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The Paris Independent
February 10, 2024
H E A LT H Y L I F E S T Y L E The deeper breathing practices also typically lead cigarette smokers to reconsider their habit which is a real plus as smoking is known to result in heart disease. In fact, yogic breathwork practices, or ‘pranayama’ helps to regulate the autonomic nervous system, which helps your heart function properly. If you are a smoker practicing pranayama, you will likely find yourself feeling compelled to kick the habit. This is a very good thing. Again, it gets better.
happier. How does that happen? Well, the condition of your heart chakra determines how much empathy, love, and understanding you feel towards yourself and others. A heart centred practice invites you to listen to your inner wisdom, cultivate love and kindness toward yourself and others, as well as feel as sense of compassion and openness. It basically gets you out of your head and into your heart.
FEBRUARY IS HEART MONTH Heart & Stroke polling found strong public support for the following:
It is believed that when the heart chakra is in healthy alignment, you will feel surrounded by love, compassion and joy. You will also feel much more connected to the world around you. A heart centred practice will allow you to not just see the beauty and love around you, it will also enable you to love yourself and your body, all of which makes for a much happier and healthier heart – physically, emotionally and spiritually.
Along with the physical benefits of practicing yoga for heart health, many of the chest/heart opening poses help to create a better sense of contentment and well-being. Given that much of our day is spent hunched over a computer or a steering wheel, we tend to close off our chest and our ability to feel with our heart. First, we feel the tightness in our upper body. Then we feel the disconnect of actually feeling with our heart and we get Happy Heartful Valentines Day! stuck in our head and our thinking. Heidi Pfleger has been a Yoga Doing a sequence of chest or heart Teacher and Wellness Coach for opening poses comprises what is more than 30 years and a student of known as a heart-centered practice yoga since the age of five. Born and and can help you move more into a raised on a farm in the Paris area, place of feeling rather than thinking. Heidi ventured further afield to This is where to focus is connecting, study Yoga around the world in her both physically and spiritually, with twenties and has since been sharing what yoga practitioners refer to as the her experiences and continuing in heart chakra. Known in Sanskrit as her studies both on and off the mat. ‘Anahata,’ the heart chakra sits in the Heidi offers regular yoga classes and individual sessions as well as center of your chest and serves as a wellness coaching sessions and bridge between your upper and lower retreats throughout the year. For energy centers. It connects your more information on her programs, physical experience with your contact Heidi at 519-755-1447. spiritual one and creates a sense of calm as well as healing energy. In other words, you simply start to feel
Heart & Stroke public opinion polling conducted by The Sentis Group in March 2022. A total of 3504 respondents 18 years and older (48% male) were interviewed by online survey across 10 Canadian provinces.
