London Outdoor Yoga & Ecotherapy meetup, Regents Park cover photo

What we’re about

ECOTHERAPY: MINDFULNESS IN NATURE with Julia Lay (Year Round)

Ecotherapy, led by Clinical Psychologist Julia Lay involves the extremely potent combination of mindfulness techniques and conscious connection with our natural environment.

Mindfulness has recently become much more of a buzzword in the context of health. It is particularly effective if you have a job or life where you are holding way more information than the human brain and nervous system are generally designed to take - i.e stressed! When you combine it with a natural environment you are amplifying it's effectiveness even further.

Antidote to Stress

So time spent in nature provides an immediate antidote to stress. It disperses discordant electromagnetic energy that often scatters our energy, and also provides the negative ion particles to put the sheen back in our aura!

But more than this, it's home - our true home! Such is our acclimatisation with modern urban landscapes, we often consider time in nature to be somewhat 'alternative'; when in effect, it's the urban sprawl which we should consider to be more the foreign land! A deeper knowing, sense of security, relaxation and level of awareness often gets promoted in us when we engage with a natural environment.

Julia says:

'Most of us have experienced the sense of wellbeing that can come from spending time in ‘nature’. We know intuitively that time amongst plant/wildlife and in open spaces is good for us, and the research is also clear on this. Ecotherapy is about spending time in natural environments in a particular way, that deepens our connection with nature and ourselves, maximising the benefits we derive from our time outdoors.

This workshop will take you out into Regents Park and through some simple exercises as a group and individually to deepen your appreciation of the natural world and increase your sense of connection and presence'

OUTDOOR YOGA IN REGENTS PARK (2016 tbc)

Hi everyone, Richard Brook here from Creative Yoga, i'm currently working abroad in Portugal (more info below) so their may not be any 2016 classes! We'll have to see!

Yoga outside is so good for you. Has your body been constricted behind a desk all day, staring at a screen in an air conditioned office with the humdrum of printers and PC's as the audio backdrop? Add in little or no natural light, let alone natural plant life, to brighten your mood (please note glass filters out essential spectral waves of light that need to hit your retina to balance your brain chemistry)

Well lets swap all that for some daylight, easy on the eye natural surroundings, fresher air, stretching and energising tense muscles, relaxation, with birds singing in the background and then we are talking WELLBEING!

Union

On another level we also of course often talk about yoga in the context of 'union' and 'wholeness' but this is often restricted to our perception of connection between body, mind and spirit. But ultimately, total union also involves our environment (and people around us - which is what we are trying to cultivate here at Creative Yoga)

Achieving this level of connection is so much easier when you are naturally more in harmony with your surroundings - and as much as we love our studio, energetically you obviously have much more resonance with our beloved Earth and Sky, the negative ions in nature and the harmonious electro-magnetic energy than we do with the 4 walls which we often found ourselves surrounded in urban life.

Naturally Relaxing

Your whole being can relax to a whole other level in nature. As much as we get used to our urban lifestyles, ultimately a natural setting IS your natural habitat, and some deeper, more soulful part of you recognises this through all your senses. This allows you to relax deeper during the session as there is less information for your body-mind to integrate.

These outdoor classes are super popular, and when I planned them I also couldn't help but think of when I was a kid how if I'd been inside all day on the computer or watching TV how my Mom would send me outside to play! Well lets just say Mothers are intuitive creatures and they tend to know instinctively what you need, and being inside all day staring at a screen isn't really it.

About Creative Yoga with Richard Brook

If you would like to check out our main meetup group (with over 2500 members) head over to www.meetup.com/creativeyogalondon Richard Brook is an international holistic expert, currently based at the world famous Moinhos Velhos retreat centre in Portugal, teaching yoga, body-mind workshops and practicing acupuncture on participants on their juice fasting detox programmes. For more information please visit Richard's websites at www.creativeyogalondon.co.uk and www.richardbrookacupuncture.co.uk