Yoga for Arthritis – Gentle Ways to Support Your Joints with Yoga

If you’re living with arthritis, you’ll know how it can sometimes feel like your body is working against you. 

The stiffness, swelling, and pain may make you want to avoid movement — but, the right kind of movement is one of the best ways to support your joints and ease discomfort. This is where yoga comes in.

Yoga is not about forcing yourself into shapes or striving for perfection. It’s about meeting your body with aroha, listening to what it needs, and moving in a way that brings relief and balance.

🌿 Why Yoga Helps Arthritis

Yoga offers more than stretching. It can:

 • Ease stiffness by gently moving joints through their natural range.

 • Build strength to support and protect joints.

 • Improve circulation and bring nourishment to tissues.

 • Calm the nervous system, helping with both pain and inflammation.

 • Enhance balance and coordination, reducing the risk of falls.

💭 What to Keep in...

Matariki for me is a time to reflect, look back to look ahead, and be grateful for all I have in the present.

This time the blog is a little different, as it is a little more personal, and is a look back on the year that has passed and some changes that are on the horizon!

So to recap here's some of the topics from the last year on the blog -

• Tips for practicing yoga online
• Rest is rongoā - rest is medicine.
• Wish upon a star - Hiwa- i- te- rangi - the wishing star
• Fall in love with your breath - yoga for stress
• He iti noa ana, he pito mata-  From the withered tree a flower blooms - finding the right teacher for you.

For a big chunk of last  year we were in lockdown, and all classes were held online with the studio closed. So the blogs on tips for practicing online, and the benefits, were needed. I hope you found some of the tips useful.

We all adapted, and some even discovered they were completely happy with this new way of accessing the classes, and have stayed o...

A home practice will transform your yoga, and maybe even your life....

For many it is the next step in their yoga journey, for some it has been an unwelcome necessity during this pandemic. But either way, you CAN develop a beautiful home practice that will have many benefits for your wellbeing, self-care/ self-aroha.

A yoga practice with intent is called a Sadhana, and it's powerful, personal and may even change your life!  (Your Sadhana is of a spiritual nature and the focus is not only on doing poses to gain physical mastery. It's about what's on the inside as well.) 

But there can be many obstacles along the journey, and initially it can be helpful to have some guidance and to know that although there may be barriers, there are also solutions.

Here's some of what I've heard and may have even said myself sometimes in my 21 years of yoga teaching - 

•  I don't have the time to practice any other time than when I come to the studio, life is too busy....

• I don't kn
...