nervous system regulation

Libra & Scorpio Season: Yoga for Lower Back Relief, Hip Openers, and Diaphragmatic Breathing

Libra & Scorpio Season: Yoga for Lower Back Relief, Hip Openers, and Diaphragmatic Breathing

Libra is a cardinal air sign. Its instinct is to initiate through relationship, weighing one perspective against another until something resolves into balance or other form of resolution. It's the sign most associated with analysis, though the analysis is rarely detached, it's usually in service of a relationship or a decision that involves someone else.

Scorpio is a fixed water sign, and the fixed quality is how it contrast with other water signs, such as Cancer's water. Scorpio's water channels and embodies. This likely is the reason why folks with strong Scorpio placements often are seen as ‘intense’, because a fixed water sign often absorbs what other people haven't fully metabolized themselves. Often, water signs holds things in the hips. We’ve included effective hip openers for this reason.

How to Relax: A Nervous System Reset Through Porch Sitting

Spending time outdoors can…

  • lower blood pressure⁠

  • reduce levels of cortisol (stress hormones)⁠

  • strengthen immunity ⁠

  • relieve anxiety⁠

  • improve concentration⁠

  • improve short-term memory ⁠

  • energize the body + mind

  • improve your mood ⁠

  • strengthen sleep patterns⁠

August is Leo & Virgo Season

August is Leo & Virgo Season

Leo governs the heart and the upper back. Virgo governs the gut, the small intestine, the nervous system's capacity to sort and integrate. The elemental shift from Fire to Earth three quarters in the month is a shift that is both seasonal and energetic, where we move from the expansive outward brightness of Leo into Virgo's more exacting, inward attention.

This August’s lunar cycle is also marked by eclipses, with the new moon on August 12 is a solar eclipse, and the full moon on August 28 is a lunar eclipse.

Relaxation Techniques Rooted in Nature: Forest Bathing with Alder Trees on Bowen Island

Relaxation Techniques Rooted in Nature: Forest Bathing with Alder Trees on Bowen Island

Spending Time with Trees Reduces Cortisol Levels

Welcome to Nectar Yoga Retreat’s wellness blog, where we explore holistic and yoga practices that deepen your connection to nature, self and other relations. If you’ve been on this journey with us, this year on our wellness blog, we’ve been focusing on the mind-body-spirit benefits of plants and certain fungi. This month, we’re spotlighting the alder trees residing on the forest where Nectar is located, and the therapeutic practice of forest bathing with these majestic trees.

The Healing Power of Forest Bathing

Forest bathing, or "Shinrin-yoku" from its Japanese origins, is more than just a walk in the woods. It’s a mindful practice of immersing oneself in the forest atmosphere, engaging all the senses, and finding solace in one’s relationality with all of nature. Studies have shown that being among alder trees and other trees in the form of forest bathing significantly lowers cortisol levels—the body’s primary stress hormone. This reduction in cortisol is linked to decreased blood pressure, improved mood, and enhanced immune function, making forest bathing one of the most effective relaxation techniques available.

July is Cancer & Leo Season

July is Cancer & Leo Season

Solar plexus tapping is a percussive self-massage technique applied to the soft triangle just below the sternum, where the ribcage divides. The solar plexus (technically the celiac plexus) sits at the junction of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, and in yogic tradition marks the third chakra, the seat of personal agency and the capacity to act from one's own centre. 

Tapping here stimulates vagal tone and engages the enteric nervous system, making it a direct entry point for stress relief and nervous system regulation at any point of acute overwhelm during the day, not only within a formal practice. It also improves circulation to the digestive organs, which matters in Cancer season, as our stomachs so often gets affected when we have a lot on our minds.

Summer Solstice 2026: Yoga for the Longest Day

Summer Solstice 2026: Yoga for the Longest Day

The summer solstice falls on June 21 this year, the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere and the point at which the sun reaches its longest presence in the sky before beginning its cyclical return southward. The word solstice comes from the Latin sol sistere, meaning the sun stands still.

This day also marks the entry of the sun into Cancer, making it a seasonal peak and simultaneously an astrological turning point, the moment when summer's outward expansion begins its pivot toward the more inward, receptive, and home-like quality of Cancer season. At Nectar Retreat on Bowen, by late June, the forest is fully canopied, the sunlight filtering through the trees rather than shining directly.

This post offers a short yoga practice and a few ways to mark the summer solstice, whether you are on Bowen or anywhere else. Details on the ever-popular, in-person evening Summer Solstice Yin Sound Bath at Nectar are at the end.