If you look in any refrigerator at Yoga Yoga, you will likely find a big double-hand of fresh ginger root. We slice it fresh for every batch of Yogi Tea we make.

All the spices (cloves, peppercorns, cinnamon, cardamom and ginger) in Yogi Tea help support your yoga practice -- that's why we always have served it to our students even before Yoga Yoga began over ten years ago. But if I had to pick my very absolute favorite "maha" (great) yoga spice of all time, it is definitely ginger.

Here is why ginger is the best spicy friend a yogi or yogini can have!

Ginger is the most well researched herb in the world. For over 5000 years, the Indian and Chinese civilizations recognized it for its powerful health-enhancing properties. For yoga practitioners in particular, it is revered for its positive effects on the respiratory, digestive, and circulatory systems.

Got a sore area from a yoga stretch? Ginger is a marvelous anti-inflammatory and promotes a healing circulation around strains, sprains, and even arthritic conditions.

Can't get a full deep breath in your yoga class? During the colder months when our respiratory systems may become compromised and hamper our yoga and pranayama practices, ginger comes to the rescue. It is well known for its warming action on the upper respiratory tract and has been used to treat colds and flu.

Tummy a little full before yoga practice or upset afterwards? Ginger stimulates digestion, removes cramps and bloating, and keeps the fires burning inside.

Suffering from yoga-inhibiting conditions like migraines, menstrual cramps, nausea, morning sickness, or just tiredness? Ginger to the rescue, with proven results in helping relieve all these symptoms.

Ginger has even been shown to elevate your mood and its cineole content helps contribute to stress relief as well - a perfect yoga class complement!

In his book The Yoga of Herbs, Dr. David Frawley describes ginger as perhaps the most "sattvic" of the spices. In yoga, the quality of sattva is lightness, clarity, and the distinguishing trademark of the meditative mind.

In Ayurveda, the healing sister science of Yoga, ginger is called "vishwabhesaj," or the "universal medicine." My teacher Yogi Bhajan often recommended ginger as a powerful healing herb for both men and women and stated on several occasions that it also has a therapeutic effect on lower back problems, particularly those associated with the fourth lower vertebrae.

How can you use ginger to make you a healthy and better yoga practitioner? You can eat it, drink it, snort it or wear it.

One of the best ways to enjoy ginger is to eat it as a spice in foods. You can either use fresh or dried ginger when cooking. Dried ginger is hotter and more stimulating than fresh and is especially good for cooking with harder to digest foods such as beans or lentils. Fresh ginger has powerful natural oils and is high in prana, or vital energy.

My favorite way to eat fresh ginger is to peel a piece and blend it with a smoothie drink. Start with half inch to one inch piece and gradually increase the amount as much as you can enjoy. Sometimes I will blend a three-inch piece of raw ginger in one smoothie drink if the weather is cold or my energy is low (work up to this amount!).

Drinking ginger is fast acting - besides Yogi Tea, you can enjoy straight Ginger Tea by slicing unpeeled fresh ginger into thin slices and heating in water. Let the water steep and sweeten if you like. A great drink for heading off colds and flus! The trick is this: Do not boil the ginger as that removes some of its beneficial oils and properties. Better to keep the water around 160 degrees F and allow the ginger to steep.

Fresh ginger juice is another excellent way to drink this herb. If you make your own fresh juice, run a piece of ginger through the juicer. You can also grate and press fresh ginger to get a tablespoon or so of fresh juice and just shoot it back down the throat - wow!

Of course one of the best ways to drink ginger is in Yogi Tea. Here is the recipe for your pleasure at home: http://yogayoga.com/yogitearecipe

Now as for snorting ginger, please do NOT put that dried ginger up your nose! Instead, bring a strong pot of ginger-filled water to a heavy steam, place your face over the steam and cover your head with a towel. Breath the ginger steam through your nose. Absolutely amazing for sinus problems, allergies and knocking out those nasty nasal Rhinoviruses. For a real wake-up experience, you can use tepid (not hot) ginger water (see below) as a nasal neti wash. YOWZA!

And how do you wear ginger? As a ginger compress, applied to your body. You don't actually wear it - just cover the affected area of the body with the ginger compress. If you have areas of swelling, pain, sprains, or any problem area of the body, ginger compresses have been applied for relief. To make a ginger compress, follow these directions:

Grate 5 ounces of fresh ginger root onto clean cloth and tie the ginger up with a string or rubber band. Put the enclosed ginger "bag" into 2 quarts water and heat up to 160F. Avoid boiling -- heat only until you see bubbles forming on the bottom of the pan. Keep a low heat until the water turns a pale yellow (around 10 minutes or so). Remove the ginger bag, squeeze the water back into the pot. Now soak a small towel in the hot ginger liquid and squeeze it out. Place the cloth on the body and cover it with layers of towels to retain the heat. Re-soak in hot ginger water when it cools and continue until the skin gets very red and warm. A ginger compress feels great if you have overstretched, participated in a challenging yoga workshop, or had a busy day of yoga teacher training.

So keep your yoga spicy during these challenging winter months and make ginger the root of your practice!

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