Wellness is Having a Moment

Wellness is having a moment.  Wherever we look, it’s ascribed to a purpose, product or pursuit.  There’s wellness travel, wellness tech, wellness foods, wellness journeys, wellness resolutions, wellness real estate and more.  Yet wellness, which became an English word in the 1650s to express the opposite of illness, is an ancient and expansive concept that has its roots in a rich and comprehensive body of 5,000-year-old Vedic texts.

Why should you care?  It’s so much more than a mere trend. The Global Wellness Institute, which this spring made me an ambassador and chair of their Yoga Therapy Initiative, defines wellness as the active pursuit of activities, choices and lifestyles that lead to a state of holistic health.  And it impacts everything about your existence.

What’s in it for you?  Who doesn’t want to live and be well, in every sense of the word?  We all hope to be healthy, happy and deeply fulfilled—integral parts of the wellness equation.  Yet the way to achieve these goals will be different for each of us.

So what’s the point?  At the start of a new decade, optimism reigns supreme and everything seems more possible.  As an author, teacher and wellness advocate, everything I do is focused on being well.  That’s why I welcome you to my new newsletter, where I’ll bring you strategies to inform your wellness efforts in the coming decade. Use these resources as your toolbox to stay healthy and thrive.

Here’s to new discoveries and personal transformation in 2020!

Love,

BijaB

What Moves You?

What gets you moving physically and moves you emotionally?  These are two very different questions. Yet the answers to each are essential to your wellbeing. If you don’t move it, you’ll lose it. This holds true for your mind as well as your emotions.  Lack of movement is paralysis.  And being mentally and emotionally paralyzed makes for its own kind of disaster.  What to do? Get answers in my column on this topic in Ageist Magazine, set on breaking the stereotypes of aging and ageism.

Frazzled by the Holidays? Manage Seasonal Stress With Meditation

‘Tis the season to be jolly. But with the crazy demands of the holidays, are you? That’s where meditation comes in.  It can help you increase resilience to stress, improve self-control, reduce anxiety, maintain brain health and lead you to a higher state of living.  Learn how to stave off stress and preserve your mental and emotional health now (and forever, should you so desire) by following these three simple steps to effective meditation.

Breathe Deeply for Long Life!

A Sanskrit proverb says, “When the breath wanders, the mind is also unsteady. But when the breath is calmed the mind will be still, and the yogi achieves long life. Therefore, one should learn to control the breath.”  Modern science is catching up with the breathing practices from ancient yogic traditions.  A key finding of a peer-reviewed study has shown “Investigations into the physiological effects of slow breathing have uncovered significant effects on the respiratory, cardiovascular, cardiorespiratory and autonomic nervous systems.”  Read the abstract on the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s website.  But more importantly, learn how to practice a breathing technique to reduce stress, anxiety, tension—and bring yourself to a state of bliss! Here’s a short video that will teach you the powerful practice I call Calming Breath.

What We’re Reading

“Wellness. There’s a word you don’t hear every day,” Dan Rather quipped when he introduced a “60 Minutes” segment on the topic in 1979. If he had a penny for every time the word’s been used since then, he’d be very rich today. Forty years later, wellness is a word we hear almost every day. But in retrospect, the statement is so surprising that the New York Times made it the lead on an oldie but goodie:  “Wellness,” a fascinating story they did in 2010 tracing the history of the wellness movement in the West.  As a frequent traveler, I found a recent Wired story on Timeshifter—an app that uses circadian science to help you beat jet lag—nothing short of inspiring. I used the app on my recent trip to Singapore and can safely say jet lag will be in my past forevermore.

Cheers to real-time restoration and ancient science with modern results!