Green Deva

Green Deva “Your body is the only place you have to live. You only get one of them and they are temporary.

Green Deva Yoga brings the ancient wisdom of yoga to life through gentle, accessible practices designed to help adults over 45 reconnect with their bodies, quiet the mind and move through life with greater ease and confidence. Be kind to it, nourish it, move it, say nice things to it and love it. “

A Beginner's Guide to Pranayama: How to Start Working with Your BreathMost people discover pranayama by accident. A teac...
08/06/2026

A Beginner's Guide to Pranayama: How to Start Working with Your Breath

Most people discover pranayama by accident. A teacher cues a breathing exercise at the start of class, something shifts, and afterwards you think - what was that?
Here's how to begin exploring it on your own.

Start with what you already have
Sit comfortably. That might be a chair, the edge of the bed, or the floor with a folded blanket under your hips - whatever allows your spine to be reasonably upright without effort. Close your eyes or soften your gaze downward. Just notice the breath as it is before you try to change anything. This is already practice.

Try a simple ratio breath
Breathe in for a count of four. Breathe out for a count of four. Keep the breath smooth rather than forced - you're not filling a balloon, you're just giving the breath a gentle structure to move within. Do this for two or three minutes and notice what happens in the shoulders, the jaw, the space behind the eyes.

Extend the exhale
When you're ready, try making the exhale slightly longer than the inhale. In for four, out for six. This is one of the most straightforward ways to activate the body's rest response - the part of the nervous system that allows joints to soften, muscles to release, and the general sense of bracing to ease. It works. It's not complicated.

A few things worth knowing
You don't need to practise for long. Five minutes of conscious breathing does something measurable in the body. You also don't need silence or a special space - though both are lovely if available.
If you feel lightheaded at any point, return to natural breathing. That's not failure, it's just the body adjusting to more oxygen than it's used to.

When to practise
Morning tends to work well - before the day has fully arrived and claimed you. But the honest answer is: whenever you'll actually do it. Before bed works beautifully for the extended exhale practice. Three breaths before you open your laptop is a legitimate pranayama practice.

Start there. See what you notice.

You Don't Need Another Coffee - You Need a Better ExhaleThere's a particular kind of tired that coffee doesn't touch.You...
05/06/2026

You Don't Need Another Coffee - You Need a Better Exhale

There's a particular kind of tired that coffee doesn't touch.

You know the one. It's not that you haven't slept. It's more like the body has been running on alert for so long that even rest doesn't quite reach it. The energy is there somewhere - it just feels inaccessible.

This is where the breath becomes genuinely interesting.

In yoga, prana is often translated as life force or vital energy - the animating quality that keeps everything moving. The ancient texts suggest that we take it in through food, through sunlight and most immediately, through the breath. Which means that how we breathe isn't a small thing. It's one of the primary ways we resource ourselves.

Most of us, by mid-afternoon, are breathing into about a third of our lung capacity. Shallow, chest-led, just enough. It keeps us functional but it doesn't exactly light us up.

A few minutes of conscious breathing - particularly breath that emphasises the inhale and uses the full depth of the lungs - genuinely shifts something. Not in a vague wellness way. You can feel it: a slight warmth, a clearer head, the sense that you've arrived back in your body after spending the morning somewhere slightly above it.

In class it’s that moment when the belly finally releases and the breath drops all the way down. It takes a little practice to get there. But when you do, there's usually a small, quiet surprise at how much space was available all along.

You don't need to overhaul anything. Three conscious breaths before you make the coffee is a reasonable place to start.
See what happens.

Ageing is not ‘lost youth’ but a new stage of opportunity.
03/06/2026

Ageing is not ‘lost youth’ but a new stage of opportunity.

Why yoga leaves you feeling more like yourself, not lessThere's a version of exercise that takes something from you. You...
01/06/2026

Why yoga leaves you feeling more like yourself, not less

There's a version of exercise that takes something from you. You know it - the kind that requires recovery, that leaves you wrung out for the rest of the day, that you have to talk yourself into because the alternative feels worse.

Sometimes a yoga class will ask something genuine of you and you'll feel it afterwards but in a good, quiet way - the way that means something was worked and released rather than leaving you depleted.

Over time, a regular yoga practice, starts giving something back - and it usually starts in the most ordinary places.

It improves sleep without effort
This one surprises people. A regular yoga practice - even a gentle one, even twenty minutes before bed - tends to improve sleep quality noticeably over time. Not because it's tiring in the conventional sense, but because it genuinely settles the nervous system before rest. And better sleep is the most straightforward energy intervention available to any of us. More restorative than any supplement, more reliable than any routine.

It teaches you to breathe properly again
By midlife, shallow chest breathing has become the default - functional but not energising. Learning to find the full depth of the breath, to use the diaphragm, to extend the exhale - these things increase oxygen availability and activate the body's rest and repair functions. It's not a metaphor. You can feel it happening.

It tends to show up first as small things. Sleeping better. Moving more freely. Noticing you've been holding your breath - and choosing, for once, to let it go.
And that's just the beginning.

Q: “WILL YOGA HELP ME FEEL MORE CONFIDENT IN MY BODY?”It’s a question that comes up often. Usually a little quietly, som...
29/05/2026

Q: “WILL YOGA HELP ME FEEL MORE CONFIDENT IN MY BODY?”

It’s a question that comes up often. Usually a little quietly, sometimes at the end of a first class. Not always said directly… but it’s there.

The short answer? It can. But maybe not in the way you expect.

It’s not about becoming a different shape. Or reaching some imagined version of “good” at yoga. What tends to change is your relationship with your body.
In a class, there’s less emphasis on how things look and more on how they feel. Where is your weight? Can you breathe here? What happens if you soften that effort, just slightly?

It’s a different kind of attention. And over time, it can interrupt that constant habit of judging from the outside.

There’s no gold star for pushing through in yoga. If anything, the practice tends to reward the opposite - noticing when to ease off, when to rest, when to try a different approach.

That kind of listening builds trust. And trust tends to feel a lot like confidence.
In a room where no one is performing for an audience — different shapes, different ranges, different starting points — something quietly shifts.

Other bodies… just being bodies, can quietly dismantle the idea that there’s one “right” way to have a body. Everyone is simply… practising.

“Will yoga actually help me feel more confident in my body?”It’s a question that comes up often. Usually a little quietl...
29/05/2026

“Will yoga actually help me feel more confident in my body?”

It’s a question that comes up often. Usually a little quietly, sometimes at the end of a first class. Not always said directly… but it’s there.

The short answer? It can. But maybe not in the way you expect.

It’s not about becoming a different shape. Or reaching some imagined version of “being good” at yoga. What tends to change is your relationship with your body.

In a class, there’s less emphasis on how things look and more on how they feel. Where is your weight? Can you breathe here? What happens if you soften that effort, just slightly?

It’s a different kind of attention. And over time, it can interrupt that constant habit of judging from the outside.

There’s no gold star for pushing through in yoga. If anything, the practice tends to reward the opposite - noticing when to ease off, when to rest, when to try a different approach.

That kind of listening builds trust. And trust tends to feel a lot like confidence.

In a room where no one is performing for an audience — different shapes, different ranges, different starting points — something quietly shifts. Other bodies… just being bodies, can quietly dismantle the idea that there’s one “right” way to have a body. Everyone is simply… practising.

"Sthira Sukham Asanam" ~ Steady. Comfortable. Present.
27/05/2026

"Sthira Sukham Asanam" ~ Steady. Comfortable. Present.

A guide to Dhanurasana (Bow pose) - that works with your bodyThere’s a version of Dhanurasana (Bow pose) that you’ll see...
25/05/2026

A guide to Dhanurasana (Bow pose) - that works with your body

There’s a version of Dhanurasana (Bow pose) that you’ll see posted all over social media - deep, lifted, effortless.

And then there’s the version most of us meet.

A bit tighter through the front of the thighs. Shoulders that aren’t quite sure. A breath that disappears the moment we try to “go for it.”

Most of us try to push through that. But there's another way of meeting it. There's a line in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali about balancing steadiness and ease — and Dhanurasana (Bow pose) is one of the best places to actually feel what that means.
If it feels like a battle, it’s probably not the right version - yet.

But with a few adjustments, a bit of patience, and the willingness to work where you are…it can become something else entirely. Something that opens the front of the body, yes - but also builds a quiet kind of confidence.

The kind that comes from realising: I can meet myself here… and that’s enough to begin.

Three Reasons Why Modifications Aren’t “Less Than” - They’re Intelligent Practice1) They ask you to pay attention.A modi...
22/05/2026

Three Reasons Why Modifications Aren’t “Less Than” - They’re Intelligent Practice

1) They ask you to pay attention.

A modification isn’t a shortcut. It’s a question. What’s actually happening here, today?
Not what your body could do ten years ago. Not what the person on the next mat is doing. Just this version of you. That kind of attention builds something steadier than pushing through ever could.

2) They keep you in the conversation with your body.

There’s a moment in practice where you can feel it - the edge between working and forcing. Modifications live just on the useful side of that line. They let you stay in the pose, in your breath, in yourself… without tipping into strain.

It’s not about doing less, more about staying connected.

3) They respect change (because bodies do change).

Energy shifts. Hormones shift. Sleep… sometimes disappears for a while. Your body isn’t a fixed thing and your practice doesn’t need to be either.
Modifications make space for that. They allow your practice to meet you where you are, rather than asking you to match an old version of yourself.

There’s a kind of confidence in that adaptability.

Utthita Trikonasana - the extended triangle.Reach. Open. Expand.
20/05/2026

Utthita Trikonasana - the extended triangle.

Reach. Open. Expand.

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https://green-deva.com/holistic-courses/

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