In a bid to stave off aging, I have been turning my world upside down two to three times a week with inversion yoga. Yup, I am keeping wrinkles at bay by spending time on my head, forearms and hands!

Inverted poses, like the headstand, can refresh the glandular and circulatory systems, increase circulation and drainage of lymphatic fluid, and stimulate the nervous system. It also provides your face with an instant facelift! In fact, Hollywood bombshell, Eva Mendes admits that she lies upside down on a slant board for about 20 minutes before a photo shoot, or a hot date. She notes that the increased blood flow to her upper body and face brings on a vibrant, flushed-with-youth look.

Besides a radiant and glowing complexion, I also notice that my back feels really relaxed after each 90 minute session, probably because the upside down poses relieve the gravity pull on my spine, giving it a much needed rest.

Other reputed benefits of upside down yoga:

Reduce Gray Hair

Practicing headstands regularly has even been reported to convert gray hair back to its natural color. Although I can’t vouch for the validity of this particular claim, the transformation is supposedly due to the increase in blood supply and nutrients to hair follicles in the scalp.

Increase Sexual Energy

The bottom line is that a regular inversion practice can lead to better circulation to every part of your body, including the thyroid, pineal, and adrenals. This even goes for your sexual organs, which means better sexual health.

Delay Age-related Diseases

The stimulated circulation brings healthy, oxygenated blood flow to the brain, which increases mental alertness, helps to synchronize brain activity, and may help to prevent mental disorders and brain dysfunction.

Upside down yoga is not all about complicated Cirque Du Soleil-like poses. In fact, a simple Downward Dog position where your hips are higher than your head is an effective upside down pose! Who needs fancy creams and other costly beauty products that just add to your consumption? Stay young and youthful naturally.

For the last 2 weeks, I’ve been starting my Sundays with 108 sun salutations. The first time I did it, I nearly left the yoga studio halfway and felt wobbly and weak after (could also be due to a particularly tough yoga class the day before). Surprisingly, I sailed through the poses the second time, feeling strong and enjoying every minute of it. My yoga teacher informs (or tried to motivate) us that 70-year-old yogis in India do 108 sun salutations every day. In India, it is a method of self-improvement used to harness the full potential of the mind, body and breath for a variety of benefits, including reversing the effects of aging.

Over your lifespan, the physiology of your body begins to change. One effect of aging is decreased elasticity of the lungs, which diminishes your body’s ability to use oxygen, resulting in fatigue and poor immunity. Also, you will lose muscle tone and experience an increase in fatty tissues. Your bones will begin to lose their density, making them more fragile. The activity of your thyroid will decrease, your metabolism will slow down, and the strength of your digestive system will weaken.

Surya namaskara, or sun salutations, is a sequence of yoga poses that are said to be almost universally beneficial, with benefits that counter many of the effects of aging. Use sun salutations to maintain muscle tissue and flexibility throughout your life, to boost your metabolism by stimulating the thyroid, pancreas and pituitary glands, to alleviate indigestion and ailments of the liver and the pancreas, and to strengthen the spinal cord and cells of the nervous system. Practicing sun salutations regularly will give you more energy and more focus throughout the day.

The late Swami Vivekananda, a prominent yogi in India, had once said: “The result of this branch of Yoga is to make men live long; health is the chief idea, the one goal of the Hatha-Yogi. He is determined not to fall sick, and he never does. He lives long; a hundred years is nothing to him.”

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Aesthetics 101

-       Top 10 Aesthetic Treatments & Plastic Surgeries

-       Aesthetic Tips: How to find a suitable doctor

Imperfections Special

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Beauty

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-       Acne Away! Top 8 grooming tips for men.

-       Ask The Beauty Queen: All your fashion and beauty woes answered.

Anti Aging Special

-       All About Fillers with Dr David Loh

-       New Face Lift: Sculptra: Find out about a new collagen treatment that will help put back what time has taken out.

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Exercise

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Ask The Plastic Surgeon

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5 Minutes With…

-       Dr Joyce Lim: This skincare doyenne talks about pigmentation and her solutions to skin imperfections.

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-       Dr Edward Liew from St Andrews Dental Surgeons clues us in on how to have a perfect smile.

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Industry Happenings

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What’s In The News: Cosmeceutical Skincare, Latisse, UltraShape 3, Vaginal Resurfacing

Excites!

Yoga has become my new boyfriend. I’m constantly thinking and talking about it, I buy nice outfits to wear for it and downward dog is my favourite position. If I had a choice, I’d do yoga everyday as it has so many facets that I’d never tire of it – there’s yin yoga if I want a relaxing stretch, pranamed for some solace and vinyasa if I want to get my heart racing. My favourite is hatha and I always get butterflies in my tummy when I go on my Saturday date with hatha 3.

Very few people retain their strength and vitality till the middle age. More people are looking much older than they actually are, thanks to the highly-stressed, sedentary and polluted lifestyles we lead.  However, you would be happy to know that our body has the unique ability to renew or regenerate at the cellular level. One way to do that is to practise yoga. Here’s how yoga can help you reclaim your vitality:

Yoga Keeps the Spine Young: According to Indian philosophy and Indian sages, age is measured not by the number of candles on your birthday cake, but by the flexibility of your spine.  Yoga works to improve the elasticity of the spine through its thousands of postures or asanas. These myriad postures, done in conjunction with deep and rhythmic breathing, work the spine and muscles of the body through a dual action of push and pull.

Yoga Makes Skin More Youthful: A German study of a group of women showed that yoga can reduce stress, thereby reducing the appearance of wrinkles and smoothing over the lines in the forehead. Yoga may work its magic by reducing oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is linked to a host of aging conditions and illnesses from wrinkles to heart disease to Alzheimer’s. Apparently, by practicing inverted yoga postures, you can turn back gray hair to its natural color (upside down class here I come!).

Yoga Eases Aches and Pains: As we get older, our joints and muscles lose their elasticity. Yoga helps to restore the dryness and tightness that is associated with debilitating conditions like arthritis and back pain by its ability to stretch and improve the circulation and mobility of these restricted regions.  Any cardiovascular exercise promotes optimal levels of oxygen, but this dual action that yoga demands forces oxygen into tight areas of the body thereby improving oxygenation throughout the entire body.

Yoga Keeps You Happy: Chronic pain, constant stress or loneliness is strongly correlated with depression and decreased energy. As people with a chronic ailment adopt a consistent yoga practice, not only do their physical symptoms start to improve, but their mood does as well. The better we feel, the better we look as our outer appearance starts to reflect the vitality we feel inside.

Yoga Keeps Your Mind Agile: Research is revealing that keeping your mind active is just as important to reducing the effects of aging as eating a healthy diet.  Since many of the asanas in yoga require concentration as we not only focus on the movements themselves, but also how the breath corresponds to each movement, our minds are continually being challenged (try doing a standing mermaid and you’ll know what I’m talking about!). These subtle but powerful brain exercises are like feeding our minds heaping bowls of Superfoods, keeping them young, alert, healthy and alive.

Ommmmm…