For those with eating and body image issues, the holidays are a particularly rough time of year. Food shaming and body policing seem to escalate in our social circles, surfacing anywhere from casual conversations with coworkers in the break room, to reunions with extended family who have good intentions but terrible manners. Even friends' comments about their own bodies can leave us feeling vulnerable and emotionally drained. If you're looking for some great responses to peop

I’m so excited to share this post with you today as part of the Women’s Holistic Health Blog Tour hosted by Vivinne (Kala) Williams from YogaBlissDance.com. Throughout the tour each expert blogger will share her tips on how women can maintain their emotional, physical, and spiritual wellbeing. Read tomorrow's article on Fall and Early Winter Season Guidelines for Balanced Health by Anamaria Pontes. During my first semester of graduate school I was extremely depressed. On top

When I was younger, I spent a lot of time thinking about my body. I wanted to be shorter and thinner, with shinier hair and whiter teeth. As early as elementary school, my friends and I would stress over how wrong our bodies looked. "UGH! I can't believe I ate that entire sandwich. I feel huge and disgusting." "You aren't fat! You're so pretty. I am waaay fatter than you." The fear of fat was so all-encompassing that on days when my pants felt tight, all of the qualities I li

Some of you have followed my writing since I started a little Tumblr blog in 2010 to connect with students and friends who were curious about yoga for depression and body image issues. It was amazing to read your comments and have deep conversations about mental health with you. Thank you so much for your support! A few of you actually met me through my MySpace blog over a decade ago. I feel like I owe more than a word of thanks to you brave souls. I owe you a drink! One of t

I’m joining the chorus of yoga teachers frustrated by the direction in which Yoga Journal continues to trend. I’m exasperated by thinly veiled attempts to sell us gear through body shaming, and being drawn in with the suggestion that we can love our curves and accept ourselves, if only we can change our appearance. Our bodies don’t need to be fixed or concealed for us to have a meaningful yoga practice, and we certainly don’t need expensive clothing to love our bodies. Nope,

In elementary school my least favorite class was Physical Education. At the end of running a mile on the track I’d sit down, my lungs hurting, and full of self loathing. Most of my classmates seemed perfectly content running, but I felt like a gigantic elephant dragging my 2nd grade body around that track. As a young adult I overexercised and under-ate to maintain a body size that wasn’t natural for me. I didn’t enjoy working out, but I relied on it heavily, as a way of disci

Few things are as frustrating as being wide awake when you’re craving a good night’s sleep. Research shows an alarming list of ways we are hurting ourselves by not sleeping. Lack of sleep is related to everything from depression to heart disease, which is enough to work any insomniac into a frenzy. Which really stinks, because anxiety is a major reason a lot of us can’t sleep, and advice like “don’t worry about it, and you’ll sleep better” can be totally infuriating. Other re

Image source Having a truly crappy day? Give yourself a break with these turnarounds: Connect. When something really painful happens, I immediately reach out to two people: my partner, Mark, and my best friend. I can always count on Mark to give me a hug and put a cat on my lap, and my best friend will sit on the phone with me while I cry, and offer to exact revenge on anyone who has wronged me. Even if I’m not ready to talk about it and my best friend (probably) won't public

In 2002, I was in the process of recovering from knee surgery for an overuse injury. My knee hurt no matter the position, and exercise outside of the pool was out of the question. As anyone who has experienced physical therapy after surgery can attest, movement can be pretty unpleasant for quite some time! When I happened upon a yoga video I had fairly low expectations. At the time I knew very little about yoga except to picture slender people twisted into pretzels, with Enya