Why feeling taller tricks your brain into making you feel more confident and why your smartphone addiction might be making you depressed?

The next time you’re feeling sad and depressed, pay close attention to your posture. According to cognitive scientists, you’ll likely be slumped over with your neck and shoulders curved forward and head looking down.

While it’s true that you’re sitting this way because you’re sad, it’s also true that you’re sad because you’re sitting this way. This philosophy, known as embodied cognition, is the idea that the relationship between our mind and body runs both ways, meaning our mind influences the way our body reacts, but the form of our body also triggers our mind.

This isn’t just about displaying confidence to others around; this is about actually changing your hormones–increased levels of testosterone and decreased levels of cortisol, or the stress hormone, in the brain.

The summer is all around us but it's never too late to get your body in to a lean and toned shape for the summer holiday  season!

Summer is the season when everyone wants to look good. Here are seven tips to get a toned and lean body this summer, without too much of extreme effort.

When it comes to fitness, it's important to consider the direction you would like to take that would bring you consistent as well as long term benefits. Something that would enhance your natural beauty, helping you to appear looking graceful, fit and elegant.

Ballet offers a sustainable mind-body fitness that delivers exquisite results while also accommodating a wide range of physical abilities. It’s a progressive technique that actually gets more intense as your form gets better. Whether you’re 9 or 99, ballet offers an elegant way to develop strength, awareness, flexibility, coordination, balance, and agility. Learning a beautiful art form also engenders feelings of accomplishment and enjoyment. And because it addresses the key elements of fitness in one beautifully designed technique, doing ballet keeps you looking youthful and feeling vibrant at any age!

We’ve all heard that ballet is the foundation of all dance, that if you want to get nicer lines, posture, fitness, slimmer physique or body alignment, you should be in ballet class. But there are other reasons, too, why everyone should take ballet. Here are to mention just a few.

So many people feel intimidated about trying real ballet despite its wonderful fitness benefits. Here’s what you need to know to let your inner-ballerina shine!

Myth: Ballet is only for people with a natural dancer’s physique.

Truth: You don’t have to be thin, leggy, flexible, or coordinated to do ballet.

When it comes to their kids, parents want them to have the best. Exposure to things like sports and the arts help them to become more well rounded young men and women. Have you thought about ballet?   Kids are into all sorts of afterschool sports and other activities like piano and violin lessons. Dancing is a great medium for both girls and boys. And, they can start young. Classical ballet may have been pushed aside in favor of tap dancing, hip-hop, jazz and other forms. But, did you know that beginning with ballet will help with these other types of dancing? That is just one little secret weíre letting you in on.  Ballet dancers make it look effortless as they move across the stage. From the lifts to the toe points, many wonder how they can do it. Your kids can also be a part of this through the practice of classical ballet.   Ballet classes can start for young children from the ages of three or four. For them, being in front of all those mirrors and the bar is something new and exciting.    Some of the benefits of ballet for young children are:

You can always spot a ballerina in a crowd because of her beautiful posture. Sure it looks elegant, but good posture also sets the stage for ease of movement, elevated mood and energy levels, and a positive neural feedback loop that communicates to your brain and the rest of the world what a confident, positive, and energetic person you are!

Of course, it’s easy to say “stand up straight!”, but what is good posture and how do you engage it?

Maintaining a tall spine is a full-body phenomenon. These are the 4 Zones of Posture and how to engage them effectively.