5 yoga poses guaranteed to engage your child in the practice

Parents, we hear you. Getting your child to sit still is never an easy task. But one yoga instructor is showing it's possible to do just that, and more.
Pilar Salazar has been doing yoga for the past 14 years, and teaching her own classes for half of those. The Costa Rican native honed her craft at Bodhi Surf School, where she practices Ashtanga yoga.
Today, she works to get others just as excited about the discipline.
"I knew I was going to like it. I like physical exercising and dancing. I have always been a very fit girl. When I went to Hatha yoga, it combined what I like about body movement and spirituality."

Pilar Salazar

Luckily for Salazar, she often has at least one buddy to perform the sequences with — her 5-year-old daughter, Maya.
Ever since she could walk, Maya has been practicing yoga. Her first move? Downward-facing dog.


"She has been very surrounded by practitioners, so it has been very present in her life."
Whether Maya is active for 15 minutes or an hour, she is reaping the many benefits that yoga offers. Salazar shared those and a few tips exclusively with TODAY.com.

Yoga creates bodily awareness

It gives kids moves, stretches and a better connection with their bodies.

It puts emotions under a magnifying glass

They learn how to breathe deeply and understand their emotions better. What I have learned through the practice of yoga — we can apply it through the day. "If she gets upset during the day, I ask her to take a moment, breathe deeply and figure out what exactly we are feeling," Salazar said.

With good posture, comes better coordination

Coordination is really important for kids to develop. The process helps with flexibility, coordination of movement and connection to oneself.

Do it as a family

Try to make it the most fun thing to do. Rather than sending them off to a children's yoga class, do it as a family. If we want people to learn, we always have to think about the best way to introduce information based on where the person is in their journey. It's a learning process that you'll take on together.

dee frog photography

There are many ways to ease into yoga, especially for families who haven't previously tried it.
Sun salutations, which are very simple ways to stretch, are for kids around 4 years of age or older. The important thing is to make it as natural and playful as it can be, Salazar said. Never force anything — start by doing it as a family.
Kids have a different span of attention than adults, so it's important to be patient and understanding. And so, maybe 10-15 minutes of yoga, three times a week is a great start.


They can start with three to five per day and ultimately build up to 10 per day. From there, they can start incorporating more yoga postures. In order to make it fun, use your imagination and create a story for every move and pose (Salazar tends to develop stories about animals and the jungle).
Salazar shared this sun salutation that she regularly does with her daughter:
1. Start in "mountain pose" with feet and hands together. Pretend you are a mountain, quiet and steady. Close your eyes and concentrate on hearing yourself breathe.

Pilar Salazar

2. Take a deep breath and and raise your hands up to the sky. Can you see the clouds? Try to touch them with your fingertips!

Pilar Salazar

3. Now, bend all the way forward to touch and feel the grass in feet and hands.

Pilar Salazar

4. Jump back as a frog would — your belly is going to touch the floor. As soon as this happens, lift your chest up and pretend to be a cobra.

Pilar Salazar

5. Stretch back to down dog. Hold it here for a moment.

Pilar Salazar

6. OK, Let's jump back to the front, raised your hands back to the sky and come back to mountain pose.

source-- .today

3 Simple Homemade Body Wash Recipes

Here is the look at three recipes that you can use to make soft & safe natural body washes:

Recipe 1: Honey Body Wash

Honey is one of the best nature’s moisturizer. By using it in the homemade body wash, you make sure the skin is hydrated & smooth each day. For this scrub, you just require the ingredients incorporating your favorite essential oil.

Required Ingredients:

• Castile soap or liquid and unscented: ½ cup
• Raw Honey: ¼ cup
• Melted coconut oil: ¼ cup
• Essential oil (sweet orange, lemon, grapefruit or eucalyptus works great) : 10 -15 drops

Method:

1. Flutter the honey, coconut oil, & essential oil together until well-mixed.
2. Add the teaspoon of Vitamin E oil if you wish.
3. Gently add the soap & stir softly to make sure that do not create suds.
4. Pour it out into the bottle & shake well it before using every time.
5. You now have the body rinse that smells fantastic & leaves the skin feeling soft & smooth!

Recipe 2: Coconut Oil Body Wash

If you have extra-dry skin, there is annihilation better than coconut oil. It keeps the skin moisturized, & also protects the skin from infection & skin disorders. This natural body wash will give you the luxurious body wash that you love your skin. Know more Benefits of using Night Creams

Required Ingredients:

• Castile soap i.e., unscented : 2 cups
• Melted coconut oil : 3 tablespoons
• Rose water : 1 cup
• Lavender essential oil : 15 – 20 drops

Method:

1. Mix all ingredients together in the quart-sized container or pot.
2. Shake smoothly until the ingredients have mingled well.
3. That is it. You can leave the body wash in the jar or pour it out into the squeeze bottle.
4. Always shake before using it.
5. You can use it as the face wash too, as it is soft on the skin.
6. It is sure to be enjoyed by everyone at home.

Recipe 3: Neem Body Wash

An all-natural body wash healthy and nourishing, & the neem in it keeps bacteria & viruses away. Shea butter & coconut oil will make sure that the skin has moisturized & soft every day. It is a body wash that has loads of goodness to the skin.

Required Ingredients:

• Distilled water: 6 cups
• Neem leaf extract: 10 drops
• Shea butter soap: ½ bar
• Coconut oil: ½ cup
• Bentonite clay : 1 tablespoon
• Lavender essential oil : 15 drops

Method:

1. First, take the soap bar, coarsely chop it into pieces & then mix it to make the fine powder.
2. Next, take the large bowl & put the distilled water & the soap in it over medium-high flame until the soap melts.
3. Once it has melted, in goes the coconut oil & allow it melt too.
4. Now you can add the clay. Making it into the paste first will make it simpler to include into the mixture, so you will need to do that.
5. Once everything has mixed well, take the bowl away from the heat & pour out the mixture into the containers. As it cools, the ingredients will depart – so shake it for every 15 minutes or so. Once the soap mix has cooled entirely, add the neem essence & essential oil. The lavender essential oil will conceal the neem scent & give the homemade body wash an unbelievable fragrance. It will make the skin oh-so-soft & benefit it in more steps than one. Read more Some of the homemade remedies for Cracked Heels

As you can see, making the all-natural body rinse at home can be quick & simple. With these excellent body wash recipes, one can say goodbye to all those chemical products you find in stores & make your skin soak in all the amazing benefits of these mild body washes.source-yabibo

Expert suggested ways to prevent eye pimple or stye

A stye in medical terms ‘hordeolum’ develops when an oil gland at the tip of an eyelid becomes infected. Resembling the pimple on the eyelid, a stye can develop on the inside or outside of the lid.

6 Things to Know About an Eye Stye

Here are few points to know about eye styes:

1. The first signs are redness, pain, swelling &tenderness.

After symptoms develop, a small pimple can develop in the affected area. Typically this is supplemented by swollen eyes. Sometimes just the next area is swollen; at other times, the whole eyelid swells. Read more How to treat Sunken Eyes

2. Styes typically do not cause vision difficulties.

A stye should not attack your ability to see well at either near or distance.

3. Staphylococcal bacteria cause a stye.

This bacterium has found in the nose & is carried quickly to the eye when you rub the nose than the eye.

Styes also spelled as sties or stys are not usually harmful to the vision and heal within a few days.

Styes are not typically detrimental to vision & improve within a few days.

4. Styes are contagious or spreading

Almost everyone has this stye letting bacteria in their body. We all, at any age, have the possible to develop a stye without outside contamination.

Still, if anyone have a stye, you do not want the bacteria within to come into contact with someone else’s eye. It might inevitably cause them to develop the stye or other infection as well. So keep the eyes & hands clean, and do not share pillowcases, washcloths, bedsheets, or towels with others. Read on 8 Steps Guide To Glamours Smokey Eyes

5. Most styes fix on their own within a few days.

one can encourage this process by using hot compresses for 10 -15 minutes, 3 or 4 times per day, over the course of many days.

It will ease the pain & bring the stye to a head, much like a pimple. In most cases, the stye can then breaks, bleed and heal without further interference.

6. Never “pop” a stye.

You should not pop a style like how you would have a pimple. Let the stye rupture on its own.

A stye that works inside the eyelid, called as an internal hordeolum might not rupture & heal on its own. Because this kind of stye can be more dangerous, the eye doctor may require opening & draining it.

If you have recurring styes, the eye doctor may expect to prescribe an antibiotic ointment to prevent the recurrence. He or she also might suggest using the pre-moistened eyelid cleansing pads for daily lid hygiene, to decrease the risk of styes & blepharitis. Read on 6 Best Foods For Healthy Eyes

How To Treat and Prevent a Stye in Your Eye

A stye is an infected swelling on an eyelid that can be so painful & difficult to deal with. Once a stye explodes, you might have to take oral medications & eye drops to relieve the pain & irritation. And if it does not recede on its own, a minor surgical procedure can be needed to get rid of the eye pimple. One can avoid all these annoyances if you follow these tricks & take care of the eyes.

Avoid touching or rubbing the eyes:

If you have the habit of frequently rubbing the eyes or touching them, it will only get you more prone to catching a stye because of the germs or bacteria the eyes could come in contact. Consciously, try to keep the hands away from the eyes. Also, remember to clean your hands before making any contact with the eyes or eyelids.

Get your eyes checked:

If you have noticed the child always rubbing his eyes, it could be as of blurred vision & not using specs. In such case, make sure to address immediately the uncorrected eye number by visiting the ophthalmologist before he/she develops a stye. A common cause of styes is always rubbing one’s eyes enough to blurred vision.

Get rid of dandruff:

Believe it or not, but also, the eyelashes will have dandruff if you are already suffering from dandruff on the scalp. It makes is simple for bacteria to penetrate the eyelids & cause swelling & inflammation. Consult the dermatologist to find an efficient way to tackle dandruff. Read more 10 Effective Home Remedies for Eye Flu

Do not let stress get to you:

Students lead to suffering from styes around the time their exams begin due to tremendous stress levels. Even adults had inclined to styes due to stress, so practice meditation or any other recreation methods like exercising or choosing up a new hobby to keep the stress levels under check.

Diabetes should have tested in elderly people:

If the elderly get repetitive styes, it is a sign of diabetes. By controlling your diabetes, one can prevent a stye formation.

Consult the dermatologist if you have the oily skin or recurrent acne as this could make you more inclined to styes than those who have regular to dry skin. Read more 10 Effective Home Remedies for Eye Flu

Always exclude eye make-up before sleeping:

By going to sleep with the make-up on, one could cause damage to the skin & also eyelids due to clogged pores that lead to pimples & skin irritation.

Don’t share eye makeup products:

Avoid sharing the eyeliner, kajal & eye lashes curlers with others. The bacteria that causes eye pimples or styes could quickly spread through these products.

Avoid using cheap or inferior eye make-up:

While one might be influenced to buy a kajal that costs one-third the price of the favourite cosmetic product, think twice since certain chemicals applied in these cheap cosmetics could trigger an infection in the eyelids.

Use a warm compress:

If are inclined to irritation or swelling around the eyelids, apply a hot /warm compress once a week every month for a minimum five minutes in morning & night before going to bed to prevent the growth of oil or dirt on the eyelids.

Have a well-balanced diet:

Assure that the immunity has protected by having a balanced diet with sufficient dairy products & green vegetables to keep yourself safe from any recurrence of an eye pimple or styes.source--yabibo

How to Get a Slimmer Waist

In the first installment of our series with structural integrative specialist, Lauren Roxburgh, we talked about what fascia is—and how you can manipulate it for longer and leaner legs thanks to its malleable nature. Luckily, there are ways to slim and streamline the waist, too—a particularly poignant fact for post-partum women who believe that giving up their hourglass shape is the price they paid to have kids. One of the reasons for the lingering thickness? The fascia builds up throughout the lower back to support the belly, and then decides to stay that way. It can be really tough to budge both the weight and the girth (from our personal experience, as well as Lauren’s). And for those who haven’t had a baby in the past few years, but who experience routine bloating or weight gain in their mid-sections, Lauren’s here to help, too. “There’s nothing more disheartening than the sight of love handles spilling over your pants, or a pooched belly,” she explains. “The good news is that while you will still need to do a bit of work, there really is a magic bullet that can help shrink your waist: All you need to do is create length and space in your core.” We asked her for a series of exercises to do exactly that. Her book (Ballantine) is due out in January, 2016.

“When the body begins to work appropriately, the force of gravity can flow through. Then, spontaneously, the body heals itself.”

—Ida P. Rolf, Ph.D; founder of the Structural Integration method and acknowledged as the first to understand the role of fascia in human health.

Q

Why do we gain weight around our midsections?

A

Much like weight gain in general, there are myriad factors, including poor diet, stress, hormonal imbalances, emotional eating, lack of adequate rest, and not moving our bodies enough. Alternately, we sometimes over-train parts of our bodies—like with spinning, which can create thicker, heavier quads on some frames.
But why does weight tend to go to our midsection? All of these factors can come into play, but as a structural integration practitioner I tend to look at the role of gravity and the impact of posture on our connective tissue. Basically, over time, gravity and the weight of our upper body can cause the space between the ribs and the hips to get squished and compressed, which in turn leads to a shortening and thickening of the waist. When our waistlines shorten, all the muscles, tissues, organs, skin, and fat start to bulge out to the sides making us look and feel thicker than we really are. To make matters worse this can also negatively influence digestion, metabolism, circulation, oxygenation, and organ and gland efficiency, leading to bloating, density, and inflammation. When more space is available for movement, breath, and circulation in this vital area, not only does the entire waist shrink and the midsection lengthen, but your energy will also increase and you will stand taller.
The waist or sides of the body tend to be neglected in our everyday lives: We spend a lot of time sitting, slouching, driving, and working on computers (or texting). Essentially, we’re just holding onto tension, stress, and worry. During my structural integration training we analyzed the way people in different cultures walk. Not surprisingly, those of us in West tend to walk—excuse the term—as if we have a stick up our asses. We’re rigid, tight, anxious, and inflexible and carry the stresses of our daily lives in our gait. Conversely people in African and South-American cultures tend to walk with their heads held high and with a relaxed movement: Their hips swing, their torsos twist side to side, and they have a more graceful presence to them. What this style of walking also means is that they are effectively doing core work in the muscles and fascia of their torsos with every step, toning the core while also helping to flush toxins, unwind tension, and release stress. So in addition to the roller moves below, whenever you walk (we take on average 5,900 steps a day just getting around our lives—that’s without cardio), stride with movement and grace. It will help your body twist, ‘ringing out’ your organs, increasing the oxygenation throughout, and whittling your waist in the process.

Q

How does fascia contribute to this thickness?

A

Fascia is critical because it actually helps to create the shape of our bodies. Basically, fascia is like a very thin wet suit just under the skin that wraps around each individual muscle and keeps everything in place (including our organs). It’s that thin white stringy layer that you see on a chicken breast when you’re cooking.
When it’s healthy, it’s like clear saran wrap. But injuries, stress, bad posture, emotional behavioral patterns, and poor body maintenance can cause fascia to get tight, dense, short, and plasticized. This further restricts movement and the alignment and efficiency of the body can be compromised, trapping toxins in the fascia and leading to thicker ‘pockets’ throughout the body—such as those that often form around the waist.

The good news is that fascia is malleable and can be repaired—and foam rolling and bodywork are both fantastic ways of releasing all those unhealthy toxins from the fascia and helping to reduce thickness in the body.

Q

Is it possible to create a waistline if you’ve never had one before?

A

Anyone can have a waistline, although the optimal waistline differs for every woman depending on body type, genetics, and so on. These exercises are not about getting that idealized 34/24/34 figure. These are about finding your best waist and most elongated torso and creating the space in your body to stretch out a bit.

Q

What are these roller exercises actually doing to your underlying structure?

A

The foam roller acts as a tool for myo-fascial release, lubricating your tissues and joints, melting away stress, and boosting circulation tremendously. The roller gets into the fascia in much the same way that a deep-tissue massage does, working out the toxins and scar tissue and helping to reformulate the structure of the muscles into a sleeker, leaner, more flexible form.
The roller also helps us tap into our intrinsic and core muscles—or, as I like to call them, the “skinny-buff muscles.” When incorporated with Pilates-inspired movements, the foam roller essentially destabilizes us. In order to balance, we have to “turn on” those core and intrinsic muscles that can be difficult to activate in most gym exercises or cardio workouts. What I’ve seen in my own body and the bodies of my clients is that when we focus on accessing these muscles mindfully we notice that they keep us slim, strong, long, and youthful, so activating and using them is essential to maintaining the improved alignment and sculpting the healthy, youthful body we all crave. The great thing about this program is that it can be an add-on to other workouts you love. You can take it on the road or do it at night before bed. It takes just a few minutes, allowing you to work smarter and not necessarily harder