The world-wide success of yoga is certainly an encouraging fact about contemporary man's search for depth, but he also registers some strident contradiction.
One of the most obvious and stinging is to put the word yoga on every possible type of activity even if it really has nothing to do with the ancient Indian discipline. The public, legitimately unaware of the subtleties of the subject, is forced to put up with the very ordinary gentle exercise or stretching where he was offered "something" of yogic.
If the students have few tools to change the state of things, we teachers have the task of making things clear for the sake of discipline and category: keeping the experience fields separate (yoga / gymnastics / stretching / pilates / etc ...) will help everyone the professionals of the various sectors to improve each in their own way and will allow to present to the public a transparent educational offer (then you can also think of an "integrated" and multidisciplinary discourse, but it is a completely different matter that deserves a separate article) .
This reflection made its way into the writing of this article precisely because of the spread of a recent style of yoga, called yotox, specific for the face: a denomination born from the union of the words yoga and botox is a sort of facial gymnastics that would have the purpose to improve the tone and elasticity of the skin.
Now, nothing excludes that it is effectively effective for the facial muscles, it is certain that properly "yogic" - in its sense of psycho-physical discipline, that is the authentic one - has very little.
Yet yoga, the authentic one, can really do something to improve the appearance of our face . What do you mean?
Facial gymnastics: the benefits for facial health
What can yoga do for our face?
The next time you come out of your yoga class or meditation, pay attention to it: if you look in the mirror, you will look more beautiful! It's a pretty common feeling, a pleasant side effect of the practice .
During the lesson the state of relaxation can often reach depth and expand, touching even those parts of the body that are often unconscious contractions.
The face is one of these: the stiff jaw, the hardened cheeks, the tightened lips, the narrow eyes, the furrowed brow are just some of the tensions that we often carry around with us throughout the day, sometimes even at night; when we finally manage to relax them, it is as if our face lit up becoming an exterior mirror of a rediscovered inner serenity.
Every time we are tense, in fact, even the face is hit by this state of mind and, we could say, puts on a mask of contractures, rigidity, redness. It is really important to remove it as soon as possible, also through yoga and meditation.
These disciplines help us not only to cancel any signs of expression, but they represent a moment of awareness tout court : in moments of silence and introspection, we realize in the meantime that these tensions are clinging to our face and we can see where, in particular, they tend to nest more easily just to intervene promptly, dissolving them. The practice thus also becomes a moment of greater self-knowledge and deep listening.
Skin, emotions, yoga and meditation
The fact that our emotions can affect the skin is rather proven by research and personal experience. How many times did it happen that, during a period of stress, pimples, redness, irritation appeared?
Well, yoga and meditation can make a small contribution from this point of view, by acting on the mental roots of cutaneous manifestations.
Finally, referring in particular to yoga: the upside-down positions can contribute to the beauty of the face, flooding it with blood which, like a waterfall, waters it with vitality!
