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Inner Beauty Shines Through

The current Botox craze shows the extent—and expense—some people will go to just to keep the body looking young and beautiful. In case you haven't heard, doctors are injecting botulin toxin into certain facial wrinkles to temporarily remove them or make them less prominent. At around $400 a shot, it's an expensive procedure and not altogether without risk. Improperly applied injections around the mouth can leave you drooling, and those around the eyes can leave you with droopy eyelids. It can also make you somewhat expressionless since it paralyzes or weakens the muscles that cause those expressive facial lines.

Aging is a natural process that we can't avoid, although certain yoga postures and exercises can help keep our skin toned and vibrant. For example, Lion Pose (in which you stick your tongue out, gaze at the third eye chakra, and roar like a lion) increases circulation to the face and tones the facial muscles. You can tone a sagging jawline with Throat Massage (extending your chin, then tucking it back against your neck). The regular practice of a variety of asanas keeps you feeling good and gives your body a healthy glow.

That inner glow has more to do with beauty than being pretty, handsome, or young. A classic beauty may lack kindness or vitality. Good looks can hide a selfish or mean-spirited personality. An unhappy person is rarely as attractive as someone who is happy, regardless of looks. While outer beauty may attract us initially, what ultimately keeps us interested in a person is his or her inner beauty.

That's where yoga comes in. The goal of yoga is not to achieve physical beauty, but inner happiness. That happiness shines through your eyes, your expressions, your attitude to others; it is what makes you truly attractive. This inner beauty is something that the years can't take away.

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