yoga and our digital world

After three days of wild and wonderful asana at the Yoga Journal Conference in San Francisco, I attended a panel called Digital Distractions and Your Practice, where a diverse group of yogis came together to talk about their digital habits. While we were waiting to begin, I shared a photo on Instagram but then sat with my phone in hand for the next hour, fighting the urge several times to slide it open and peek into my digital world.

The day before, a phone began ringing during Elena Brower’s class on Finding Grace. Its owner jumped up and immediately began apologizing but Elena responded calmly: “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s part of the world now.” And just that morning at Janet Stone’s class, we stretched our fingers (along with everything else) in what she jokingly named Textasana.

Clearly, technology is becoming a part of yoga, whether or not you agree that it should be.

tips from the experts on managing your digital life

Be mindful of your breathing as you open your inbox and practice deep breathing. Email apnea occurs when your breath shortens before you open your inbox.  - Scott Rosenberg, Grist.org Executive Editor

Don’t use your iPhone as your alarm. If you use your iPhone, you immediately go from sleeping to your digital stream of information with no time in between to wake up in the “real world.” –  Congressman Tim Ryan

Meditation > Facebook. The feeling of gratification you get through interactions on a Facebook update could also be achieved through meditation. – Kaitlin Quistgaard, Editor-in-Chief of Yoga Journal and panel moderator

Do one minute of yoga and one minute of mindfulness a day. Why? Because everyone has 60 seconds (and you will likely do more than this naturally). – Gopi Kallayil, Google

All of the panel experts agreed that digital distractions can take you out of your physical body but that embracing technology doesn’t mean it has to rule your life or that you are any less yogic for doing so. In fact, as Gopi pointed out, the very meaning of yoga is “to join”. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram (etc) are all ways of connecting with others and extending our worlds out from beyond our screens. The key is to do it mindfully and to be present in your “real” world too.

A great example of technology enabling connection came from panelist Sally Kempton. She holds meditation teleconferences where people dial in from all over the country, just to hold the same space over the phone line together, in silence.

Not checking my phone forced me to be present that day and at the end of the hour I didn’t feel as if I needed to hide it - after all, I had the world-changing possibility of connection with anyone in the world in my hand! That sounds pretty tweetable to me.

Where do you draw the line between your practice and the digital world?

image: flickr-absurd hero If you need a peanut sauce to go with the rolls, try here.

Many things help brighten our day as we head through the week (random smiles, exhausting sweat sessions). Click on the images below to see some of the stuff that inspired us lately.

Above: MelEesa, our Men's Designer, test drives some of our luxtreme items in the park near our office.

If you've ever gone shopping for athletic wear, you have likely come face to face with the words "technical fabric". Have you ever wondered what this means and how it can enhance your workouts?

The term "technical fabric" refers to high-performance fabrics created and marketed specifically for sportswear. These fabrics are designed to pull moisture from your skin during periods of heavy sweating, spreading it evenly throughout the fabric so that sweat evaporates quicker and ultimately, you dry faster after your workouts than in a cotton t-shirt.

Luxtreme is a lightweight, smooth-feeling technical fabric that we use in our run line. Luxtreme is what we call an "inherently wicking" fabric, which means that the wicking property is part of the yarn itself and that your shirt will be wicking away your sweat for the life of the garment. Bottom line is that you will be calm, cool and collected before, during and after your workout.

I converted to wearing technical fabrics for all of my active living about a decade ago. So when I was given the task of test-running one of our luxtreme tops for work I decided to pass it on to my colleague Jacquie, who has always worn cotton t-shirts and tanks for her daily run. On a typical day she runs for about 40 minutes -- long enough to build up a good sweat!

If you have worn or worked out in any lululemon garments using Luxtreme I would love to hear your feedback below!

I look forward to sharing more information with you on our various fabrics and how they can make your workouts more fun. In the meantime, if you want a quick read on Luxtreme and our other technical fabrics check out the link below:

http://www.lululemon.com/education/info/care

View some of our Luxtreme products:

• Run: Dash Crop
• Speed Up Tank
• Run: Ambition Tight
• All Sport Bra
• Run: Hustle Crop