Payal Khanwani Wellness

Payal Khanwani Wellness Join my Free Community : https://www.facebook.com/groups/amplifywellnessandselfcare

Meditation & Yoga Teacher | Life and Wellness Coach (CHPC)
Helping professionals breakthrough emotional stress & anxiety and build strength, resilience & wellbeing in body, mind & spirit.

06/14/2026

The chakras are a map of human development. Each one corresponds to a stage of life, a core need, and a pattern that forms when that need goes unmet.

The seven chakras are not simply energy centres. They are developmental stages, each one tied to a distinct dimension of human experience. Safety. Creativity. Power. Love. Expression. Intuition. Consciousness.

Each centre carries its own unresolved pattern and its own highest expression.

✦ Muladhara, the root is about survival and safety. Its right is to exist and feel safe in your own body. In balance: grounded, stable, present, a sense of belonging. When imbalanced: anxiety, restlessness, rigidity or feeling perpetually unsafe.

✦ Svadhisthana, the sacral is about emotion, pleasure and creativity. Its right is to experience your emotions and desires without shame. In balance: emotionally fluid, creatively alive, comfortable with pleasure and intimacy. When imbalanced: emotional numbness or overwhelm, poor boundaries, disconnection from desire.

✦ Manipura, the solar plexus is about will, purpose and self-worth. Its right is to assert yourself and pursue what matters to you. In balance: confident, purposeful, a strong sense of self. When imbalanced: passivity and poor self-worth, or controlling and dominating behaviour.

✦ Anahata, the heart is about love and relationship. Its right is to love and be loved. This is where the lower and upper chakras meet, where the personal becomes relational. In balance: compassionate, open, able to give and receive love freely. When imbalanced: isolation and bitterness, or codependency and loss of self in relationships.

✦ Vishuddha, the throat is about expression and communication. Its right is to speak and be heard. In balance: clear, authentic, able to express truth with ease. When imbalanced: fear of speaking and suppressed expression, or excessive talking without real communication.

✦ Ajna, the third eye is about intuition and inner knowing. Its right is to trust your own perception and inner knowing. In balance: perceptive, intuitive, connected to inner guidance. When imbalanced: disconnection from intuition, poor concentration, or over-reliance on external validation.

✦ Sahasrara, the crown is about consciousness and connection to something larger than the self. Its right is to connect to meaning and something greater than yourself. In balance: a sense of peace, purpose and spiritual connection. When imbalanced: spiritual cynicism, lack of meaning, or disconnection from the body and material reality.

Read through slowly. You will know which one is asking for your attention.

Follow for more where ancient wisdom and modern psychology meet.

Chakras. Energy centres. Yoga psychology. Mind body connection. Personal development. Emotional healing. Holistic health. Integrative wellness. Yoga teacher Toronto. Wellness Toronto. Mental health. Self awareness. Ancient wisdom. Science meets Soul.

Yogic living looks at the body, mind, digestion, emotions, lifestyle and environment as one connected system.And in that...
06/07/2026

Yogic living looks at the body, mind, digestion, emotions, lifestyle and environment as one connected system.

And in that system, digestion is the foundation.

Not just the digestion of food. The digestion of our experiences, our emotions, the things that happen to us that we never quite fully process. Yoga & ayurvedic systems of healing have understood this long before neuroscience had the language for it.

Around 90 percent of serotonin, the neurotransmitter most associated with mood and emotional steadiness, is produced in the gut.

When digestion is weak or the gut is out of balance, we tend to feel it everywhere: Mood becomes harder to regulate. Focus quietly drops away. Anxiety finds more room to move in.

A few lifestyle shifts that support digestion and mental wellbeing:

- Include saffron, shown in studies to support mood and reduce mild to moderate depressive symptoms.
- Eat warm. Drink warm.
- Eat fresh whenever possible - fresh food carries prana, the life energy that nourishes beyond just nutrients.
- Include fermented foods like kefir, kimchi, and fermented millets to nourish gut bacteria and support serotonin production.
- Include walnuts, which contain essential fats that support brain health and mood.
- Use turmeric as an anti inflammatory - combine it with fat for better absorption.
- Raw dark chocolate, rich in magnesium and flavonoids that support mood and reduce inflammation.

06/04/2026

We do not talk enough about what daily life actually asks of the brain. The stress. The blood sugar swings. Brain fog. The broken sleep. These things add up. And the brain registers all of it.

Where to focus:

- Inflammatory load. Neuroinflammation is central to our understanding of depression, cognitive decline, and neurodegenerative disease. Systemic inflammation crosses the blood brain barrier. Diet, breathwork, and nervous system regulation all influence the brain's inflammatory environment.

- Cerebral blood flow. The brain consumes roughly 20% of the body's oxygen. Reduced cerebral perfusion is an early and independent predictor of cognitive decline, improved through movement, breathwork, and photobiomodulation.

- Meditation. Regular practice measurably changes brain structure, increasing grey matter density in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, and reducing amygdala reactivity. Structural changes in regions governing attention and emotional regulation show up on brain imaging.

- Neurofeedback. EEG-based brain training allows people to observe and directly regulate their own neural activity. Used clinically for attention, anxiety, and cognitive rehabilitation - and increasingly in high performance contexts where sustained focus and recovery matter.

- Red light therapy. Photobiomodulation at specific near-infrared wavelengths penetrates the brain and stimulates mitochondrial function in neurons. Research points to improvements in memory, processing speed, and mood.

- Nutrition. Blood sugar stability, DHA, B12, vitamin D, magnesium, and folate all have a direct and documented impact on brain function.

The brain is responsive. Cognitive performance is trainable - deeply influenced by how we live.

What is one thing you can do today to support your brain?

References
Biessels et al., Lancet Neurology, 2006
Innis, Journal of Nutrition, 2007
Smith et al., PNAS, 2010
Annweiler et al., 2013
Ransohoff, Science, 2016
Iadecola, Neuron, 2017

Some of the most effective tools for human health have been in continuous use for thousands of years.- Breathwork. Presc...
06/02/2026

Some of the most effective tools for human health have been in continuous use for thousands of years.

- Breathwork. Prescribed in yogic tradition as Pranayama, a tool for regulating the mind and prana, the body's vital energy. Conscious breathing directly activates the vagus nerve, lowers cortisol, and shifts the nervous system out of stress response.

- Oil pulling. An Ayurvedic daily ritual with centuries of uninterrupted use. The mouth is a direct gateway to systemic health. Bacteria in the oral cavity influence cardiovascular health, inflammation, and cognitive function.

- Meditation. A rigorous discipline for training attention and accessing deeper states of consciousness. Consistent practice physically changes the brain. Grey matter density increases in the prefrontal cortex, the amygdala reduces in volume, and the stress response rewires over time.

Everything we are rediscovering in modern health and science has its roots in tradition.

[Ancient wisdom. Modern science. Breathwork. Pranayama. Oil pulling. Meditation. Vagus nerve. Nervous system regulation. Microbiome. Brain health]

He came in with a life that was right from the outside. Successful. Capable. Accomplished. And underneath it, a quiet di...
05/31/2026

He came in with a life that was right from the outside. Successful. Capable. Accomplished. And underneath it, a quiet disconnection from any real sense of appreciation or joy in it.

We worked across the full picture, yoga, pranayama, nervous system regulation, lifestyle, and the spiritual dimension of health and life experiences that coaching opens up. The places where a person has spent so long being defined by what they do that who they are has become unfamiliar. Where the habit of carrying everything alone, and showing up for everyone else first, becomes its own kind of weight.

Watching him move from that disconnection into self awareness, agency, and growth was one of those reminders of what is possible. Learning to meet yourself without the armour, without the metrics, without needing to be further along than you are.

When a person develops a clearer, more stable sense of self, one that is not contingent on performance or external validation, the nervous system has less to defend. That is where the peace comes from. 🤍

Grateful for the trust it takes to go there.

05/29/2026

There is a particular quality of stillness that Bhramari breath produces - not just the absence of thoughts , but a withdrawal from the noise around you. In yogic terms this is pratyahara, the turning of the senses inward.

Regular practice offers:

• Relief from cerebral tension, anxiety and insomnia
• A quieting of the mind that supports deeper states of meditation
• Improved heart rate variability and autonomic nervous system function
• Increased nitric oxide production in the nasal passages, supporting circulation and immune health

The humming vibration stimulates the vagus nerve - the longest nerve in the body, running from the brainstem to the major organs, governing the shift between stress and rest. When you hum, you are sending a direct signal to the body that it is safe.

Every ancient tradition that worked with sound understood something of this long before the language of neuroscience existed: Vedic mantras, Gregorian chants, Sufi devotional singing, Tibetan overtone chanting.

If you have five minutes, try this with me. Sit comfortably, spine upright, eyes closed. Close the lips gently, teeth slightly separated. Raise the arms, bend the elbows, and plug the ears with the thumb or index fingers. Inhale through the nose, and on the exhale, hum - slow, steady and continuous, until you feel the reverberation of the humming sound in the skull.

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[Vagus nerve. Nervous system regulation. Stress relief. Anxiety relief. Mental health. Breathwork. Sound healing. Brahmari. Pranayama. Pratyahara. Nada yoga. Integrative wellness. Toronto. Toronto Wellness. Neuroscience. Brain Health. Longevity. Love Your Brain. Yoga . Meditation]

References

Saraswati, S.S. (2008). Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha (4th ed.). Yoga Publications Trust, Bihar School of Yoga.

Weitzberg, E. and Lundberg, J.O.N. (2002). Humming greatly increases nasal nitric oxide. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 166(2), 144–145.

Nivethitha, L., Mooventhan, A. and Manjunath, N.K. (2017). Effects of Bhramari pranayama on heart rate variability. International Journal of Yoga, 10(2), 96–98.

We rarely talk about sleep this way. Sleep is not always a stress problem. Sometimes it is a joy problem. Sometimes we a...
05/26/2026

We rarely talk about sleep this way. Sleep is not always a stress problem. Sometimes it is a joy problem. Sometimes we are simply carrying more feeling than we have had space to process. 🌙

In Chinese medicine the Heart is the seat of the mind, of consciousness, and of our whole emotional life. Joy lives here. So does grief. So does the particular restlessness that comes from feeling deeply, thinking endlessly, being too alive in the wrong hours of the night.

When Heart energy is low there is a flatness to life. A quiet, persistent fatigue. When it is excessive the mind becomes very loud. Thoughts arrive in waves. Excitement, anticipation, happiness, the aliveness of a full day is sometimes all it takes to tip our sleep.

Equanimity is the practice here. The capacity to hold the full range of feeling without being swept by it. That is what allows the Heart to settle and makes rest possible.

A few ways to cultivate it:

- Transition. Create real space between the activity of the day and the quiet of night. The shift does not happen automatically.

- Settling practices. Gentle pranayama, yoga nidra, anything that emphasises the exhale and signals safety to the nervous system. The goal is regulation.

- Nourishment during the day. A Heart that feels genuinely fed, through connection, meaning, and moments of real joy, asks much less of us after dark.

Rest is emotional before it is physical. We rest well when we feel equanimous. 🤍

Book a complimentary consultation to dive deeper.

[Sleep. Heart meridian. Chinese medicine. TCM. Shen. Emotional health. Nervous system. Joy. Sleep health. Sleep hygiene. Sleeplessness. Circadian rhythm. Breathwork. Yoga Nidra. Mind body connection. Holistic health. Integrative wellness. Emotional regulation. Equanimity. Wellbeing. Yoga Toronto. Wellness Toronto. Meditation. Toronto.]

05/24/2026

The breath is always with us. Most of the time we don’t have to think about it consciously.

But conscious breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest system of our body). Cortisol drops. The heart rate slows down. The body receives a signal of safety.

Inhale slowly. Exhale longer than the inhale. Few rounds. Then just pause and notice what you feel, not from the mind but what’s present in the body.

The reason the exhalation is longer than the inhalation here is physiological. Inhaling activates the sympathetic nervous system, the branch of the nervous system associated with being alert and active. Exhaling activates the parasympathetic, the branch associated with rest, digestion and repair. The longer the exhale, the stronger that signal of rest.

Ancient tradition of yoga has built had an entire breathing system of Pranayama, long before neuroscience had the language for it.

The breath is the only autonomic function we can consciously control. That makes it the most direct access point we have to our own nervous system.

Save this for the moments you need grounding.🤍

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[Breathwork. Pranayama. Nervous system regulation. Parasympathetic activation. Exhale. Conscious breathing. Somatic healing. Mind body connection. Stress relief. Anxiety relief. Cortisol. Heart rate variability. Vagus nerve. Holistic health. Integrative wellness. Yoga. Meditation. Mental health. Wellbeing. Yoga Toronto. Wellness Toronto. Toronto]

02/03/2023

Release control of your future to the universe and just enjoy what you have in the present. 🦋🌎

Revisiting Buddha’s 4 Noble Truths today 🪷🪷It’s part of being human to feel discomfort. It’s recognizing the discomfort ...
10/29/2022

Revisiting Buddha’s 4 Noble Truths today 🪷

🪷It’s part of being human to feel discomfort. It’s recognizing the discomfort in fieriness of fire, wildness of the wind, turbulence of the water, the upheaval of the earth along with the goodness of all elements. The first truth also recognizes we change, we ebb & flow like the waves and wax & wane like the moon.

🪷The second truth reminds us that there is no need to resist this discomfort.Resisting the discomfort of change is what causes suffering. Impermanence is one of the three inescapable facts of existence.

🪷The third noble truth reminds us to let go of this resistance to end the suffering by not grasping, not clinging, not getting caught in false hope & fear.

🪷The fourth noble truth is the eightfold path that spells out practical action we can take toward our own awakening.

The eightfold path or 3 fold way guides us in living ethically, training the mind, and cultivating wisdom.

The eightfold path includes right action, right speech, right livelihood, right mindfulness, right effort , right concentration, right understanding and right intention.

Where can you apply these in your life or practice today?🧘‍♀️

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