Everyone knows that yoga is good for you and can be a great way to tone up, improve your flexibility, or relax. But, it seems that the positive effects of yoga can even have an impact on your complexion.
So, if you have been deep into your yoga practice recently and you seem to been getting lots of compliments on your yoga for glowing skin or bright, dewy complexion, you likely have your yoga routine to thank.
Below we will cover just some of the ways that including yoga into your workout routines regularly may help you banish skin issues or blemish blues.
1. Overall stress relief
The practice of yoga can be thoroughly relaxing, and leave you in a blissed-out state of mind, or help you escape the stressors of the day for a while. It turns out that what is actually happening is that yoga can help reduce levels of your stress hormone, cortisol.
For those of you who have ever gone through a particularly stressful time in your life, you can probably verify that this most likely did not correlate with your skin looking its best. This is because high cortisol levels are correlated with acne, increase sebum production, dullness, and more sensitive skin, lowering levels regularly can help you keep common skin issues in check.
2. Improved circulation to the face
Health and radiance is all about great circulation. And, if you normally have a rather sedentary lifestyle, your circulation can suffer because of it.
Getting your body moving throughout the day is a great way to help boost circulation all throughout your body, including your face.
Good circulation helps the skin look better because it opens up and floods those tiny vessels under the skin with oxygen-rich and nutrient-dense blood, while helping to clear away the toxin build-up from the day.
Yoga is especially great for circulation since it consists of many contorting shapes to get the blood pumping.
Inverted yoga positions are especially beneficial for facial circulation due to using the power of gravity to greatly enhance the blood flow to the small vessels in the face.
Try out a few downward dogs, a standing forward fold, or bridge pose to help boost facial blood flow. But, any position that gets the heart above the head will help increase facial circulation.
3. Deep breathing techniques
Speaking about healthy blood flow to the face, deep breathing techniques that are often incorporated into yoga practice aren’t just relaxing, they can help oxygenate your blood too.
Taking deep, thoughtful breaths all during your yoga session helps boost the amount of oxygen being carried around in your blood. And, since, when it comes to skin beauty, the more oxygen and nutrients flowing around, the better, these deep breaths can help make your skin look better too.
While it may be difficult to follow your breathing when you are first starting out with your yoga practice, once you get more comfortable with the poses, make following a deep breathing pattern a focus of each session to help achieve the greatest benefits.
4. Sweating it out
Sweat is much more than just a way to cool your body down when you are working out. Sweating can help flush toxins from your cells, increase blood flow to the vessels under the skin, and even flush out clear clogged pores.
So, when you are getting into your yoga flow, don’t worry about a little sweat as it may be helping to flush your cells and your skin of unwanted toxins and residue.
5. Improved digestion
A thorough yoga routine can really get the body moving, including into positions that don’t happen very often in your day to day routine.
Yoga positions that help to twist your body and abdomen can help ensure that your digestive system is moving along as it should, while basically providing a GI internal massage and boosting blood flow to the internal organs.
A healthy digestive system can help work wonders for pesky skin issues like blemishes, inflammation, scar tissue and irritation.
Try out a few twisting positions like crescent twist, or seated twist to give your digestive health, and thus overall skin appearance a boost.
6. Better sleep
If you have ever pulled a couple of late nights for a deadline, you can likely speak to the havoc poor sleeping habits can wreak on your skin’s appearance.
Dark circles, dry and dull skin, or a sallow appearance can all develop from regular late nights or interrupted sleep.
Most forms of exercise are great to help you feel both mentally and physically ready for sleep at the end of the day, and may be able to help boost your skin’s appearance when done regularly.
But, yoga may have an even bigger leg up on sleep benefits since it has a large focus on relaxation and deep breathing, helping you to head for bed with a calm mind ready to sleep peacefully.
Bottom Line
Yoga is much more than a practice for a strong and flexible body, it can have many whole-body benefits including a potentially clearer, brighter, and more glowing complexion.
Yoga can help boost blood flow, enhance blood oxygenation, reduce stress levels, improve digestion, help remove toxins, and may help you sleep better.
All of these things can culminate in healthier and clearer skin long term.
Author Bio
Franco is a Medical Content Writer by day and an eCommerce guru by night. As a HubSpot Certified Content Marketer, he enjoys creating content that helps illustrate words in a unique way to readers. When he’s not around his computer he’s in his garden on his off-grid home on the island of Puerto Rico. Visit his site!
