Forming Healthy Habits with Charlotte #FromWomentoWomen

Hi Peaceful Souls,

Forming healthy habits is never an easy task, but Charlotte Skogsberg, also known as Yogicha on Instagram might be able to help you to better understand the science behind healthy habits through an intriguing mix of yoga, psychology, and Ayurveda.

Charlotte is a clinical psychologist who pursued psychology as a knowledge because she was driven to better understand her own self. What started as an unconscious exploration now seems to be the logical course in her life as she found herself on the yogic lifestyle – which she explains is a different form of seeking answers.

Charlotte is dropping truth bombs while wearing the Second Skin bodysuit in Blue Tiger.

Through our chat with her, we found out that yoga habits can have both physical and psychological effects on us.

“When we practice, we are conditioning our nervous system. This means that we teach ourselves how to deal with things in life from the mat.” She explains.

“We stay in difficult positions and concentrate hard to simultaneously breathe consciously and slowly. We create and strengthen neurological pathways for this, which carries over to our day to day lives. We clear the energy channels of the body and the mind.” Charlotte continues to say that through continued yoga practice, we gain an increased capacity to focus on our daily lives, which can assist us in finding solutions we seek when faced with issues.

Continuous commitment to practicing yoga can also assist us to be aware and to stay aware. “We can exist in the space between a stimuli and a response. We can stop ourselves from immediately reacting to things happening to us. We can stay calm and more poised, which in the end helps us to make the right choices.” She says.

She explains that we can also carry over that calm we feel in yoga into our life by combining it with a mental exercise that supports our physical practice.

“One of the best things to do for mental exercise is incorporating seated meditation in our daily routine. Take some time to meditate early in the morning when we are still rather settled in the mind before we start to plan our day. Then to end our meditation, we can write a couple of pages in a journal. We want to befriend our mind and to do so, we need to know it. That’s what both these exercises allow us to do.” Charlotte explains.

She explores the connection between yoga, psychology, and Ayurveda more on her website, Yogicha, where she also provides workshops.

Forming healthy habits is important when we want to make permanent, sustainable change.

Meghan previously talked about how she stays motivated to move, but forming healthy habits is easier said than done. Charlotte goes further into the science behind setting up new routines. “When we’re trying to form a new habit it’s important not to bite off more than you can chew. Start with just something small. In yoga for instance, a 20-minute yoga practice is a good start – it’s not too hard. It’s also essential that you schedule this new routine of yours in a way that you can do it every day."

"A habit only becomes a habit after you make it into a pattern of behavior.”

Charlotte goes onto to share her own morning rituals; She starts her day with coconut oil pooling to eliminate the toxins that have accumulated in the mouth during the night. She then drinks a soothing concoction of warm water with lemon and little bit of salt before her 25-minute morning meditation, which is then followed by a yoga practice either at home or with her Mysore teacher in the shala.

She confesses that she’s a morning person but explains that choosing the right time of day is an important part of forming routines and habits we can stick to. “Mornings are great for new routines. because when we have busy lives – we tend to fill up the day with a to-do list very quickly, and other issues tend to take over.” Charlotte also explains that mornings are also important in yoga. “According to the yogic lifestyle, closely in line with the Ayurvedic principles, yoga should be practiced between 6 and 10am which is what I do. I tend to finish my meditation just around 6am so the mat is rolled out soon after that!”

Charlotte’s top two tips – to pick something that won’t overwhelm you, and to try to do it in the morning – are practical and logical. “If you can commit to these few rules, you will then receive the benefit of the very quick results, just within weeks. And it will keep you motivated to keep up the good work.” Her own habits are a vivid demonstration of how these principles work.

If you’re interested in getting in contact with Charlotte, head on over to her Instagram page or see what she’s up to on her Youtube. You can also check out her website to see what else she has to say. (Psst, check out the blog section!)

Aiming to form healthy habits,

Isabelle Moon