Supernatural Botanicals

Did you know that you lose 20 percent of the top layer of underarm skin each time you shave?  (ew!)   

To lessen the pain of shaving, wait until the end of your shower to shave.  The steam softens hairs for smother results.  And always use shaving cream to avoid knicks and cuts. 

Proof!  Proof that smooth, soft legs can be achieved with regular exfoliation (try this!), regular careful shaving (try this!), and an ultra-indulgent lotion to soften (try this!)

So you’ve mastered Downward Facing Dog pose in yoga, let’s keep going!  This is Dolphin pose.  This is a super-deep stretch that opens up your shoulders and digs deeper into stretching those hamstrings and glutes.

Benefits of Dolphin pose are:

Benefits

• Calms the brain and helps relieve stress and mild depression
• Stretches the shoulders, hamstrings, calves, and arches
• Strengthens the arms and legs
• Helps relieve the symptoms of menopause
• Relieves menstrual discomfort when done with head supported
• Helps prevent osteoporosis
• Improves digestion
• Relieves headache, insomnia, back pain, and fatigue
• Therapeutic for high blood pressure, asthma, flat feet, sciatica

So the next time your head is pounding from a stress headache, forgo the Tylenol and center yourself with some postures to relieve tightness from the neck and shoulders.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1.  Come onto the floor on your hands and knees. Set your knees directly below your hips and your forearms on the floor with your shoulders directly above your wrists. Firmly press your palms together and your forearms into the floor.

2.  Curl your toes under, then exhale and lift your knees away from the floor. At first keep the knees slightly bent and the heels lifted away from the floor. Lengthen your tailbone away from the back of your pelvis and press it lightly toward the pubis. Against this resistance, lift the sitting bones toward the ceiling, and from your inner ankles draw the inner legs up into the groins.

3.  Continue to press the forearms actively into the floor. Firm your shoulder blades against your back, then widen them away from the spine and draw them toward the tailbone. Hold your head between the upper arms; don’t let it hang or press heavily against the floor.

4.  You can straighten your knees if you like, but if your upper back rounds it’s best to keep them bent. Continue to lengthen your tailbone away from the pelvis and lift the top of your sternum away from the floor.

5.  Stay between 30 seconds to one minute. Then release your knees to the floor with an exhale.

Looking for more great yoga stretches?  Head over to Yoga Journal and find 117 more moves just like this.