Five Nourishing
Restorative Practices

Breathwork

Breath is life.

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The importance of breath, apart from the obvious that it keeps us alive! has been consciously or unconsciously focused on for hundreds of years to keep us healthy. Breathwork is vital for soothing the nervous system, boosting health and immunity and regulating the emotions.

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More than ever it is probably one of the most important skills to learn how to breathe optimally to instil more focus, calm and clarity. Cultivating more inner peace through training ourselves to breathe well and improving our sense of overall wellbeing, our energy levels and naturally more tranquility in the mind and importantly improved health.

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Breathing has a profound effect on the mood, since the earliest times and still today when feeling of anxiety, stress or panic arises you will be encouraged to 'stop and take a breath to calm down'.  Just imagine the effects when you intentionally cultivate better breathing habits with more mindful directed attentive awareness.
 

What is Pranayama?

​Pranayama, is the age-old tradition of mastering the breath.

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​The aim is to cultivate better breathing habits with more mindful directed attentive awareness.​ Simply, it is the practice of breath retention.It has three main principles inhalation, exhalation, and retention.
Helping the body to regulate and increase oxygen and carbon dioxide transfer. Engaging and stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system.

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Benefits include:

• Improves lung  and respiratory function. 

• Improves sleep quality. 

• Increases mindfulness. 

• Reduces high blood pressure. 

• Enhances cognitive performance and clarity of mind.

• Decreases stress. (In a 2013 study , pranayama reduced perceived stress levels in healthy young adults.)

• Improved immune system functioning

• Increased physical energy and vitality

• Enhances feelings of calm and wellbeing

Yoga Nidra

Yoga nidra can provide a supportive path through the healing process and be restorative on a profound level.

The practice of Yoga Nidra is a guided form of deep relaxation, often applied as the rotation of consciousness and lying meditation resting in a presence of awareness. It is a deeply therapeutic practice, leaving one's whole being feeling lighter, brighter, and more well-rested. It also helps to calm and soothe the mind and the nervous system. It is a very experiential and embodied  approach and can in its simplest form act as a relaxation but with a regular sustained application, it can become a really profound, deeply nourishing experience.  enhance more clarity and awareness it acts to rest and restore the physical body in a way we don't usually allow ourselves to.

Traditionally yoga nidra is practiced in Savasana (lying down or 'corpse pose') and supported variations of Savasana.
It is rooted in ancient Indian yogic traditions and has been practiced in many forms, the modern application on the most basic level usually being a simple body scan.

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Benefits of practicing yoga nidra regularly
(also enumerated in Harrington’s research):​
 

• Decreases inflammation/reduces pain

• Deep relaxation of body and mind

• Reduced emotional reaction

• Reduced stress

• Support to overcome insomnia and overall improved quality of sleep

• Resolve trauma

• Reduced anxiety, fear, anger and depression instilling more calm, ease and clarity

• Boosts the immune system

• Decreases inflammation/reduces pain

• Symptom relief related to cancer, asthma, diabetes, addictions, heart disease, and migraine headaches, when used in conjunction with conventional medical care

• Helps with pre- and post-surgical conditions

• Can be used to control physical body functions such as breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, metabolism, body temperature, and brain waves.

• Increased awareness and clarity with regular practice
  Read more on the ancient traditional roots of Yoga nidra

Meditation

Meditation and mind is a vast and inexhaustible topic and has fascinated seekers for millenia. 
In contemporary science, meditation has become a powerful tool for understanding mind and its nature, function and capacity, yet some of the spiritual traditions, particularly from the East, explore the subtleties even further which goes beyond the scope of calculated science.
Meditation can nourish body, mind and spirit with practices enhancing loving-kindness, compassion, awareness and wisdom.

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The key meditations we explore are the practices of metta meditation - to cultivate loving kindness and compassion, insight meditation methods (R.A.I.N.), and Breath meditation to enhance clarity and awareness.

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Core Benefits of Meditation

• Inner calm & stillness

• Regulating breathing

• Enhanced feeling of relaxation & inner peace

• Healing and nourishing for the spirit

• Sense of overall wellbeing 

• Increased self-reflection
  
  With the regular practice of short sessions:
   

• Enhanced clarity and awareness

• Focus and mental resilience

• Increased compassion and kindness

• More calm and peaceful state of mind

• Less stress and tension

• Enhanced presence, mindfulness and awareness

• Elevating consciousness and spiritual realisation

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Neuroplasticity

A number of studies have linked meditation to the neuroplasticity of the brain. One of the most well-known studies to demonstrate this was led by Sara Lazar, from Harvard University, in 2000. 

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Results suggest that long-term or short-term practice of meditation can lead to different levels of activities in brain regions associated with effects such as attention, anxiety, depression, fear, anger, and compassion as well as the ability of the body to heal itself.

Gentle Yoga

Our gentle yoga stretches and somatic bodywork supports the whole body and helps to release tension in troubled areas.  These practices encourage quality relaxation, rest, soothing relief from pain and promoting sleep.

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They are simple and non-invasive and easy to integrate into daily life. They are suitable for anyone, especially for those with chronic illness, tension, and stiffness who experience reduced mobility due to illness. 

Our approach is based on authentic evidence based traditions combining practices that restore and balance the body.  Bringing about more serenity, fortifying the immune system and vital energy and enhancing the quality of life.

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They are devised from the Indian Hatha yoga traditions, Chinese meditative energy stretches used in monasteries, Tibetan breathing techniques from the Himalayas, Restorative yoga methodologies and contemporary Trauma Conscious yoga applications.
 

The combination of practices are gentle and restorative. Bringing the body, breath and mind into balance and alignment.

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There are many definitions of somatic - with the use of somatic here, it implies bringing you 'into relationship with your own body'.  Understanding how the body relates to movement and becoming aware of how we feel when in certain poses.
When we engage with movement and poses 'somatically' we become more acutely aware of what the body needs, where there is pain or how and where it feels blocked, tight or congested.
We may ask ourselves 'What am I feeling'? 'Does this position work for me'? 'Is this nourishing'? 'How could I be more comfortable here'? 'What can my body teach me here'? 'How can I be kinder to myself to relieve and release pain and tension in my body'?

We become more empowered to know that we have choices to adjust and make more space in the body, thus becoming more free in the body.  Most of all we learn to tune in and listen clearly to what the body needs.

The principal approach here is doing a little bit regularly without strain and without force, yet still bringing vital movement and flow to the body when it is congested by pain or feeling stagnant or we simply feel stuck.

Therapeutic Bathing 

Bathing as Therapeutic Self-care, 
a form of Nourishing Rest 

Bathing can be a meditative practice that actually soothes, heals and nourishes us on deeper levels becoming a therapeutic form of self-care.

The art of bathing becomes medicine for body, mind and spirit.

Especially when struggling with overwhelm, burnout, exhaustion and depletion. Or for the simple habit of infusing more calm, balance and overall relaxation. 

Recharging.It is not easy to truly care for ourselves as humans, especially as women, and we often have trouble with giving ourselves permission to take a rest or recharge properly in quality ways.  Genuine self-care is not just about taking care of your body and wellbeing with quick-fixes. It is about extending yourself the gifts of presence, self-compassion and quality time (which is not selfish) but actually increases your capacity to be available for others wholeheartedly without becoming depleted.

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Submerging ourselves in water, whether in a bathing receptacle or in a natural body of water is something we do for both personal hygiene, leisure and health.
Bathing has a long and detailed history. There are few things more enjoyable than going for a refreshing swim in the ocean or a pond on a warm day, or having a soothing fragrant bath in the cooler months to warm us up or relax a tired body. Choose natural products to respect your body and planet.

The benefits of taking a bath have been scientifically proven, historically venerated and can ensure optimal health of the mind and body.

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Health Benefits of taking a Bath:

• deeper relaxation of the body and muscular system

• soothes fatigued legs and feet 

• reduced anxiety and promotes calm

• better sleep if bathing before bed

• better digestion

• feeling of overall wellbeing 

• healing and medicinal therapeutic applications when used in conjunction with herbs, tonics and tinctures

• quality time to rest and restore

• bathing can be meditative and relaxing