The Complete Guide to Yoga for your Menstrual Cycle and Menopause
Did you know your menstrual cycle is connected to the phases of the moon and you can enjoy greater health and vitality by practising specific yoga sequences for every changing stage in your monthly cycle?
Moving with the Moon is a comprehensive ‘health bible’ for women and will help you fall in love with your monthly and life cycles. It showcases a huge repertoire of yoga postures, sequences and tips on therapeutic modifications and prop use, all overlaid with a passionately nurturing and self-sustaining approach to yoga and self-care.
The director and founder of Bliss Baby Yoga offers you a deeper understanding of your cycling body, helping to balance your hormones and your life, and empowering you with dedicated practices to boost your health, energy and wellbeing as a woman.
It doesn’t matter what age you are; you will gain valuable tips and inspiration on therapeutic practices to give you more energy and vitality—whether you are a younger woman or are blossoming into menopause, the ‘second spring’ of your life.
“I love this beautiful book for its careful and thorough descriptions of the asanas in the context of the menstrual cycle and contemporary women’s lives. Ana Davis successfully integrates insights from the growing fields of menstrual awareness and women’s yoga with her own deep experience as a yoga practitioner and teacher.”
—Lara Owen, author of Her Blood Is Gold: Awakening to the Wisdom of Menstruation
10% of all profits from the sale of the ‘Moving with the Moon’ book and audio tracks is
donated to Art to Healing, a not-for-profit organisation that facilitates the recovery of
women and girls globally who have been sold into sex slavery.
Praise for “Moving with the Moon®: Nurturing Yoga, Movement and Meditation
for Every Phase of your Menstrual Cycle and Beyond” by Ana Davis
Moving with the Moon®
Chapter Outline:
Part one: Context
Introduction: Stressing the Feminine
- Healing the wounds: a feminine approach to yoga
Chapter One: Honouring your cycle
- A brief history of menstruation
- Menstruation today
Part two: getting started
Chapter two: The ebb and flow of the womb
- The monthly cycle: what’s actually going on?
- Tracking your cycle
- The lunar connection
- The four energetic phases of your cycle
Chapter Three: Principles and guidelines for a Moving with the Moon practice
- Key principles of a Feminine Yoga Practice
- Guidelines for your Moving with the Moon home practice
Part three: Exploring the Four Phases
Chapter four: The Dark Moon: being with the flow
- Changing the paradigm
- A delicate phase
- The imperative for rest
- A time for reflection
- A reality check
- Practical ways to honour your Dark Moon bleeding time
- Yoga for the Dark Moon Phase
Dark Moon Yoga Sequences: postures and practices to support your menstrual phase
- Classical Dark Moon Menstrual Sequence
- Dark Moon Late Menstrual Sequence
- Express Dark Moon Practice
Chapter five: The Waxing Moon: re-emerging
- Our masculine phase
- Pace yourself
- Yoga for your Waxing Moon phase
Waxing moon Yoga Sequences: postures and practices to support your post-menstrual phase
- Waxing Moon Post-Menstrual Sequence
- Busy Days Nurturing Waxing Moon Sequence
Chapter six: The Full Moon: softening into the feminine
- The biological imperative to procreate
- The ‘big inhale’: the socially acceptable phase
- On top of the world
- Yoga for the Full Moon phase
Full Moon Yoga Sequences: Postures and Practices to support your ovulation phase
- Classical Feminine Flow Full Moon Sequence
- Busy Days Nurturing Full Moon Sequence
Chapter Seven: The Waning Moon: Creating Space
- What causes PMS?
- Is PMS all in your head?
- Understanding created healing
- The Premenstrual ‘truth serum’
- Connecting with your creative self
- Working with the cleansing energy of the waning moon
- Strategies for moving through the Waning Moon phases gracefuly
- Yoga for your Waning Moon phase
Waning Moon Yoga Sequences: Postures and Practices to support your premenstrual phase
- Classical Waning Moon Premenstrual Sequence
- Waning Moon Sequence for Exhaustion
- Waning Moon Sequence for Nourishing the Nervous System
Part Four: Broadening the knowledge
Chapter eight: Menstrual Medicine: yoga for menstrual disorders
- The stress connection: a fine balance
- Yoga for stress relief
- Menstrual medicine: guidelines for healing
- Menstrual medicine: yoga for balancing your cycle
- Common Menstrual Disorders—Menstrual Cramps:dysmenorrhea/ Heavy Periods: menorrhagia/ Fibroids/ Endometriosis/ Polycystic Ovary Syndrome / Amenorrhea/ Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS)
- Menstrual medicine: go-to postures and practices
Part five: Beyond the four phases
Chapter nine: the wise womb: embracing menopause
- The seasons of a woman’s life
- Understanding the phases of menopause
- Building a bridge to menopause
- Yoga for perimenopause and menopause
- Developing your home practice for perinmenopause and menopause
- Go-to postures and practices for perimenopause and menopause
- Women’s Pawanmuktasana (Joint-Freeing) Sequence
Conclusion: Reclaiming your feminine soulskin
Appendices
- Understanding Ayurvedic Doshas
- The Classical Women’s Postures
- Restorative Postures for Women’s Health
- Moving with the Moon playlist suggestions
Sample pages from ‘Moving with the Moon®’
(click to view larger)
“Thank you thank you thank you Ana for the treasure you have created.
This book should be read by all women to once again harmonize ourselves with our natural rhythms. We gathered on Juliet’s Balcony (on a sacred mountain in Colombia, South America!), a space by women and for women to connect with themselves, Mother Earth and the Moon. We shared the wisdom of this book and talked about our experiences with our lunar rhythms, emotions and creative forces. Women of all ages and backgrounds coming together (including my 4 month old daughter!!) to share knowledge and find out we are all so similar at our core. It was beautiful. It was powerful. It was simply amazing. The change in our world will happen through the women. Let’s continue to gather, share and learn. And of course, believe in ourselves!!!
I highly recommend this book! So grounded and beautiful. Backed up with scientific research and ancient wisdom. Just wonderful.”
– Laura Hoyos
Ana’s approach
Moving with the Moon® is a creative and empowering process of adapting, changing, and crafting a feminine yoga practice from day to day. Just as the moon waxes and wanes, this book will unfurl and deepen your connection to the internal rhythm within your body.
Book Review of ‘Moving with the Moon®’
by yoga teacher and author, Eve Grzybowski
“Have you noticed that women seem to be coming more and more into their ascendance? It may be as a result of the #metoo movement or the political climate that’s calling on women to run for office.
It would seem, then, that it’s a fitting time to return the feminine to yoga. Hot yoga and power yoga may have their place, but they don’t necessarily allow for the sensitive biological imperatives of a woman’s cycles and life stages….”
More praise for “Moving with the Moon: Nurturing Yoga, Movement and Meditation
for Every Phase of your Menstrual Cycle and Beyond” by Ana Davis
Moving with the Moon®
Audio Tracks
These 22 Audio Tracks are an optional add-on to accompany Ana Davis’s book Moving with the Moon: Yoga, Movement and Meditation for Every Phase of Your Menstrual Cycle and Beyond.
Practise along with Ana Davis as she guides you through relaxing and healing meditations, visualisations, deep relaxation and breathing practices that are designed especially for each phase of your menstrual cycle.
These lush feminine-yoga practices are also beneficial for your perimenopausal and menopausal phases and for supporting optimal fertility.
‘The audio tracks, recorded in Ana Davis’s soothing voice, are simply divine!’
—Eve Grzybowski, Senior Yoga Teacher and author of Teach yourself Yoga and The Art of Adjustment.
Track List for Moving with the Moon Audio Tracks
Foundational Feminine Breathing Practices
- Track 1: The Soft Belly Breath
- Track 2: The Apana Breath
- Track 3: The Feminine Alternate Nostril Breath
- Track 4: Viloma Pranayama
Dark Moon (Menstrual) Phase Practices
- Track 5: The Primordial Ooze Meditation
- Track 6: Reflective Dark Moon Meditation
- Track 7: Surrender to the Darkness Deep Relaxation
- Track 8: Dark Moon Yoga Nidra
Waxing Moon (Post-Menstrual) Phase Practice
- Track 9: Ujjayi Breath
- Bonus Track: Waxing Moon Meditation
Full Moon (Ovulation) Phase Practices
- Track 10: Feminine Ovarian Breathing
- Track 11: Light of the Full Moon Yoga Nidra
- Track 12: Smile to your Heart—Chocolate Meditation
- Track 13: Full Moon Lotus Meditation
Waning Moon (Pre-Menstrual) Practices
- Track 14: Sitali Pranayama combined with Nadi Shodhana Exhale
- Track 15: Brahmari (Humming Bee) Breath
- Track 16: Kapalabhati Breath
- Track 17: Waning Moon Yoga Nidra
- Track 18: Waning Moon Detaching from the Emotions Meditation
Menstrual Medicine Practices
- Track 19: Enquiry Meditation for Menorrhagia
- Track 20: Open Heart Meditation for PMS
Perimenopause/Menopause Practices
- Track 21: The Adrenal Breath
- Track 22: Trusting in the Pause Pranayama
FREE SAMPLE AUDIO TRACK
About the author – Ana Davis
Ana Davis is a well known yoga teacher and teacher trainer specializing in yoga for women’s health. With an Honor’s Degree in Japanese Feminism, Ana has long been passionate about working with women’s experience and exploring the benefits of yoga and meditation for women’s monthly and life cycles.
Ana has been teaching yoga since 1996 and in 2005 founded Bliss Baby Yoga a well-respected organization offering prenatal, postnatal, fertility, and restorative yoga teacher training courses across Australia and internationally.
In 2013, Ana also founded Moving with the Moon, which offers workshops and classes on yoga for the menstrual cycle and menopause.
Moving with the Moon® – Nurturing Yoga, Movement and Meditation for Every Phase of your Menstrual Cycle and Beyond represents a culmination of years of Ana’s research, teaching, and personal yoga practice as well as an overriding passion for women’s natural health and wellbeing.
Ana lives in Byron Bay with her husband and teenage son. When not practising or teaching yoga she enjoys cooking, gardening, dancing and drinking copious cups of tea in bed.
Purchase your copy of ‘Moving with the Moon®’ by Ana Davis
A Complete Guide to Yoga for your Menstrual Cycle and Menopause.
Choose from e book and audio track purchase options below.
(All prices are in Australian Dollars, and include GST for Australian residents)
To purchase a print copy of Moving with the Moon please go to all good online booksellers, including:
“Moving with the Moon”
E-Book
E-Book (661 pages on Kindle)
e-pub / mobi file for download
(view on computer, smart phone, tablet, or kindle)
$29 AUD
“Moving with the Moon”
E-Book & Audio Tracks
E-Book (661 pages on Kindle)
e-pub / mobi file for download
(view on your computer, smart phone, tablet, or kindle)
Audio tracks
22 x MP3 downloads
$45 AUD
“Moving with the Moon”
E-Book, Audio Tracks & Online Class
E-Book (661 pages on Kindle)
e-pub / mobi file for download
(view on your computer, smart phone, tablet, or kindle)
Dark Moon Classical Yoga for Menstruation Online Class (90 mins)
Online stream video / download
$60 AUD
“Moving with the Moon”
Audio Tracks
22 Downloadable Audio tracks
mp3 file for download or stream via the Bliss Baby Yoga app
(listen on any device)
$25 AUD
‘If women can find a way to practise yoga that goes with rather than against their natural ebb and flow of energy, they can then carry this heightened awareness into all areas of their life—into their work, parenting, and all their relationships.’ — Ana Davis
