How Bitter Foods Balance Your Diet + Your Doshas

There’s a good chance you used to scrunch up your nose at bitter foods, relegating them to refrigerator Siberia. But these days, they’re the star of restaurant menus and grocery-store produce aisles.  “People have discovered how much more interesting and satisfying food is when you add bitterness,” says Jennifer McLagan, Toronto-based ...

5 Ways to Express Gratitude Through Yoga

There's nothing like a great yoga class to help you remember and appreciate the many blessings in your life. I often find myself on the commute home from a particularly amazing class thinking something along the lines of: "I really love breathing!" I realize that this probably seems ridiculous to ...

This is Your Brain on Meditation

What's actually happening to your brain when you meditate? You’ve read about the benefits of a daily practice. But what exactly is happening inside your body to produce these profound effects? Thanks to research done using fMRI scans of the brain, we know. Here, Rebecca Gladding, MD, a psychiatrist and co-author ...

Full Moon Rising: The Art of a Shamanic Celebration

As a new season dawns, shamanic teacher Sandra Ingerman helps us celebrate changing tides with these ceremonies. When I lived in San Francisco in 1980, I was introduced to shamanic ceremonies. I loved this practice, which taught me how to receive my own spiritual guidance by traveling outside of time and space ...

10 Tricks to Outsmart Belly Bloating during Summer

Summertime brings warm weather, long days, BBQs, bikinis—and often a bloated belly. We consulted Dr. John Douillard, founder of LifeSpa to understand why bloating seems more prevalent during the summer months and what you can do to feel (and look) your best this summer. What Causes Belly Bloating During Summer? Dr. Douillard explains ...

4 Ways to Take Down Your Inner Critic

You know that little voice that pipes up to tell you that you’re not enough? Well, here’s how to silence it—for good.     In the darkest recesses of your brain lives the ankle grabber of the mind. It’s your inner critic—the tiny voice that pipes up to plant a seed of self-doubt. ...

The Upside of Doing Nothing

There’s something about the new year that inspires a go-go-go attitude in most of us. But if the urge to take a break and hibernate strikes, give in, says Stephanie Brown, PhD. Turns out, there are some big benefits.   "In our society today, doing nothing is often associated with being lazy ...