The Wild Medicine Weekend Retreat

Take a deep dive into nature as a mirror this year in wild and wonderful Dartmoor

Yoga Found to Boost Cognition in Older Women at Risk of Alzheimer's…

Life’s path can be gruelling at times, so just take the next right step. By Lauren Bloxham

Reading time: 4 minutes

The Wild Medicine Weekend Retreat in the Wild & Wonderful Dartmoor National Park… as featured in OM Yoga & Lifestyle Magazine 2024

If you’re here, you probably already how effective yoga practice can be in managing stress and anxiety. I know many of you who practice yoga to help manage chronic health conditions such as high blood pressure, arthritis, and multiple sclerosis.

The gritty reality of living right now is enough to knock us off balance. Whatever is at the forefront of your conscious mind, whether it’s the cost of living, war, climate crisis, the darkness of winter, health, family, friendships or something else… the world is presenting us with some serious challenges to face. And just as we become familiar with one challenge it can sometimes feel as though another almighty implosion (or literal explosion) comes along to re-enforce the message that ‘all is not well’

Savasana: The Pause that Replenishes our Prana

Yoga may reduce seizure frequency in epilepsy patients…

Watching the seasons change is a part of life that can have a real impact on our psyche and sense of wellbeing. Think for a moment about how it feels to see the first daffodils of spring after a long, cold, dark winter. They can bring such vibrant hope, a constant reminder of longer, warmer days ahead, a sense of relief from the long winter.

Did you know that around 80% of the UK population will experience low back pain at some point during their lives? According to the NHS:

"Back pain is the largest single cause of disability in the UK, with lower back pain alone accounting for 11% of the total disability of the UK population. Referrals for spinal surgery are increasing year on year and a growing number of patients are waiting longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment."

It's a huge proportion and suggests that our sedentary lifestyles and habits of sitting and working are contributing to this pain, combined with a lack of access to treatment via our NHS. In a recent PLOS study reported by Marie Claire magazine:

"It was found that Yoga is actually as effective for easing lower back pain and disability as physical therapy, with the added bonus that yoga is likely much cheaper than physio."

We think investing in professional and effective therapeutic movement will work wonders on your wellbeing...

Nature's Wordless Wisdom

Disentangling from the concept of linear time in favour of innate cues and inspired suggestions.

By Lauren Bloxham

Walking for 30 minutes a day and practising yoga can help reduce fatigue in cancer patients and cut the risk of the disease spreading, coming back or resulting in death, research suggests.

We’ve all felt the restorative effects of a bracing walk, breathed a little easier in countryside air, or experienced the clarity of thought that comes with staring out at a vast expanse of sea or a starry, pollution-free sky. Neuroscientists are continuing to confirm what poets and Eastern philosophers have long held to be self-evident: that nature is good for us. According to recent research, immersion in green spaces can improve cognitive function and memory, boost psychological well-being, and even guard against physical ill health.

Exploring emptiness is a rare luxury in our busy modern lives…although we have an opportunity for it with every breath we take, and the capacity to consciously work with it, it’s something that can be undervalued. When we begin bringing awareness to its presence in our lives though, emptiness can be a precious and deeply life[1]enhancing reminder that we are full of possibility.

Ishvara Pranidhana is an invitation to release control, ‘Let go, let God’ as Wayne Dyer says. It’s the fifth of the Niyamas as outlined within the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The idea that we have to control our lives in order to make them work, often results in us creating greater tension and stress. But if we practice faith that all things will unfold in due course, we can find stillness, peace and a sense of magic in our lives.

Knowing ourselves is quite often a long process of knowing what we are not. In our Yoga practice it’s easy to identify with whether we think we’re ‘good at yoga’ or ‘bad at yoga’ how much or how little we do being the way we judge ourselves. But paying attention to our personal practice, the way we move, how it makes us feel, which teachers resonate with us and which don’t, which style of yoga brings us to life, and which leaves us feeling depleted. The mat can be a microcosmic experience of life.

Tapas, is the fourth Niyama, as outlined in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and it explores will power. Will power is actually a muscle that we need to consciously exercise. The idea that we either have it or don’t isn’t helpful. What is the difference between someone who runs the London Marathon and someone who dreams about it but stops at ‘I’m no good at running’ or someone who climbs a mountain, or undertakes a house renovation or sets up a new business? Ultimately, it’s willpower, and will power is the application of intention towards a perceived goal or end point over and over again until it is reached.

Contentment can be elusive, especially when we’re chronically subjected to adverts for the latest smart phone, wrinkle cream, luxury car, perfume, clothing… you name it, all of those adverts come with the same underlying message that what we are, have and do isn’t enough.

I don’t know about you, but the feeling of a newly cleaned house, or getting into a freshly laundered bed, or getting out of the shower in the morning can really lift my spirits. Does it follow then that a clean body and pure mind feel virtuous and uplifted?

Holding on too tightly to something or someone can come from insecurity, the avoidance of loss or grief. Ultimately it becomes about avoiding pain, but in the process of possessiveness we cause a different kind of pain for ourselves.