I’m joined by Heather Parkin, Founder and CEO of Bennd Yoga, to discuss the Ayurvedic principles at the core of Bennd’s innovative yoga mats and accessories.
How many brands can confidently say that their products not only diminish toxic loads, but also provide positive input for individuals and the environment? Bennd Yoga is one of the very few, and in this episode, I’m joined by Heather Parkin, the brand Founder and CEO. Heather and I discuss the origins of Bennd Yoga and she details the Ayurvedic principles at the core of these innovative yoga mats and accessories.
Ayurveda is an ancient traditional health care system that focuses on strengthening the mind/body connection through medicinal herbs, diet, exercise, meditation, and breath. After discovering this healing modality, Heather was inspired to create yoga products that are 100% natural, hand-loomed, and medicinally dyed with plants and herbal remedies.
Heather describes how each mat and prop is created, explaining how the Ayurvedic process positively affects yoga practitioners. Heather also dives deeper on what research shows about the impact plastic yoga mats have on the environment and endocrine system.
Listen in to learn more about how you can infuse Ayurvedic medicine in your daily routine and support your health on a cellular level.
If you are enjoying these conversations, please subscribe and spread the love by leaving a review and sharing it with your friends.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, or on your favorite podcast platform.
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Dana Frost 00:07
Welcome to Vitally You, a podcast created to introduce you to the tools that will be your roadmap for feeling younger while growing older. I'm your host Dana Frost, a wellness expert, life coach and energy medicine practitioner. Here's what you can expect conversations about vitality from the inside out with guest experts in the field of health, culture, and spirituality, and solo episodes along the way from me where I do deep dives into the topics of aging, heart intelligence, energy, medicine, and your innate capacity to heal. If you want to feel younger, while growing older, this is the place for you.
Dana Frost 00:53
Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Vitally You you podcast. I'm Dana frost, your host coming to you from Chicago this week. We have a very special episode this week. I'm going somewhere I've not gone before, and I'm introducing you to a product line. But it's not just any old product line, rather one that marries three of my favorite things, health, beauty and sustainability. Heather Parkin, founder and CEO of bent yoga products is a very dear friend of mine. I will be forever thankful to Heather for introducing me to light therapy years ago with the at home light therapy device from InLight wellness. She is truly my light therapy Oh gee. Now who would have known all those years ago that light therapy would become the healing modality blowing up social media and in all conversations about holistic healing. However, today she joins us to talk about a unique healing modality. yoga mats that are hand spun, loomed and dyed with era Vedic medicinal plants. These mats are absolutely as gorgeous as they are healing. And Heather has a very special offer for the vital EU community. So stay tuned until the very end for the promo code details. Now Heather's background is in fashion and interior design. She was also an amazingly talented makeup artist for a number of years. And she has a 20 year plus yoga practice. Prior to launching band Heather ran holistic light therapy, offering LED light therapy to help people relieve inflammation, decrease pain and improve circulation. Heather decided to merge her passion for holistic wellness design and yoga by crafting organic yoga mats and meditation AIDS. And I am going to stop right there. So you can hear directly from Heather. Heather, welcome to the vital you show. I am so excited to talk with you today. Hi, Dana.
Heather Parkin 02:59
Thank you for having me, Heather. So
Dana Frost 03:01
we know each other really well. We've been friends for a long time, the listeners know that I talk so much about light therapy. And you are the person who introduced me to light therapy, my original InLight wellness light therapy machines that I absolutely love. And I've been using the bend yoga mat since you started your company and I have one in Miami, I have one in Chicago, I absolutely love them. You know, they have their properties. But they also have for me, I'm visual. And when I can have that yoga mat, the beautiful yoga mat out and I never have to put it away. I will get on my mat every day. I think there are so many aspects to the bend products. And so let me ask you just to start by sharing how did you decide to start this company?
Heather Parkin 03:52
You said you just said so many things in that first intro that I feel like has made bend really as far as starting it. I've been doing yoga since I was about 21 all I've ever known in the yoga market. We're just your typical rubber PVC mats. It hasn't been until like the past, you know, eight or nine years we're more eco friendly mats have come on the scene and more thing you know, biodegradable and the cork mat and those things have come on the scene but back in the day, it was just your plastic yoga unless you were practicing in India, and their typical mat is something similar to bend and they've been using that for years for years and years for decades.
Heather Parkin 04:36
So when I started bend I was kind of you know my background is interior design and fashion design and so I'm an artist at heart that's all I ever want to do is create and when we moved out to California, you know I was still doing light therapy but as much as I love the lights and recommend them to everyone I know and use them on a daily basis. It wasn't fulfilling me on a lot of different levels, I wasn't able to be creative with it, I wasn't able to be my artistic self, because I was constantly in this mode of helping people heal and everything was like so medical, and you know, ABC instead of mind wandering into all these wonderfully creative areas. So that kind of ignited, you know, something I wasn't, I wasn't happy with what I was doing, essentially. And so I thought about, I've always wanted to have a woman's clothing line, I used to have a children's clothing line, I think that's when we met is when I had royalty. Yeah, toddler world.
Heather Parkin 05:34
Yeah. And so I've always wanted a woman's clothing line. But I didn't want I didn't want yoga gear, because the market was one oversaturated. And I wasn't a created creative enough for me, I wanted something that was high fashion, but not your typical fabric. And I didn't want to be wasteful. And just another not conscious clothing line on the scene, I wanted to be more intentional about what I was doing. And so I spent like a year researching textiles and fabric and all these different things that were out there. And it just kept coming up the same thing like organic cotton, or you know, it would be like H O free dye. And there was nothing that you know, everything, everything had a little bit of spandex in it, or just nothing was just totally natural. And even if it was natural, it wasn't died naturally. And so I just kept researching and researching. And I couldn't, I never really found anything. And so I kind of put it to rest for a minute.
Heather Parkin 06:32
And I was like if it's meant to be if I'm able to find something, it'll come. And during this time, I was doing a yoga intensive with one of my yoga teachers. And it was like a two week, three week long course it was all about your dharma and finding your dharma. And so I was really active in that course. And I was on Instagram one day just, you know, scrolling, wasting time. And I found this woman who was doing something different with fabrics. And it sparked my interest. And I'm like, What is this and I started doing all this research is called ru Vastra. And it's the art of dyeing textiles with medicinal dyes. And so I started like immediately, just researching what is this technique? What blew my mind. First of all, I was like, This is so cool. And I also know from being in the holistic field and doing light therapy, that
Heather Parkin 07:21
Everything that your body touches, you absorb. Everything. Whether it's clothing, whether it's food, whether it's couches, bedding, everything. And so because our skin is our largest organ, we absorb it at a high rate.
Heather Parkin 07:33
And so that kind of just kind of one thing led to another. So I got further into my research and I contacted this woman and we got on the phone on a Saturday afternoon and we talked for like two hours. And I ordered fabric from her. I was going to start you know, my little pulling line in my garage. Therapy. And by the end of the phone conversation, she was like, you know, I have these yoga mats. I think you really like um, you know, they're plant died, Minnesota died. I think you'd like Um, let me send you a couple. I'm like, Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, I'll take a few I have all my friends do yoga, I'm in, you know, industry, I'd love to try it.
Heather Parkin 08:10
And so she told me more and more about it. And I was like, great, but I was on a one track mind. I was like, I finally get to do fashion. That's all I wanted to do. You know, it's one track mind. And by the time I had gotten out of a car and to my door, I think I've told you this story before. By the time I got to the door, I dropped my keys I remember so vividly, I dropped my keys. And this was like this light bulb went off in my head. I was like, oh my god, like this could be so much bigger than what it is. And I don't know, I don't know, it was like, it was like this energy hit me. You know? Yeah, she's like, whoa, this could be huge. And so she sent a version of the bed mat. And when I got it, I was like, this is beautiful. But with my design background and loving design, I was like, there could be so much more to this, like so much more.
Heather Parkin 09:00
Yeah, and there's nothing like it, especially in the States at the time. Now there's a ton of if you will, like other brands that are trying to do the same thing. Okay, yeah, it's but there are other brands out there that are coming on the scene, which is awesome, because it means that you know, more and more people are wanting this type of product. And it's also more and more people wanting to help people in the earth and the environment so great, but at the time, there wasn't anything and so I went into my garage studio and I just started designing and seeing what we can do and you know, I was a makeup artist for 25 years and color is like you know, I can see color shapes with my eyes closed. And so all these things just started flowing to me and we got our first batch of mats I remember there was only 12 and I got rid of them pretty quickly. I think it was probably like two weeks and they were gone
Dana Frost 09:54
because they're so beautiful.
Heather Parkin 09:57
And it's crazy because so much has changed since then. Unlike I still have are the original one, the very first one I got. And compared to like now, it's like night and day.
Dana Frost 10:07
Yeah, yeah, they're so beautiful. So thank you for sharing all that Heather and what I want to touch on, because we really bonded over health and being very, you know, mindful about our health. And I know that you've had health issues. And so I do believe that you came to this already having that mindset of, as you said, what you touch impacts you and what you eat, there's an impact. And you already came to this, with this conscious mindset about your health. And so talk to us. I'm not an era Vedic practitioner, and I don't even see one I know basic principles of it. But why don't you just let tell the community about the foundation of his era Vedic medicine that, so maybe tell us a little bit about that?
Heather Parkin 10:58
Yeah, so with the bed mat, everything is dyed medicinally. And it's a very long process, it's like a 30 day process to dye one batch. So in this process, there's a couple different steps that have to happen. And one of them is the dying with medicinal herbs for the color. So you have like your Indigo, or your Tumeric that are really powerful medicinal plants, but they also produce beautiful color, and you can get normal Tumeric or you can get medicinal tumeric. And their level of their medicinal properties is quite different. So
Heather Parkin 11:36
we use only the like the medicinal the high quality, medicinal herbs to dye the product. And so there's that and then we infuse it with 22 other different or Vedic medicines in the process. So like meme, and holy basil, ashwagandha, jaggery, hibiscus, Bhutan 22. So that all goes in it. And when you infuse these medicines into the textiles, when you go to practice, when you go to practice on your mat, and your body generates heat, the quantity of the most pores are on your hands and feet, throughout your whole body. This is where it's most concentrated it is on your palms, and on the bottoms of your feet. And so when you're in a heated area, and your pores are more susceptible, it's not necessarily that your pores open more, they're just more susceptible to absorbing things. And so in yoga, that's usually where you are is on your palms or feet.
Heather Parkin 12:29
So you're able to absorb all of those medicines into your skin, you know, or
Heather Parkin 12:34
Ayurvedic medicine, they've been practicing this technique for decades and centuries. And they use it most of the time on fabrics or when you sleep. So if you go to see our Vedic Doctor, let's say you have diabetes, or you have arthritis, they will create fabrics specific to your ailments. And you wear those at nighttime. And that's when your body is, as we know is in the parasympathetic state the most. And when you can heal at the highest rate is when you're sleeping. Wow, that a lot of times you'll see like underneath the arms at night, like if Tumeric underneath arms and you take off this fabric in the morning, you'll see that it's a different color. And that's because it's pulling those toxins out that was absorbing those toxins during the nighttime.
Dana Frost 13:17
Okay, I did not know this. That is incredible. Wow, that's so interesting.
Heather Parkin 13:24
One of the interesting things I think, too, about the mats and customers will write in quite often, especially if you're doing using the mats and hot yoga, which is my favorite time to use them because they ground you so much, you're so grounded. And so you're balancing poses are just so much better, I feel. But when you're in hot yoga, you're pulling toxins out like crazy. And if you're using like a Tumeric mat or is any of the brighter mats, your mat will change colors. And so will
Heather Parkin 13:51
we'll get customers writing in my mat, you know, is turned by, by Tumeric mat is turned like an orange. And what that is, is it's the mat pulling out the toxins from your body. And so you'll see like it's almost like one of those tracing.
Dana Frost 14:06
Oh, that's so
Heather Parkin 14:08
interesting. But when you wash it that will come out.
Dana Frost 14:11
Oh, that's so I don't do hot yoga. So I haven't had that experience. But I have the experience on my yoga mat. I mean, the style of yoga that I do Kaiyote yoga is very different than that typical yoga that people think about. But when I put my palms on the mat and my feet like my, the soles of my feet on the mat, I feel so grounded. And if I need to calm down during the day, I will go to my mat, and that's exactly I'll put my spine, I'll lay my spine on the mat. I'll bend my knees up the soles of my feet on the mat and my palms on the mat and I can just I just feel so grounded. So I think when you talk about you know there are different aspects to the band yoga mats where there is the you know, the dismal quality in terms of physiologically what it's doing and that support.
Dana Frost 15:04
But I also think that there is this energetic quality of the match to because you have this pure energy that goes into the creation of the mat, you have the pure plant medicine that goes in. So you've got the human who's doing who's doing it, you've got the plant medicine that's coming into the mat, you've got that energy of physically manipulating fabric, for the color, etc. For the, what do you call it when your hand looming? And looming? Yes, when they're doing the hand looming, so there's such a high vibration to these mats, because, as you said, every step along the way, there is purpose behind it. And it's so pure. So I wanted to say that, because that's really my experience with the mats, not from a hot yoga experience, but the vibration of the mats. And then I mentioned earlier, just visually, they're so beautiful. And we know when we look at beautiful things, it shifts something that it uplifts our mood. it uplifts our energy to to look at things that are really beautiful. So
Heather Parkin 16:08
it encourages you to do yoga in the morning. And that was one of the things that I wanted. Because I think everybody experiences this, like, there's days where you're like, you can't wait to go exercise and there's days that you don't want to but if it's laying there, you're more prone to go do something and do a little movement. And it could be five minutes. But it's something absolutely, yeah, yeah,
Heather Parkin 16:30
I think one of the reasons why they're so grounding is because they're 100% from the earth, everything is from the earth. So it brings you, it pulls you closer to the earth. So the cotton that we grow, it grows in one of the very few places in the world where the crop is solely rain fed. So that is all that makes it grow is just the rain. So there's no fertilizers, no pesticides, none of that goes into it. And then there's the herbs and the dying. And then everything that we use, we recycle. So whether it is like the scraps from the yoga mat or the herbs leftover from the dye bath, we compost or we pour it back into our garden where we grow the herbs to grow more herbs. So like the Sappanwood dye bath, the Tumeric dye bath we’ll pour onto the garden for fertilizer to grow more. So it's just this constant biodynamic cycle with the earth.
Dana Frost 17:24
Yeah, and I guess sustainable is the word that everybody likes to hear today. So it's also sustainable.
Heather Parkin 17:30
Like, you could go out to your backyard and bury them out if you wanted to.
Dana Frost 17:34
Well, I've had my mat. I think I might have one of your first mats. I don't know. Because I know that I jumped on the bandwagon quickly. And I've had that mat since then. I don't know how long has it been three years, four years, five years this
Heather Parkin 17:47
year has this August has been four years.
Dana Frost 17:49
Okay. So four years? And because I don't do hot yoga. I've never had to wash it. Yeah. Is that okay? That I've never washed it. It mean it's, I shake it. That's all I do. I you know, whenever I'm going to because I it stays out all the time. And so I'll shake it before I vacuum. And that's all that I do
Heather Parkin 18:06
to it. Do you? Has it faded in the sun at all?
Dana Frost 18:09
I could have because it's in a one of my mother Matt in Chicago does get afternoon sun it could have I'm not sure.
Heather Parkin 18:17
Yeah, the only thing that will happen is the sun will weaken its medicinal properties. Okay, so that's it, just like anything like you wouldn't leave herbs or supplements in the sun, right? Because it was weak. That's why they're in the dark bottles or oils, essential oils. It just weakens their medicinal properties. If you're not reading, there's no reason why you should need to wash it. Okay? The reason why I mean, I generally practice hot yoga, when I'm having a good month, three to four days a week, and I wash my mat. Every other month, you'll know it like yeah,
Dana Frost 18:47
the next thing I want to talk about is why is it important for people to care about having a yoga mat or a meditation, you've got bolsters, you've got a meditation bolster, why is it important for people to make the choice to invest in something like a bend yoga over any old other yoga mat? Like somebody would say, well, I already have a yoga mat. I don't need a yoga mat. So why is that important? Why would people want to care about that?
Heather Parkin 19:16
Well, there's like three main reasons. One is that most yoga regular yoga mats are terrible for the environment. And they just end up in a landfill. They don't biodegrade like they're just, they're stuck there. And they cause damage to our ecosystem. So that's a huge reason. Another reason is that your regular PVC mats are endocrine disruptors, a couple of different things happen. So you're absorbing the plastics into your body. Just like if you were to wear be wearing flip flops all day long, or any kind of plastic shoe all day long. You're absorbing that into your bloodstream throughout your entire practice. So there's valleys there's carcinogens, there's all kinds of toxins that you're you're absorbing. Another thing is that if you're practicing In a heated environment, if your yoga mat has tiny little rips in it, which most do if they're not brand new, those release the toxins at an even faster rate.
Heather Parkin 20:12
And when you're in a heated environment, not only are you absorbing them in a faster rate, they're releasing more toxins because of the ribs. So you're observing that even more, and then you're inhaling all the little particles that are coming off your mat. So you're getting so much into your body. And so there's been a ton of studies about these yoga mats and women who are pregnant. And that was one of the things I had found through my research before we before we started bend, was all these these women having all these issues, or these hormone issues or issues during pregnancy, because of all the little microplastics that they were inhaling, and absorbing. And it's a huge problem. So it's disrupts, you know, your endocrine system, it's bad for your health, bad for the environment. Yeah.
Dana Frost 20:58
And I wish I could remember the study. But I've done a lot of reading about the plastics that are coming, that are being found in people's bodies, when they look at urine and blood. And I wish I could remember some of the specifics. But that's really interesting. I think that most people aren't aware of the damaging effects on the body, from all the plastics that we our food is packaged in the water bottles. Yeah, the water bottles, and it's in the it's actually you can find plastics, substances in water systems as well, like in your drinking water.
Dana Frost 21:36
And, yeah, I think that that's, you know, if we, if we think about toxic load, so if somebody has a chronic issue, a health issue, what we want to look at what is the load? What's the toxic load on their system? And how can we diminish that load? And so, you know, I'll suggest that people only use glass for serving food and storing food and eating food out of glass. No plastic whitening, no plastic water bottles we shouldn't really just never be using and drinking out of plastic water bottles. Those are ways to diminish the load cleaning up your skincare routine so that there are only no endocrine disruptors in your skincare regimen. No soy, no soy Yeah. And and so this is this falls along those lines of for those who spend time on a yoga mat, or on an exercise mat, I do my I mean, I do the way that I do exercise, I do it on my yoga mat. But it's not hard core. That's another way that we can diminish our exposure. And with the bend yoga mats, we're not even just diminishing exposure, we're actually what are the inputs? What are the positive inputs for our health? So this is a positive input because of the medicinal qualities of the yoga mats, right? Yeah. So you have something really special for the vital you community, Heather? And would you tell us what it is? Yeah, it's
Heather Parkin 23:03
a $25 discount code off of your entire order. Vital you 25 will be the code. And I think you said we'll put it in the show notes for everybody.
Dana Frost 23:11
Yep, I'll put that in the show notes. And I'm not an affiliate, this isn't an affiliate link or anything like that. It's just you're getting $25 off your purchase. And people can find you at bend yoga.com. And that's B ennd.com. If you haven't seen these mats, you are going to be so excited about how beautiful they are and how amazing the website is and the information that's on their website. And I'm just really so excited to share this with the community because I think I'm gonna guess a lot of the Vitally You community they're not familiar with Ben Joby, even though I've known about it for you know, since the inception. So I'm excited that more people are going to be able to have these beautiful yoga mats that are medicinal
Heather Parkin 23:58
me to me to have you opened your moon mat yet. I'm so excited about that. Well,
Dana Frost 24:03
I know No, because you know, I have a gift. So I bought myself them. Okay. For those of you who know me, well, you would know that I follow the moon cycles. And I have for a long time my kids. I used to drag them to the beach when they were younger. When we lived in Brazil to look at the moon and the stars. This summer. Ben came out with yoga or moon phase yoga mat and I when I got that email I contacted you immediately denied. I'm like, It's not working. I can't buy it. And then I immediately was like, Oh my gosh, I need one for a friend's birthday. So I've been gone. They arrived as I was leaving and I tuck them in a closet. And so I know I haven't gotten it out yet because I'm waiting for the special moment. But I'm very excited. So everybody you have to just run and check out the bin you'll Come out. And I'll tell you if you're into the moon, the moon mat is spectacular. It's so beautiful. So check all of that up.
Heather Parkin 25:09
It's totally different because it's it's hand embroidered down the middle. Wow. So there's like an extra step to the making of it. That it's just, it's stunning. I'm upset.
Dana Frost 25:20
Oh, I can't wait. Okay, Heather. So you know, I have to ask you the question I asked all of my guests, which is, what does feeling younger while growing older mean to you? Oh, boy. That's a loaded question. No, Pete, people say I've had so many different responses. And it's always so interesting to see what people say. And actually one of our mutual friends Linda Neff has suggested I make a book with the answer. So that's definitely in the working. So. So ask ask the question one more time. Okay, what does feeling younger, while growing older mean to you,
Heather Parkin 25:58
I think waking up every morning with just pure gratitude for everything in your life. And I think that that helps with, with aging, for sure. Because as we get older, we tend to wake up with more aches and pains, as we know, and I think this is at least this is something I've been really trying to practice lately. Before I even open up my eyes, I'll be awake, but I won't open my eyes, and I will list all the things I'm grateful for before I actually open my eyes. And it's made such a shift in how I get out of bed, how I feel when I get out of bed, the aches and pains if I have them don't seem to be there. And it just puts you in this immediate stage of being grateful for everything in your life. And I think that that is huge.
Dana Frost 26:43
Well, that's a vibration, right? I mean, gratitude is a vibration, it has a high vibration. And what you focus on expands. So if you're focused on gratitude that's expanding, if you wake up, and you're focused on your pain,
Heather Parkin 26:56
it's like a spiral downward forever. It's just like, immediate. Yeah,
Dana Frost 27:00
yeah. I really love that answer. Had no one has said that. So thank you. Because yeah, I've no one has had said that. So that this is really good, because it's a new, it's a new one. And it's something that's so easy to do. And I would add in because I talked about Heart Math all the time, when you're saying your gratitude. If anyone wants to try that in the morning, just visualize the your list and your gratitude to flow to and from your heart center. And then you're pulling in the vibration of your heart. So you're uniting your mind, your thoughts, your gratitude thoughts with your heart. And that's a winning combination. Yeah, right. Yeah. Well, Heather, thank you so much for being on the show today.
Heather Parkin 27:44
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I love you, Dana.
Dana Frost 27:47
I love you too. Heather. Thank you for joining us for the Vitally You podcast this week. Don't forget bennd $25 discount on your purchase. You will find the link in the show notes. And I want to thank my sponsor lightwaves stem cell pouches x 39 and x 49. You can learn more by clicking the link in the show notes lifewave stem cell activation patches are the only non injectable no surgery needed affordable and safe stem cell activation technology for true age reversal and resetting your stem cells to behave like younger cells. If you are enjoying these episodes, please hit subscribe download, make my heart sing and leave a review. And as always, I am streaming love from my heart to Yours