In the days when I used to juggle a demanding television production career with part-time yoga teaching, every Friday afternoon I would struggle through Sydney’s rush hour traffic to prepare to teach my beginners class. One time I arrived at the yoga studio with 30 minutes to spare before class began. I gratefully collapsed, exhausted onto a bolster into a supported child pose and promptly fell asleep - half an hour later I awoke, refreshed and ready to teach my class!

As we enter the season of coughs and colds, it's time to enlist some natural strategies for strengthening our immunity. Along with dosing up on the garlic and popping the Vitamin C tablets, yoga can help provide some much needed protection against the nasty winter ‘lurgy'.

Have you noticed that your yoga practice is becoming yet another task on your daily ‘to do’ list? If the answer is yes then yoga may, paradoxically, be adding to your stress levels! As we strive to stretch, strengthen and even contort our bodies into that illusive asana that we aspire towards, we may forget to provide adequate time for rest within our daily practice. When we give ourselves the time and space to balance our active practice with some restorative poses or sequences, we reap the rewards of rejuvenating our nervous system and reviving our depleted energy.