2025 – Yoga Enjoy

Sivananda Yoga & the Divine Grace Ashram

February 1, 2025

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Yoga offered by the Divine Grace Ashram

We are grateful and honored to share the blessings of Swami Sankarananda and the Divine Grace Ashram – now an integral part of ChocolaTree’s grander vision. Together, we now offer weekly co-sponsored events including, Sivananda Yoga classes around the valley, yearly larger “Holyday” celebrations, and seasonal gatherings like our Christmas sold out feast, or our ongoing Soup for the Soul Wednesdays in the lounge, at ChocolaTree.

What we practice is Sivananda Yoga, a classical and holistic healing system, which stretches and tones the entire body. Sivananda Yoga helps both body and mind gain and maintain a natural healthy state. The practice emphasizes proper exercise, relaxation and breathing – each ninety-minute Asana practice begins with breath work and closes with a full body and mind relaxation.

Yoga, simply put, means union. Union of the individual with the supreme, or union of one’s body, mind, and spirit so that our actions, our words, and our thoughts are in alignment. Yoga is not a religion but a spiritual practice that can be incorporated into one’s daily life no matter what religion you follow, whether it is Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, or Atheist.

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The teachings of Yoga go far beyond simply physical exercise or stretches. Even the Asana part of Yoga, which is not purely physical, has mental and spiritual benefits.

By closely observing the lifestyles and needs of people in our modern world, Swami Vishnudevananda synthesized the ancient wisdom of Yoga into 5 basic principles, which can easily be incorporated into your own pattern of living, to provide a long, healthy and happy life.

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The five points of Yoga are:

Proper Exercise – Asanas

Proper Breathing – pranayama

Proper Relaxation – Savasana

Proper Diet – Vegetarian

Positive Thinking and Meditation – Vedanta and Dhyana

The Body is a vehicle for the soul, and has specific requirements, which must be fulfilled for it to function smoothly and supply the optimum mileage.

Proper Exercises act as a lubrication mechanism for the joints, muscles, ligaments, tendons and other parts of the body by increasing circulation and flexibility. Yogic exercises are in fact called asanas, or steady pose; when done correctly, influence and positively energize all the systems of the body. In terms of muscles, yogic exercises not only strengthen the muscles but also stretch them. There is a great emphasis on the flexibility and the youth of the spine. The correct postures are performed with awareness and concentration, accompanied by breathing and relaxation. Thus yogic exercises affect not only the physical body but also the astral body, the energetic body and the mind. The body and mind are put in alignment or in harmony. Yogic asanas prepare the body and mind to be strong for further practice of concentration and meditation.

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Proper Breathing: Yoga emphasizes breathing using the diaphragm. Increase the intake of oxygen though deep inhalation and release the toxins appropriately through our deep exhalation. Breathing techniques (pranayama) are devised to further purify the nadis, balance the breath and the energy in our system, and to store and channel the subtle energy (prana) for higher purposes. Balance the regulation of the harmonized breath helps the Yogi to regulate and steady the mind.

Proper Relaxation techniques such as Savasana cool down the system. Our hectic modern and fast lifestyle brings about physical, mental and spiritual stress. Stress comes from our difficulty to adapt to new challenges, and our lack of vital energy (prana) to cope with demands. Physical relaxation removes tension and allow the flow of prana, mental relaxation keeps the mind focused on neutral and uplifting objects like the sound of the breath or the mantra OM and from withdrawing the mind from sensual stimulations. Spiritual relaxation comes when we connect with our Inner Self and become a detached witness to the body and mind. Retiring the body. Mental and emotional stress comes from a hectic lifestyle, highly demanding jobs, distractions of the mind, low vitality due to lack of prana, and negative emotions such as anger, hatred, jealously, fear and anxiety. Physical relaxation, mental relaxation, spiritual relaxation is a deeper type of relaxation, when we become contact, a detached witness of the body and mind.

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Restorative Yoga

These 9 Restorative Yoga Poses Will Give You the Relief You’re Craving

January 18, 2025

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If you prefer fast-paced dynamic workouts such as HIIT, rowing, and power yoga, you may see exercise as an opportunity to break a sweat and bring your heart rate up. And while there’s nothing wrong with those motivations, sometimes your body needs something a bit calmer and gentler to quite literally ground you back down to earth. You may want to consider restorative yoga, a perfect option for balancing out your workout routine while also helping alleviate stress. Read on for some of the best restorative yoga poses to try.

What Is Restorative Yoga?

When you think of yoga, you might imagine pushing back into Downward-Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana), flowing through Sun Salutations (Surya Namaskars), or going upside down into a Handstand (Adho Mukha Vrksasana). Unlike these more active postures and sequences, restorative yoga allows you to simply let go and melt into your mat.

“Restorative yoga differs from other types of yoga in that it is completely passive and supported,” says Peloton instructor Anna Greenberg. “There’s no effort from the practitioner at all to hold themselves up in any of the postures.”

Restorative Yoga vs. Yin Yoga: Key Differences

Be careful not to conflate restorative yoga with Yin Yoga. While both of these practices involve slowing down and maintaining longer holds than you’d find in other yoga classes, they’re far from interchangeable. Yin Yoga requires more effort and action—and can feel intense. “In Yin Yoga, you hold deep stretches that work on stretching the connective tissue for long periods of time, which can be very sensational,” Anna says.

Restorative yoga, on the other hand, facilitates a sense of surrender and release. “In restorative yoga, we’re not looking for intensity or deep stretches,” she says. “We’re looking for total support so that our nervous system can relax and we can tap into our parasympathetic nervous system (the rest-and-digest state).”

Restorative yoga can be the perfect antidote to stress. A 2023 study published in the Journal of Education and Health Promotion found that participants who completed a 45-minute restorative yoga session once a week over a six-week period demonstrated improvements on 13 out of 14 markers of well-being. Of these markers, participants had the most notable increases in feeling more relaxed and thinking more clearly. It’s not a surprise when you consider the roots of restorative yoga.

“One of the biggest benefits of restorative yoga is that it takes us back to that internal rest-and-digest state where we truly restore ourselves from the inside out,” Anna says. “We’re able to process experiences, to truly relax, and to fill up our own cup.”

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