Yoga Face Meditation

Anti-aging Secrets of Facial Yoga

Stop and smell the flowers." This old adage holds great truth and advice especially for the over-worked, over-stressed citizens of the modern world. We fill our days with fast paced activities and chores that lead to frustration, increased weight, and depression. Trying to cram too many activities in each day can have disastrous effects. Many ask how they can ward off the ill effects of stress. Besides reducing your activities you can look to the beneficial effects of meditation.

There are many ways to meditate from deep breathing to calming exercise such as yoga. Yoga has become a popular choice for many celebrities. Celebrities have stress upon their life on a grand scale. They not only have the unyielding demands of work, but also the critical and watchful eye of the critics, fans, and paparazzi. You may not have cameramen taking snapshots of you going to the grocery store, but you can have comparable levels of stress. Therefore, why not follow the celebrity craze in yoga and see if it works for you.

Yoga comes in many forms and difficulty levels. You can practice yoga at a health club or by watching yoga videos. It is recommended that beginning yogis take classes at a gym or health club. It is crucial to perform the postures correctly. A certified yoga instructor will help you to properly align your body and point out any areas for improvement. This feedback is essential so that you can receive the maximum benefits of yoga. An instructor can also talk you through meditation helping you to clear your mind and thus reduce your stress.

The basics of yoga cover four steps: breathing, meditation, posture, and relaxation. Let's focus on the meditation aspect of yoga. The purpose of meditation is to free your mind of worries. You literally want to wipe your mind slate clean. This can prove to be difficult as thoughts about the dry cleaning you need to pick up or the work report you need to finish race around your mind. A yoga instructor or audio tape can lead you through the steps to achieving deep meditation. They will lead you through focusing on the present.

When you focus on the present you automatically release any tensions that come from activities you need to do or things you are worried about from the past. Meditation allows you to look into yourself. Your mind becomes clear as stress and tension are swept away. This is sometimes referred to as "centering" the body. Try to listen to your body. Feel how the air moves from your belly through your nose as you inhale and exhale. You are getting back to the basics of life and the building blocks of your existence.

Classic yoga meditation involves sitting cross-legged on the floor with your spine straight. Rest your hands, palm face up, on your legs. Close your eyes and breathe deeply. Try to breathe from the center of your body up and out through your nose. Make sure to relax your muscles, especially your jaw. In times of stress we tend to tighten our face causing jaw muscles to become sore. Take heed of the present moment. Remove the past and future from your mind.

When you become comfortable with yoga meditation breathing techniques you can move on to daily affirmations. Sit in your meditation pose and breathe deeply to allow your mind and body to relax. Next quietly say affirmations that are broad as well as personalized to your situation. For example, you can say "I will center my thoughts on the present." Follow this by saying "I will listen to myself breathe." It is important to find daily affirmations that will center you as well as revolve around the positive aspects of life. Finish each daily affirmation session by being grateful for all the joyous aspects of your life. If you have time, try to meditate five to ten minutes daily.

Your yoga postures will improve with meditation practice. Strive to engage in the deep breathing and affirmation techniques daily from the comfort of your own home. Supplement these meditation techniques with an actual yoga class. Not only will you gain valuable instruction from the yoga teacher, but you will also gain support and camaraderie of fellow yogis. This support group can help to alleviate stress and keep you interested in improving your yoga skills.

Ideally, you should attend a yoga class two to three times per week. However, this may not work with your schedule. Check to see if your local gym or health club has a diverse yoga schedule. Many health clubs offer yoga classes for varying difficulty levels in the morning, afternoon, and evenings.

The combination of daily meditation and yoga classes will bring you closer to a stress free life. Your mind and body will flourish from the healthy benefits of meditation and yoga. Now take a deep breathe and get started on your journey to stress free city.

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/234721

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Relaxation Techniques For Coping With Social Anxiety

If you are suffering from social anxiety, then you must know how awful it feels when you are feeling anxious. Not only does your mind race and you feel insecure and awful inside, but you also have physical symptoms outside. Everyone can see you as you sweat for no reason, shake uncontrollably, and blush at the worst possible moment.

In this article I'm going to show you how you can cope with these physical symptoms so people can't see you are feeling anxious. You'll be able to get some control over your physical symptoms of social anxiety. And since you will no longer have to worry about how you look to others, your actual anxiety will also go down significantly. The technique I'm going to teach you has to do with relaxation. Relaxation is the opposite of anxiety. By consciously choosing to make yourself more relaxed, you will be able to control your anxiety.

How does the technique work? There are two parts to it. The first part is learning how to become more relaxed by yourself in the comfort of your own home. The second part is using the technique in real life to help you become more relaxed when you most need it. Believe me, the relaxation technique I'm about to show you is a godsend when it comes time to face a social situation you are most afraid of.

So the first part of the technique is to sit or lay down somewhere where you are comfortable. It is best if you are by yourself so you feel as little anxiety as possible. Now go through your body and relax every part of it. Start at your head and move your way down to your feet, relaxing each muscle group as you pass it. First relax your forehead, let your jaw go loose, drop your shoulders. The idea is to let go of as much tension as you possibly can. If it helps, you can also try imagining a relaxing beach or stream in your head. Then just lay there for a few minutes and try to get the feel of how it feels like to be totally relaxed.

The second part is to then take this relaxed feeling into your daily life. Throughout the day, remember to relax your muscle groups individually. Go as relaxed and limp as you can get. The more relaxed you can make your body become, the more your anxiety will begin to go away.

Remember, step one is to practice becoming relaxed inside your home. Many socially anxious people are so tensed up all the time they do not really know how relaxation feels like. The second step is to become more relaxed as you are around people. The best time to use this technique is when you are feeling especially anxious.

If you want to learn more sure-fire techniques about coping with social anxiety, then click to check out my blog on overcoming social anxiety here.




Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6053020

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A cure for depression!

Depression is an awful illness. If you suffer from it, it can make your life a living hell. Thoughts of self-doubt, feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, insomnia or oversleeping, feelings of anger or irritability, loss of energy, strong feelings of self-loathing, worthlessness or guilt, problems concentrating and suicidal thoughts are all common symptoms and can all make life seem pointless.

Then there is the stigma, that even in the 21st century is still attached to mental illness. People with depression are sometimes thought of as weak and stupid and told to “just get over it”, which of course just makes the depression worse. 350 million people suffer from depression globally, and less than half of them get any kind of treatment for it because of this stigma, which is just terrible.

Then, those that seek treatment are given antidepressants to treat their illness. The trouble is, antidepressants have a very low success rate, and even what is considered to be a ‘success’ is just a lessening of symptoms - they don’t cure depression at all. Plus, these pills come with awful side effects. These include a risk for increased hostility, agitation, anxiety and sexual dysfunction. The worst side effect has to be a risk that suicidal thoughts will increase. Yes, that’s right, for a depressed person who may be having suicidal thoughts, the usual course of action is to prescribe them a drug which is known to increase suicidal thoughts! Antidepressants can also cause severe withdrawal symptoms if you stop taking them abruptly.

These drugs also cost a small fortune. Even if you are lucky enough to live in a country with a National Health Service like the UK, you still need to pay for the prescription to get them from the pharmacy. That’s around $15 every 2 weeks, or roughly $400 a year - all without any guarantee of success.

The other options people with depression have are talk therapy, counselling or psychotherapy. While these sessions are known to have a better success rate than antidepressants, they have one major drawback: They cost a fortune! It is not unusual for a top psychiatrist to charge over $800 for an hour of their time, and will usually mean a visit every week. And do these forms of treatment come with any guarantees of getting your money back if they fail? Of course not!

There has to be a better way to treat depression than just throwing pills at the situation or charging ridiculous amounts of money for an hour of someone's time. There has to be a cure for it, rather than something that ‘might’ lessen the symptoms. We put a man on the moon, we invented the Internet where the answers to almost any question mankind has ever asked can be found at our fingertips, we live in the 21st century for Pete’s sake! There has to be a way to actually cure this illness doesn’t there?

Fortunately, there is....

A guy from the UK called James Gordon believes he has found the cure. He had suffered from depression for over 20 years, and had previously spent years on antidepressants which gave him all manner of side effects without helping, and spent thousands on therapy sessions without success. He finally snapped one day and decided to find a cure for depression himself.

He then spent years researching everything about depression that he could possibly find. He trawled the Internet and read thousands of articles on the subject, searched through dozens of medical books and consulted countless specialists. He even downloaded dozens of e-books and systems written by life coaches and gurus, watched hundreds of hours of videos, talked with people who battled with depression themselves who had recovered, and even met with people who had attempted suicide and survived to hear their stories.
What he ended up with was a 7-step plan which eliminated depression from his life completely in just 8 weeks, and never returned. He has now packaged it into what is called The Destroy Depression System™  For Information Click Here

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