Posts Tagged ‘Techniques’
Relax and Stay Looking Young
One of the biggest causes of premature aging is stress. Because we live in a fast paced world it can be easy to live life at 100mph without every taking a break. When you feel stressed your mind activates its survival instincts, a throwback to our more primitive days. This survival mode directs blood to the more essential organs needed to live. The skin isn’t one of these “essential” organs and neither is the digestive system. This means that not only does your skin suffer directly but you are also failing to intake the proper nutrients required to maintain youthful looking skin.
Retain your youthful looks.
So it’s clear that to stay looking young you need to relax and reduce your stress levels. If you follow the advice below your skin will noticeably improve and stay looking young.
1. Sleep
Sleep helps to rejuvenate the body and mind, meaning everything functions better. This includes the health of your skin. Typically people require from six to eight hours sleep a night. If you struggle with your sleeping patterns you may want to look at another article – Ways To Sleep Better.
2. Diet
Your skin needs the certain nutrients to keep its youthful appearance. To make sure you are getting these nutrients you should up your intake of fruit and vegetables while reducing the consumptions of salty or sugary foods. Omega fatty acids such as those found in fish are also incredibly beneficial to your skin so you should aim to try and eat at least two or three portions of oily fish a week.
3. Exercise
Exercise is one of the cornerstones of any health regime. It even has a positive effect on your skin. Exercise has been shown to lower stress levels and is well known to give people a “healthy glow”. Just thirty minutes of walking a day will visibly improve your skin. One point of note though is that sweat contains salt, so after working up a sweat you should make sure to wash it off with warm water.
4. Facial Massage
Treat yourself to a few bottles of massage oil. Every night you can gently massage the oil around your face (be careful around the eyes). This relaxes the facial muscles and stimulates blood flow.
5. Relaxation Techniques
There are a number of relaxation techniques you can use to improve your skin and stay looking young. Perhaps the best of all the options is hypnotherapy. Not only does hypnotherapy relax you but you can get sessions specifically catered towards skincare. For example HypnoBusters have Sensation Skin Hypnosis and Hypnotic Botox MP3s that can work wonders. This can be listened at bedtime, they will also help you drift off to a deep, restful sleep.
An Overview of Yoga
Evidence of the practice of yoga goes as far back as 3000 BC. Archaeologists have found seals of the Indus Valley Civilization depicting people as well as godlike entities in various forms of meditative and yogic poses. The word “yoga” comes from the Sanskrit yuj, which means to unionize. This is in reference to the way yoga unionizes the mind and the body.
The Purpose and Goals of Yoga
A young woman in a yoga stretch.
The original purpose of yoga was a spiritual one. While spirituality has almost disappeared from Western society we have still managed to find a place for yoga in our lives. A poll taken in 2006 revealed that over fifteen million Americans practice yoga on at least a semi-regular basis. Now people tend to treat yoga as another form of exercise, a way to improve flexibility and overall fitness, however without even realising many of these people will feel the mental benefits yoga provides. Through a combination of physical poses, breathing techniques and meditation yoga you will feel much more centred, calm and relaxed after you have practiced yoga.
The goals of yoga depend on the individual. Some practice yoga to loosen their muscles, others to find enlightenment, while others still do it to reduce their stress levels and relax after a busy day. Whatever your goal yoga can probably help you to achieve it. And the great thing about yoga is it can be tailored to anyone of any age, size or level of fitness.
Getting Started
It’s hard to describe many yoga positions or exercises textually which is why I posted a video earlier which contains a great beginners guide to yoga. You might like to try these exercises for a few weeks before purchasing a DVD full of yoga exercises or alternatively many leisure/rec centres and gyms hold regular yoga classes with fully qualified instructors.
Useful Yoga Resources
Here are a number of sites, articles and videos that you might to like to visit to find out a little more about yoga and its many positive effects.
Disabled Vet Walks Again Thanks to Yoga *MUST SEE*
Basic Yoga For Beginners
Yoga is an excellent skill to learn since it not only aids with relaxation but with flexibility as well as muscular strength. This video is for those of you who’s like to learn a little more about yoga whether you’re about to start looking for a yoga studio in your area or just interest in learning from home.
In this thirty minute video of basic yoga for beginners your instructor Susan Kenney will talk to you about what to expect from yoga, what you will need and she will teach you a few simple techniques that you can try right now at home.
I plan on writing my own overview of yoga within the next couple of weeks for all you Relaxation Haven readers but I feel a video may be of more use since it can be hard to describe yoga positions in words. Here the visual approach is much better.