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Turmeric And Yoga: How Turmeric Can Make You A Better Yogi | DoshaFit®

Turmeric and Yoga – Turmeric is the stuff that makes your curry yellow. It is a rhizome that’s related to ginger. If you’re lucky enough, you can find fresh turmeric root at your local market, Indian or ethnic food store. Tumeric is most often found in its dry and powdered form. In Ayurveda, the five thousand year old sister science of yoga, turmeric holds a high ranking for its healing properties on multiple levels.There is nothing mellow about this yellow power herb.

Turmeric And Yoga: How Turmeric Can Make You A Better Yogi

Turmeric is a great herb for yoga because of its many benefits:

1. Turmeric is a detoxifier: it safely cleanses your systems from impurities and purifies Prana, your life force.

2. The active ingredient in turmeric, curcumin, helps to reduce pain and inflammation. This addition to your diet will allow you to stay in your asanas longer and with greater ease, and will ultimately help you to perfect the asana you are working on. Asana should, after all, be easy and relaxed.

3. Turmeric increases Prana. It enhances your energy and gives you stamina throughout your day and your yoga practice.

Turmeric also has blood stilling properties, so the next time you have a cut or bleeding scrape, try putting some turmeric on it for faster healing. Be careful when handling fresh or dry turmeric: the bright yellow color has some great staining power so you will want to wipe up any spills right away.

Turmeric can be found in tablet form combined with bromelain, an extract from the fruit and stem of the pineapple plant. Bromelian is sold on its own to improve healthy digestion of protein. When combined with turmeric it acts as a powerful anti-inflammatory in the body. Turmeric, being such an awesome antioxidant, is five to eight times stronger than vitamin E, and three times more powerful than grape seed extract. It is also stronger then vitamin C andcapsaicin, derived from cayenne pepper.

If you want to experiment with the healing powers of turmeric yourself, try this simple home remedy made with dried turmeric:

Turmeric And Yoga: How Turmeric Can Make You A Better Yogi | DoshaFit®Recipe: Golden Milk

Melt 1-2 tablespoons of unprocessed sugar cane or sucanat in 1 cup of water

Add 1-2 tablespoons of ginger juice

Add 1 tablespoon of turmeric powder once the sugar is melted.

Simmer until only about a 1/2 cup of the liquid remains

Now add 1/2 cup of milk. You can use almond or soy milk if you are lactose intolerant.

Enjoy!

This simple drink has powerful anti-inflammatory properties and can prevent sugar cravings. You can also get creative and add turmeric to your next stir fry or post-workout shake or smoothie. It won’t change the taste much but it might make your drink look yellow.

Turmeric has many more uses, too many to list here. It is such a great herb, used in so many different cultures in different ways.

I hope you got inspired to play with it and see where you might incorporate it into your life.

 

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Claudia Richey is a Victoria, B.C. based Personal Trainer and Ayurvedic Practitioner. She is passionate about sharing her unique approach of training and eating according to ones Body-Mind Constitution with other health professionals as well as using it on an ongoing basis with her own clients to help them reach their goals!