A portion of class time will be reserved for Q&A.
We encourage questions, provide demos and offer attentive adjustments.

Location:
ThirdEye Yoga -  the ideal space for people seeking the support, guidance and environment that every student deserves.

Details:
June 3rd  – (First Sunday of every month)
2:00 – 3:00 p.m.
$20
FREE to our students enrolled in a ThirdEye Yoga program.

OPEN TO EVERYONE – regardless of ability, body type, age or experience.

Please RSVP at least 2 hours in advance of class
310.954.9108   or   617.957.0785
connect@thirdeyeyogastudio.com

Currently we are offering several amazing special packages!
check out http://www.thirdeyeyogastudio.com/blog/ to learn more!

In the meantime, please take a few moments to read through an amazing article entitled ‘Why Yoga Works’ that explains why yoga is so effective.
http://www.thirdeyeyogastudio.com/blog/health/why-yoga-works

It’s not just stretching and strengthening, its about reshaping your life!

310.954.9108   or   617.957.0785
connect@thirdeyeyogastudio.com

The other benefit about the yoga buffet is that you can switch it up, explore and sample from so many different styles that its unlikely that you’ll ever get bored with it. And even if you decide one day to retire the yoga mat and use those yoga blocks for foot rests,  remember that the real purpose of the practice is to apply it to all other aspects of your life.

Nothing is more of a drag than poor health or annoying injuries so at the very least remember that all that you learn on your mat will help you know how to walk, run, dance, swim, hike, think, breathe and live with better awareness of how to do it right!

For those physical fitness junkies out there, remember that while strength and speed have their place, dexterity, coordination, agility, focus, efficiency and range of motion are just some of the other tools that are required for optimal movement. Because yoga is so all-inclusive, yoga fills in the gaps of your training, speeds recovery and ensures that you don’t have any weak links in your musculo-skeletal system.

For those meditative monks seeking enlightenment, neglecting the body ends up becoming a very distracting hassle of unpleasant sensations and illness and that ultimately, losing touch with one aspect of ourselves means harming the whole.

The nice thing about yoga is that it has as much or as little content as you want. You can explore the rich mental and spiritual aspects of yoga, using the moving meditation to develop your mind and spirit and transform your life in ways you’ve never imagined. Or, press B and skip all that, using it simply as hardcore calisthenics to tune up your muscles and joints.

The bottom line is that regardless of your agenda, YOGA IS FUN!  It’s play for adults, who never get to stand on one foot and pretend they’re a tree. It lets you try new things without fear. It’s a chance to meet like-minded people and learn something new. It teaches you about yourself – how you handle challenge and ‘uncharted territory’, how to be patient with yourself and how to encourage and inspire yourself. Yoga reconnects your mind and body into a beautiful, self-aware, ever-improving whole.

Yoga is the ultimate package of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health and well being. A yoga practice is self-defined by each person and can be done by ANYONE, regardless of ability, body type, age or experience. Doing the right type of yoga can guide you to recognize what tools are accessible to you to improve performance, health, mood, attitude and focus.

Yoga and the Body:

• increases flexibility, body tissue elasticity and range of motion
• strengthens the muscles and tendons, especially stabilizer muscles
• increases bone density of the entire skeletal system
• develops balance and coordination
• corrects posture and body alignment
• improves function of internal organs via (a) proper posture so they’re held correctly and (b) internal compression that detoxes and flushes them out for improved function
• enhances cardiovascular ability, both lowering resting heart rate and making oxygen use more efficient
• works with your own body’s resistance which is ideal for optimal performance and movement
• burns energy (150-400 calories per hour)
• decreases potential of injury due to improved structural support and stability
• adjusts muscular imbalances
• stimulates the immune system
• incorporates breathing exercises to build stamina, enhance performance, soothe the nervous system and calm the cognitive process
• decreases cortisol levels, resulting in lower blood sugar levels and heightened insulin response, resulting in less inflammation and less chance of diabetes and heart disease
• decreases the chance of arthritis and joint issues by moving full motion and “squeezing and soaking” the cartilage, flushing out toxins  and soaking in extra nutrients
• decreases pain and fatigue

Yoga and the Mind:

• increases happiness and improves attitude
• develops discipline
• improves sleep quality
• elevates energy levels
• increases proprioception (the ability for the mind to direct where and how the body moves. Touching your fingers to your nose with your eyes closed, or stepping back and having your foot land perfectly parallel to your other foot without looking takes proprioception)
• develops and enhances coping mechanisms when moving beyond one’s comfort zone and dealing with fear, doubt, discomfort
• decreases stress and tension
• improves reaction time and sharpen motor skills
• encourages mindfulness, embodiment & awareness
• enhances mental and creative focus
• invites and encourages the development of a meditation practice
• promotes self-worth and confidence
• accelerates the mode of flow states
• provides a sense of accomplishment, self-acceptance, reward and fulfillment

CAN YOU GET HURT IN YOGA?
You can get hurt doing anything wrong. Without proper instruction, typically what happens over time is that a practice is developed with unhealthy habits which accumulatively can cause bodily misalignment and injury. Your body most likely has decades of damage and rust that needs to be restored before you can move as well as the average 5 year old. You must accept where you are before you can advance. Get through the fundamental and beginner levels before you take on the epic bosses. Poses done shallowly but properly are beautiful. Poses forced beyond all recognition are nothing more than an stressed shape that are more damaging than healing.

Why ThirdEye Yoga?
ThirdEye Yoga continues to be an ideal space for people seeking the support, guidance and environment that every student deserves. We develop the optimal yoga practice personally customized for each person.  Our programs guide you to cultivate an awareness of the general principles and tools for smart movement, and to understand the mechanics and essence of somatics that are essential to everyday life activities.  We encourage questions, provide demos and offer attentive adjustments. Thirdeye offers practical and realistic rates because we know how invaluable yoga is for optimal health and fitness.

Currently we are offering several amazing special packages!
check out http://www.thirdeyeyogastudio.com/blog/ to learn more!

ThirdEye Yoga Movement Programs are personally customized for fitness, maintenance or therapeutic curriculums based on your goals, anatomy, health and fitness condition and are built upon one or a combination of these general directions:

• maintaining a healthy mixture of strengthening and flexibility through intelligent sequencing that reviews fundamental postures and explores new creative movement
• invigorating movement & dynamic poses to condition the body towards core awareness, increase stamina and endurance
• specific focus on requested postures to break through and transcend beyond assumed limitations
• calming restorative sessions to de-stress and soothe the nervous system (can incorporate meditation)
• incorporating essential nutritional guidelines for full body fitness, health and wellness both inside and out
• self improvement skills that broaden the understanding and application of yoga towards a healthy and positive lifestyle by including awareness of attitude, spirituality, emotional well-being and cognitive focus

check out what YELP has to say about us!
http://www.yelp.com/biz/third-eye-yoga-studio-west-hollywood

It’s not just stretching and strengthening, its about reshaping your life!

read even MORE amazing information about WHY YOGA WORKS

.. and even MORE here!

- the MUST KNOWS about carbs, sugar and the insulin insanity -

Firstly don’t shoot the messenger. I love my Aunt Mary’s pasta more than you know and that bowl of M&Ms she keeps stocked is worth the drive to Bristol Connecticut.

However, the truth is, all the bread, pasta, cereal, potatoes, rice (stop me when you’ve had enough), fruit, dessert, candy, and sodas you eat and drink eventually wind up as glucose. YUM! does that come in a caramel flavor?? mmm.

While glucose is a fuel, it is actually quite toxic in excess amounts unless it is being burned inside your cells, so the body has evolved an elegant way of getting it out of the bloodstream quickly and storing it in those cells.

The pancreas steps in and secretes insulin which then sends the excess glucose to be stored in the liver and muscles as glycogen, which is the energy fuel used for hard anaerobic exercise.

But here’s the catch: once those cells are full, as they are almost all the time with inactive people, the rest of the glucose is converted to fat. Saturated fat.

How ironic, though, that it’s not fat that gets stored as fat – it’s sugar. And that’s where insulin insensitivity and this whole type 2 diabetes issue gets scary.

So as insulin keeps trying to store more glycogen in our cells and extra storage systems, which are already full, our system becomes resistant to insulin. The insulin “receptor sites” on the surface of those cells start to decrease in number, sensitivity and efficiency.

Since the glucose can’t get into the now full muscle or liver cells, it remains in the bloodstream. Now the pancreas senses there’s still too much toxic glucose in the blood, so it frantically pumps out even more insulin, which causes the insulin receptors on the surface of those cells to become even more resistant, because excess insulin is also toxic!

Eventually, the insulin helps the glucose finds it way into your fat cells, where it is stored as fat. Again – because it bears repeating – it’s not fat that gets stored in your fat cells – it’s sugar.

Over time, as we continue to eat high carbohydrate diets and exercise less, the degree of insulin insensitivity increases. Unless we take dramatic steps to reduce carbohydrate intake and increase exercise, we develop several problems that only get worse over time – and the drugs don’t fix it.

Don’t Diss Insulin!!
Insulin’s original function was to store excess nutrients, which makes perfect sense in a world when food was often scarce or non-existent for long periods of time.

In fact, there was so little carbohydrate/glucose in our ancestor’s diet that we evolved four ways of making extra glucose ourselves and only one way of getting rid of the excess we consume!

.. jumping forward to our current times of fast food frenzies and sugar madness when insulin functionality runs amuck, the results of this self destructive process can include:

the abundance of toxic glucose which is like sludge in the bloodstream clogging arteries, binding with proteins to form harmful AGEs (advanced glycated end-products) and causing systemic inflammation.

More and more sugar gets stored as fat, which doesn’t get burned easily because the muscles are getting less glycogen (because they have grown resistant to insulin) and because insulin inhibits the fat-burning enzyme lipase. You continue to get fatter until eventually those fat cells become resistant themselves.

Levels of insulin increase because the pancreas thinks “if a little is not working, more would be better.” Wrong. Insulin is itself very toxic at high levels, causing, among many other maladies, plaque build-up in the arteries and therefore heart disease and increasing cellular proliferation in cancers.

Your insulin resistant muscles also resist amino acids, so now you can’t build or maintain your muscles. To make matters worse, other parts of your body think there’s not enough stored sugar in the cells, so they send signals to start cannibalizing your precious muscle tissue to make more – you guessed it – sugar!

You get fatter and you lose muscle. Woo hoo!

Your energy level drops, which makes you hungry for more carbohydrates and less willing to exercise. You actually crave more of the poison that is killing you.

An insulin-resistant liver can’t convert certain thyroid hormones which leads to thyroid problems, which further slow down your metabolism

You can develop nerve damage and pain in the extremities, as the damage from the excess glucose sugars destroys nerve tissue, and you can develop retinopathy and begin to lose your eyesight. Out of sight!

Eventually, the pancreas is so darn exhausted, it can’t produce any more insulin and you wind up having to inject insulin to stay alive. Lots of it, since you are resistant. Congratulations, you have graduated to insulin-dependent diabetes.

Solutions
First off, exercise does have a major impact on improving insulin sensitivity since muscles burn your stored glycogen as fuel during and after your workout. Muscles that have been exercised desperately want that glucose inside and will “up regulate” insulin receptors to speed the process.

Second, cutting back on carbohydrates, especially the obvious sugars and refined stuff is absolutely essential. Make fresh vegetables the base of your food pyramid.

Once you become aware of these essential step, you will notice how CW (Conventional Wisdom) has saturated and smothered our food and marketing with unhealthy persuasive options.

Whew what a nightmare! Will we ever be able to enjoy our M&Ms the same way?? Perhaps we simply won’t want to because as we make better choices our choices will become.. better.

more:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/diabetes/#axzz1miE2ZH00

www.thirdeyeyogastudio.com

disclaimer:
Public content is shared without any persuasive intention. ThirdEye Yoga believes in having a good time and enjoying life by making smart choices, mindful decisions and laughing daily.

www.thirdeyeyogastudio.com

This monthly workshop will help you clarify the overwhelming confusion about common questions such as:
· what does being ‘healthy’ mean?
· why does it matter?
· how do you start??

On Sunday April 29th at 1:30p.m. – 2:30p.m.
ThirdEye yoga is calling on people who are ready to transform and become
· physically resilient
· mentally sharp
· emotionally balanced
· spiritually charged

This workshop will cover practical, straight forward information about
health and fitness so you can take charge of your life and be HEALTHY!

We encourage questions, provide demos and offer attentive adjustments.
transcend beyond assumed limitations, shift your outlook and inhabit your body!

________

Saturday March 17th 2:00p.m. – 3:00p.m.
$25
SPACE IS LIMITED!
Please contact us to RSVP
________

Thirdeye will work with you to develop a multidimensional plan to defragment and redirect your life towards optimal health and well-being.

ThirdEye offers cohesive programs integrating:
· strengthening
· flexibility
· balance
· range of motion
· mindfulness
· mental and creative focus
· nutrition guidance
· lifestyle recommendations

Share your story.
How did you start getting healthy?

Life changes as it needs to.
Find the flexibility to move with it
& the strength not to lose yourself along the way

www.thirdeyeyogastudio.com
310.954.9108

Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-primal-blueprint/#ixzz1lfWeSjws

“Not all carbohydrate foods are created equal; in fact, they behave quite differently in our bodies. The Glycemic Index describes this difference by ranking carbohydrates according to their effect on our blood glucose levels.

Choosing low GI carbs—the ones that produce only small fluctuations in our blood glucose and insulin levels—is the secret to long-term health reducing your risk of heart disease and diabetes and is the key to sustainable weight loss.”

There is a lot of talk in the world of health and nutrition about the glycemic index (GI), a chart that measures how quickly the carbohydrates you eat turn into sugar in your blood. But there is a related index called “glycemic load” (GL), which tells you how much of that carbohydrate is in a serving of a particular food. Glycemic load is the better predictor of how much a food raises blood sugar, but both concepts are important to understand if you wish to keep your blood sugar levels in a healthy range.

The GI is a scale of 1-100, with 100 being the fastest and quickest impact on your blood sugar level, and 1 being the slowest impact on your blood sugar level.  By choosing foods that are lower on the glycemic index, your nutrients are delivered more slowly to your blood stream, which means they’ll provide a slower/longer source of energy, produce less of an insulin response and create less of a crash that causes your body to crave more carbohydrates!

Now, the GI DOES NOT factor in serving size.  For example, watermelon has a GI number of 73, and milk chocolate has a GI number of 43. So should we be eating chocolate all day long and avoiding fruit? Nope, it’s because the GI number is based off of 50g of total carbs of each type of food. You only have to eat 3 oz of chocolate to get to 50 grams of carbs, while you need to eat 1.5 pounds of watermelon to get 50g of carbs.

Luckily, the Glycemic Load factors in serving size along with the glycemic index. Processed foods, refined carbs, and sugar all have high glycemic loads, while fruits and vegetables generally have low glycemic loads. This is the info that we’ll be using to our advantage.

Rather than print out every single piece of food and it GI and GL, I’d rather keep things simple. Focus on eating foods with LOW glycemic loads during the day, and only eat carbs with HIGH glycemic loads immediately before a workout – they’ll be burned immediately as fuel – or directly AFTER a workout along with protein – they’ll get used to refill your muscle’s fuel stores rather than stored as fat.

Foods above 55 are considered to have a high Glycemic Index, and foods above 20 are considered to have a high Glycemic Load.

http://www.glycemicindex.com/

Low Glycemic load examples:
veggies
seeds
nuts
berries

High Glycemic foods:
pastries
pastas
mashed potatoes
candy
crackers
rice
pancakes

Many of the starches contain ‘opiod’ (opium-like) substances that make them somewhat addictive. Refined sugars stimulate beta endorphin receptors in the brain, creating addictive craving as well. This is yet another reason to eliminate refined, processed carbohydrate foods,  saturated fats or trans fatty acids (anything that contains ‘hydrogenated’ or ‘partially hydrogenated’ oils), genetically modified foods and impure water from your diet.

fruits:
If you eat whole fruit with the fiber in tact, you will find that the blood sugar issues are not a problem, as long as you keep your dietary (healthy) fats low, since high levels of fats interfere with insulins ability to do its work

Any time you eat carbohydrate-rich foods, glucose enters your blood stream. If you are eating healthy unprocessed whole foods and your body is functioning correctly, this is not a problem. The sugar quickly leaves the bloodstream and, with the help of insulin, is deposited in to the cells of your body as fuel and energy.

However some foods interfere with insulin function, causing sugar to pile up and have a hard time exiting the bloodstream. When this occurs, your cells become starved of energy. And if it happens repeatedly for long periods of time, you can end up with damage to the nerves, eyes, kidneys, hearts and blood vessels (for starters).

High GL foods cause spikes in insulin. If insulin levels stay chronically high, out insulin receptors become desensitized over time, then the pancreas must secrete even more insulin to do the same job. This is a dangerous condition that leads to blood sugar instability and eventually diabetes  and other disorders. Increased insulin also causes health problems including:
- increased fat storage
- decrease in human growth hormone
- increase in cortisol
- decrease in testosterone
- decrease in DHEA
- adrenal fatigue
- Mood swings
- decrease immune function
- increased inflammation

WHY YOU GOT FAT

more at:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/diabetes/#axzz1gs0qYIYa
http://nerdfitness.com/blog/2011/11/10/healthy-eating/
www.renewyourself.net

www.thirdeyeyogastudio.com

They sound great, the idea is sexy, but the reality is often unrealistic.

As humans it’s our nature to want our dreamy aspirations to fulfill high expectations quickly and easily, otherwise there’s no incentive to do it.

Our appetite is ravenous and therefore we tend to bite off more than we can chew and our gluttenous ‘want it all and want it now’ attitude often backfires because those huge dreams suddenly seem overwhelming, intimidating and impossible.

Perhaps the expression about having ‘blinders on’ may have a positive side in these scenarios because rather than trying to take it all in, we can focus on whats right in front of us and right around the corner. Thats quite a mouthful.

Once upon a meander, I traveled through Spain and ended up in Barcelona taking an English teaching course, afterwhich I immediately started looking for work. I was told by my teachers that it would be hard to find work at that time of the year and most of the students seemed to accept this. I decided to put my blinders on as if I was only looking down at my foot taking the next step forward. I found my first teaching job 4 days later, and then I picked up a few other classes throughout the city that next week.

A few months ago I watched the movie ‘Touching the Void’, a very moving documentary about survival in brutal conditions during an extreme hiking expedition.  What still sticks with me is the survival mode or ‘goal’ of simply getting to the next rock within 20 minutes. Thats all he focused on. Thats all he needed to focus on.

By the inch, success is a cinch. By the yard, it’s hard. My yoga practice constantly reminds me about patience and persistence. The real meaning and magic happens when you give life to your resolution, when you are genuine with your choice, when you decide on the course of action, and apply determination and dedication on an ongoing basis.

So perhaps goals should be something that keeps us focused and grounded instead of being some flighty free radicals (which we all know are bad for us). Even moreso, perhaps the focus should be not on the end goal as much as the journey towards it.  It means accepting that success is a process that takes courage, guts, and intestinal fortitude to dive into that process each day, one step at a time.

For this New Year, the greatest resolution is to be willing to give up who you are in order to become all that you can be.

In Gratitude and Abundance ~

ThirdEye Yoga

Well theres good news and bad news.

The good news is that there’s bad news about over-exercising. yay no more guilt about taking time off from that relentless trainer with the perfect a**.  I mean it would be a lot easier if we could just switch out our a**es..  lord knows I pay him enough.

The bad news about over-exercising is that it increases the release of cortisol (stress hormone) and decreases DHEA. Over training also increases free radical production and weakens the immune system.

Something good to know is that after about 30-45 minutes of cardio, one typically reaches the ‘tranquilizer effect’, during which there is up to a 500% increase in endorphin release that is more powerful than morphine and can last up to 5 hours. This means you become unaware of the damage you can do to your amazing body that you ironically are working so hard to take care of..

** everything in moderation **

more at www.renewyourself.net

www.thirdeyeyogastudio.com

I hate to be a buzz kill right before the holidays, but you need to shape up. For starters, STOP all that sitting, take off those clunky shoes (except that super cute pair), dump the poor posture and stop slacking in the exercise department.. and thats just for starters.

The above said cultural norms are the culprits for our aching backs among other things.

In a super nutshell here’s why our backs get burdened so often..

Our weak core and poor posture results in a collapsed front body and a strained weak back body. Visualize the familiar collapsed front, rolled in shoulders, rounded back.. (think computer work, driving, TV watching, texting, ugh.. )

Bulging disks can result which irritates and inflames muscles, tendons, ligaments, and fascia. Tired and strained muscles reflexively respond with tension and spasm, all of which can be very painful.

The chemical process of inflammation produces substances like free radicals that irritate surrounding tissue. Also lactic acid is a by-product of the chemical reaction of muscle contractions. These are all irritants to soft tissue. Muscles respond to the irritants by reflexively spasming as a guarding to attempt to immobilize and ‘protect’ the back. When one ‘throws their back out’ when already tensed, vulnerable back muscle strains or tears upon loading. Simple activities like standing up out of a chair, raking, shoveling snow can be life altering events.

DANG! WHAT TO DO?

If your back has be thrown out.. like seriously in the garbage thrown out, resting in neutral is first. Supine with calves on chair seat is a time-tested favorite. Improving circulation with heat, cold, massage helps process the irritants out the soft tissue.

Next – very gentle stretching to circulate blood and oxygen and to start the person moving,

But this is only the beginning, done during the acute phase. Once the back musculature is not so reactive to movement, spinal extension (backbends) and core development should start as soon as possible.

YAY YOGA!
www.thirdeyeyogastudio.com