Ways to protect your Skin and Hair for this Holi

The colourful and happy festival is here. It is time to let your hair down and enjoy to the fullest. But one must not neglect their skin and hair. On Holi 2018 make sure that the colours cause minimum damage. Now it's time to focus on skincare and haircare tips. Here are the pre-holi and post-holi tips to prepare your skin and hair for Holi.

Pre-Holi Skin Care Tips:

• First apply the sunscreen, wait for a few minutes and then apply a moisturizer.
• You can use Vaseline or lipbalm to keep your lips moisturized
• Apply nail colours to protect the nails from absorbing Holi colours by applying transparent nail varnish on the nails.

Post-Holi Skin Care Tips:

• Avoid using soaps or face wash to remove holi colours from your face. They are alkaline in nature.
• Use cotton, olive oil and be gentle while removing the colours.
• Dilute the lemon juice and apply over the body to remove the colours.

Pre-Holi Hair Care Tips

• Apply a good coconut based hair oil over the length of your hair as well as massage your scalp thoroughly. You can use any other hair oil of your choice like jojoba and castor oil mixed together work well too.
• Add few drops of lemon to the oil if you have dandruff in your hair before applying oil. This help in keeping the toxins from the colors from damaging your hair.

Post-Holi Hair Care Tips

• Use mild natural cleansing shampoos or baby shampoos as they are gentle and free of chemicals. Don’t try to massage shampoo harshly to take off the colour in one go. It may take few days to take it out completely. Use Cold water to get rid off holi colours from your hair.
• Allow let your hair dry naturally instead of using a dryer.

We hope you enjoy your Holi and do not worry about your skin while playing. Happy Holi!

5 Perfect Yoga poses for the Dancers to practice

Have you ever wondered, if yoga could polish you as an artist? There are a plethora of benefits of yoga for dancers. Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says that health is a dynamic expression of life, in terms of how joyful, loving and enthusiastic one can be. Yoga offers an all-round solution for those who look forward to attaining good health and to enrich their talents.

Dance is not just a form of art in regards to physical expressions, but it is a connection between the artist and its very soul. It is a medium through which a dancer shares an intimate bond with its audience on both emotional as well as spiritual level. An awe-striking performance is a mélange of energy, expressions, and connection; and all of this can be achieved through yoga asanas for dancers.

There are innumerable benefits of Yoga for the dancers. The yoga asanas for the dancer help them to keep their weight in check and also reduce it if required. A flexible body and a good posture is the core essence of this art form, and resorting to yoga is the wisest solution. Yoga helps to synchronize one’s body, mind, and breath and thus enhances your ability to perform.

To become a better and a stronger dancer is a quest that every dancer aspires and pursues, and Yoga allows them to reach beyond their limits. The yoga asanas for dancers are designed to bring out the best in them, and the benefits of yoga soon reflect in their performances.

Here are the five yoga poses that every dancer should concentrate on:

• Boat pose
• Dolphin pose
• Bridge pose
• Hand-to-big-toe pose
• Legs-up-the-wall pose

These five poses are a part of yoga for ballet dancers, yoga for Indian classical dancers and are also relevant to other dance forms. No matter which form of dance you are inclined towards, these poses will prove beneficial to you.

Dance is a form of art that focuses on position and alignment, and by regularly practicing yoga, one can achieve perfection. Hence, yoga should be a part of every dancer’s survival kit. These yoga asanas involve a lot of stretches which help to unlock a greater range of movements and also make the body less prone to injury. Embrace yoga and align your body, mind, and spirit to bring your best self to dance.

How does yoga help the body and mind?

Researchers have found a myriad of health benefits of this ancient practice. And people from a myriad of backgrounds have embraced it as a wonder tool for mind relaxation and healthy body. We are talking about the ancient Indian practice of Yoga which has found takers from all over the world, making it no longer a distinctively Indian practice. The question to be asked, however, is what makes the practice so effective and popular? Let us find out:

4 ways how yoga helps the body

1.Makes the body flexible and strong

Different yoga postures are designed to achieve a distinct impact on different body parts by strengthening the muscles of the respective body part and making it flexible. Therefore, with regular practice you can make your body flexible and strong. In addition, yoga increases blood circulation in the body and releases the feel good hormones, endorphins.

Moreover, studies show that yoga performs better than regular exercise in enhancing strength, balance and flexibility.

2. Reduces the risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer

Heart disease sets in because of blocked arteries. Yoga relaxes the blood vessels and increases the blood flow to the heart, thereby minimizing the risk of heart disease.

With respect to diabetes, yoga enhances the digestive fire of practitioners which helps in the digestion of sugar. This keeps the blood sugar level down and minimizes the risk to diabetes and even control it.

Yoga also reduces the risk of cancer by preventing the genetic mutation responsible for the disease, from expressing. In addition, it has also been found to be effective in relieving cancer patients of the energy deficiency and inflammation they face.

3.Improves bone and joint health

Yoga increases the bone density in the vertebrae. In addition, practicing yoga is good for the joints. It helps decrease the risk to joint diseases like arthritis.

Also, spinal disks- the shock absorbers between your vertebrae stay supple because of yoga.

4. Improves longevity

Studies show that regular practice of yoga apparently adds more years to your lifetime. Studies show yoga erases signs of aging.

3 ways how yoga helps the mind

Improves brain function

Studies have found that yoga improves brain function. Two features of brain function - memory and cognitive function have found tremendous improvement with the practice of yoga.

1.Releases stress

Regular practice of yoga has been found release stress by decreasing the stress hormone, cortisol. It is thus, no secret why practitioners report a calming effect of their practice.

2.Decreases anxiety and depression

In addition to mind relaxation, yoga is extremely beneficial in decreasing depression and anxiety. Researchers have found that women going through depression have found some relief with just eight weeks of yoga. Their anxiety levels have dropped. Their depression symptoms have improved and they report overall well-being.

3.Improves self-perception and self-control

A healthy self-perception and self-control are conducive for a happy life and a well-regulated lifestyle. Yoga has been found to improve both - self-perception and self-control.

How Sukhasana helps to reduce weight

Know why sitting on floor and eating is good for health

You must be knowing my grandparents always used to sit on the floor cross legged. It is because when we sit on floor and eat it has many health benefits.


List of benefits: 

Single Brian: When you sit on the floor we usually sit cross legged in sukhasana or half padmasana or vajrasana which are poses that instantly bring sense of calm and digestion. It's automatically cricket the signals to your brain to prepare the stomach for digestion.

Aids digestion: While eating meal on the floor you will naturally have to bend forward from your hips instead of just your chest and set back up to starting position to swallow. This constant back and forth movement causes the muscles of your abdomen to be active, present situation of stomach AIDS make it easier to digest food.

You lose weight: Can you sit on the floor your brain automatically comes down and say is better equipped to focusing on the food you eat, helps you finish karma living essence of satisfaction. It curbs craving or bringe eating.

Improve circulation: Floor sitting help circulation as blood flows naturally through the heart to digestive organs. It affords a healthy heart with strong muscles to help it copy of daily life.

yoga importance

Now, yoga to help HIV +ve live better? Indeed, says NARI
In a first, natl instt studied 60 HIV patients practising sudharshan kriya yoga, noticed positive changes; 17.5% even 'took to religion'

At a time when scientists have been rediscovering remarkable aspects of Indian mythology and culture that they claim precede modern-day scientific discoveries — much to the chagrin of some others — yoga is once again in the spotlight. Now, it is the turn of the National Aids Research Institute (NARI) to turn to sudarshan kriya yoga (SKY) to 'improve the quality of life among people living with HIV (PLHIV)'.

It is for the first time that an institute like NARI — which conducts various research works in HIV drugs, prevalence, epidemiology, techniques and more — has focused only on the efficacy of yoga in PLHIV.

Explaining that the ancient practice also helped some subjects find religion, principal investigator and former-director in-charge of NARI, scientist F Dr Nita Mawar, told Mirror, "We noticed fruitful results after we used SKY on 60 subjects, who were not on antiretroviral therapy (ART) and had a CD4 count that was above 400. We wanted to focus on three levels — independence, physical and psychological health. We noticed that of all the subjects, 18 per cent showed an improvement in physical health, 17 per cent showed psychological improvement and another 18 per cent showed independence. Interestingly, 17.5 per cent people also showed an increase in religious or spiritual beliefs."

She added, "The study took place between December 31, 2013, and March 31, 2014. We compiled and presented it in the Global Doctors' Medical Association Conference in Delhi at AIIMS in August 2014, where it was appreciated. We are still analysing and creating a record of the study, which will be completed in the next few weeks. We are also planning to suggest this as a policy document for HIV advocacy in the National AIDS Control Programme of our country. SKY has shown positive results in PLHIVs improving their quality of life and adherence to exercise. It is important to promote a healthy lifestyle among patients. Since it was a pilot study with successful results, we now plan to extend the programme to other parts of the country. This was a small sample of 60 people — once extended with institutes that work for PLHIV, we intend to increase the sample size as well."

But what was the main reason behind such a study in an institute that strongly believes in allopathy and medicine? Mawar explained, "Newly infected patients always experience anxiety, depression and an instantly affected immune system, which leads to co-morbidities. We planned this pilot study to ward off these stressbusters." NARI director Dr R Gangakhedkar made it clear that SKY is an alternative medicine and can be used as a dependent technique, which was performed on an age group between 18 and 50 in the study.

Asked about the development, Dr D B Kadam, head of the medicine department at Sassoon hospital, offered, "As an adjuvant therapy, it can be useful. However, people with HIV have to continue to adhere to drugs to improve the quality of their life and live longer." Dr Vaibhav Lunkad, medical officer at the Yerwada Hospital ART centre, said, "This is part of alternative therapies like Ayurveda. If such a study was undertaken, it is a good practice for PLHIVs who indulge in risk-taking behaviour. SKY can help people keep this at bay."

Mirror also spoke to a few PLHIVs who have witnessed the positive effects of yoga in their lives. Shubhada (37) from Alandi, an Art of Living teacher, has been tested negative for HIV viral load for three years in a row now. She shared, "I was detected with HIV in 2004; when I was put on ART, I underwent several adverse effects that led to severe weightloss. I had to stop ART till 2009. Doctors gave up hope. But, I came across this course — now, three years of continous yoga and SKY later, I have tested HIV negative and my CD4 count is 600. I am also off the medicines and work with the centre where I started practising yoga." Similarly, Rajeev (name changed), a 37- year-old HIV positive patient, who is an IT professional, narrated that he was diagnosed with HIV in 2003 and became extremely weak. "I was not aware of ART then and my CD4 count had dropped to 38. Doctors sent me home saying they could do nothing. I had also contracted tuberculosis. Then, one of my colleagues suggested yoga. After practising for three months, I saw a change not only in my CD4 count — which hit 380 — but also my health; I even gained 10 kgs. By 2005, I had also started ART treatment, which is the main source of warding off HIV cells. Since then, I combine ART and yoga. My CD4 count is 780. People who have been suffering from HIV for long like me tend to go on to second-line therapy, but I am still on first-line therapy."

Salabhasana

Salabhasana strengthens the back and improves flexibility in the spinal muscles. The abdominal muscles become stronger, improving digestion. Stiffness is reduced in the neck and shoulders.

Step by Step

1. Lie face down on the floor with the arms beside the trunk, feet together, knees
straight and the toes stretching back.
2. Turn the palms upward. Stretch the arms and raise them so that the hands are
parallel to the floor.
3. Press the sacrum downward and raise the head, chest and legs as high as possible taking care there is no back pain.
4. Extend the trunk forward, the legs and arms backward and lift the chest.
5. Balance on the lower abdomen, look straight ahead and breathe normally.
6. Hold the pose for 20-30 seconds and then release and lower the chest, head and legs.

Focus In everyday life we are continually bending forwards,but have little reason to bend backwards.Back bends help to extend the heart muscles, stretch the front side of the lungs and maintain flexibility in the respiratory muscles, thereby increasing lung capacity. They are also useful for nourishing and toning the abdominal organs and stimulating the adrenal glands.

Easy Tips for Weight Loss Naturally with Yoga

How often do you hear this? “I think I’ve put on weight; I need to slim down” - and this could lead to frantic discussions on ways to somehow shed those extra pounds.

Working out at the gym for long hours, training our taste buds to eat only healthy - you might have already tried all these and more to come back to good shape. Now, how about adding something that’s natural, has no side effects, is extremely easy and hardly takes 15-20 minutes of your day?

Meditation; a simple yet powerful technique. Wondering how something related to the mind can have anything to do with shedding pounds and kilos? Let’s see how meditation helps you lose weight naturally:

1: BMR, calories scales become kind
If you are on a weight-control program, you might be keeping a regular check on your body’s basal metabolic rate (BMR). By knowing your BMR, you can reduce calorie intake, in turn reducing body weight. When you meditate, your body’s BMR reduces. This means the extra calories intake by your body reduces. Weight loss is, then, a natural outcome.

2: Your tummy happier with less food
Have you noticed that the minute you stop working out for a few days, you immediately tend to put on a lot of weight? This is because you continue eating without burning as much. Exercising at the gym simply increases your appetite but may not necessarily improve assimilation.

By practicing yoga for weight loss and meditation, assimilation improves and desire for calorie-rich food decreases. So you feel hungry but are satisfied with lesser quantities of food. This has a more long-term effect on the body weight. Even if you are not able to exercise for some days, you won’t start gaining weight suddenly.

3: Restore your balance
Excessive weight gain and weight loss are sometimes outcomes of hormonal imbalances in the body. Meditation helps restore that harmony in the system so that if you are overweight, you lose pounds and if you are underweight, you gain the ability to put on.

4: Doughnuts anyone?
Your craving for all kinds of food could be your biggest roadblock when it comes to losing weight. How easy is it to stop yourself from buying a doughnut each time you pass the bakery shop with the fine aromas floating around? With regular meditation, it can be slightly easier.

Meditation increases awareness so that you become more watchful of your food habits. The next time you stretch out to grab a packet of chips or chocolates, you are immediately aware that it’s not going to help you reduce weight and you can substitute them with healthy alternatives. Also, over a period of time with regular meditation practice, you will find that your cravings have dropped. So you won’t be reaching for that bag of chips or cookies all that often.

“Till about one year back, I used to eat a lot of chocolates to the extent that if I would have chocolates at-least once a day, I used to feel very restless. My weight would only increase and I did not how to stop myself. Within 2 months of regular practice of meditation, I saw my cravings drop and I found it easy to control myself to chocolates. I continue to meditate and my weight has come down by 7 kg,” shares Divya Sachdev

5: Boost your commitment
Have you noticed how easy it is to fall prey to the threats of your weight- loss program? Sleep, junk food, sweets – all of these have the power to make you drop out of your weight-control plan very easily. This is a check on your commitment where meditation can help. Daily meditation practice helps strengthen your intention to lose weight so that you become more committed to exercising, following a moderated diet and other healthy practices.

Meditation gives the strength to realize an intention.