My neighbor is a hippie mamma. She bursts out wisdom tricks all the time, but what intrigues me most about her is that she never preaches them, she lives them. That is good marketing. And the best thing? She doesn’t even know she’s doing it.

Leeane is well into her fifties, but her skin is not. We often walk our dogs together and end up having lengthened conversations about life. And she’s definitely one who lives her life fully. I could even say that she plays a role model figure in my life. I find her beautiful and I would even tell her that. Over time she has shared with me some advice that helped me improve my well being. Please stop, breathe and enjoy some of the advice that was bestowed upon me by my discerning next-door-neighbor. 

Before you do anything, you need to embrace that the push to do something good for ourselves needs to come from within. The good thing is that for the following you don’t need much or anything but a little nice thought. Plus the time to do it is always now. The all-consuming instantaneous society that surrounds our lives calls for counter poses. And righteously so, as we try to find balance in our poses (and in life), we have to fight through imbalance. Our skin is a reflection of how we feel and it manifests all the good and the bad from our lives. With this in mind, here are my tips on how I strive to keep centered.

1. Mindfully move around just to make your blood circulate.

It could be a split second of doing it (the mindful part – practice makes perfect) just to ground yourself, reconnect with self, and proceed with fresh inspiration. 

2. Turn yourself upside down.

Fresh blood to your brain works wonders and not only makes you feel happier, it also makes you more alert and more receptive for new ideas. Maybe you need to solve a problem and you need to change the perspective on the problem. When I hit the wall or strike a writing block, I like to practice what I call 5 minutes to myself (sometimes I take more, but I feel no time is wasted if it’s invested in yourself). Yoga offers many different inversion poses from where you can take inspiration. Plus getting creative with the poses can spark inspiration in itself. Inversion therapy is also known to alleviate ailing back pain.

3. Drink plenty of water.

Especially following up the previous tip of hanging out upside down. You need to stabilize the system, as well as you need to flush out the toxins that your body released during the workout phase. Our bodies consist of mainly fluid, the fresher it is, the better it will make you feel.

4. Find natural elements that will infuse the spring back to your skin.

For my dry skin, cacao butter works well. I know lots of my friends use coconut oil. In cases of emergency I would go for olive oil. I figured that the oils which form on your skin need to be replenished and not just stripped away. Most of the time I even prefer looking a little pale and tired (if that is the state I currently operate at), rather than applying products that I know don’t serve my skin well in the long run.

5. Be grateful of what you have. 

Could be as small as truly enjoying your coffee or reaching your fingertips to the ground in a sun salutation for the first time. Be proud that you are. Your skin will proudly show it off too.

6. Surround yourself with nice people that genuinely make you feel good. 

Like my hippie mamma neighbor, she’s definitely in my cool gang posse.

7. And be kind to others. 

It rubs off in all the right ways.