So yesterday I went out to the bookstore to find two books my vegan yogi BFF Sabrina recommended. Long and behold the damn bookstore had zero copies of both. Never one to walk out of a book store empty-handed, I emerged with:
1) Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi by Brian Leaf
and
2) New Vegetarian by Robin Asbell
The yoga book intrigued me as it seems to be a fun way to learn the deeper meaning behind practicing yoga, through an entertaining and witty writer. The vegetarian book hooked me in with it's cover of what appears to be a deliciously scrumptious vegetarian meal - a grilled veggie sformato*!
I figured that my pursuit to practice yoga more often might be helped by my learning more about yoga itself, rather than just attending a class here and there and going through the poses. That's where this great new book comes in... In reading the first few chapters last night, not only did I laugh out loud several times (which I needed after an entire weekend with a cranky sick kid), I learned that gentle exercise paired with deep, relaxed breathing, triggers a parasympathetic nervous response (referred to as "relaxation response") that helps relieve stress. Reading this was VERY intriguing as I've spent the majority of my life in a very sympathetic nervous state (a fight or flight stress response). According to Leaf, yoga literally resets the body's stress switch from stress response to relaxation response.... How did I not know this?!?
That's it! Tonight I'm hitting the yoga studio with deep breathing vengeance! It will be the first time I've been inside a yoga studio in nearly a year. I can't wait!
*Put simply, a sformato is similar to a soufflé, but is not as airy. Getting down to specifics, Antionio Piccinardi says, in his Dizionario della Gastronomia Italiana, that the word sformato derives from sformare, which means to unmold.
No comments:
Post a Comment