Author: Claudia Fountain

Yoga teacher, personal fitness trainer, and student of Life. Claudia’s fascination with movement and body potential began with her slipping in to the ballet studio across the street from her house when she was seven, where she sat in a corner and watched in wonder. Later, she boogied her way through aerobics classes, ultimately becoming a certified instructor. Finally deciding to make the leap from a traditional office career to a movement based career in personal fitness training, Claudia went back to school to complete her Undergraduate and Graduate degrees in Kinesiology and Exercise Physiology. In 2003, following a health scare, she began to explore yoga as a way to manage her stress and reconnect with her body in a new way. “I practice yoga to wake up from the inside out. Every time I step on my mat, or sit on my meditation cushion, I am there for the inward journey of discovery. Yoga is the process of peeling away layers, always moving toward my true, authentic self. The process is fun, exciting, joyful, sometimes terrifying, but always feels like I am traveling home. This is also why I teach. I love to share knowledge, and offer tools to my clients so that they may become empowered to have their own breakthroughs.” Claudia completed her 200 and 500 hour RYT through Jennifer Prugh’s "Joy of Yoga" teacher training. Her vinyasa flow classes are anchored by a strong background in exercise physiology, and are deeply centered in a mindful dance with the breath and the body.

What is it you plan to do with this one precious summer?

July 2, 2025 by Claudia Fountain, posted in Meditation, newsletter, Nutrition, Recipes

To paraphrase Mary Oliver’s poem, but the question is sincere. What is your plan for this one precious day?

I have a very sick cat at the moment. My emotions have been volatile, as he is a most precious being, and I’ve had the privilege of having him in my life for 12 years. I’m leaning into each day with him, moments spent with him laying beside me, hearing his purr as I comb him. It’s these moments that truly matter. These, and holding my emotions tenderly as they shift and change.

THE SUMMER DAY

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean —
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

–Mary Oliver

While I began this newsletter on a more somber note, it also has many good things enclosed (including Mary Oliver!). I just completed and uploaded a brand new meditation on Insight Timer-Resting In Gentle Awareness. It’s FREE to listen to, no subscription needed. Also, what’s more delicious than avocados or mangoes? When they’re combined in a yummy chilled Avacado Mango Salsa. Recipe provided below!

I hope your day–and your summer–is filled with many good things. Naps and purring cats, good books and good food, floats down a river and sunsets over the ocean are a few things that come to mind.

In good health & wellness,
Claudia

P.S. My little labor of love (aka Made With Mantra Shop) on Etsy is having a summer sale. If you’re looking for thoughtful handmade gifts for loved ones, it would make my day if you dropped in for a visit.

The buttery avocado and sweet mango in this recipe provide healthy mono-unsaturated fats, fiber, and a high dose of vitamin C.

AVOCADO MANGO SALSA

3 mangoes, peeled, pitted, and diced
2 avocados, peeled, pitted, and diced
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can sweet corn, rinsed and drained
1 red onion, diced
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 limes, juiced
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1 small jalapeño, minced and seeds removed **If you like it on the spicier side.**
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Cover and chill for at least 30 minutes. Enjoy by the spoonful, or with your favorite crispy corn chips or raw vegetables.

Vagus Nerve Wellness

March 26, 2025 by Claudia Fountain, posted in Recipes, Self Care, wellness

Welcome to Spring! 🌷 And, my bi-monthly newsletter. The topic–the vagus nerve and it’s connection to better wellness.

The vagus nerve (also known as the vagal nerves) connects the brain to the heart and digestive system, and modulates specific body systems such as digestion, heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and immune system responses. The vagus nerve is a key component to the parasympathetic nervous system (also known as the rest and digest system), and is the counter to the sympathetic nervous system (flight or fight response). Interestingly, it’s also the longest cranial nerve running from the brain to the intestinal system via a long and wandering route throughout the body, connecting with almost every major organ.

Increasing “vagal tone” is one way to improve personal wellness, particularly if you’re under stress or have increased anxiety. Here are 4 simple ways to improve vagal tone, and decrease stress:

Humming. Yes, humming! Try humming to your favorite tune, or extending the “mmmm” sound when chanting OM
Laughter. They say laughter is the best medicine, and I totally agree. Watch your favorite comedies, or listen to a comedian. You can even simply start chuckling for no reason, then let yourself drop into the feeling of laughter.
Cool down. Try finishing your shower with cool or cold water for just a minute or two. Dunking your face in cold water is also highly effective in helping to stop spiraling anxiety or panic. [2008 research].
Slow down your breathing. My favorite method for slowing my breath down is the 4-7-8 pattern. When we are in an elevated state of emotional response our heart rate and breathing increase. This is our sympathetic/flight or fight response kicking in. Slowing down the breath–in particular, lengthening the exhale–slows the heart rate and signals to the brain that you’re safe. A few years back I created a short guided 4-7-8 breath video. You can find it HERE.

In closing, I’ve also included a simple recipe for DIY turmeric tincture. There is some scientific evidence that turmeric can reduce anxiety and inflammation in the body. And finally, for just “good energy” or “good vibes”, check out my little labor of love on ETSY–Made With Mantra Shop. Gemology is a little hobby of mine. 🙏🏼

In health & wellness,
Claudia

Turmeric, a deep golden-orange spice, a relative of ginger, is a flowering perennial and herbaceous plant native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. The rhizomes are used both fresh and dried, and have been used in ayurvedic and other forms of traditional medicine in China and India for hundreds of years. The active ingredient is a polyphenol (a natural compound) called curcumin. Turmeric is also rich in phytonutrients. Some of the benefits of turmeric include lowering of: inflammation, arthritis symptoms, hyperlipidemia (cholesterol in blood), anxiety, and metabolic syndrome. [Johns Hopkins Medicine]

This is a recipe for making a simple turmeric tincture. Just add a dropper full to smoothies, soups, or other beverages.

1 cup diced fresh turmeric
1 cup of at least 70% alcohol based solvent like vodka (can also substitute organic raw unfiltered apple cider vinegar, or food grade vegetable glycerin)
1 tbsp ground black pepper, or 2tbsp whole black pepper

Place all ingredients in a sterilized glass canning jar with lid. Let the mixture sit for a minimum of 2 weeks, as long as a month. Shake the jar daily. Strain through cheese cloth, and pour into dark dropper bottles. ***Turmeric can stain hands, clothes, and any tools used. Wear gloves to prevent yellowing of hands.

A little riff on time

November 2, 2024 by Claudia Fountain, posted in Fitness, newsletter

“Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it, you can never get it back.”
– Harvey Mackay

Maybe it’s the season. Maybe it’s an aging parent. Or, a sense of my own mortality. Milestone birthdays tend to bring up a lot of feels for me. Time seems to slip by faster and faster. Is it the passing of a decade, or the beginning of a decade? The most common theory on why we perceive the speeding up of time is that our perception of time is directly proportional to our neural processing speed, which slows as we age. Another theory by Cindy Lustig, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan: “When we are older, we tend to have lives that are more structured around routines, and fewer of the big landmark events that we use to demarcate different epochs of the ‘time of our lives,’” And, finally, another viewpoint by Steve Taylor, PhD, senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University, UK, is that our experience of time is highly flexible and subjective. The more information our minds process, the slower time passes. Time speeds up with increasing age because we have fewer new experiences and our perception is less vivid.

What all this really drives home for me is that we should never stop exploring, learning, and experiencing new things. We can’t stop time, but we can slow down our perception of it by living mindfully, and bringing in new experiences.

Get out and take those trips you’ve been dreaming about. Climb a local mountain, enjoy live music (and dance like no one is watching), ride in a hot air balloon if you’ve never done it–you won’t regret it! My point is simple, don’t wait. Do those things you’ve been putting off until “the time is right.” Right now is the perfect time.

In health & wellness,
Claudia

P.S. The fourth installment in my 5 Essential Exercises video series is up (The Plank), and a new yoga video have been added to my Vimeo platform: Glow Flow – Moon Salute.

HELLO SUMMER!

June 1, 2024 by Claudia Fountain, posted in Exercise, Fitness, strength training, Uncategorized

And, hello muscles! In this post, I continue the discussion I began last month on the benefits of strength training as we grow older.

Exercise, and particularly strength training, is critical to maintaining bone health. We achieve peak bone mass during the first three decades of life, which then begins to decline over the rest of our lifespan. For women, the losses accelerate after the onset of menopause (O’Flaherty, 2000). Contributing factors to bone loss are a sedentary lifestyle, low calcium and vitamin D levels, and hormonal changes. As we age bone remodeling decreases in both sexes leading to a negative bone balance at specific critical sites (Rosen et al. 1994). A large part of the solution is weight training, which has been shown to effectively increase bone mineral density in the spine and hips of post-menopausal women (Zehnacker & Bemis-Dougherty, 2007). [More research is needed on the effects of resistance training on bone density in older men.]

To reverse bone loss combine resistance training (exercises such as squats, leg press, leg extension, hamstring curl, hip extension, back extension, bench press, shoulder press, biceps curl and triceps extension) with high impact activities (jumping, skipping, hopping, jogging). If you already have osteoporosis, or other joint issues, then choose walking, hiking, or low impact aerobic classes.

How much resistance training is needed to affect change? Try doing 2-3 sessions per week, of 5-6 different exercises for both upper and lower body, 2-3 sets of 8-12 repetitions (70-90% of 1 repetition maximum), which can be done in as little as 20 minutes.

There’s no down side to adding in a few sessions per week. 😃 Increasing muscle mass equals better metabolism, better body composition, and better bones!

👙🩳🩱🦴

In closing, I offer you two new videos. The first video is the second in my 5 Essential Exercises series – The Push. I cover four of my favorite upper body exercises that just about anyone can do. The second video is a vinyasa yoga practice where I talk a bit about the fifth limb in Patanjali’s yoga system – Pratayahara (turning in).

May this summer find you thriving and well!

that fresh spring feeling…

April 3, 2024 by Claudia Fountain, posted in Exercise, Fitness, newsletter, Yoga

“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.”
–Rainer Maria Rilke

A refreshing spring rain is falling as I write this, full of the promise of growth and new things. My Easter Sunday was spent wandering through fields of stunning tulips, watching the cloud studded sky, and feeling the cool breeze under colorful flying kites.

The first quarter of 2024 had me stepping back from some tasks on my proverbial “to-do” list. Writing has always been full of angst for me, and producing a monthly newsletter – for as long as I have been – is more of a push than a pull. I decided to take a couple of months off from it, and then to only do them bi-monthly. And so, here we are!

This newsletter is the first in a series. The focus–what I consider to be the 5 Essential Strength Exercises for good health and wellness. Building and maintaining essential muscle mass is critical to enhancing our metabolism as adults, particularly as we age. For every decade of life, we lose 3-8% of muscle mass, or 5-10 lbs of lean muscle. That loss of lean muscle has a direct negative effect on metabolism (it becomes harder to lose weight, and easier to gain it), and strength (opening a jar of pickles becomes more and more difficult, standing up from sitting gets harder, and climbing stairs feels like climbing a mountain).

The good news is it doesn’t have to be that way! All it takes is 20 minutes, two to three times per week, of some kind of strength training to improve our functional fitness, health, and wellness. The 5 Essential Strength Exercises cover the critical areas of leg strength, pushing, pulling, and core. Choosing 5 different exercises, performing 2-3 sets of 10-12 repetitions, done on 2-3 non-consecutive days a week is enough for measurable improvements in overall strength.

The first essential exercise is the squat–basically what you do every time you sit down and stand up. There are many, many ways to perform a squat. At its most basic, using zero gym equipment, is a wall squat. All you need is a wall! The second most basic, sit-to-stand. Using a chair, a bench, a stability ball (that is bracketed so it doesn’t roll), your sofa, your bed, sit and then stand up. Repeat. The third, weighted squats using dumbbells, kettle bells, weighted balls, etc. I cover these, and a fourth option, in my latest exercise video (find it HERE).

Future newsletters will cover the next four essential strength exercises, so stay tuned! In closing, I hope you find the information useful, and that it inspires you to consider adding strength training to your health and wellness efforts.

🙏🏿🙏🏾🙏🏽🙏🙏🏻🙏🏼
Claudia

P.S. Also, find a new YIN YOGA – FOR ANXIETY video HERE. PLUS, 🌸 I have some fresh spring lovelies on sale for 25% off 🌸 in my Etsy shop: MADEWITHMANTRASHOP

Recipe for Health: Turkey Pumpkin Curry Soup

My Insight Timer Meditation: Resting in Gentle Awareness

“Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it, you can never get it back.”– Harvey Mackay

“When everything is moving and shifting, the only way to counteract chaos is stillness. When things feel extraordinary, strive for ordinary. When the surface is wavy, dive deeper for quieter waters.”–Kristin Armstrong

“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.”–Rainer Maria Rilke

“Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it, you can never get it back.”
– Harvey Mackay

“When everything is moving and shifting, the only way to counteract chaos is stillness. When things feel extraordinary, strive for ordinary. When the surface is wavy, dive deeper for quieter waters.”
–Kristin Armstrong

“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.”
–Rainer Maria Rilke