Interesting Ways to Include Yoga in Your Cooking Routines
If you’re a yoga practitioner, chances are you also practice healthy eating too. While nourishing your mind and spirit, it’s also important to nourish the body and keep it active. Here’s a crazy thought: why not add that special yoga practice in the kitchen? Being mindful while you cook, relaxing into poses, and proper breathing is by no means a stretch to add to your life. If you are a true yogi, you practice yoga everywhere and it has simply become a way of life. Let’s do some yoga in the kitchen!
Laying Out Your Ingredients
For preparation and warming up, the yogi can lay out all of the ingredients that they plan to cook with on the kitchen counter. Take a breath in and breathe out as you lay each ingredient within reach near the stove top or oven. Pay attention to the great aroma of each herb and vegetables you are adding to your meal. If you’re slicin’ and dicin’, feel the sensation of every cut of the knife through the item and breathe out with every downward slice.
Give thanks to the ingredients that you are using that nourishes and empowers you to do greater good in the world with a clean mind and body. Set out an empty plate to spread your wonderful array later. Do you have a favorite nature song track? Go ahead and turn it up. Don’t worry, this is your moment and make the best experience out of it as possible.
Turning Up the Fire
Now that you have all the ingredients in front of you, time to start your cooking session with a yoga twist to it! Decide the sequence that you will add the ingredients and be prepared to do some basic yoga poses while you’re doing it. One popular pose is the tree pose.
While you hold the pose and become that tree, add your finely chopped garnish herbs to the pan first, then the dry spices and herbs in oil so they can simmer and disperse all the wonderful flavors, and then add your big greens and vegetables. Now that you’ve done 1 leg, it’s time for the stand on the other while you’re stir-frying your vegetables. Tree pose is a wonderful balance pose and opens up your hips! Just don’t lose your balance, please.
Let the Water Flow
You’ve finished cooking and properly sat down and enjoyed every delectable bite of your yummy, wholesome foods. It’s time for some more yoga believe it or not. Now it’s time to bring back everything to the sink including all the pots and pans, knives & eating utensils, and the empty plate that you so delicately devoured. It’s time to stretch out those hamstrings! Stretch your legs off to the side so they rest on the counter. Feel that nice stretch across your whole leg? Now, feel and watch how wonderful the dish soap lifts away all the oil and crumbs off your cooking and eating items. Notice how good you feel after you ate all the delicious food and breathe out that good energy. Switch legs halfway between the dish washing.
If you’re using a dishwashing machine, you can still do the stretch too! You can devote 5 minutes for your favorite pose right in the kitchen without anyone looking at you funny. If your family is, it’s just because they are not a committed yogi like you!
Finishing Up
Congratulations, you just finished a yoga session! You’ve focused some great intentions towards cooking and eating your meal. Your food was transformed from a tangible form towards an ethereal space for your spiritual nourishment. Having good intentions frees us from negative thoughts like anger or greed. We were simply focusing on enjoying this moment of life and being present in the moment. If you keep it up, you’ll be elevating your consciousness every single day. If you ever feel like taking a break from cooking yoga, you could always go to yoga retreat centers where they will take care of everything for you! You won’t even have to worry about lifting a finger there and could really do yoga all day if you wanted to! Stay healthy, stay mindful, and namaste.
Thanks to Emily Lopes, new and enthusiastic yogi, for sharing the article she wrote! Emily enjoys a healthy and spiritual life and with a twist of yoga in the kitchen, now you can too!
