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Weekly favorites

I decided to start a post series called weekly favorites and share with you the things that make my weeks a little bit better.

I’ve been doing yoga for about 14 days in a row now, and I feel super good. On Tuesday, I met a friend at a gym for a good leg workout and a yoga-session afterwards. So much nicer to practice handstands when you have lots of space around and someone to help you with your pose. We already organized another date for next week to practice more. Also, my roomies have got excited about doing yoga with me, and we’ve done two workouts together this week.

Still so happy about our trip to Lammassaari last Friday. When the days are getting colder and darker in Finland, it’s easier and easier to come up with excuses not to spend time outdoors. But when you wear warm clothes, maybe bring some hot chocolate with you and have a friend to go with, it’s a lot more fun!

In spite of the ever colder weather, I try to walk to the Uni as often as I can. A good way to motivate myself to walk despite the freezing weather is to go by a nice coffee place and get my favorite delicious mocha latte to go 😉

Whenever I can, I try to have a slow morning. Today I didn’t have my first class until 12 o’clock but I woke up already after 8am to have a long shower, delicious breakfast and time to read some of my novel. We also had a long chat on Skype with my boyfriend and talked about things we could do together despite the awful long distance, and we (okay mainly he) came up with some very good ideas.

The rest of the week will be about taking it easy and working out, finishing some assignments for uni as well as attending a friend’s Halloween party and another friend’s farewell dinner.

Yoga for a beginner: How to start?

Blog, Yoga & Training

I first started yoga with a two-week trial at a hot yoga studio in Helsinki and fell in love with it. I realised how it is such a great exercise to build a stronger body and a more balanced mind. I think the best thing about the classes are, that a good teacher can help you with the breathing techniques as well as correct your posture. However, there are so many other ways to start yoga if you’re not willing to pay over a hundred euros a month for the classes at a special studio. Here are some good tips on how to start yoga at home or at a gym.

Yoga apps

There are so many different apps that you can download. Many of them even give you an opportunity to try it out for a specific amount of time before actually purchasing the app. I use Asana Rebel, because I like the idea of mixing traditional yoga poses with a more fitness kind of workout. I’ve also heard very good things about Yogaia -app. Sjana Elise’s BAM-program on the Sweat-app must be good as well, considering how her insta looks like.

YouTube -channels

Many yogis share their best tips and flow-workouts on YouTube. You can find thousands of different kind of yoga-videos, no matter if you are a beginner or already on advanced level. My personal favorite channels are Boho Beautiful and Leigh Butler.

Yogis on Instagram

As I already mentioned, Sjana Elise’s instafeed is super inspirational. So are The Southern Yogi’s, Skenz’s and Yoga Girl’s feeds. They post lot’s of videos of their yoga flows and very advanced poses, and they are very inspiring.

Classes at a gym

Lot’s of gyms have yoga as part of their weekly schedule of group fitness classes. I think these classes are a great way for a newbie to start yoga. However, sometimes the instructors aren’t exactly certified yoga teachers but still know quite well what they are doing.

I think the biggest misconceptions people have about yoga is that they think it is very difficult and that you have to be very flexible in order to start it in the first place. However, starting yoga makes you more flexible and the best thing about it is to notice how you get better and better by every workout.

Hope you found these tips helpful!

How to create motivation?

Blog, Personal development

Fall and spring are usually the seasons when we start working with new things, set new goals for ourselves or start at a new job or school. However, sometimes it might be very difficult to motivate ourselves to actually start doing – at least I am a master of coming up with excuses when it comes to starting a healthier diet and cutting out sugary sweets.

I think that lacking motivation is a very common problem for all of us. We know that we should do something and our subconscious reminds us of it everyday, but we just rather tell ourselves how busy we are at the moment, and how we can easily postpone it and start later. However, the conflicting thing about motivation is that it increases after we actually start working for our goal. Whenever I have a new project to work on, I might lack some motivation until I actually start making things happen with the project and get really excited to finish it.

For me, the best way to get motivated to start with something new and get inspired, is to imagine myself in a situation where I have already accomplished the goal I’m pursuing. This works for me with everything: exercising, yoga, school work and healthy eating. I try to create a comprehensive picture of myself in the mental image: I think about how would I feel like, look like and act like when I have achieved my goal and how will my life have changed and what value will the goal have brought into my life. In order to the mental image to work as a driving force, I really need to remind myself of the vision often enough and save the picture into my mind. Once my goal is constantly in my head, I subconsciously start working for the it and identifying the means to achieve the objective. And again, when I’ve started to work for it, I start seeing results and therefore really want to keep going and achieve the goal.

Winter Wonderland in the middle of October

Blog, Wellbeing

Surprisingly, we got our first snow yesterday in Helsinki so I figured with a friend that what would be a better way to enjoy the snow than visiting a winter wonderland? Today we went early in the morning to walk around Lammassaari in Helsinki. It is crazy how we traveled only for about 20 minutes but felt like we were in a completely different world once we got there. Everything was so peaceful and quiet, trees were covered with snow and only a few people were wandering around the island besides us. The only noise was snow creaking under our shoes.

Spending about 2 hours just walking around, listening to the silence and taking some beautiful photos made me very relaxed and happy. Being surrounded by the hustle of a big city makes us easily forget the nature and the stress-shooting effect it has- Sometimes the only way to remind us of the beautiful world we live in, is to go and explore it.

At least once a week I try to go out walking somewhere a little remote, where I can just wander around, unwind and be alone with my thoughts. It is proved, how even thirty minutes spent in nature releases stress and increases happiness. Walking around and taking it easy in peace and quiet really makes a difference and is a great way to balance life. This fall my aim has been to take more time just to myself, and instead of being very busy all the time or working out by going for a quick and exhausting run, I have dedicated time to go for long walks and to do calm flow yoga sessions. Interestingly, after leaving my usual HIIT-workouts and long runs, I feel more energetic and fitter than I’ve felt in a long time. I’m not saying everyone should stop going for runs or doing their tough workouts if they really enjoy them, but everyone should rather think what kind of exercise makes them happy and helps them to release stress.

After we felt like we had enjoyed the winter wonderland enough, we decided to start our weekend by making some rice porridge, tasting a new kind of glögi (a traditional Finnish christmas drink) as well as by nibbling on some traditional Christmas chocolates. I think it is a very Finnish thing to go crazy about Christmas two months beforehand, no matter if we yet have had the first snow or not.

15 things you want to know about me

Blog, Wellbeing

For years I have wanted to start a blog but I’ve always been too afraid to do it, so I’m already super proud of myself for doing this.
The reason I want to write a blog is because I have so many thoughts in my head and writing them down helps me unwind. I know that there are other people in this world thinking or stressing about the same stuff as I am, so I thought this would be a great way to interact with similar people. Also, lots of my friends have always told me how they could see me as a blogger and how I should start blogging and share my tips about healthy and happy living as well as being efficient and staying motivated.
My aim is to encourage and inspire people to follow their dreams as well as help them to achieve a higher level of wellbeing and happiness. Spreading positive thoughts and surrounding myself with happiness keeps me going.
I live in Helsinki, Finland, at least for now.
I study Political Science in the University of Helsinki. The best thing about my studies and the Uni are all the amazing people I’ve met there and how they have taught me new things about the world and myself and changed the way I see the things.
The biggest passion of mine is traveling. My favorites of the 19 countries I’ve visited this year have been Austria, Canada, Republic of Macedonia, Slovakia and Montenegro. The best places have been the ones near mountains, where I can go hiking in a good company and just admire the beautiful nature. I will share my best tips about budget friendly traveling and the best destinations with you for sure!
The main reasons why I get to travel so much is because my family lives all around the world and my boyfriend is Australian. I’m super excited about going to the Oz for the first time to spend 4 weeks over there during Christmas time.
I’m just finishing my bachelor’s degree at the Uni and I think it’s time for me to say bye to Finland more permanently next year. That’s probably something I’ll be discussing quite a lot in here.
After studying very hard for two years, I have lots of free time this fall and I’m able to do yoga almost everyday. It’s amazing to see how I’m getting better and better by the day and learning new things such as handstand.
Also, because of all the free time, I spend way too much time analyzing my mind and thinking about what to do next in my life. Couple of times I’ve actually googled “How do you actually know what you want” and “What to do with my life”. Seriously.
I love food. And chocolate. My diet is glutenfree and I call myself a-part-time-vegetarian. I’ll definitely share my best and yummiest recipes with you!
My friends often make fun of me for being almost too productive. I always finish all my tasks before deadlines and get lots done during a day. To be honest, I used to be quite an overachiever, but during the last year or two I’ve learned to be more gracious toward myself. Basically it means that I’ve found some kind of a balance in my life.
I get super anxious when people ask me what I want to do when I grow up or what is my dream job because I honestly have no idea. About every two weeks I have a conversation with my roomie about why is it so hard to actually recognize the things you want instead of the things you should want or the society wants from you.
Yes, I live with two roomies. We’ve had the best year living together dancing around the apartment and having deep conversation while finishing a bottle of Port.
I really need a Cockapoo-puppy in my life.