Texas, Ari­zona, India, Africa, Islands, etc–there are plenty of places where triple dig­its are a summer-time norm.  Whether you live in the desert or just plan to visit one, knowl­edge of basic Ayurveda can keep you cool and peace­ful even on the hottest of days. Ayurveda is trans­lated as the sci­ence of liv­ing.  It is a skill set for teach­ing one to be and to enjoy being well.  Put sim­ply, Ayurveda teaches one how to bal­ance the extremes of oth­er­wise grat­i­fy­ing expe­ri­ences, and in our case, how to beat the heat.  Adjust your inter­nal ther­mo­stat with the fol­low­ing practices:

1. Avoid most stren­u­ous phys­i­cal activ­ity from the hours of 10am to 2pm.  If exer­cis­ing in the heat of the day, one should focus on a mod­er­ate pace with great atten­tion to gen­tle, steady breath­ing.  Try to keep soft eyes and flu­id­ity in move­ment patterns.
2. Keep reg­u­lar meals and avoid excess con­sump­tion of oils/fats.  Favor cool­ing, sweet, bit­ter and astrin­gent foods like coconut, cucum­ber, water­melon, raw fruits and veg­gies (minus very sour or acidic fruits and night­shades.  Drink plenty of cool water (not iced).
3. Wear sun­glasses.
4. Keep bed­time cool and lightly ventilated.
5. Wear light, breath­able clothing–preferably cot­ton, linen or silks. Shades of blue, green and white are ideal.
6. Favor cool­ing and sooth­ing aro­mas such as rose, san­dal­wood, jas­mine, laven­der, and mint essen­tial oils.
7. Be happy, no worries–keep things light.

Happy Sum­mer!

You know how the story goes: pray for patience and you find your­self need­ing more and more of it.  If you aren’t famil­iar with Anusara yoga, I would describe the classes as life lessons brought down to earth through the yoga pos­tures.  My last teach­ing theme was “Using obsta­cles for mas­tery.”  As often the case, per­sonal expe­ri­ence usu­ally enrich teach­ing.  Even if a sub­ject is cho­sen at ran­dom, life finds all kinds of cre­ative ways to pre­pare you for teaching…Darn those tantric themes–even a theme like “Life is beau­ti­ful” would be bal­anced with the inevitable “…even when it’s ugly!”  Need­less to say, the life of a teacher is never lack­ing lessons.  If you are a stu­dent of asana (or any move­ment), I encour­age you to grow your­self beyond your 24“x 72“space.  It’s ben­e­fi­cial to learn how to use your body and breath, but not nearly as enter­tain­ing as prac­tic­ing life.  Which would you rather say: that you can do a down­ward dog or that you can see the big­ger pic­ture when you meet an obstacle?