Any writing work I do, whether copywriting, ghostblogging, copy-editing or fiction, benefits from getting loosey-goosey. My most inspired (word-wise) moments dawn in a state of mindless focus. Sometimes this happens by accident, like when I’m brewing tea, just kind of watching it steep, or on purpose.

I used to make fun of my sister, the artist who lives in California, about being a little too…Californian. After all, she was raised in DC with the rest of us, the big poseur! I would gently clang tiny, imaginary cymbals between my thumb and index fingers while improvising a new age chant each time she did something I deemed in the same realm as aura color reading.

During a period in my life that got me wound tighter than Scarlett O’Hara’s corset, she risked being teased (again) and suggested yoga.

That was over seven years ago, and since then, well, let’s just say I’ve “Liked” yoga on Facebook. I can’t speak for hot yoga variations; the thought of a room made humid by an entire class’s collective perspiring  is vastly unappealing, but Iyengar and Vinyasa yoga really do make a difference.

Yoga’s taught me to relax without allowing my mind to wander,  I’m capable of more than I realize, and that I actually can (almost) get my shins to touch my forehead. If I try really, really hard. On a good day.

To shake off deadline stress or the sense that there’s a wall built around the good parts of my brain, my go-to poses are Down Dog, Triangle Pose, Tree Pose, and Standing Forward Bend.

Down Dog, or Adho Mukha Svanasana, both calms and gets the mojo going.

Down Dog

My favorites, Utthita Trikonasana/Triangle and Vrksasana/Tree, smooth a furrowed brow like no other.

Tree Pose

Triangle Pose

When there’s no time for anything else, Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana) is a stress Deathstar, centering after just a few breaths.

Standing Forward Bend

So, what’s the lesson in all this? Keep an open mind? Try yoga? Maybe, but as far as my sister’s concerned, it’s “I told you so”!

*all yoga pose images via Yoga Journal

*Ganesh image source