I’ve made it to my last kitcheri meal of my cleanse and I feel amazing.  I had forgotten how even-keeled I become at the end of the cleanse, which just goes to show you that we truly are what we eat.  When I eat lots of sugar, my body and my emotions go on a rollercoaster ride. But after a week of eating simple foods I find I’m able to keep my cool even through the craziest situations, including my new puppy howling for 30+ minutes last night when we tried to get her to sleep in her crate again.

I’ve known that yoga affects my mental mood, and we’ve all experienced how our mood drives our food cravings, but it just now clicked that the food/mood connection works both ways.

Yoga classifies the mindsets that we all experience throughout each day into three qualities or gunas:

• Rajas – movement, change, creativity, excitement
• Tamas – slow, heavy, lethargic
• Sattva – pure, good, calm, steady

The idea that a sattvic mind is the ultimate goal is taught in many yoga classes, but actually the mind needs to move through these mindsets throughout the day.  It needs to be tamastic for sleep, but if the mind is too tamas at other times it causes lethargy and depression.  The mind also needs to be rajastic for us to analyze, create and learn, but if it is too rajas it can’t focus and has ADD.  If the mind is sattivc all the time there would be no great inventions, no social change, and no thrills in life.  So the goal is actually to have a sattvic mind during all the other times in your life: while interacting with friends and family, driving, eating, and especially during any difficult situations.

My main goal for cleansing this year was to purify my thought patterns.  This last winter, I got down on myself and on life more than I think I ever have.  It wasn’t depression; I would be positive few days, then negative for a few days.  I needed to create a change inside in order to get out of the cycle, to find a more positive, hopeful and trusting state.

In a yoga class this week, it just came to me that hopelessness and faith cannot be present at the same time.  Either I have faith that all things will work out as they should or I feel hopeless.  So I made a vow to notice anytime my mind turns on the hopeless thought flow, and to immediately stop and change my thoughts to something positive – how much I love my husband, what wonderful family and friends I have, how lucky I am too live in a beautiful place, to have found a my calling in teaching yoga (even if I’m only doing it part time for now) and of course my sweet little pup!

However, the sattvic mind that my cleanse created doesn’t have much interest in turning on the “hopeless” reel, so my real challenge is to keep paying attention and doing a 180 degree thought change as I shift back into eating normal food.  But at least I’m equipped with is the knowledge that what and how I eat definitely impacts my mental state.

I like Easter. I have many wonderful memories of my nephews hunting Easter eggs and chasing the adults around to smash confetti eggs on our heads.  It is a holiday that is typically bright and sunny, it means spring is here, and it’s all about resurrection and renewal.  However, this was just about the most awful Easter I can remember.

It started off with the quiche I made being undercooked, plus it was cold and breezy at the outdoor service we attended at the Hollywood Bowl.  Even though my husband dislikes Easter (for all the reasons I like it – he’s a fan of fall/winter), he agreed to go to Bowl with a large group of my friends.

In addition to the undercooked brunch and cold weather, the music in the service just wasn’t what we were hoping for (we remembered enjoying the whole experience in previous years).  We’re not fans of “Praise Rock” or bands in church, and I’m quite spoiled by the live harpist at the 8am service at St. A’s in Santa Monica.  My poor husband has been working 65-70 hours a week and also had to go straight into work after the service. Completely over-tired, his mood turned progressively worse as the morning progressed.

I should have accessed my many years of yoga and stayed even keeled, but no one is perfect.  I got moody too and even snapped at him a few times (sorry Love). We had mostly worked through our tiff, during the 15 minute wait to get out of the parking lot and 30 minute commute to drop him at work.

Even though we were better, I was still in a funk.  I love living in LA, but the hardest part is being away from family, especially on holidays.  I found myself alone on Easter Sunday with nothing to do.  I thought about sulking, veg’ing out, eating sweets and watching TV all afternoon, but realized that wouldn’t really change my perspective.

I come from a family that deals with problems by keeping busy.  So, I spent the next few hours deep cleaning the kitchen floor.  For me, there is something about knowing that my home is clean, even the under the fridge and behind the stove, that makes me feel better. Maybe it’s the sense of order it gives me, in this world where we rarely have control over our lives.

By the time I’d gotten the floor thoroughly spotless, I was in a better mood.  I felt productive and energized, and even decided to take my pup for a walk on the beach.

It’s easy get depressed and lethargic after a bad day, especially in the spring.  But I’m glad that instead of following that mental downward spiral, I was able to find a way to shift gears, to get out of my head and into my body, allowing me to work through and let go of the negative emotions lingering from the experience.

After all, that is what spring is all about:  resurrection and renewal.  Letting go of old ways and emotions and embracing new ways of thinking, being, doing.

In researching my first post for insomnia (Good Night, John Boy) I ran across some fascinating information on brainwaves.  Since I’m currently reading all about neurology for my yoga therapy homework, I thought I’d share this great info on the different modes of the brain.

For every situation in your life, your brain shifts into one dominant brainwave mode.  There are four classified brainwave states.  Each of these waves appears and disappears in the brain, so they are not always present.

• Alpha brainwaves – Only called Alpha because they were discovered first, these waves oscillate about 10 times per second.  Alpha waves are present when we are awake, but relaxed and effortlessly alert.
• Beta brainwaves – These are our stress response brainwaves, most active when intense mental concentration and focus are needed.  Beta waves cycle at 13-40 cycles per second.
• Theta brainwaves – Appearing when you get drowsy or slide into a light sleep (sleep stages 1 and 2), these waves oscillate at 4-7 cycles per second.
• Delta brainwaves – Seen only in deep sleep (stages 3 & 4), Delta waves are the slowest oscillating waves at 0-4 waves per second.

Think about brainwaves as the gears on a bicycle.  When you get into a stressful situation, such as going up a big hill, you need to be able to switch to a smaller gear so that you are able to pedal at a steady rate.  However, since you are in a smaller gear each foot push doesn’t get you quite as far as other gears.  So the first few gears on a bike would be like Beta brainwaves, they move fast and are excellent to get you through stressful situations.

As you move onto flat terrain you want to switch to a mid-level gear that allows you to pedal at a steady speed that is not too much work on your thighs.  These gears are like Alpha waves.  But as the grade starts to turn to slightly downhill, you can easily slip into a higher gear and still not work that hard.  That slightly higher gear, like Theta waves, the chain on the bike makes fewer revolutions but continues to turn the wheels at the same rate.

Finally, when you head down a huge hill, you shift into the highest gear to be able to keep moving your feet or if you’re like me, you just quit pedaling and let gravity take you away.  Delta brainwaves equate to this gear.  When you are in deep sleep, your brain is only slightly or not at all active, thus not in full control just like when your zooming down a big hill.

So imagine what would happen to your bike if you shift directly from first gear to the highest gear.  My awesome yet rusty bike would probably slip the chain and be out of commission until my husband had time to repair it.  Just like bicycle gears, you want your brain to shift up and down throughout the brainwave frequencies.  However, most people tend to just move from low to high, then right back to low.  From a deep sleep (Delta waves) we wake up to a blaring alarm, pour caffeine into our system and force ourselves into a frenzied state full of the stress of work and all our other obligations (Beta brainwaves), finally after finishing all of our to do’s for the day, we crash into bed exhausted (back to Delta waves).

Just like with muscles in our body, if we don’t use certain brainwaves we lose the ability to use them or forget how to access them.  Insomnia occurs when you are not able to shift into Theta or Delta brainwaves.  But, people who have more Alpha brainwaves have less anxiety and consequently a stronger immune system.  Creativity and problem solving is another activity that flows much more freely when Alpha waves are present in the brain.  A large burst of Alpha waves can be seen in the brain when someone has a creative inspiration.

People who say they work best under stress (Beta brainwaves) are wrong according to research.  Alpha brainwaves are essential for peak performance.  This has been proven in elite athletes (they will have a sudden increase in alpha waves before making that all important shot, pass, swing, etc.), and I think it is safe to say the same is true for non-sporting activities as well – the more relaxed you are, the easier/smoother things flow.

So how do you increase your Alpha and Theta (and even Delta for insomniacs) brainwaves?  I think Theta brainwaves are induced by many of the items listed in Good Night, John Boy.  As for Alpha waves, yoga is excellent way to increase your Alpha waves. Meditation will increase them in an even shorter time period.  And the latest trend is biofeedback, where you hook yourself up to a machine that provides visual feedback (in the form of heart rate, temperature, and muscle tension) while you focus on breathing, so you can both see and feel the changes that happen in your body when you relax.  Lastly, and not necessarily researched or proven, I have a feeling that if you are able to shift (easily) into Alpha and Theta waves, you will also be able to slide into Delta waves and a deep sleep.

I spent all weekend in yoga therapy class at LMU, learning more about Auyveda. I find the difference in learning something and really absorbing it, putting it to practice to be fascinating. I’ve heard/known much of the information, but wasn’t truly utilizing it for some reason.

I confirmed that I have a vata/air imbalance (most likely causing the insomnia), so I decided to really focus on the foods I’m eating. Kapha/earth foods with sweet, sour, and salty tastes help to pacify vata – foods from nature though, not white sugar with fake flavoring. Rice, milk, yogurt and sea or mineral salt are all good examples of these tastes.

Spring is the kapha season, so if I eat too many kapha foods I will become sluggish and heavy. From the Balancing the Seasons post, you learned spring is time to eat light and shed that extra weight/protection from the cold that we put on over the fall and winter. So to keep balanced I’m also eating foods that are pitta/fire to help cleanse my body and keep my digestive fire strong, such as greens like purple kale and swiss chard.

Despite our sweet new puppy, Fleur, who has also been messing with my sleep, I had a really good night of sleep last night (yay!). Just one day of really changing my diet – no processed sugars, eggs and sole for protein and the above foods – made a big difference. No racing thoughts and I fell right back to sleep even after I was awakened for a puppy pee break.

The other thing that sunk in this weekend was about how I eat. I’ve known that it is best to focus only on your food when you eat, but that hasn’t stopped me from reading, watching TV or browsing Facebook while eating. This weekend, I made a pledge to eat at least 1 meal a day with nothing else distracting my attention.

Yesterday for lunch I went outside, sat in the sun and just enjoyed my food and the beautiful day. I felt so thankful for the food and the life force it was providing me.

Speaking of giving thanks, I also made a vow to give thanks at every meal for the plant and/or animal that died so that I could live. I buy only organic/pesticide free, wholesome, local veggies, fruits, milks and meats, so I trust that it all has been well taken care of before it came to me. But, just in case, and especially for foods that you get at a restaurant it is good to give thanks for it and pray that it nourishes you. I give thanks to God, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t believe in God, you can still give thanks to the earth, the sun, the soil, the rains, the winds that all contributed to the life that you are consuming to sustain your life.