HI justwannabe,
I’ve found myself buying soap made from vegetable sources or extracts( this particular one branded as ‘pure soap’ & inexpensive supermarket generic) instead of the usual stuff…They may have not been as easily available like 20 yrs ago.You probably just could’nt buy it as easily then.
I think you can make choices that arise naturally or that we may gravitate towards or away from,or not, at any given point in life .Once you start imposing rules then you’re probably not as free as you think you are or would llike to be.
That said, i think alot of yoga is about self-control and exercising some discipline.
I’ve drank a coffee in the morning to wake up, then done some yoga perhaps an hour later.But better that than never.Personally i find when i start trying to impose rules left,right ,centre, in terms of a regular practice i think you can end up in a pickle.Must do jal neti before hatha yoga,must be perfectly relaxed & comfortable.There is no perfect situation,as such;This is idealised and it never usually happens that way .I’ve learnt to ditch the rules,or way too many of them at once, and just practice , if possible.Otherwise i say to myself-right iate too much there and and my devious side will play tricks & try to excuse itself.
P.S -You know that the first stock-exchange as such where merchants and traders conducted their business in the city of London was also the first coffee-house,when coffee was a really new thing and usually just an exclusive preserve of the rich.I walk by a Star bucks today and i smell that heady whiff & aroma and i sometimes can help viewing those customers as junkies, of a sort, imbibing their fix…lol
Howver yoga should’nt have dogma in it.Anyone should be free to do whatever they like.Nothing wrong with the finer things in life.Yoga tends to talk of moderation in all things which comes across as a balanced persepctive.It does’nt prescribe anything.
It’s a medicinal pick-me-up or a tonic,a stimulant certainly…lol
And i guess so can Y. be too ,although in a different way;the mechansims tend to work differently on your physiology. etc.
I’ve seen fortified wine with a proud pic of a body-builder emblazoned on the label marketed as a (health)tonic from Cambodia but mixed with a caffeinated drink of sorts.
Of course they use to mix laudanum with alcohol in the Victorian era,tincture of laudanum i think it was called.They sometimes gave it to babies to help them sleep.
but you could say the same about anything that makes you feel good and that you do regularly.
for example, I’m addicted to breakfast. just cannot function without it. does that make me a muesli addict or a fruit junkie?
If your body needs it ,let’s say breakfast ,then i probably would’nt consider or label it as an addiction.
What your body does’nt need,i.e things that have no or little real nutritional value, that don’t sustain or nourish life, provide building-blocks and energy( like amino-acids or sufficent oxygen for e.g) ,then you can probably go without it.
Hi!
I do & teach Face Yoga & Bhramavidya (Breath & Meditation) all comes under the Yoga band wagon. And it has not hampered moi or my peers & students in 9 years. So go ahead.
Sure anything in excess affects the body, and coffee being acidic …, but u know that.
so enjoy!!
minal
aiyana wellness.com
[QUOTE=lakurumau;31395]but you could say the same about anything that makes you feel good and that you do regularly.
for example, I’m addicted to breakfast. just cannot function without it. does that make me a muesli addict or a fruit junkie?[/QUOTE]
LOL, any type of rehab for breakfast addicts?
[QUOTE=justwannabe;31389]I am not saying to go drink a gallon of espresso… [/QUOTE]
That would be fun to try though 
[QUOTE=Terje;31407]That would be fun to try though :)[/QUOTE]
I wonder how many days till I could sleep, it would be a trip.
Hi!
Never thought of a fruit junki. LOL! But the fruit diet does deliver fantastic results!
In Bhramavidya (breath & meditation) for cleansing they have water , then fruit juice & fruit as body cleanser!
minal
Face Yoga:aiyanawellness
I can drink 10 cups within a few hours, then I can go a whole day or 2 without any coffee. I do not get a headache from this, but I do feel sluggish. I am thinking of cutting my intake in half so that it still gives me an energy boost, but without it, hopefully the change isn’t so noticeable.
[QUOTE=Pandara;31310]I am predominantly Kapha, on recommendation of my Aurvedic doctor I have one cup in the mornings to help kick-start my sluggish metabolism. I love that cup and it is the only one for the day. The rest of the day I am on ginger and rooibos tea, love that as much.[/QUOTE]
I too am a Kapha and also have one cup in the morning, more than that and I’m spinning!
[QUOTE=core789;31281]I think i might have read somewhere that Iyengar used to drink some before his v. early morning pranayama practice.[/QUOTE]
I’ve checked out quite a few Iyengar books from the library and one talked about his daily routine. He does have one cup of coffee in the morning.
Southern Indians like their coffee and regular black tea, Chai tea is more northern and coffee consumption isn’t as common up there.
OF course, Mr. Iyengar also says to not practice asana until you’ve had a “movement” in the morning and we all know coffee can help with that.
We just love to tell people what is good for them and what is not. We love to simplify things down to, “X told me this is good for me so it must be good for me” or “Y is bad for me so it must be bad for you”. It’s never that simple. A good yoga teacher in this day and age must have an in depth understanding of diet and nutrition. Especially considering studies have shown that even our fruits and veggies are much less nutritious than before and the fact that modern food science has decided to turn us all into guinea pigs.
“One cup of coffee is fine”
“One cup of coffee is bad for you”
This is all crap. It is oversimplified. You have to look at the person. For a very simple example, what if the student who comes to you has early stage osteoporosis? Is that one cup of coffee still fine? Or what if the person is on Prednisone because they have Crohn’s Disease? Considering caffeine is shown to inhibit calcium absorption and increase its excretion, I would question you.
There are countless variables that need to be taken into account when answering a question as seemingly simple as, “Is it ok for me to drink coffee?”
It’s all about the person. A good yoga teacher tailors every answer to the person and are able to do so because they have the training and have continued to further educate themselves. And even better, a good yoga teacher empowers that student to think for and educate themselves.
Well said David.
Of course we must realize that when a person IS doing something they often do not want to hear anything about not doing it. Likewise when someone IS doing something they DO want to hear about doing it
Coffee was used by indigenous peoples to remain awake for rituals perhaps once or twice per calendar year. As such, it does serve a purpose (what is often labeled as “good”) when it is used medicinally.
When it is consumed every day it leaches essential minerals (needed for other things, like healing for example) AND forces often fatigued adrenal glands to over work (or be stimulated when what the body needs is sleep or rest). Like all parts of the human body when they are over worked consistently over time they struggle or fail.
Once we impart the residue of usage it is completely up to the student to make a mindful choice for them (as you suggest in your post). Making a decision out of ignorance is just that. Making no decision is operating in a rote fashion (auto pilot) which is not mindful and does not facilitate Yoga (since Yoga itself mandates the work of increasing one’s awareness and making mindful choices happily).
If one is going to make a choice, that is okay with me. It doesn’t at all have to be the choice I would make (in this case avoiding caffeine to the best of my current ability). I can only share the tools. Wht is picked up and used rests solely on the shoulders of the student.
Simply, it is best to avoid certain things if one wants to move toward optimal health. That does NOT mean one can’t live to be 120 drinking and smoking. It just means it’s less likely.
gordon
Gordon, two things leap to mind when I read your post. The first one is that after I began to drink coffee regularly the effect I go t from it when I drank it just once or twice a week is gone. I kinda miss that. But I really do love my coffee in the morning, not so much for the waking up but for the taste. I make extremely good coffee.
It’s not to say that I’m not addicted to it because I am and if I have to drink something much less tasty just to avoid the headache in the early afternoon I most often will (let’s say when I travel for instance). I’m gonna look into this again perhaps. See if I can’t get back to the once or twice a week thing.
About over working fatigued adrenal glands… No cup, bowl or bucket of coffee has ever woken me up as forcefully as nauli does. Isn’t that energy, at least partially from well massaged adrenal glands? Can that be bad for you? I have noticed that nauli can help me push myself over the edge when I’m tired and really need to sleep.
Terje,
Obviously the first part of your reply we can all relate to. I, for example, make extremely good chocolate chip cookies and love their taste. However at this point (for me) I either have to find a way to make them without refined sugar and wheat manufactured in the U.S. or I have to accept inflammation and disease in the physical body - something I am no longer interested in tolerating. If we did not have a society which resulted in depleted adrenals then we might not have to respond in such ways. But since we do, we do
On your second point you bring up a very interesting point. Nauli DOES in fact pressurize the adrenals and such a thing (to some) would not be appropriate for adrenals that are requesting bodily rest. Ergo in such an instance (even though this and that will charge the kidneys) it is not “advised”. For me, this is one of those times where things have to be taken in context. Nauli for a cave dweller sitting in meditation 20 hours per day may be completely appropriate. For today’s student, not so much.
When the body craves and begs for rest one may ask “is it appropriate in my yoga to deny the body (the vessel which holds the divine force) such a thing?”.
Nauli is a very powerful practice and it can have very, very, very dramatic results. And if you allow me, I’ll leave it at that
Thanks for the interesting insight IA.
I am a kapha and I thought it was interesting that Pandara was too and that he needed one cuppa a day. I don’t drink one a day for this reason but just do, perhaps out of habit but I also love coffee.
Perhaps I should consider stopping this after reading your post, but I also have a glass of wine from time to time and chocolate and etc etc. For me it’s ‘all in moderation’ and this has worked well for me thus far, I certainly feel very healthy and would not say it is prohibiting my physical, mental, or spiritual development or growth.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m always open to admitting that too.
[QUOTE=InnerAthlete;67004]On your second point you bring up a very interesting point. Nauli DOES in fact pressurize the adrenals and such a thing (to some) would not be appropriate for adrenals that are requesting bodily rest. Ergo in such an instance (even though this and that will charge the kidneys) it is not “advised”. For me, this is one of those times where things have to be taken in context. Nauli for a cave dweller sitting in meditation 20 hours per day may be completely appropriate. For today’s student, not so much.
When the body craves and begs for rest one may ask “is it appropriate in my yoga to deny the body (the vessel which holds the divine force) such a thing?”.
Nauli is a very powerful practice and it can have very, very, very dramatic results. And if you allow me, I’ll leave it at that[/QUOTE]
It’s ok if you leave it at that but please, feel free to elaborate too
I drink coffee in the mornings or sometimes in the afternoon but not every day, i can do with out it, but i like the taste and i also enjoy the energy i get from it. The thing i do not really understand is the term “addiction” here. Of course caffeine can be seen as a drug but on the other hand, not everything, or everything you do on a regular (e.g. daily) basis is addiction? Since i started yoga i have become more aware about my surrounding, environment, the people around me and myself. It makes me awake. But listening to my body means drinking coffee at the right time, using full fat milk to it, eating chocolate when i feel for it and having some red meat to build up those muscles i need.