37Sun Yoga Studio

If you’re feeling overwhelmed and tense, you’re not alone. 2025 has been challenging, but a little support can go a long way.

Neural Organisational Technique (N.O.T.) is a branch of Kinesiology muscle testing. It is a gentle, hands-on approach that helps reorganize your nervous system by releasing patterns of bracing held in the body from the fight-or-flight response.

By supporting the natural flow of cerebrospinal fluid through the spine, the nervous system can be nourished — freeing up energy and helping to restore a sense of ease and balance in both body and mind.

Each session offers a calm, grounded space to reconnect with your system’s innate capacity for regulation, healing, and repair.

If you’re ready to feel more centred and supported, book a session.

It’s a new season and I have a new practice room. To mark this exiting change I’m offering any new clients 50% off their first kinesiology session.

Kinesiology is a wonderful way to support yourself, especially this time of year. It can help with the following and more:
☀️bolster your immune system
☀️manage stress
☀️deepen clarity around big decisions
☀️integrate emotions
☀️balance your nervous system
☀️improve your quality of spirit

Email me for more info or to book your session.

Spring Special - come find your zen so you can sail through the end of the year with a spring in your step.

Great news! My afternoon yin restorative classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays will now start a bit later to give those of you who have expressed interest but couldn’t make it by 5pm, a chance to get your weekly wind down in. More balance, more calm, more delicious relaxation in 2023 - come join us. ✌🏼💛

The transverse abdominis (TVA) is the deepest of the abdominal muscles and it acts as a corset around your mid section between the ribs and the pelvis to help stabilise and protect your spine (and pelvis). Contraction of the TVA, which you can feel if you pull your naval to your spine, is key to safely lifting heavy weights whether its loading your luggage into your car, picking up your 6 year old kid or working out at the gym. When we pick up something heavy a few things happen simultaneously to create intra-abdominal pressure, which takes as much as 40% of vertical pressure off of the intervertebral discs in your spine.
-The TVA contracts pulling naval to spine, which compresses the ribs upwards
-We take and hold a deep breath, which both fills the lungs, exerting pressure outwards 3-dimensionally, and also lifts the diaphragm upwards.
-Because the belly can’t extend forwards when we breathe in whilst the TVA is engaged, internal pressure is exerted outwards towards the back and sides of the rib cage. This forces the whole rib cage to lift up and away from the pelvis, creating a lot of space for the spine.
I like to think of intra-abdominal pressure like a bottle of water - a bottle of still water can be squashed fairly easily in your hands but if you shake up a bottle of sparkling water, the pressure that builds up inside the bottle makes the bottle itself feel like a rigid structure. The same way you could likely stand on a shaken up carbonated water bottle without it breaking its form, the spine and the internal organs are protected by the TVA and intra-abdominal pressure against any weight that you lift or carry. Isn’t the body amazing!

Next post we’ll look at how a C-section child birth can disrupt the core stability and what symptoms you may experience thereafter.

Squat more in 2023!

A deep squat (Malasana) - demonstrated beautifully here by one of my most dedicated students, Penny, is one of my favourite poses in yoga and it has so many benefits.

Western sitting postures weaken the glutes and core and tightens up the hip flexors amongst other things. The core and the glutes are big stabalizers in the body - if they are weak, then something else has to do the job of stabilising your spine and pelvis as you move through your life and do all the things bodies do. It’s often the neck and your lower back that has to then pick the slack to stabilise the body and this can lead to headaches and of course lower back pain. It’s no surprise then that a deep squat which engages your glutes 25% more than a shallow squat, stretches your lower back and strengthens your core would be a good antidote for the modern lifestyle.

Squatting is also great for digestion as it aligns your colon and your bowel properly for full elimination. Getting into a deep squat for some is no small feat so here are a few tips to help you move in and out safely, so you can build strength, stamina and mobility, without overloading the joints.
* Start with your feet hip distanced and turn your feet out slightly so that your feet are pointing in the same directions as your knees when you squat down. This will help protect your knees.
* Start where you are - If squatting is a challenge practice sitting down into a normal chair (and standing up) as slow as you can control without using your hands. When you’re ready to progress from there, you can hold onto a table or balustrade as you lower deeper.
* If your ankles feel restricted and tight, use a rolled up towel under your heels for support.
* Challenge yourself by straighten your spine and pressing your knees outwards, firming your sacral plate forwards. Then raise your arms up to the sky to really get the muscles firing.
* As you become more comfortable , you can bring your feet into a more parallel position.

Incorporating long held deep squats into your daily routine can help with back pain, digestion and general posture. I also find they give me a little extra energetic boost.💥

Happy Squatting!

Did you know that your scars and scar tissue can block the neurological signals from your brain to your muscles? This means that the time you fell off your bicycle as a kid and needed stitches, or the time you had your appendix removed as a teenager, or when you tripped trail running 10years ago and cut your knee, most likely set in motion functional movement patterns of compensation. All of your scars from your past and the stories that go along with them may not feature as significant in your daily experience, but may be causing your body limited range of motion, discomfort and pain in the present. This is why in Brain Body Balance (B3) we treat scars as a primary source of disfunction.
Scars big or small, new and old, from surgery or accident, can and do neurologically switch off muscles in and around their location, causing other muscles to carry out functional movement patterns that aren’t their primary job.

If you’ve got any scars and you’ve had persistent body niggles, the two are likely connected. Your scar could be the source of any of the following and more:
•ITB
•Headaches
•Plantar Fasciitis
•Back pain
•Neck pain
•Tight or sore hips
•Labral tears
•Bursitis
•Bunions
•Knee pain

Come for a B3 session so we can release your scars and and scar tissue and activate the effected muscles to help improve mobility, ease discomfort and restore functional balance back to your body. The Summer Special runs until the end of November - 30% off.
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Giving Merlin props for having such great alignment despite only having three legs. 💛 He loves welcoming people to the studio 🤸🏻‍♀️
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Fascia is a system of the body that we’ve only fairly recently begun to understand - it is the connective tissue that surrounds and supports all your muscles, organs, blood vessels and nerve fibres, giving your body internal structure. Did you know that fascia has more nerve receptors than muscle and almost as many as skin? This means that the next time you have a stiff neck or sore lower back, the pain is more likely to be coming from your fascia than the muscles where you feel the pain. Fascia enjoys compression and sustained stretching, which helps the fascia to become more pliable.
In Brain Body Balance, we apply compression to the fascia and a static pulse to wake up the brain-to-body neurological pathways, activating the body’s own innate healing and repair response.
Fun facts about fascia:
😱 It tightens up when we’re stressed.
💧It contains 70 % water, which is why it’s so important to stay hydrated.
🪢 Healthy fascia is slippery whereas, unhealthy fascia is congested and sticky resulting in knots and trigger points.
🥳 Mood influences fascia - It is theorised that fascia carries our emotions, which is why our body feels so much stiffer if we’re having a bad day. This would also explain why many people experience an emotional release in a yoga class or bodywork session.

Don’t let the end of the year madness tighten up your fascia! Come for a B3 session so that you feel more freedom in your body and more balanced in your emotions. You can come for something specific, or just a general tune up. 💪🏼
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, embraced by a garden sanctuary. Come restore with us Tuesday and Thursday evenings as we breathe deeper and move slower, letting the sound of chirping birds wash away our end of year woes. 🕊️🦜🦉
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