What is the best green tea brand?

This is a hard question to answer–there are so many different types of green tea, and there are many worthy brands that produce extraordinarily high quality green tea!

While I can’t give a definitive answer to the question of what is the best brand of green tea, I can enumerate several different very high quality brands that you can check out and see which ones you like best.

As with most things flavor-related, “best” is highly subjective when it comes to green tea.

I could present you with the rarest, most highly prized Matcha ever grown by the hands of men, and you could very well prefer the workhorse Matcha that you drink day in day out.

Tastes are funny like that.

Also, most of the super high quality Matcha available comes from smaller Matcha producers who sell their tea primarily in Japan.

I’ve mentioned places you can buy high quality Matcha online elsewhere, like Mightly Leaf, or the Raw Superfoods Superstore.

A good supplier of green tea supplements  and a great company that I personally use for sourcing my natural vitamins is organifigreenjuicereviews.org.

The list that follows introduces you to the best green tea brands available through Amazon.com both Matcha and non-Matcha.

Check them out and let me know your vote for best green tea brand

When doing yoga’s neck stretching exercises, skip the headstand

Chronic neck pain is one of the most common physical problems in the U.S., which is why many yoga enthusiasts use neck stretching exercises to ease aches and increase their spinal flexibility. In response to a recent New York Times article alleging that yoga can cause serious neck injuries, a media editor for the Huffington Post recommended simply skipping the advanced poses.

Editor Sandip Roy explained that the Times article was not off-base. Yes, he said, highly acrobatic yoga poses can lead to neck or back injuries. However, Roy noted that the article – which has generated a lot of media discussion of late – comes to a fairly obvious conclusion: "Headstands are not for everyone."

Essentially, to do yoga for a healthy back and neck, it's important to stick to a soothing regimen, like Dahn Yoga, that does not push the spine to its limits. By utilizing such a routine, it is possible to improve the range of motion of the neck and reduce aches.

According to a survey conducted by the National Institute of Health Statistics, 15 percent of Americans report having neck pain, making it the third most common type of chronic ache.

People with osteoarthritis may use yoga for healthy knees

Having osteoarthritis can be seriously painful, especially when the condition affects the joints of the legs. Even for folks who are seasoned yoga practitioners, it's not always clear what the best stretching exercises for knee pain are.

Still, a new study has concluded that people with osteoarthritis can use yoga for healthy knees. In particular, the report noted that the holistic health routine is good for individuals who are over the age of 50, obese and suffering from degradation of the knee joints.

Researchers began by asking dozens of obese osteoarthritis patients to engage in weekly yoga classes. The program utilized stretching exercises that had been modified to suit people with limited mobility and flexibility.

The team found that people who used yoga tended to experience improvements in stiffness and pain level. The results, which included no negative side effects, appeared in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 27 million Americans suffer from osteoarthritis. Is it any wonder that in a survey, 18 percent of adults told the agency that they had experienced knee pain in the prior 30 days?

Arizona yoga retreats say ‘No, thank you!’ to hot yoga

Even in the Grand Canyon State, where Arizona yoga retreats dot the landscape and enthusiasts pose in the shade, the idea of "hot" yoga isn't very common. And according to a recent report, such a routine may not be good for practitioners' well-being, anyway.

According to holistic expert and physical therapist Diana Zotos, hot yoga – that is, a regimen performed in an area heated to between 90 and 105 degrees F – may not be appropriate for everyone.

She explained that people who get heat stroke easily, have blood pressure problems or have difficulty avoiding dehydration may want to think twice before trying such a technique.

Rather than being yoga for healthy skin, a hot yoga class can coat the epidermis in sweat, which may be irritating. Likewise, tight clothing can add to general discomfort.

Zotos recommended always going easy on oneself, drinking plenty of water and pursuing a yoga regimen that is low-intensity and promotes temperature equilibrium.

In that vein, Dahn Yoga classes may be a prime candidate, since they promote gentle posing and stretching, uniforms made with loose-knit, all-natural fibers, cool room temperatures and the balancing of body heat with cool energy.

Yoga for healthy skin is easiest in the warm climate of Arizona

If you're shopping around for a holistic program that can help you focus on good skin care, look no further than your nearest Arizona community center. That's because yoga for healthy skin is easy to practice when done in the warm, dry climate of the Grand Canyon State.

Here are some tips for maintaining firm, younger-looking skin with mind-body practices:

1. Enjoy warm days outdoors. Doing yoga in the warmth of an Arizona sunrise can rekindle your spirit and make you glad to greet the day. Likewise, a warm, temperate climate keeps your body's energy flowing smoothly and evenly.

2. Stay cool with a yoga uniform. Rather than buying restrictive, clingy yoga outfits, stay cool with a loose, organic-fiber smock and pair of pants. Wearing such a uniform (especially one that's all white) can help your body regulate its temperature and keep your skin cool and uninflamed.

3. Get a few minutes of direct sunlight. Many Americans get far too little vitamin D in their diets. To help make sure you're topped up on this nutrient, get 15 minutes of direct sun exposure each day. This allows your skin to synthesize its own supply of vitamin D.

4. Try laughing exercises outdoors. Arizona's famous energy vortices will give your skin's firmness a boost, and so will laughing exercises, which make the perfect complement to yoga for healthy aging.

Gaga’s trainer says yoga for health and fitness is one thing, excess exercise quite another

If you practice low-impact varieties like those taught at Dahn Yoga community centers, there's hardly any amount of classes you could take that would wear you out.

How much yoga is too much? If you practice low-impact varieties like those taught at Dahn Yoga community centers, there's hardly any amount of classes you could take that would wear you out. But for people in other, more aerobic regimens, doing yoga for health and fitness can quickly turn into over-exercising.

That was the main point put forth by Tricia Donegan during a recent interview with the Huffington Post.

If that name sounds vaguely familiar, it's probably because her friend and number-one client – songstress and eccentric clotheshorse Lady Gaga – recently praised her during an episode of the Ellen Degeneres Show.

Now, Donegan is speaking out against a trend she and plenty of public health experts have noticed among American women and men: pushing too hard to be thin.

She emphasized that maintaining a healthy weight and a fit body is a holistic pursuit, one that should be done slowly and safely, with the best stretching exercises and without radical dieting.

"I don't use the word 'diet' – it's an awful word. Whole foods are best. Eating slow is best," Donegan said, quoted by the news source. "Most important is self-compassion. If clients can be nice to themselves, they'll slowly make that internal change."