“Breathing Is Essential!” I hear Jane Fonda say in a singsong voice from the TV screen.

I raise my eyebrow and snort out of my nose. I’m in the middle of doing a side leg lift, hands on my hip and I’m feeling extra ridiculous. ”Oh really, Jane?”

That was years ago.

Please don’t ask me why I used to do Jane Fonda workout videos. It was just something my friend and I did for giggles, ok?

But to this day, I’ve never forgotten about that Jane Fonda workout. OR that ridiculous quote ringing in my head…

“Breathing is essential!”

Of course it is.

It’s a fact so OBVIOUSLY true, that oh my god, do you really need to say it?

But yes, actually you do. You do need to say it. And then repeat it. Again and again. Because most people don’t think about the importance of their breath. Or how the quality of your breath can affect the state of your mind. 

Many of our important emotions (ie. joy, fear, anger, sadness) are associated with a signature breathing pattern. A recent article from Acne Einstein‘s blog breaks down four different signature breathing patterns.

Basically, when you’re relaxed, you tend to breathe slowly and deeply through your nose. Your breathing pattern is regular.

But when you’re stressed or angry or anxious about something, your breathing pattern changes. It becomes shallow, irregular and your ribcage becomes tense.

Even without thinking about it, your body’s breathing patterns change with your emotions. But this connection between our minds and our breaths isn’t a one-way street.

Things can also go the other way.

If you can control your breath, you can also begin to control your emotions.

Yoga as a Stress-Buster

When we let stress run amok in our lives, it can wreak damage to our physical health. And the health of our skin.

Stress and acne are strongly linked together (in my case, I would even say that it CAUSED my acne). It can flare up eczema and rosacea. And it can keep us from getting the most out of our much needed beauty sleep.

But in the face of a stressful situation, if we consciously relax our muscles and control our breaths to become deep, slow and regular breaths, we can reduce and disperse the feeling of stress.

Control over your breathing patterns means the ability to keep stress at bay. 

And this is why I constantly encourage people to practice Yoga.

Yoga is amazing at keeping your body physically fit and keeping flexibility in your spine! What’s more, the breathing exercises and lessons that you learn from yoga are incredibly valuable.

Before you can control your breathing patterns, you must first become familiar with the way you breathe while being completely relaxed.

And the best yoga pose for this is one that’s so simple you wouldn’t even think that you’re doing yoga…

SAVASANA: Complete Relaxation

Savasana (also known as Corpse Pose) is usually the pose that you take on at the end of your yoga practice.

To take on the Savasana pose, you basically lie on your back, with the weight of your body evenly distributed throughout and your spine properly aligned. Then you allow yourself to completely melt into relaxation.

The best place to practice Savasana is on the floor because it provides a firm and even surface. You can place a blanket under the length of your body. Also, to keep your body from getting cold, be sure to cover up with socks and a long sleeved shirt.

This is the best time to become familiar with your relaxed breathing pattern.

During Savasana, you can actively practice diaphragmatic breathing. 

This is a deep, calm type of breathing that allows the maximum amount of oxygen to enter the bloodstream:

• Place one hand on your chest and the other on your abdomen.
• Breathe in slowly and evenly through your nose.
• When you breathe in, the hand on the abdomen should rise slightly higher than the one on the chest.
• Exhale slowly and evenly through your mouth.
• Find a regular rhythm between your inhalations, holding the breath in and exhalations.
• You can deepen the breathing by exhaling more air, so try gently contracting the abdominal muscles to evacuate any remaining air from the lungs.
• During exhalations, release any contraction of your muscles.
• Close your eyes and relax your eye muscles.
• Soften your tongue, your jaw and the skin on your forehead.

Even though this is a relaxation exercise, Savasana does require some effort to keep your mind focused. Your mind may tend to wander over to your worries or start going over your day’s To-Do list. But if this happens, just gently bring your mind back to the present moment.

Ideally, you would do Savasana right after a yoga session.

But even if you don’t practice yoga, you can and you should practice this simple pose!

Try doing this relaxing exercise at least once every day, right before getting out of bed or right before falling asleep.

I promise it will change your life!

Image Sources:

Breathe – by Shawn Rossi. Creative Commons License. Used with attribution.
Corpse Pose – by Yana Stowe of givemeballroom.com. Used with permission.

If you’re still looking for a Valentine’s Day gift idea, then this is a really great idea.

There’s no need to spend any money. It’s something that will bring you closer together. AND it will feel really good.

But this is a gift that requires real work of love.

I’m talking about giving each other a nice, long, relaxing massage!

The art of massage has been around for millenia and played an important role in therapeutic medicine. Unfortunately, it fell out of popularity during the Dark Ages when religious authorities began to frown upon it. They didn’t like the idea that massages can also be quite pleasurable! But nevermind the negative and sexual connotation that continues to surround it.

The fact is, giving and receiving massages is simply a wonderful way to connect with your loved one.

While this article is geared more towards Valentine’s Day couples, massages do not have to be practiced only within the context of romantic relationships. Massages can be practiced by anyone on a regular basis throughout the year. Parents, children, and friends should also practice massages in order to achieve and maintain overall health and wellness.

Consider the numerous benefits of massage:

• Relieves Stress & Tension. Massages work wonderfully for relieving stress and for preventing the accumulation of tension in the body. There are studies that suggest massages can also reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression.

• Feels AH-Mazing! Massages release endorphins, which act as a pain reliever and are also responsible for our feelings of pleasure. People often feel more relaxed and refreshed after receiving a massage.

• Promotes Healthy Circulation. Massage is an effective way to increase blood flow and decrease lymphatic buildup. This means more oxygen and nutrients can reach your tissues and organs.

• Strengthens the Immune System. The benefits from increased blood flow and lowered stress gives a boost to the immune-system. But also, massages reinforce the immune system by stimulating the lymphatic system which removes toxins from the body.

• Improves Skin Tone & Texture. Stimulated blood flow improves the skin’s tone and texture. Massages can help remove dead skin cells and prevent cellulite. Also, depending on the oil used during massage, the skin can enjoy moisturizing benefits.

• Promotes Better Sleep. Relaxing from massage can improve the quality of your sleep, which is crucial for health and beauty.

• Creates Closeness. When you help someone to relax and relieve them of tension, a feeling of closeness can be cultivated. Massages can also help develop communication and trust within a relationship.

Some tips on making the most out of your massages:

1. There are many helpful books on massaging techniques.
2. You can take a couples massage training class together.
3. Remember the oil. It makes a world of a difference. Even olive oil from the kitchen will do.
4. Talk with each other and listen to what your partner does or does not like.
5. The goal is to relax. The goal of the person giving the massage is to guide their partner into relaxation. The goal of the person receiving the massage is to relax. This can actually be more difficult than it sounds.
6. Be patient with each other.

When practiced in the context of a romantic relationship, it’s important to point out that the massage should be about the massage. And not a precursor to sex.

Relaxation can be more easily achieved if the person receiving the massage is able to focus on the massage without the anticipation of amorous activities.

But you know, keep it flexible and fun.

And to enhance the delight…

Try presenting your Valentine’s Day gift in the form of a Coupon hand-made with LOVE! 

Good news! The world hasn’t ended. Yet. 

However, there is a real significance to December 21, 2012. Today is the day that marks the winter solstice. This is the “turnaround” point when the days will slowly begin to be longer and the nights will become shorter. It’s the day when winter officially begins.

But frankly, if you live in Paris, the weather during the past couple of months has already been quite cold, dark and depressingly gray and rainy throughout the day every day. Whoever said that Paris is best when it rains forgot to mention that it is always raining in Paris! I expected this kind of weather in London. But not here.

Considering how high Paris is in latitude (it’s even further up north than New York or Montreal), the darkness during the wintertime makes sense. It’s now common for darkness to set in around 4:30pm and it doesn’t get light again until around 9am. But this shortness in the length of the day coupled with all this cloudiness and rain has been nothing short of a real bummer. And it is something that I am not used to.

Lack of sunlight, especially during the wintertime, truly does have an impact on our physical and mental health.

And I believe it has a lot to do with a deficiency in Vitamin D. Our bodies need sunlight to produce Vitamin D and oftentimes, there is not enough light in the wintertime to give us the required daily dose of this “sunshine vitamin.” Many studies have shown that low blood levels of Vitamin D can increase the risk of developing diseases which range from osteoporosis, heart disease, cancer, asthma in children, cognitive impairment in older adults and depression.

The Health and Beauty Benefits of Vitamin D 

The primary role of Vitamin D is to strengthen the bones by allowing the body to better absorb calcium. But Vitamin D can also play many other roles that are vital to our health and beauty.

Vitamin D can contribute to skin cell growth, repair, and metabolism. One of the main benefits of Vitamin D for the skin is in the treatment of skin-conditions such as psoriasis and eczema. Also, by helping to support the immune system and by reducing inflammation, Vitamin D can help destroy free radicals that can cause premature aging.

As we age, some of the bones in our face begin to shrink which can give our facial muscles and tissues a “sunken” appearance. This process can worsen wrinkles and accentuate jowls (loose flesh in the lower cheek and jaw that is characteristic of aging). So maintaining bone-strength by way of maintaining sufficient Vitamin D levels in our blood is just one way to ensure graceful aging.

In addition to strengthening the bones, Vitamin D also contributes to strong, healthy nails and teeth and can even help prevent the thinning of hair.

Keeping The Winter Blues At Bay

To be sure, the main health benefits of Vitamin D should be enough to convince anyone of the importance of getting a sufficient dose of it on a daily basis. However, what really encouraged me to do further research and actually begin supplementing Vitamin D into my diet was the fact that Vitamin D has also been shown to help boost moods during the winter months.

As fall settled in and the days became shorter and the nights became longer, I began noticing a decrease in my energy level and an overall sluggishness in my mood. I began to sleep longer hours and it became harder for me to wake up and get going in the day. It also became a lot harder to concentrate and stay motivated. I think this was what some people would call the “winter blues.”

While there is still so much unknown about how Vitamin D works in the brain, research has suggested that Vitamin D can affect daily biorhythms and help relieve mood disorders by increasing the production of neurotransmitters, including serotonin.

In particular, studies have shown that Vitamin D can help with a type of depression called “seasonal affective disorder (SAD),” which tends to occur annually during the fall and winter. The cause of SAD is not well known, but it is a disorder that tends to affect more women than men. It’s important to note that SAD is a real condition whose diagnosis and treatment requires professional psychological help.  It should not be confused with mild mood changes like the “winter blues” or “cabin fever.”

Making Sure You Get Enough Vitamin D

Making sure that you get enough Vitamin D is tricky.

First of all, it’s hard to get sufficient exposure to the right kind of sunlight that will stimulate the production of Vitamin D. This will depend on where you live, the time of the year, the darkness of your skin, how much clothing you’re wearing and whether or not you’re covered in sunscreen.

Second, very few foods naturally contain significant levels of vitamin D. Most of these foods are fatty cold-water fish like salmon, mackarel, bluefish, anchovies, sardines and tuna, as well as cod liver oil. Some foods are fortified with the vitamin, especially milk and yogurt, cheese and breakfast cereal. But you would have to actively be eating loads of these foods every day to even get anywhere near the ideal level of Vitamin D intake.

Third, what is the ideal level of Vitamin D intake anyway? This is a topic that continues to be debated. The idea is that too little is harmful while too much can be toxic. I have read that you need anywhere from 400 IU to 4,000 IU of Vitamin D daily. My best advice would be to get your Vitamin D level tested by your doctor and ask about your ideal level of Vitamin D, as it can vary for each person.

For me, the best way to get enough Vitamin D has been to take supplements. I have the Solgar brand of Vitamin D3 and I take 800 IU every day. I’ve only been doing this for a month now and I’ve already noticed real improvements. In my case, I know the evidence is only anecdotal, but I swear–taking Vitamin D supplements like this has really helped me to balance my energy levels and become a functioning human being once again, instead of a hibernating bear during the wintertime.

There is still ongoing research to prove or disprove the value of Vitamin D supplementation beyond its well-known benefits to bone health. As of 2010, there has been a large-scale, randomized trial involving 20,000 people across the U.S that’s being conducted called the VITAL study. Its objective is to investigate whether taking daily dietary supplements of Vitamin D3 and omega-3 fatty acids can prevent cancer and heart disease as well as help with other ailments such as diabetes, cognitive decline, depression and respiratory diseases. I am hoping that this is the study that will finally resolve all the conflicting opinions that has surrounded Vitamin D.

Other Tips For Staying Bright-Eyed and Bushy-Tailed During The Cold, Dark Winter Days Ahead

So, apart from taking Vitamin D supplements, there are of course a load of other things we can do to stay on top of the winter blues. I would suggest the following three things:

1) Eat healthy and balanced meals. There is a real connection between what we eat and our thoughts, behavior and emotions. A nutritional imbalance can make us prone to depression and affect its duration. Also, supplements can only truly be effective when used in conjunction with a healthy and balanced diet.

2) Stay moving. Regular exercise has also been shown time and time again to boost mood. This is especially true when exercise takes place outdoors in a green environment. Movement stimulates the release of mood-boosting endorphins and can improve the quality of your sleep.

3) Enjoy time with your loved ones! People who are prone to mood disorders should definitely avoid being isolated and instead seek out social contact. What more perfect time of the year than Christmas and New Year’s to enjoy the company of your family and friends?

What about you? What are your tips for beating the winter blues?