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Yoga and Healthy Skin

Your skin is the reflection of the health state of your body. A glowing, supple and flawless skin stands for a fit body and peaceful mind. An unhealthy diet, lacking required nutrients, sedentary lifestyle, intake of junk food and aerated drinks, rising pollution levels, over exposure to sun and high stress factors, are some amongst the sundry factors squeezing the life out of your skin and cause for the spiraling number of skin diseases. s

It’s high time you start caring for your skin. Yoga bestows a natural luster to your skin by balancing your hormones and promoting the flow of oxygen-rich blood to your skin. This keeps your skin springy and prevents dehydration and sagging. Yoga nourishes your skin at the cellular level and detoxifies it. All the internal organs and particularly the endocrine glands get activated and their functioning is optimized. It helps lower stress levels considerably and provides complete relaxation.

The following exercises should be practiced for at least 5 minutes each on an empty stomach, ensure that you do it religiously since the efforts will be realized only after 3 weeks.

• Bhastrika: Inhale a good volume of air through your nose and then exhale it. This is quite simple and acts like a warm up session before you take up the others.
• Kapalbhatti: In this exercise you blow out air from your nostrils and are detoxifying yourself. The speed at which you blow the air out should be moderate. The ideal speed is one blow per second.
• Anulom Vilom: Here you inhale air from one nostril and exhale through the other. While you breathe in from one nostril you need to close the other one with your thumb and while breathing out release your thumb.
• Shitli Kumbhak: It is an extremely useful pranayama for skin. This has the potential to reduce facial wrinkles and purify the blood. To perform this, you need to fold your tongue so that it protrudes a little from the mouth. Slowly inhale through your mouth and experience the coolness inside the neck while inhaling. Then swallow the breath and hold inside your stomach for a few seconds before exhaling through the nose

More oxygen + More blood circulation + Stress-at-bay = Yogic formula to a healthy and glowing skin.

Asanas that help you achieve the above are:

• Suryanamaskar
• Trikonasana
• Yoga Mudras
• Virabhadrasana
• Pavanamuktasana
• Bhujangasana
• Ushtrasana
• Sarvangasana
• Halasana

So you see, yoga can breathe life into your skin and bring about dramatic changes to your looks. All it asks for is your time; don’t lose heart if you don’t get immediate results. “Patience” is the watchword. Also once you have achieved the desired results do not discontinue yoga because like I said it is nutrition for your skin, body, mind and soul.