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Almost any yoga practice you do will benefit your skin, but there are certain poses that are more beneficial than others. The following ones are especially powerful in terms of detoxifying, increasing circulation, and reducing stress.

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Crane pose, right leg up.

Squat down. Put your palms on the floor and straighten your legs. Press your knees against your shoulder bone closer to your armpits. Move your weight forward to your arms and try to lift your feet from the floor. Balance on your hands. Try to move one knee away from your arm and straighten it. Balance on your hands.

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Fix Your Posture in 10 Minutes With These 6 Yoga Poses

1. Tadasana (Mountain Pose)

Tadasana is really how we should be standing all the time, so if you can do this pose in correct alignment with ease, your posture is probably already pretty good! Most people, however, find this posture to be challenging, as it requires your whole body to be engaged.  

2. Vrksasana (Tree Pose)

A slumped over posture makes balancing poses very difficult, as when we slouch our body weight tends to carry us forward. When we learn to stand tall and balanced in Vrksasana, we can carry this feeling into our every day posture as well.

To do this pose:

Stand up straight and shift your balance onto your right foot. Place the sole of your left foot onto your calf or inner thigh, if you can. Once you feel balanced, raise your hands to your chest in Namaste. Keep your shoulders relaxed and your head in the same position as in Tadasana. Keep your eyes fixed on a point in front of you for better balance. Hold for 1 minute and repeat on the other side.

3. Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Facing Dog)

From table top position, tuck your toes, straighten your legs and lift your hips toward the ceiling. Adjust your hands forward a bit if necessary and spread your fingers. Keep your spine long, and your head and neck in line with your spine. Hold for 1 minute.

To do this pose:

Adho Mukha Svnanasana is a great pose for improving your posture, as it stretches and lengthens the spine and opens your shoulders, thus reversing that rounded, hunched over look.

4. Plank Pose

From table top pose, tuck your toes under and move your feet backward so that your legs are straight out behind you. Check that your wrists are underneath your shoulders, that your shoulders are away from your ears, and your body is in one straight line. Hold for 1 minute.

To Do This Pose:

Sometimes our slouching stems from having a weak core that lacks the strength to hold us upright. Plank pose will strengthen your core, which will take some of the stress off your spine, allowing you to hold yourself up straight with ease.

5. Bhujangasana (Cobra Pose)

Bhujangasana and half bhujangasana gently stretch the spine and open the chest, reversing rounded shoulders and upper backs.

To Do This Pose:

Lying on your stomach, engage your back muscles to lift your head and upper torso. Align your elbows underneath your shoulders for support. Open your chest and relax your shoulders away from your ears. Look straight ahead and hold for 1 minute.

6. Gomukhasana (Cow Face Pose)

Gomhukhasana is an intense chest and shoulder opener that will quickly lengthen all the muscles which have become short and tight through long hours hunching over a desk and steering wheel.

Do these poses every day and you’ll find your posture improving very fast. As your muscles stretch, strengthen and lengthen, you may even find you’ve ‘grown’ an inch or so!

To Do This Pose:

Keeping your back straight, raise your left arm above your head and bend it behind your back. Keeping your right arm down, bend your right elbow and reach your right hand up to meet the left. Try to join your hands together. Use a belt or strap if you can’t reach. Keep your head held high and look straight in front of you. Hold for 1 minute and switch sides.

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Hips facing forward, arms engaged. Relax your shoulders and put them away from your ears. Back leg engaged, knee directly over ankle or slightly behind. Weight on your front leg distributed evenly. Inhale, exhale, enjoy the stillness for 5 more breaths.

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When Savasana is done correctly and intentionally it is one of—if not the most—important and beneficial poses in our practice. Too often, though, we find ourselves being called out of our Savasana at the end of class without even having found relaxation in the pose, our mind still racing and body still tense, missing out on the posture’s many benefits.

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Feel like you’re ready to tackle handstands? Getting into a handstand requires balance, body awareness, technique, and a ton of strength. Although they can be intimidating, anyone can do a handstand with practice, discipline, and the right preparatory exercises. Here are 4 areas to focus on to prepare your body for this intense inversion.

Alignment Your body should be just as straight when you’re standing on your hands as it is when you’re standing on your feet. So, if you can’t stand up in Mountain Pose (Tadasana) with the proper alignment, you have little chance of being able to stand strong and steady on your hands. For handstand, as in Tadasana, proper alignment means keeping your spine as straight as possible, with your ankles, hips, shoulders, and ears stacked on top of one another. This alignment will help you balance and protect your lower back...

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You'll get there. Keep going.

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The pose begins when you want to leave it.

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Chronic lower back pain is one of the most common reasons people visit the doctor. This pain is usually caused by lifestyle habits, like working long hours at a desk job or sitting with poor posture on the couch after. The good news is, you can relieve your back pain and completely heal your lower back with yoga! To do this, you need to do poses that stretch out your lower backs and target your hamstrings and hips. But don’t just accept the explanation—try out this 5-pose sequence yourself!

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Be a lamp to yourself. Be your own confidence. Hold on to the truth within yourself as to the only truth.

 ~ Buddha