“Yoga takes you into the present moment, the only place where life exists.”
- Anonymous
Ahhh...yoga. Nothing compliments a nice relaxing vacation or business trip like some stress-relieving yoga. Yoga is the perfect "on-the-go" workout that you can literally do anywhere at anytime - and it requires no equipment! In addition, yoga has a myriad of benefits: it stretches you out, massages your internal organs, improves circulation, and reduces anxiety. So whether you are in your hotel room, or about to suffer a long train, plane, or car ride, these quick yoga moves will prepare your mind, body, and spirit for that business meeting you're about to tackle, or "mental break" you've been looking forward to all week!
Pose 1: Seated Spinal Twist
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Photo Credit: CNN Travel[/caption]
How-To: On the edge of your seat, or on the ground, gently cross your right knee over your left knee. Then, bring your left hand across your right knee and your other arm on the armrest. If you are seated on the floor, place your left elbow on the outside of your right knee, and your right hand on the ground, directly behind your back and aligned with the spine.
Next, take a deep inhale and then turn towards your right side on your exhale. Take five deep breaths. Then repeat on other side.
¹
Why It's Good: Spinal twists are great for realising daily stress and tension, stimulates circulation, helps to alleviate strain and calms the nervous system.
Pose 2: Bridge Pose
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Photo Credit: YogaTrail.com[/caption]
This pose is perfect if you have some time to kill in your hotel room or if you are taking in some beautiful scenery at the beach or park.
How-To: Place a hotel blanket or towel on the floor and lie on your back with your knees bent and feet on the floor. Rest your arms by your sides. Press your feet and arms on the ground as you exhale, contract your abs, and press your hips to the ceiling. Roll your shoulders back and underneath your body as press your back up further, and clasp your hands beneath you, or if you are up for the challenge, try grabbing your ankles for an extra stretch.
Why It's Good: Not only does this pose strengthen your glutes, spine, thighs, and core, but it also helps to improve flexibility, stimulates the thyroid and combats any menstruation problems.
Pose 3: Standing Forward Fold
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Photo Credit: Tribalance.com[/caption]
This is, undoubtedly, one of my favorite poses, as it is such a great relaxer and helps to relieve any tension on the back.
How-To: Stand with your feet hip distant apart. Exhale and bend forward from your hip joints, and tilt forward with your knees slightly bent. You can either let your arms hang down freely, place one hand onto each elbow, or touch the floor if you are flexible enough for a deeper stretch.
Press your heels firmly on the floor, lift your sitting bones towards the ceiling. Take 8-10 deep breaths, then stand up slowly.
Why It's Good: Forward bends strengthen your hips, hamstrings, thighs and calves, lengthens your spine, and rejuvenates and clams the body.
Pose 4: Tree Pose
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Photo Credit: CNN Travel[/caption]
How-To: Standing
with your feet together, ground down on all corners of your feet. First, distribute your weight evenly between both legs. Then, shift your weight onto your left leg. Take a big inhale and bring your right foot onto your left anklebone, with your knee out wide. Grab your ankle and guide it to inner left thigh as you look ahead. Be sure that your foot is either above or below the knee. Next, press your foot into your inner thigh, while also pressing your inner thigh against your foot. Hold the pose. Another trick is to think about pulling your right knee and inner thigh towards the back of the room.
Your hands can stay on your hips, or alternatively, you can bring your arms in front of your chest into prayer position, or "spread your roots" with your arms actively reaching above your head.
Hold for up to one minute. While exhaling, release your foot and arms back down. Repeat on the other side.
Why It's Good: This pose is great for improving focus and concentration while calming the mind. Other benefits include the strengthening and toning of the legs, buttocks, ligaments and tendons of the feet, while also building self-esteem and self-confidence.²
Pose 5: Chair Pose
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Photo Credit: Flickr User Amy[/caption]
How-To: Stand with your feet and knees together, with big toes touching and heals slightly apart. Then, inhale as you raise your arms above your head, and exhale as you bend your knee. You can either keep your arms perpendicular to the floor, or bring palms together. Alternatively, you can also reach out in front of you, extending your arms parallel. Try to bend your knees and bring your thighs as parallel to the floor as possible, keeping your shoulder blades down and below your ears. Breathe deeply for five-10 breaths or for up to one minute. Inhale as you straighten your legs and release to standing
Why It's Good: Chair pose is the ultimate leg strengthener. It is a strong pose, and strong legs keep you grounded, even while flying. Chair pose builds muscle tone in the entire lower half of your body, as it strengthens hip flexors, ankles, calves, and back. It also stretches out the chest and back, and stimulates the heart, diaphragm, and abdominal organs.
Are you an avid yogi? Share with us some of your favorite yoga poses to do while traveling!
References:
Dodson, C (2011, September 9). "Airplane Yoga: 18 exercises for healthy living."
CNN Travel (Online News Article). Retrieved from: http://travel.cnn.com/sydney/visit/plane-yoga-18-exercises-healthy-flying-910157.
Kiltz, R. (2010, October 29). "The Health Benefits of Vrikshasana (Tree Pose)" (Weblog). Retrieved from: http://www.cnyhealingarts.com/2010/10/29/the-health-benefits-of-vrikshasana-tree-pose/.
As everyone well knows, maintaining a beauty regimen while traveling has gotten more and more difficult in recent years, to the point where now it's near impossible to bring all of your favorite products unless you're checking a bag. And even then, there's a decent chance that those products won't hold up against the pressure changes associated with flying, leaving you with no product and a soggy suitcase. Fortunately, we have a few tips and product suggestions to combat those issues! Read on for our tips.
First and foremost, if you can't get over the idea of leaving behind all of your favorite liquid and cream products, invest in a variety of travel sized bottles. This set is available from Amazon for about $12, and has a verity of sizes and bottle types. Well worth it, we think!
Another one of the best ways to keep yourself pretty on-the-go is to choose multiple-use products, like Nars The Multiple. This stick is hydrating, which is great for skin when traveling, and can be used as a blush, highlighter, eyeshadow, and lip color! It comes in a variety of shades, so there's sure to be something that works for you and your destination.
If you're anything like us, the hotel-provided shampoos typically don't cut it for you. Enter Lush solid shampoos. They have a variety of formulas for differing hair needs, all with delicious scents! And they now have two solid conditioners available. Added bonus? Lush products are all natural.
Finally, depending on how long you'll be at your destination it may be beneficial to bring your favorite essentials, particularly if they have a higher price tag, and purchase other basics upon arrival. This will cut down on excess bulk and weight in your luggage. Of course, your favorite Nomaterra fragrance can come on board, and won't cause any issues in the security line!
What are your favorite tips for traveling in style? Be sure to let us know and follow us on Twitter and Facebook!
Adding a cotton ball on top of powdered make-up products is a great, cheap, and easy way to prevent your makeup from shattering during travel!
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Yoga On-the-Go[/caption]
Last week we shared one of our favorite new sites,
Calm.com, as a great resource to add to your travel arsenal. That got us thinking, what other resources are out there for keeping you calm and relaxed while traveling? In our searches, we came across another fantastic website,
Yoga Glo. The site offers a wide variety of instructional videos, teaching different styles for varying skill levels. The site also offers classes of differing lengths, from five minutes to two hours. No matter how much time you have, there's something for you on Yoga Glo!
Yoga Glo is a subscription service, and they offer a 15 day free trial after which you can subscribe for $18 a month for unlimited access to Yoga Glo's online classes. Between that and Calm's guided relaxation services, you'll be able to travel with ease and relaxation!
While we all love to travel, adventure, and explore the many wonders that this world has to offer, we also know just how stressful and exhausting traveling can be. From extra long layovers to flight delays to baggage fees and more, getting from point A to point B can be a complete logistical nightmare.
That's why we were so excited when we came across a new web site,
Calm. Also available on the iPhone as an
app, this site offers guided relaxation experiences. Users get to select their preferred background noises, choosing from options such as an ocean, river, soft rain, or sounds of the forest. You can also choose how long you'd like to relax, with 2, 10, and 20 minute options. No matter how much time you have, these exercises are fantastic ways to unwind, trust us! We tried all three lengths and are officially hooked. Try it today, and we're sure you will be too!
Be sure to follow Nomaterra on
Twitter and
Facebook!
Nomaterra travel sprays are a breeze to get through airport security; we tucked this bag in one of those clunky plastic bins and were on our way to our gate in no time!
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Nile River at Sunset[/caption]
If you missed our post yesterday about the
New Yorker article which details the creation of Hermès's perfume Un Jardin sur le Nil, be sure to check it out
here. After reading all about the creation of a fragrance based around the Nile, we couldn't help be start googling in search of images of Egypt.
Condé Nast Traveler didn't let us down, with this gorgeous shot of the Nile at sunset. Definitely a destination that's on our bucket list!
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Cliffs of Ireland[/caption]
Every time
Game of Thrones comes back, we start travel-lusting after the gorgeous settings found in the show. For those of you who don't know,
Game of Thrones is shot predominantly in Belfast, Ireland.
When we saw this
Condé Nast Traveler shot, we couldn't keep it to ourself!
As many of you may know, our founders Ben and Aggie have been jet-setting quite a bit lately, spreading the Nomaterra love domestically and abroad! A few weeks back they were in London, where they held an event at Fenwick Department Store's Bond Street location to introduce Nomaterra overseas. They took so many great photos while over there, that we couldn't help but share one more of their own travel shots this week!
Be sure to stop by our table at Fenwick's Bond Street store to pick up your favorite Nomaterra scents!
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Tips from a Flight Attendant[/caption]
Flight Attendant Keri has spent the past six years of her life traveling for a living, and boy has she picked up some great tips for staying beautiful in flight! Read on for our interview with her!
Nomaterra: What airline do you work for?
KL: I work for United Airlines, what used to be the old Continental.
N: How long have you been working for them?
KL: I've been with them for six years!
N: Where do you fly often?
KL: I've been doing only international flights for the past 4years. I just transferred this month back to domestic flying. So normally I am all over Europe but I would work a lot of trips to Scotland, Ireland, and England.
N: What have been your favorite places to visit?
KL: I love Edinburgh! It's such an amazing city. Dublin is always a fun time. Athens was amazing and the food was to die for. Hong Kong is also really cool. And of course Paris never gets old!
N: How long do you normally get to stay in a given place?
KL: It depends on where we fly, internationally the layovers are usually 24 hours. But domestically it can be anywhere from 8 hours to 30 hours. It's always changing
N: What are your top three favorite US cities and why?
KL: That's so hard! I'm going to have to narrow it down to four:
San Francisco
Los Angeles: I just love the west coast. The vibe, the beach, the weather. It's a nice break
Austin: I'm a Texas girl and Austin is where it's at!
NYC: This one is just obvious. Everyone loves New York and I've been living here since I started this job. It's everything you could ever want on a tiny island.
N: What beauty secrets do you have for keeping skin and hair looking great in spite of constantly traveling?
KL: It's definitely a challenge because the air is so dry up there. So staying hydrated is a must! Drink lots of water, always have lotion, Chapstick, and eye drops. And baby powder for the hair.
N: Are you allowed to wear fragrance when you fly, and if so what do you wear?
KL: We are allowed to as long as it isn't over bearing. It can be a disaster if there's too many different smells going on. My favorite perfume is Estes Lauder Pleasures. But in the summer I'll wear more floral perfume like Gucci Flora.
N: What are your travel product essentials?
KL: Well I've become an expert packer. I always have my bag packed for any weather because things change so often that you could end up somewhere you weren't expecting. So I always have a bathing suit, gym clothes, long and short sleeve clothing, light sweater, extra under garments, make up, make up remover wipes, lotions, perfume, my watch, and a pen.
