body needs don’t apply right now. I’ll teach you what body signals you need to pay attention to, how to track them qualitatively and quantitatively, and how to know when it’s safe to increase your activity.

Because I feel strongly that this course material needs to be out in the world and accessible to as many people as possible, I am offering it on a pay-what-you-will basis – including “free.”

Take the Course

Adrenal fatigue, COVID-19, Self-care, Yoga

How to Stretch When You Don’t Want to Get Out of Bed

Emily

Weather got you down? Dreading your day at work? Recovering from COVID or another part of the 2022 “tripledemic”? Depressed? Just enjoying your warm, cozy bed too much to haul your hindquarters out into the cold Michigan winter? (Not that I’d have any experience with that…ahem…)

Here’s a five-minute stretch to ease you into some movement. By the time you’re done, you may well find that extracting yourself from the covers has lost some of its horror. And if not…well, you’ll have moved your body a bit and gotten the blood and oxygen moving.

I’m demonstrating this on my massage table, but I promise you, you can start this routine in bed under the covers!

I sequenced these movements to move you in gentle stages from “hiding under a blanket” through “de-creakifying your body” to “emerging to start your day.” Only takes 5 minutes!
Anxiety relief, Relaxation, Self-care, Yoga

Somatics for Anxiety course is live!

Emily

I’m so excited to announce that my first online course is ready!

Torso-expanding side bend

Somatics for Anxiety isn’t just for people with anxiety. It’s for anyone who is curious to learn about the way moving your body can enhance your mood. We’re heading into a fun – but often high-stress – time of year. Our heads are full of changes to our normal routines, and our hearts are full of emotions: not just excitement and joy, but often angst and even grief.

When all that feels overwhelming, it can be helpful to tune into what the body is doing. And in fact, moving your body in certain ways can have a direct impact on your thoughts and emotions. Not sure where to start? This course is designed as a guided exploration! In each of the four lessons, I’ll introduce you to a different approach to using your body to enhance your mood, including:

  • Breath and movement (you can do it in bed!)
  • Gentle gliding yoga (including a variation in a chair)
  • Flowing chi exercises (simple standing motions)
  • Immersive distraction activities (many options for using your body to reset your mental state)

I’ll walk you through the exercises, talk a bit about the theory behind each one, and invite you to observe the degree to which each approach helps you. By the end of the course, you should have a much clearer idea of the types of activities that help your state of mind. You can revisit the course for an entire year, too, so you can continue to follow along with the videos whenever you need them.

Details and sign-up
COVID-19, Relaxation, Self-care, Yoga

Jurian Hughes Let Your Yoga Dance Online Practice

Emily

If you’re looking for something more active, expressive, and exuberant than gentle yoga, take a look at Jurian Hughes’s Let Your Yoga Dance practice. This will get you moving in a much more active way, with some hints of yoga but also a lot of freeform movement. If your best self likes to dance through your days, but is getting bogged down in bad news and worry, this might be right up your street.

If you are interested in more of her classes, she’s offering streaming classes in several flavors throughout the week while so many of us are in lockdown (March/April 2020). They are only $5 each or $50 for an unlimited pass for the month of April, and she’s donating 10% to the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts.