Spice up your life

A teaspoon a day, boosts your health in many ways.

Cinnamon's unique healing abilities come from three basic types of components in the essential oils found in its bark. These oils contain active components called cinnamaldehyde, cinnamyl acetate, and cinnamyl alcohol, plus a wide range of other volatile substances.

Anti-Clotting & Anti-Inflammatory Actions
The cinnaldehyde in cinnamon helps prevent unwanted clumping of blood platelets. (The way it accomplishes this health-protective act is by inhibiting the release of an inflammatory fatty acid called arachidonic acid from platelet membranes and reducing the formation of an inflammatory messaging molecule called thromboxane A2). Cinnamon's ability to lower the release of arachidonic acid from cell membranes also puts it in the category of an “anti-inflammatory” food that can be helpful in lessening inflammation.

Anti-Microbial Activity
Cinnamon’s essential oils also qualify it as an “anti-microbial” food, and cinnamon has been studied for its ability to help stop the growth of bacteria as well as fungi, including the commonly problematic yeast Candida.  Cinnamon’s antimicrobial properties are so effective that recent research demonstrates this spice can be used as an alternative to traditional food preservatives.

Blood Sugar Control  
Cinnamon may significantly help people with type 2 diabetes improve their ability to respond to insulin, thus normalizing their blood sugar levels. Compounds in cinnamon not only stimulate insulin receptors, but also inhibit an enzyme that inactivates them, thus significantly increasing cells’ ability to use glucose.

Calcium and Fibre Improve Colon Health and Protect Against Heart Disease
In addition to its unique essential oils, cinnamon is an excellent source of the trace mineral manganese and a very good source of dietary fibre, iron and calcium. The combination of calcium and fibre in cinnamon is important and can be helpful for the prevention of several different conditions. Both calcium and fibre can bind to bile salts and help remove them from the body. By removing bile, fibre helps to prevent the damage that certain bile salts can cause to colon cells, thereby reducing the risk of colon cancer. In addition, when bile is removed by fibre, the body must break down cholesterol in order to make new bile. This process can help to lower high cholesterol levels, which can be helpful in preventing atherosclerosis and heart disease. For sufferers of irritable bowel syndrome, the fibre in cinnamon may also provide relief from constipation or diarrhoea. 

Kerala Yoga Journey of a Lifetime

BOOK NOW spaces available. 27 February to 10 March 2012.

I'm London based yoga teacher with a passion for and vast knowledge of India & Yoga.

I create totally unique yoga holidays and offer you a once in a lifetime opportunity to travel with me in a small group to the best secret locations in the region. You’ll experience inspiring cultural events, you’ll tour the backwaters at sunset by canoe, you’ll enjoy secluded beaches and experience a night at a holy ashram on a huge lake. In addition I will teach a twice daily deep yoga practice with asana, mantra, mudra, meditation, pranayama, relaxation.

The accommodation offered is in stunning locations off the beaten track, yet comfortable. You will wake up to 180 degree views over the Arabian Ocean, palm grove jungle and long sandy beaches. We will explore by boat, taxi and by foot and experience local traditions from toddy tapping dance to live classical music.

"It was the best holiday ever. I found the North India trip with Tabitha in 2010 transformational and inspiring....but this one surpassed all my expectations. Loved it all".  Alistair Younger.

Dates: 27 February to 10 March 2012 

& 12 to 24 November 2012

£995 twin-share, 

£1195 single occupancy, ex flights.
More info at www.tabithadeanyoga.co.uk

info@tabithadeanyoga.co.uk
T: 07702871996

On the shelf in the Meat Market?

Vegan/Vegetarianism. This is a choice that only benefits our bodies, our minds, our souls and our planet. It is an offering to the values of peace, non-violence, compassion and environmental preservation.

Approximately 750,000,000 animals and 650,000 tons of fish are slaughtered each year for food in Britain. In the US 10 billion animals (not including fish) are killed each year for food consumption. It's higher than the total number of people on the planet, yet more than a third of the world goes to bed hungry each night.

Several reasons why vegetarianism can be a great life choice:

AHIMSA (non-violence). “The life of an animal in a factory farm is characterised by acute deprivation, stress and disease. Hundreds of millions of animals are forced to live in cages or crates barely larger than their own bodies. Unable to groom, stretch their legs, or even turn around, the victims of factory farms often exist in a relentless state of distress.” Humane Farming Association.

More than 300 million baby male chicks in factory farms are systematically, senselessly and needlessly killed every year by the egg industry, because – as males -- they are “useless” at laying eggs. And the chickens that stay alive are selectively bred and genetically altered to produce bigger thighs and breasts as these parts are most in demand. This breeding creates birds so heavy that their bones cannot support their weight and to prevent fighting or attempted escape their beaks and toes are cut off.

Many pigs live a life without ever seeing daylight, others are used as living breeding machines. Pigs are born and raised inside buildings that have automated water, feed and waste removal. Dust, dirt and toxic gases from the pigs' waste create an unsanitary environment that encourages the onset of a number of diseases and illnesses, including pneumonia, cholera, dysentery and trichinosis.

Piglets are often taken away from their mothers when they are less than 1 month old; their tails are cut off, some of their teeth are cut off, and the males have their testicles ripped out of their scrotums (castration), all without any pain relief. They spend their entire lives in overcrowded pens on a tiny slab of filthy concrete. more than 170,000 pigs die in transport each year, and more than 420,000 are crippled by the time they arrive at the slaughterhouse in the US alone.

Breeding sows spend their entire lives in tiny metal crates so they cannot turn around. Shortly after giving birth, they are once again forcibly impregnated. This cycle continues for years until their bodies finally gives up and they are sent to be killed.

Veal Calves : Calves are kept in small wooden crates which prevent movement and inhibit muscle growth so their flesh will be tender. They are fed a iron deficient diet to keep their flesh pale and appealing to the consumer. Veal calves spend whole his life confined, alone and deprived of light for a large portion of their four-month lives.

Beef : Most beef cattle spend the last few months of their lives at feedlots, crowded by the thousands into dusty, manure-laden holding pens. The air is thick with harmful bacteria and particulate matter, and the animals are at a constant risk for respiratory disease. Before they are hung up by their back legs and bleed to death, the cattle needs to be rendered unconscious. This 'stunning' is usually done by a mechanical blow to the head, but as the procedure is terribly imprecise, adequate stunning isn't always achieved. As a result, conscious animals are often hung upside down, kicking and struggling, while a slaughterhouse worker makes another attempt to render them unconscious. Eventually, the animals will be "stuck" in the throat with a knife, and blood will gush from their bodies whether or not they are unconscious.

"The pain a fish feels when she's hooked is like dentistry without Novocaine [anaesthesia]." Dr. Tom Hopkins, Professor of Marine Science, University of Alabama, USA. 

Food is a major source of the body's chemistry, and what we ingest affects our consciousness, emotions and overall well-being.

HEALTH. When an animal is about to be killed, its body is flooded with stress hormones which remain in the animals’ tissues. So, when we eat those tissues, we are ingesting those hormones.

Animal foods are higher in fat than most plant foods, particularly saturated fats. Plants do not contain cholesterol. There is also the danger of consuming high quantities of agricultural chemicals and livestock drugs. Being higher on the food chain, animal foods contain far higher concentrations of agricultural chemicals than plant foods, including pesticides, herbicides, etc. And there are over 20,000 different drugs, including steroids, antibiotics, growth hormones and other veterinary drugs that are given to livestock animals. The dangers in secondary consumption of antibiotics are well documented .

“In regions where meat is scarce, heart disease is almost unknown.” Time Magazine

LIFE. Each day 40,000 children starve to death and the number of people worldwide who will die as a result of malnutrition this year is around 20 million. 

Every day the US alone produces enough grain to provide every person on earth with more than enough food yet at least 80% is grown to feed livestock. It takes around16 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of animal flesh. If the US reduced its meat intake by just 10% 100 million people could be fed.

ENVIRONMENT. For each hamburger made from rainforest beef, 75 kg of carbon dioxide is released into the air. This is the equivalent of driving a car all day long for many days. It takes 78 calories of fossil fuel to produce 1 calorie of beef protein; 35 calories for 1 calorie of pork; 22 calories for 1 of poultry; but just 1 calorie of fossil fuel for 1 calorie of soybeans. It takes 3 to 15 times as much water to produce animal protein as it does plant protein so by eating plant foods instead of animal foods it helps conserve our non-renewable sources of energy as well as water.

A United Nations report entitled Livestock's Long Shadow concludes that eating meat is "one of the ... most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." Eating meat causes almost 40 percent more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, and planes in the world combined. The report concludes that the meat industry "should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity."

Albert Schweitzer "The thinking man must oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another, even the lowliest creature; to do so is to renounce our manhood and shoulder a guilt which nothing justifies."

Albert Einstein "Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."

Leo Tolstoy "If he be really and seriously seeking to live a good life, the first thing from which he will abstain will always be the use of animal food, because ...its use is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to the moral feeling - killing." 

Charles Darwin "There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher animals in their mental faculties...The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery."

Leonardo da Vinci “The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.”

Thomas Edison “Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.”

Bouncing is Bad

At a Bikram class I went to last night there were a few postures where we were encouraged to bounce. Many people, including the teacher I had, think that bouncing into a stretch is a good technique to improve your flexibility. But bouncing can cause injury and can actually stiffen your muscles. It is also less effective then easing into the stretch and holding it. You want to feel your muscles stretching and perhaps some minor discomfort but no pain.

Yoga & You

Yoga is sometimes trivialised, watered down, reduced to clichés and is often understood as a form of physical exercise. As a yogi (teacher and student) I have had the great fortune to experience yoga as a practical discipline or set of tools, techniques, healing practices that enable us to delve deep beyond the everyday and become more aware of our true nature. This brings me a great sense of fulfilment, peace, happiness. This to me is the essence of yoga.

I run yoga retreats and holidays with people of all ages and experiences (www.tabithadeanyoga.co.uk) Together we explore and embrace the wider meaning of yoga through asana, pranayama, meditation, relaxation, mantra, mudra, silence and yogic philosophy including the concepts of yama and niyama, commitments of attitude and behaviour.

The Sanskrit word "yoga" comes from yuj, (to join or unite)  and my interpretation the purpose of 'union'  or yoga is to establish a state of inner balance and harmony and to surrender to our highest nature (universal spirit/divinity). 

It's not an easy task at all, but it is achievable and we can take baby steps towards it. The first step is bringing the body and mind together and asana is really useful for this. Combined with breath awareness we can, over time, release ourselves from being drawn into the past or future and experience the power of being alive in each moment. Until this re-integration takes place, we often identify with our limitations of the body, mind, and senses. A basic, regular combination of asana, pranayama and meditation practice can therefore become a powerful and liberating leap away from our attachments to negative thoughts and feelings, insecurity, fear, and separation. 


So the key to creating a more fulfilling, happy life is internal. 


We all have the same power and responsibility within ourselves to generate and create happiness. Each one of us is responsible for stepping into own power to create the life of our dreams.


Join our mailing list through www.tabithadeanyoga.co.uk

We are what we absorb

The elements of a healthy diet are fresh food, unprocessed food without additives, and a good balance of protein, carbohydrates and fats. It's obvious that eating the wrong foods has a negative impact on our minds and bodies....but the article below may throw up a few surprises.


7 Foods You Should Never Eat check this out, it's useful.

Stillness

What a beautiful winter's day. Have you taken a moment, to get out of your head, to savour it? Creating these moments of stillness helps melt down our barriers of negativity.

Many of us have a constant voice, an ongoing stream of thoughts, often repetitive, often negative and often completely unrelated to what we are experiencing in the moment.

Next time you become aware of this see if you can just drop your thoughts and create space in your head. It may only last a short time but developing gaps between thoughts actually make you feel more aware, more present and more alive.

2012. New Year. New You.

Wow, here we are in 2012. What an exciting time to be alive....lots of different traditions have predicted this year as a crucial year of change. I feel it's a real opportunity to move into the true meaning of YOGA, from a sense of dualism to a consciousness of union.

Lets be awake in these times of powerful changes and use ancient tools and modern practices to bring harmony to the world.
Click here to find out more about these and events I am involved in