The Importance of Diet, Lifestyle AND Skincare

Yoga is a holistic discipline, and Face Yoga is no different from other traditional yoga practices. While it means bringing mind and body together, it also refers to supporting our practices with good diet and lifestyle habits. Our lifestyle can positively or negatively impact our skin and face. A good skincare routine, including face massage and regular Face Yoga practice, can positively impact our looks as well.

Your lifestyle – however good or bad it is – will eventually be reflected in your physical appearance, not to mention your mental and emotional attitude.

What we eat and how busy or stressful our life is, impacts the overall health of our skin. And no amount of exercise or Face Yoga will fully compensate for unhealthy lifestyle habits. The solution is, of course, balance. Maintaining healthy lifestyle habits will make a big difference to your skin and better support your Face Yoga routine – even if you occasionally indulge your sweet tooth or enjoy a few late nights with friends.

Happy Skin Lifestyle Habits:

Stay Hydrated

Ensure you enjoy 6-8 glasses of water daily and eat water-rich fruits and veggies, which will help the skin retain moisture and not become flaky and dry.

Always Protect Your Skin & Avoid Excessive Exposure to the Sun

By wearing protective clothing like a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses, using a broad-spectrum SPF of 30 or higher, and reapplying as needed, we can stay protected from the sun. The sun can cause the skin to thicken, making it rough

and leathery. It will also weaken the elastin and collagen in the skin, creating more wrinkles, fine lines, and loose skin. Sun radiation causes skin damage, wrinkles, age spots, and skin cancer. So limiting exposure and protecting our skin is key to healthy skin.

Limit Bath and Shower Times

Hot water strips natural oils from the skin, so limiting time spent in the bath or shower is helpful. Make sure water is warm and not excessively hot, and avoid strong soap as it can also remove necessary oils from the skin.

Manage Stress

Find ways to counteract stress because uncontrolled stress can negatively impact your skin, triggering rashes, spots and acne, dry patches, and even more severe skin ailments. You may wonder how this can help the skin. The truth is reducing

stress can have the most dramatic effect on facial appearance than anything else.

Get Enough Sleep

Make sure you get enough sleep at night and have periods of rest during the day. Scale back your daily to-do list where possible and include hobbies, time with friends and family, and other fun pastimes in your weekly schedule.

Sleeping with your face in the same position on the pillow can bring wrinkles, so try to sleep on your back if possible. Smooth silk pillowcases tend not to crumple as much as cotton ones (which can create lines on the face), and the soft tight silk weave naturally seals moisture into your skin to help it stay hydrated. Silk is unlike other pillow fabrics that tend to absorb moisture from your face.

Avoid Smoking

Smoke & secondhand smoke are disastrous for the skin, creating premature aging.

Eat to Thrive

Food provides the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that help maintain the foundation and functions of our body. Everything from our bones and muscles to our skin and hair is influenced and supported by what we eat. Our bodies are like well-oiled machines. If we keep putting the wrong oil in, they will break down.

Make sure what you eat helps your body thrive, heal, repair, and rebuild. The first results of a healthy lifestyle appear in our skin and face.

We can give muscles on our face a consistent robust yoga workout, but if we do not support that workout with a supply of necessary nutrients from the food we eat, they will become harder to improve.

Nutrient-Rich Foods for Radiant Skin:

Protein is necessary for maintaining the strength and integrity of the skin. It helps keep the skin supple, thick, and hydrated. Protein contributes to cell function and increases and maintains skin collagen levels and skin elasticity.

Some protein options are skinless chicken or turkey breast, omega-rich fish, lean meats, tofu, lentils, and legumes.

Fats, especially those that consist of essential fatty acids like omega-3s and omega-6s are the building blocks of healthy cell membranes. These polyunsaturated fats also help produce the skin's natural oil barrier, critical in keeping skin hydrated, plumper, and younger-looking.

Good fats are fatty fish, eggs, avocados, nuts, flax seeds, and other healthy oil-based foods like olives and coconut.

Carbs help to maintain soft, smooth, and thick facial skin.

Some healthy carbs are green veggies, whole grains like quinoa, oats, brown rice, and whole fruits like apples, bananas, and strawberries.

Minerals like potassium, calcium, and sodium facilitate muscle function, which is very important to face yoga.

- Foods like potatoes, prunes, apricots, and bananas are great sources of potassium. - Dark leafy greens, tofu, and fortified products like nut milk and bread can boost calcium intake. - Seek out sodium from veggies like beetroot, celery, carrots, and spinach. - Iron is also important for giving your skin a healthy glow and speeding up wound healing. Iron can be found in dark leafy greens and dried fruits like apricots, prunes, and raisins.

Vitamins found in antioxidant-rich foods such as berries, dark chocolate, citrus fruits, and leafy greens can provide an excellent vitamin source for skin elasticity.

Develop Good Skin Care:

As mentioned in the previous section, it is critical to eat the right foods, drink lots of water, and maintain a healthy lifestyle. It is also a vital idea to develop a skincare routine that supports the work you are doing through face yoga. This means not using harsh chemicals on your face, moisturizing regularly, and cleaning your face nightly.

Most people do not need to cleanse skin with topical creams or face washes both morning and night. Splashing the face with warm water 10-12 times as part of the morning routine should suffice as a cleanser. Following that, you can apply oil like argon or coconut oil if needed and use a moisturizer and sunscreen.

You can support this routine with a weekly or twice-weekly face massage.

Glowing Skin Facial Massage

This practice is a vigorous massage to perk up appearance.

The key to a brightening massage is the speed and depth of movement. With this massage, you make smooth, swift movements working fingers into bonier areas like the shoulder, neck, and jaw.

Steps: o Apply small oil to neck and face o Place fingers above the upper lip and tap quickly and lightly around the mouth area. Move down, tapping the jawline, and continue down the neck. This will stimulate blood flow. o Now move fingers into the neck above the collar bone and kneed deeply, feeling the stretch along the side of your neck. This will loosen up muscles. o Begin to push upwards, actively moving the skin tissue up at the sides of the face, moving to the brow. o Lift the brow by hooking thumbs under each eyebrow and pushing upward for a few breaths. o Move to the outside of the eyes by crow’s feet and place index and middle fingers here, then create circular outward movements. o Now position fingers tip-to-tip on the forehead, then firmly sweep them away from the middle to the sides of the forehead. Do this 3-5 times. Try not to tighten your jaw as you do this, instead keep it relaxed and focus on forehead muscles. o In circular motions, move fingers down the side of your face to your cheeks. o Keep making circular motions down to the jawline. o Finish with sweeping circles down the side of your neck. This helps with lymph drainage