This week has been one of the most stressful periods thus far in our entire house building process. I won't bore you with the details of our housing woes, but I have been having a very poignant 1st hand experience of how stress effects the body that I wanted to share. I have been very good about sticking to my New Years resolution to do at least 30 minutes of yoga every day for 21 days straight, but two days into this week's stressful scenario, Wednesday to be exact, I skipped a day of yoga. I had so much I was trying to do and, as usual, yoga had ended up at the bottom of my list. By the time the end of the day came I had no petrol left in the tank so I just gave up and went to bed. The next morning I woke up to the same stressful set of thoughts, and also a horrible muscle spasm in my neck. The spasm worsened throughout the day as I continued to fret and worry about all that was going on, and around 5:00 the spasm made an abrupt jump out of my neck and into my back. By the time Thursday night yoga rolled around I could hardly take a deep breath my back hurt so much. It was one of the most profoundly painful experiences of stress embodying itself I've ever had. So I did some yoga with my Thursday night class, and I woke up this morning and did some more, and you know what? I feel a LOT better! SO DO YOUR YOGA!! ESPECIALLY if you have a lot on your plate, ESPECIALLY if you are stressed, put yoga FIRST on the list! And if you can't, if all else fails and it ends up being the last thing you do, do this sequence before bed (use a timer in case you fall asleep)

1. Balasana (child's pose) 5 mins

2. Adho Mukha Svanasana (Down Dog) 10 breaths

3. Uttanasana (standing forward bend) 5 minutes

4. Anjaneyasana variation (deep bowing lunge) both sides

5. Savasana / Viparita Karani lie on you back on the floor or with your legs up the wall for whatever is left of your 30 minutes