The yoga community is a great place to celebrate and contemplate what it means to be part of this planet. Donate Yoga encourages you to find an even greater appreciation for each breath this Earth Day, and as you do, to consider how to make your impact on the planet a positive one.
Here are three lifestyle tips to try out this Earth Day, and every day!
1. Connect with the Outdoors
Many people find it spiritual to believe that we are all connected on Earth, but it’s also very scientific. The fact is that we are organic matter, no different than the plants and animals we see in nature. Yet we live most of our lives very separate from these things. Instead, we are surrounded by buildings, streets, cars, and technology. It’s no surprise that we feel so cut off from the rest of the world!
One of the best ways to help yourself and the planet is to develop a closer connection to Earth. This connection is written in our DNA, but the more we can integrate it into our everyday lives, the more we will materialize harmony. Connection can look different for everyone, but there’s one easy place to start: outside!
Try going for a walk in a green space today, taking your yoga practice outside, or even just taking a few deep breaths of fresh air. Then, try it again tomorrow! Before you know it, those moments outside might just become the most important ones in your day.
2. Practice Mindful Eating
There’s no element of life that connects us to Earth more than our eating habits. In nature, diet almost entirely determines the way that a creature interacts with its environment, and humans are no exception. Unfortunately, society has cut most people off from the means of food production, so it is much more difficult to see how these decisions affect the planet.
Mindful eating urges us to challenge this process by thinking deeply, with gratitude, about where our food came from. If the answer is that you don’t know, or maybe you don’t want to know—your diet may be harming you as much as the environment.
There is a worlds-worth of resources to help guide you toward a diet you can be proud of. This mainly consists of choosing foods that are produced with less water, less deforestation, and less distance to be transported. These three factors, along with the high emission value of methane gas, are the main reasons that environmentalists are eliminating meat from their diets. In short: it's about choosing a diet that is sustainable, which brings us to the next point!
3. Live Sustainably
In a world full of different products and services that claim to be ‘sustainable,’ it can be easy to forget what that word really means. Yet if we take our own bodies as an example, it’s easy to realize how intuitive this concept actually is. We all need food, water, and energy to survive. Not to mention, we need our bodies to stay intact. And the planet is not all that different.
We live in a world of man-made things: the places we live, work and play, the streets we take to get there, even the objects we use along the way. It sounds so simple, but one of the best ways to truly integrate sustainability in your life is to actively think about the fact that this man-made world was created by the natural one. The motto ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ is listed in that order for a reason. The absolute best way we can live more sustainably is to live more simply, with less stuff.
We can all live more sustainably, and it takes a million forms. Maybe you decide to only get coffee in a reusable cup. Maybe you start unplugging electronics when you aren’t using them. Maybe you switch out your old lightbulbs for LEDs, stop eating meat or even buy an electric car. You make a difference with the decisions that you make every day, choose with love.