Buch lesen: «Look 15 Years Younger: The 15-Minute-a-Day Yoga Plan»
LOOK 15 YEARS YOUNGER
Barbara Currie
To my wonderful family: my mother Babs, my husband Gordon, my daughter Lysanne, my son Mark, my daughter-in-law Rachel and my brother Richard and his family. I am most grateful to you all for your kindness and unconditional love and support.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
What Is Yoga?
The Seven Stay-young Secrets of Yoga
Before We Begin
How to Use This Book
PART ONE: 15-MINUTE MIRACLES
Chapter 1: Stage 1
Chapter 2: Stage 2
Chapter 3: Stage 3
Chapter 4: Stage 4
Chapter 5: Stage 5
Chapter 6: Stage 6
PART TWO: GROWING YOUNGER WITH YOGA
Chapter 7: Your 15-Minute Facial
Chapter 8: Arms, Neck and Shoulders
Chapter 9: Flat Stomach Plan
Chapter 10: Bottom, Hips and Thighs
Chapter 11: Your Ageless Body
Chapter 12: Amazing Age-defying Anti-gravity Movements
Meditation
The Power of Visualization
My 30 Tips for Looking and Feeling Young For Ever
Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the Publisher
Introduction
Since the beginning of time, man has searched for that magical something to give him eternal youth.
Today this searching is at an all-time high, with billions being spent on miracle ‘get young’ face creams, neck creams, eye creams, cosmetic surgery, botox injections, collagen implants and facials, all with the ultimate quest of looking and feeling younger and halting the advance of the years.
But why do we want to be and look younger? When we were young, did we appreciate it? Didn’t we curse the spots and pimples, the lack of self-esteem, the school exams, relationship problems, etc? We had unlined skin, but did we appreciate that? Didn’t we cover it with make-up and try to look years older than we were? So what is it that we yearn for about youth? Do we really want to put the clock back and go through all those years again? – I doubt it!
George Bernard Shaw once said, ‘Youth is wasted on the young?’ Isn’t what we are searching for something quite, quite different? Wouldn’t we rather keep our present age but have the radiance, amazing energy, excitement, flexibility and agility of youth? Wouldn’t we like to get rid of the sagging muscles, aches and pains, excess weight, diminished eyesight and hearing and memory loss and replace it with a toned, firm and beautiful body, amazing energy, glowing, unwrinkled skin and improved memory, eyesight and hearing? Wouldn’t we like to be able to stay calm under stress, sleep really well at night and wake with that good-to-be-alive feeling and keep making new goals and planning new ventures regardless of our age?
If you are answering ‘yes’ to any of the above, then yoga is for you. I became a yoga addict at my very first yoga class over 30 years ago. I was stiff, tired, tense and out of sorts when I enrolled to try yoga for the very first time, but the sight of my teacher, then in her late fifties, will stay in my memory for ever. She was perfectly toned and, as she stood to demonstrate posture after posture, she did it with the flexibility, ease – and body shape – of an 18 year old.
She didn’t look tired or tense, but radiated a wonderful zest for life that was contagious and I left my first class walking taller and feeling better than I had felt for ages.
As I continued to learn yoga, from time to time I received some jolts or wake-up calls as ancient legends and parables were recited to us teaching us age-old truths. This is one of my favourites. It goes something like this:
Once upon a time there was a king with the most amazing palaces, beautiful gardens and parks, servants to cater for his every need and riches beyond his wildest dreams. He did not, however, enjoy good health or happiness. He desired these two qualities more than anything else in life, and sent his servants out far and wide to find someone with the secret that they could share with him. Eventually, after many, many years of combing his kingdom, his servants found an old woman in the mountains who made a very special herbal brew. The King sent for her immediately, but she refused to come, saying that the brew had to be made freshly and the herbs grew only around her small house in the mountains. So one day the King, reluctantly, went to see her. She insisted that he stayed in her house alone with her for a least a week, and again, reluctantly, the King agreed. The old woman gave him simple fresh food and took him for long walks in the beautiful mountains that surrounded her home. They watched the sunrise and sunset and marvelled at the bright starry skies. Each night before bed she dosed him with the special herbal mix, saying it would bring him health and happiness.
The King slept better than he had done in years. At the end of the week, he said happily that the herbal brew had worked wonders and he needed to take a large supply back with him to his palace, for which he would reward her handsomely. The old woman replied, ‘There was nothing in the brew that had any special power at all. The secret of happiness and health is and has always been within ourselves.’ All she had done was reveal this to him.
Isn’t this what we are really looking for? When you are happy and healthy inside, your face and body glow with a youthful inner radiance that no amount of expensive face creams or cosmetic surgery can give you. The Yogis of ancient India realized this well over 5,000 years ago.
What Is Yoga?
The word yoga means ‘yoking’ or the joining together of body, mind and spirit with the universal spirit. Realizing that for positive health, happiness and peace of mind, both mind and body must work together in complete harmony; the yogis developed this wonderful system of personal development, the science of yoga.
Yoga is comprised of slow, deep, healthy breathing practices to stimulate oxygen to every cell, physical exercises to tone 100 per cent of the body both inside and out, balancing postures to strengthen the body and help us learn the power of concentration and focus, inverted positions to reverse the adverse ageing effects of gravity, stretching movements to keep the joints and spine in perfect condition, deep relaxation to help us release tension and relax, and meditation for calm, deep, inner peace.
The exercises, coupled with a healthy diet, keep the body in radiant health. The body becomes firm and beautiful, the skin glows with health, posture is corrected, stresses and strains vanish, and agility and tremendous flexibility are restored.
In my opinion, yoga is the best elixir of youth. By practising daily you will soon start to reap its magical benefits.
Inside each and every one of us is a force of energy called prana, literally translated as ‘lifeforce’. This life-force flows freely through the body in youth, but can dwindle with age if the body isn’t cared for correctly, resulting in such things as lack of energy, stiffness in the joints, tension, insomnia, obesity, depression and memory loss, together with poor posture, wrinkled, sagging skin and dull thin hair – i.e., the conditions we refer to as ageing. The modern way of treating this process lies in a special pill, potion, miracle cream or remedy – but these provide only temporary relief as you are treating the symptoms, not the underlying cause of the problem. The cause is obviously within ourselves.
Yoga proves that with proper exercise it is possible to stimulate the vital force within us. This doesn’t come about by applying a miracle cream to your face or by sweating it out in the gym, but by proper breathing, stretching and working your body so that tensions blocking the life-force around every organ, gland, nerve, tendon, cell, blood vessel, joint and bone are released and your body becomes nourished, revitalized and perfectly toned from within. This, combined with alleviating stress with deep relaxation and meditation and programming the mind to think and be 15 years younger, is the real secret to eternal youth.
This wonderful thing called youth cannot be found ‘out there’, no matter where you look, how many expensive face creams you buy, how far you travel or how much surgery you have. The secret of youth is within you.
All you have to do is learn the seven major rejuvenating secrets of yoga and commit to 15 minutes daily practice seven days a week, and you will do more for your body, mind, looks and feeling of well-being than you ever thought possible. You will look, feel and be 15 years younger.
The Seven Stay-young Secrets of Yoga
1. The Secret of Energy
The body has a natural energy flow that gives rise to a wonderful feeling of glowing health and well-being. It is, however, easily blocked or interrupted by feelings of tension, worry, anger, guilt, depression, etc. The tensions of the mind can lead to tension in the body, which can weaken the body and can eventually lead to disease.
Yoga gets rid of tension by allowing you to stretch your entire body from top to toe, both inside and out. The deep breathing that accompanies yoga practice increases the oxygen level in the bloodstream. Life-giving oxygen is needed by every cell; the brain in particular has a tremendous need for oxygen.
By stretching out tension, breathing deeply and then performing postures with your head below your heart, oxygen is carefully distributed to all the body’s parts, including the brain, and as a result you will feel and look refreshed and revitalized on finishing your yoga workout.
As you continue your yoga practice on a daily basis you will find that your whole body starts to feel better, and you will start to understand that daily stretching to unblock your energy zones, eating fresh, vital foods, learning to relax, and meditating to calm your mind and receive new ideas puts new life into you. The energy of youth is restored and you acquire a new and real zest for life.
An extra benefit comes from visualizing energy flowing through your entire system as you perform your yoga postures. As you concentrate on doing the movements, all negative thoughts will slip from your mind. Negative thoughts are the main energy-drainers, but no matter how tired you are before you start your yoga you will feel calm, focused and energized afterwards. Motion changes emotion.
Whatever you can do or dream you can begin it. Boldness has genius, magic and power in it. Begin it now.
GOETHE
2. The Secret of Perfect Shape
Yoga works 100 per cent of the body, carefully stretching, toning and firming all the muscles in accordance with their natural movements. This gives the body a beautiful shape, corrects posture and rebalances weak areas – correcting ugly, fatty deposits and giving the body the famous streamlined yoga look. Yoga will never give you a hulky-bulky, tight muscular appearance, as this is totally against yoga principles. If you tighten your muscles you are like a puppet whose strings are too taut, inhibiting the natural flexibility of the body and so limiting its movement, leading to unnatural ageing and stiffness.
Firmness of the muscles is essential to prevent the skin sagging and wrinkling and also to keep the internal organs in their correct place. Nothing looks worse than a dropped abdomen, and movements such as the Abdominal Lift are brilliant for keeping this area firm, toned and youthful. The bottom is toned and the back strengthened with movements like the Full Locust. The thighs get an amazing workout with the Camel, Sideways Leg Raise and Heron postures. The arms are perfectly toned with the Chest Expansion, Pose of a Mountain and Cow. The face and neck area become very youthful with the head and neck exercises and the Lion. The hair regains its lustre as the movements stimulate your scalp. Finally, the ageing effects of gravity are carefully reversed by yoga’s inverted postures such as the Shoulderstand and Headstand, which do wonders for the way we look and feel.
Grace, beauty, strength, energy and firmness adorn the body through yoga.
YOGA SUTRA 111.47
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