3 Easy Steps to more Energy after your Power Yoga Flow

Today I practiced with a beautiful teacher. I really love her energy and when she calls out the optional advanced Yoga poses, I feel so thrilled to go for them. I worked up a thorough sweat from about 20 minutes in and would say it was a very challenging class (for me). I do a lot of Yoga but today, it wiped me out so I took a look at what I did today (or failed to do) and thought I would share the results. Please feel free to comment :-)

One good thing I did throughout my practice was I tried easy. It's so common for us to strive in a class. To try hard to reach the poses and the first thing that tells us if we listen when we do this is our breath. Even though the natural tendency during tougher positions is to let go of the breath, don't. If you lose the breath, you're no longer doing Yoga, you are now in the realms of athletic contortionism. Maintaining a strong breath through a strong Yoga Practice feeds the body all the energy it needs throughout the flow.

Yoga balances many things in our bodies and our energy field is one of them. It is so important to have a post workout drink when training at the gym and Yoga is no different. I must have sweated a good 500mls today but only drank a small glass of water afterwards. Really I should have had 500mls of Coconut water to rehydrate and balance out the salts in my system. That's the easy step number two to more energy after your Power Yoga Flow. Easy to do and easy not to do.

Number three is about muscle recovery. We need a source of protein after a strong practice especially if it is a Power Yoga Flow where we are working on strength building, for instance if there is lots of arm balances. I admit my diet is not my strongest point and today was surprisingly no different. Although I had a green juice before class, after class today, as well as not drinking enough water, I did not provide my body with the fuel it needs. I went straight to the supermarket, bought some groceries, including some bread rolls and other pastries which I happily ate around lunchtime. Processed white flour is no friend to our bodies; add in the high fat content of pastries and it's like putting vaseline in your car and expecting it to keep running. Both vaseline and petrol come from the same source but it ain't going to work. What was the result? 2pm nap turned into a 150minutes shut down where my body told me - I'm not happy and I need time to restore the energy levels.

To summarise; if you want to have more energy after a strong yoga practice, 1. breathe fully during the whole practice. If you lose the breath, you need to back off and slow down. 2. drink plenty of water during and after your practice and try to drink something isotonic like coconut water to balance out the salts and 3. give yourself a healthy source of protein after class. A tablespoon of Chia seeds can tide you over (just eat straight from the pack or add to a smoothie/vegan non-whey protein shake).

That way, your Yoga practice will flow and so will your energy. Have an awesome weekend!

#moreenergy #strongyogapractice