3 Interesting Facts About Ayurvedic Skin Care

Author: Ray A. Rubio


In this fast moving world, we often find it difficult to stand back and take good care of ourselves. However, we are obsessed with the idea of looking good. Ancient ayurveda, one of the oldest disciplines of medication, tells us that we can have good-looking skin only if our insides are pure and free from any kind of impurities. Thus, before you start external polishing, take an inward look, and go for ayurvedic skin care.


The blemishes, pimples, eruptions, or spots on your skin that irritate you are merely a result of certain lifestyle or diet disorders. If you can go for a skin friendly diet, you can ensure that you have great and healthy skin.


Always try to have food that is good for your body. Have meals that are light and healthy. Go for fruits and vegetables that make your insides clean and healthy. If you follow a healthy diet for some time, you will see the results yourself. The result will be healthy skin that looks young and fresh.


Given below are certain dietary tips that will help you get healthier skin:


1. For ayurvedic skin care, begin your day with a mug of hot water that has the juice of half a lemon. Lemon is very good for the skin and since it is anti bacterial, it helps your body to flush out the toxins and keep your body clean from within. In case you have very oily skin, you can go for another glass of lemon water later in the day. Those who have regularity problems can start the day with raisins that have been soaked in water overnight.


2. Herb tea is another thing that forms an important part of ayurvedic skin care. You can go for fennel, mint, aniseed, cardamom, rosehips or cinnamon tea about twice or thrice a day. The herbs that are very good for cleansing include neem, turmeric, Sarsaparilla, marshmallow root, and Indian madder. All these herbs are great for your body because they purify the blood and clean the toxins in your body.


3. Raw salads are also great for your health but you can reap the maximum benefit of eating raw food only when you have a strong digestive system. In case your system is not very strong, you will not be able to digest the raw food. For ayurvedic skin care, you need to consume vegetables that have high water content. Carrot, lettuce, daikon radish and tender asparagus are vegetables that are very good for your health and your skin. In Ayurvedic jargon, these vegetables are called tridoshic, which means that they are suitable for individuals with any kind of skin.


Another group of vegetables that is very good for your skin. These are cruciferous vegetables. However, you must have these vegetables only after you steam them because they are slightly difficult to digest. If you have vatta skin, avoid these vegetables. But if you have Pitta or Kapha skin, have steamed broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts.


For complete ayurvedic skin care, avoid bad fats and oily food. For those who have dry skin, consumption of ghee is prescribed. If you follow these diet tips for ayurvedic skin care, you will see the difference in a few days when you get healthier skin.


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Alternative Approaches to Mental Health Care

An alternative approach to mental health care that emphasizes the interrelationship between mind, body, and spirit can play an important role in recovery and healing. Although some people with mental health problems recover using alternative methods alone, most people combine them with other, more traditional treatments such as therapy and, perhaps, medication. It is crucial, however, to consult with your health care providers about the approaches you are using to achieve mental wellness.

Acupuncture

Acupuncture is one of the alternative therapies that are getting a lot of attention for mental health. In this practice, your body is regarded as a system of energetic pathways. When one of these pathways is disrupted, it can cause mental health problems. When the acupuncturist identifies the blocked pathway, however, and then inserts a needle into the area, they can help to improve the energy movement, reducing the mental health symptoms. Though this was once dismissed as a false science, more studies are showing that these needle treatments do work - and they can work in the long term. You can find acupuncture practitioners in nearly every city by heading to your local phone book.
Exercise and Diet

While this may not be considered alternative, most people wouldn't think that lifestyle changes could contribute to their mental health. But it's true. Since your body is comprised of a vast number of systems that require the proper nutrition and blood flow in order to work properly, it stands to reason that taking on healthy habits will allow you to also improve the mental health of your body. Nerve cells that are well-nourished may be better able to stay balanced. An attempt to add thirty minutes of exercise to every day and eating a healthier diet is a great start.

Meditation

Used for centuries, the practice of meditation is still considered a great way to calm the mind and often still any mental health disorders. By sitting in a comfortable position and simply trying to clear the thoughts from your mind, people have noticed they feel more centered and serene. A person does not have to sit in a lotus position or even chant in order for this practice to work. Take about ten minutes a day to sit in a quiet place in your home (wearing headphones to drown out noises if you can't find peace and quiet) and simply let any thoughts that enter into the mind out again. Whenever you begin to think about something, just let it go and focus on your breathing. In time, you will have fewer and fewer thoughts, helping to relax your body as well as your mental issues.

Massage therapy: The underlying principle of this approach is that rubbing, kneading, brushing, and tapping a person's muscles can help release tension and pent emotions. It has been used to treat trauma-related depression and stress. A highly unregulated industry, certification for massage therapy varies widely from State to State. Some States have strict guidelines, while others have none.

Prayer

When you believe in something greater than yourself, research is shows that you might have a smaller chance of mental health issues. There seems to be something about recognizing the idea that you aren't in control of everything, so when you give that control to someone or something else through prayer, you can begin to find balance in life. By simply sitting down and praying each day, you can begin to establish your place in the world.

Music/Sound Therapy
It is no coincidence that many people turn on soothing music to relax or snazzy tunes to help feel upbeat. Research suggests that music stimulates the body's natural "feel good" chemicals (opiates and endorphins). This stimulation results in improved blood flow, blood pressure, pulse rate, breathing, and posture changes. Music or sound therapy has been used to treat disorders such as stress, grief, depression, schizophrenia, and autism in children, and to diagnose mental health needs.

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Mental Relaxation and Your Mental Health

By Expert Author: Stephen Lau

View Summary | Submitted: 2007-10-23 | Word Count: 780 words

Stephen Lau

Relaxation is important to both physical and mental health. Mental relaxation benefits not just your mind but also your body.

Stress is part of life; it is almost impossible to avoid stress. In fact, attempting to avoid stress is enough to create stress. Stress is what you experience emotionally and internally in response to a given situation with which you are incapable of coping. However, stress, ironically enough, may also be beneficial in that it teaches you about how to handle difficult situations in life. Learning to deal with demands in life keeps your mentally healthy, just as exercise keeps you physically fit.

Stress is related to your feelings, which signal that "something is not in order." Stress, therefore, requires expression of these emotions in an appropriate way - in the form of mental relaxation.

Mental relaxation is possible only when you have a plan for a balanced lifestyle, including regular bedtime, even on weekends and holidays. The reason is that your body's biological clock plays an important role in regulating your sleep patterns, which are critical to your mental well-being. Plan your daily routine and pace your life.

Take full responsibility for you own stress. This is the key to managing stress in your life. Never say, "You give me stress!" Nobody gives you stress but yourself. You are responsible for your own feelings. Otherwise, you would be passing the responsibility to others - that does not work in real life.

Change your attitudes and perceptions of what you experience in your life. Events that happen to you remain the same, but your perceptions may vary. Change your attitudes and perceptions to change the way you think about your experiences. Learn to laugh at others as well as at yourself. According to studies, children laugh 40 to 50 times a day, and that is why they are happy; adults, on the other hand, laugh only 10 to 15 times at the most. Do not take life too seriously, develop and nurture a sense of humor, which is a component of mental relaxation.

Enhance your physical capabilities to cope with difficulties encountered. These capabilities include physical fitness, good nutrition, and deep sleep without sleeping aids.

Change the environment that gives you stress. If your job gives you stress, change the job or take a vacation to de-stress yourself, although this may be a passive way of dealing with your stress.

Life is full of problems. Understanding yourself and the things that trouble you most is an important step in solving your life's problems, thereby eliminating much of the stress. Your mental health is determined by the way you work with and relate to others. In other words, you may have behavioral problems that create stress for you at work and in relationships. Isolating yourself in order to avoid these behavioral problems only makes you more difficult to enjoy good mental health.

To deal with any behavioral problem, you must learn how to communicate easily and clearly with others. You must be a good listener. You must be assertive without being critical or aggressive. You must learn to trust others, and see the good, instead of the bad, in others.

Eliminating stress is not equivalent to producing mental relaxation. To help your mind relax, you need to give it "a break." When you are asleep, your mind remains very active and does not "rest." When you are awake, your mind is preoccupied with mostly past and future thoughts. Nearly all your thoughts, including your desires and fears, are based on either the past or the future. Your desires are no more than recollection of the past pleasure and hope of repeating them in the future. Fears are also memories of past pain, and your desire to avoid them in the future. To give your mind the rest it rightfully deserves, help your mind focus on the present moment. Meditation does just that: it enables your mind to focus only on the present moment to the exclusion of past and future thoughts.

In meditation, you focus on your breathing, noticing your inhalation and exhalation, directing your mind to the present, thereby shutting off wandering thoughts of the past and future. In meditation, you are essentially giving your mind a period of relaxation. There is no other way as effective as meditation in giving your mind total relaxation. Modern medicine is beginning to use meditation to cure mental disorders because it works at your subconscious level. In Buddhist meditation, you experience "nirvana" only through meditation, in which you empty your mind of impure thoughts to arrive at a mental state of enlightenment.

Meditation, in conjunction with self-effort in changing attitudes and lifestyle, provides the best mental relaxation for your mental health.

Copyright (c) 2007 Stephen Lau

About the Author/Author Bio

Stephen Lau is a researcher, writing synopses of medical research for scientists. His publications include "NO MIRACLE CURES" a book on healing and wellness. He has also created several websites on health and healing. www.longevityforyou.com, www.zenhealthylifestyle.com, www.chinesenaturalhealing.com

Article Source: http://www.articlesphere.com/Article/Mental-Relaxation-and-Your-Mental-Health/109235

Article Tags: health and fitness, mental health, mental relaxation, meditation, mental health, behavioral problems, stress management

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