Facial Yoga Kapolshakti Asana demonstrated by Yogaguru Suneel Singh. Image Courtesy – Vijay Gautam.
In today’s tough and stressful conditions, it is very safe and secure way to practice facial yoga to improve your health and beauty to increase your efficiency and to develop your personality.
Today, when woman is handling her career and house as well, it has become necessary to balance her physical and mental strength. Face is an integral part of women. Women are very much concerned about their beauty, natural greasiness and shine as well. Our skin goes on decreasing with age. This causes dryness in it. Mental tension, anxiety, too much physical labour, malnutrition and insomnia cause wrinkles.
Sometimes pollution in the air, use of too much soap on the face and dieting also cause dullness of the skin.
Few exercises of yoga and asanas can bring back the shining of the face and it can also remove spots, wrinkles, acne and pimples from our face.
(1) Kapol Shakti: Sit comfortably in Padmasana or Sukhasana. Try to chew something inside your mouth, such as cow or a buffalo does. Practice it at least for 2 minutes.
(2) Kapol Shakti: Sit comfortably in Padmasana or Sukhasana, and tap your both cheeks, alternatively by your fingers. Practice it for 5 minutes daily. Princess Diana used to practice the same exercise daily.
(3) Kapol Shakti: In this exercise, we bend our neck backward and then try to touch our upper lip, by lower lip. We stay in this position for some time, and then we come back to normal position. This completes one cycle, it should be repeated for 10 times.
(4) Kapol Shakti: Sit in Sukhasana or Padmasana. Sit likewise (as in picture), join your all three fingers (not the index one) with the tip of thumb, in both hands. This is called ‘Udaan Mudra’. Practice it for 5 minutes daily.
Read: Achieve total health with 12 rounds of Sun Salutation
(5) Kapol Shakti (Sixth Step): Put both thumbs inside your mouth, touch upper jaw, spread your lips to stretch muscles and now close your lips to apply pressure. Practice this exercise at least for 5 times.
(6) Kapol Shakti (Seventh Step): Raise your eyebrows as much as you can and open your eyes fully. Remain in this mudra for sometime and then come to normal. Practice it at least for 5 times.
(7) Kapol Shakti – Eighth Step (Singh Asana): Sit in Vajrasana, open your knees. Put your palms on your knees, fingers spread like claws of a lion. Inhale, take your tongue out and then roar like a lion. Exhale at the same time. Mouth should be open to its full length in this exercise. Tongue should be out to its maximum. Practice this asana at least for 3 times.
(8) Shashankasana: Sit in Vajrasana. Inhale deep and stretch your hands upwards. Now exhale, bend forward and put your palms on the ground. Put your forehead to the ground, stay in this position for sometime and then come back slowly. Repeat this exercise for 5 times.
Note: Patients suffering from back pain and heart problem are advised not to practice this asana.
(9) Laughter Therapy: The experts all over the world have concluded that the laugh cures the internal pressure and also relives an individual from the different ailments. Yoga experts have given a separate recognition to laughing yoga. Laughing is a very good tonic. By laughing loudly the speed of blood circulation increases. By doing this, the digestive system works efficiently. Laughing prevents the lungs from the ailments and the polluted air (CO2) comes out. By laughing the sweat comes out more and with this the dirt of body also comes out. Laughing relieves you from sadness, loneliness, tiredness, mental tension and physical pains.
This is such an exercise which can be done at any time and at any place easily. There is no age for laughing and smiling, nor there are any bindings on it. Scientists say that a person who laughs loudly and freely, lives a long life. The more pleasure you distribute the more you will get in return. Therefore adopt laughing yoga and be happy throughout your life.