Jon Hamm as Don Drapper finds peace with "Om"

However, from Om on a hillside to mass consumption of a soft drink, there is a lot between sip and lip. Since this is a yoga blog, let’s just focus on the meaning of “Om” and how to bring it into your life.

As on this episode of Mad Men, Om is often used as a chant repeated multiple times. This repetition will help bring your brain a meditation state — a state of the mindless mind — so it can relax. I use it to begin my daily meditation practice, chanting Om 3 times. (Oddly enough it’s also come to signal to my dog Tess that’s it’s time for us both to be still.)

For me Om represents the sound of all sounds. Wind in your hair, sizzling sun on the sidewalk, waves crashing to shore — your own breath — all are to be found in a single Om. While Don, new at all this, sounds Om as one flat note, in fact, Om consists of 4 separate sounds: (more…)

Today I got my daily email from Yoga Journal. It's a great resource and reminder about what's going on with yoga. The topic was yoga for sleep, something that I struggle with. I have tinnitus, constant ringing in the ears, which gets even louder when I'm tired, making going to sleep difficult. I use a masking technique which often has me falling asleep to audio books on a timer. So I was very interested in seeing what was recommended.

What I found was Yoganidrasana,  where you start on your back, placing both legs behind your head, hands clasped to the small of the back. For me just trying to get into that pose would be exhausting enough to make sleep easier I'm sure!

Unable to do this pose, I went to the HeavyWeight Yoga technique of Pose-Pairing — taking the benefits of a pose I'm unable to do and matching them to poses that I can do, or at least have a hope of doing anyway.

Wanting to work from the bed top I decided on these poses for better sleep: (more…)