By Robert W. Walker
Any yoga practitioner will tell you that a mat is the best thing you could buy and use to improve your yoga experience. An eco friendly yoga mat increases comfort by cushioning your body from the hard surface of the floor or ground. Mats also increase traction, so you do not slip and hurt yourself when executing postures, or asanas as they are called in yoga lingo. Given their importance, one needs to learn to value and care for their mat.
How you value your mat reflects how much you love yoga and yourself. You could get off to a good start by buying an eco friendly mat. Eco friendly mats are made with recycled materials, or with processes that minimize or eliminate negative environmental effects. Yoga fosters inner peace and harmony with all around us, so by making smart choices that help preserve nature, we embrace and apply the underlying ideals of yoga.
The next thing you can do is to maintain your eco friendly yoga mat so that it lasts as long as possible. This is not just for environmental consciousness and practice, but also for practical financial reasons. By caring for your mat, you extend its lifespan and reduce the frequency at which you will need to buy new mats. Regular cleansing of the mat surface will do a lot to keep it clean. A clean mat looks good, especially if you perform yoga in a class.
Light cleaning can be done with some water and a cloth. Dampen a small area of the surface with water, then rub it clean with the towel. Work on a small area at a time to minimize water absorption. Use detergents or soap only when the stains are deep and dark. Mats can absorb soap into the porous structure of the material, which could combine with sweat and cause the surface to become slippery during use. By minimizing the use of soap, you lessen the likelihood of this potential danger. If you must use soap, squeeze out any soapy liquid by rolling up the mat and stepping on it then rinsing it, repeating at least twice.
Drying your mat will keep it odor-free and minimize the amount of bacteria that may live on it. Hanging it up to dry after washing or use in exercise and leaving it to air out will dry the mat quickly. It is important to dry the mat before putting it away, since rolling it up will reduce the surface area that moisture could escape from. If you leave it out in the sun to dry though, remember to take it inside after a short while. Leaving it out in the sun could damage the rubber and make it stiff and rough.
Avoid rolling your mat too tightly to reduce the amount of curl that the mat retains when you roll it out. Also, roll it such that the side of the mat you use during exercise is facing outward, so that the curled-up corners will lie flat against the floor when you lay it out. These are just some of the things you can do to value and care for your eco friendly yoga mat.
Robert W. (Bob) Walker reports on a number of natural health and wellness issues and believes the ecological way is the only way. Please visit his blog http://www.ecofriendlyyogamatblog.com/
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posted by Cheryl Levesque @ 9:48 PM
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