Learn to make your body go more with the flow.

Nothing slows you down quite like poor blood circulation does. If you aren’t getting enough oxygen to your cells, in an effective and efficient way, then you’ll most likely feel sluggish, look worn and tired, and perhaps even be covering a more serious problem – one that could indicate cardiovascular disease. To boost your energy levels, tone your body, and feel a whole lot like a kid again, get your life force energy flow on with these 20 natural circulation-boosting tips.

Ingest Cayenne Pepper

Cayenne pepper contains the chemical compound capsaicin, which may help to reduce cholesterol and clear arteries and blood vessels. Dash the ground pepper over sautéed dishes as well as into teas, soups, and juices. To target a more specific area of the body where you experience poor circulation, mix ground cayenne pepper with enough water so that it forms a paste. Spread the paste thinly on a cheese cloth and wrap the cloth around the troubled area. In case of a burning sensation, add some olive oil to the paste to relieve the intensity.

Dry Brush Daily

Dry skin brushing invigorates the skin, increasing blood supply to the areas brushed and bringing them oxygen and increased circulation. This ritual also warms you up on a cold winter morning!

To dry brush most effectively, brush in upward, circular motions toward your heart. Move the brush in a clockwise manner and go over each area of skin twice. Focus on the neck, behind the knees, under the arms, and general groin area for greatest results.  Also focus on your lower butt and thighs to reduce cellulite.

Take Hot-Cold C0ntrast Showers

Contrast showers are showers that alternate between hot and cold water. When cold water is running, the lymph vessels contract, and when hot water is running, they dilate. This creates a pump effect that contributes to increased lymph drainage and blood flow in the veins.

Get Regular Massages

Massage therapy helps to release contracted muscles, which in turn pushes blood towards the heart and relieves strain. Schedule a regular massage, at least once a month, to enjoyably increase your blood circulation. What better excuse than for health reasons?

Eat Healthy

A healthy diet, one that includes high alkaline foods – plenty of fruits and vegetables – will increase oxygen supply to your blood and improve overall blood circulation. This almost goes without saying.

Go Ginkgo

Ginkgo Biloba is used in Germany to treat varicose veins and is widely known for its ability to improve memory by increasing blood flow to the brain. The herb strengthens blood vessels and is anti-inflammatory.

Practice Rebounding

Rebounding encourages collateral circulation, which is the formation of branch blood vessels that distribute blood to the heart. It does this by increasing the capillary count in the muscles and reducing the distance between capillaries and target cells. That’s something to jump for!

Drink Water

Stay hydrated and your blood will flow better. The levels of oxygen in the bloodstream are greater when the body is well hydrated.

Increase Dietary Fiber Intake

A high-fiber diet contributes to a healthy circulatory system. High-fiber foods promote the production of propionic acid in the intestines. This acid reduces bile in the intestines and stops cholesterol build-up. Lower cholesterol levels reduce plaque in the arteries and lead to better circulation.

Raise Your Intake of Garlic

Garlic is widely known to reduce cholesterol levels, cleanse the blood, tone the heart, improve the circulatory system, and prevent heart disease.

Use an Infrared Sauna

The infrared sauna is a powerful tool. Infrared rays penetrate the skin a few inches deep, heating the body from the inside out, while ambient temperature stays relatively cool. A sauna session dilates your arteries, gets your heart to beat faster, and burns calories.

Eat Foods With Vitamin C

Low levels of vitamin C are associated with the narrowing of the arteries supplying blood to the legs. Without an adequate supply of vitamin C, atherosclerosis can develop and plaque can accumulate in the blood. Vitamin C also helps to keep arteries flexible.

Add Lemon To Your Diet

Lemons contain citrate, which naturally improves circulation. Oranges and grapefruit also contain citrate and have the same effect. Upon waking, squeeze lemon juice into water or tea to reap the benefits first thing in the morning.

Use Heat Therapies

Heat treatments increase the flexibility of tissues, remove toxins from cells, and enhance blood flow. Hot packs, hot water bottles, and heating pads are popular and effective ways to treat an area of the body with poor circulation.

Relax

When the body and mind are relaxed, so are the capillaries and muscles. This allows for easier blood flow and overall proper circulation. Blood pressure also decreases. Practice yoga or take a moment everyday to do breathing practices, meditate, or to take a quiet walk.

Stretch Regularly

Stretching allows for more muscle blood flow, which can prevent from injury and keep your body flexible. Join a yoga class with a friend or spend a few minutes each morning stretching.

Eat Foods With Vitamin E

Vitamin E widens blood vessels to allow for the easy transit of blood through them. It prevents clotting and helps in the creation of red blood cells.

Take Omega-3s For Heart Health

Omega-3 fatty acids lower fibrin in the blood. Fibrin contributes to the formation of blood clots, and studies prove that omega-3 fatty acids can prevent this from happening.

Embrace Dark Chocolate

Chocolate contains antioxidants called flavonoids, which boost circulation. In a 2003 Harvard study featured in the Journey of Hypertension, there was significant vasodilation among adults after four days of consuming chocolate.

Get Shut Eye

This tip can’t be stressed enough – it’s panacea for just about every ailment! Adequate sleep reduces tension in the body, allows the muscles to relax, and promotes detoxification and lymph drainage. All of these lead to better circulation.

Images: My Dutch Fashion Style, Fo.ol, Thomas Wanhoff, Woodley Wonderworks, Carbon NYC, Charles Chan, Dollen, Ever Jean

The post 20 Ways to Boost Circulation appeared first on EcoSalon.

A long hot shower at the end of the day is a great way to relax, but the idea of wasting buckets of water pretty much negates the stress-reducing factor, ya know? Check out these five shower designs that look gorgeous and save water at the same time. You still won’t want to stand under the water flow until it runs cold, but at least you can squeeze in a few extra guilt-free minutes before drying off.

European faucet designer Grohe makes a fabulous shower fixture that comes with a thermostat that heats your water to the desired temperature in seconds – no more shivering in a corner waiting for the hot water heater to kick in. The shower head reduces water flow up to 50 percent, while bathing you in a flow reminiscent of a spring rain.

If you’re the type that loves to be enveloped in a gentle, warm mist instead of pelted with streams of water, you need to check out Pensar Development‘s Indulgence Mist Shower. The hidden shower head churns out mist as you stand in an enclosed cubicle of etched glass. It uses 56 percent less water than a regular shower and looks beautiful to boot.

Arkema’s solar-powered shower would look terrific next to an outdoor pool or in the backyard of a rustic cabin. As Treehugger correctly points out, the solar panel is “barely big enough to charge a cell phone battery after a day of sitting in the sun,” so don’t expect to use it for a long drench. On the other hand, it’s a stylish way to get a quick rinse after a dip in the pool.

Even the best intentions go awry once you’re standing under the soothing flow of warm water. To keep from staying in the shower too long, goose yourself out with the Eco Drop Shower. Once you’ve used too much water, circles in the shower floor begin to rise, making it too uncomfortable to stand on in bare feet. A genius idea, particularly if, as Born Rich suggests, you have kids that like to park themselves in the shower for long stretches.

Australian shower design company Quench offers a line of recirculating showers that can save up to 82 percent more water than conventional showers. It comes with its own heating and water pressurization system, and even sports a sanitizing feature to keep the entire enclosure clean. The shower does a good job saving water and energy – maybe a little too good. It automatically shuts off while you soap up, so clean water doesn’t flow needlessly down the drain. Intrigued? Well, you’ll need to watch this video on Showering for Beginners to really get what Quench shower systems is all about.

Image: stevendepolo

The post 5 Beautiful Shower Designs That Actually Save Water appeared first on EcoSalon.

If you haven’t heard, fancy-shmancy cupcakes are stealing the hearts of America as we downsize our celebrations with treats that fill us up, not out.

For a growing number of sweet teeth, four bites and one candle do the trick as we replace the wasteful sheet cake of old with an indulgent Red Velvet vegan confection made to order at your chic neighborhood cupcake boutique.

Call it theater in the round for the bakery hound!

The new stars are the vegan assortments  introduced by bakers such as Yummy Cupcakes in Los Angeles, which sells from its healthy alternative menu three days a week at its shops in Burbank and Santa Monica.

Yummy’s flavors include Almond, Blood Orange, Chocolate Chili,  Brown Sugar Cinnamon, and my favorite, the Arnold Palmer – black iced tea and lemonade.  They sell for around $3.25 a pop for the classic size and $1.50 to $1.65 for the mini size. Of course, you can buy them by the dozen, as well.

Tiffani Soforenko, one of the three partners at Yummy, says the vegan menu was  inspired by an offer to prepare cupcakes for talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and her crew. “We knew Ellen was a vegan and hadn’t done vegan recipes yet, and figured it was the perfect time to figure out how to do it,” she recalls. “We brought the red velvets for her and her staff and they were a huge hit.”

It took off from there. “We thought if we can make that, what else can we make? Our normal menu is 156 flavors and we do 43 as vegan,” says Soforenko.

What sets them apart? No animal-based products, eggs or butter or egg replacers. They are also topped with raw sugar instead of colored sprinkles. People with food and dairy allergies are gobbling them up!

Another gourmet vendor, Kara’s Cupcakes in San Francisco (with four Bay Area locations) proudly boasts it is “green” on its web page, from its sustainable local and organic ingredients to environmentally-friendly recyclable and compostable packaging to its bakeries built with green certification standards. It even uses green cleaning products and delivers its treats in ultra low emission vehicles. Plus, the cupcakes are to die for, from Kara’s Karrot on Halloween night to Raspberry Dazzle and Milk Chocolate Ganache.  They look good and are filled with good stuff. What else would you expect from the daughter of a dentist?

While pure ingredients are naturally in high demand in buff California, the notion of a greener cupcake is just now making its way to glitzy Miami, where the founders of Cupcake Nouveau – Cristina Valdes and Shayrin Badillo – are getting in the groove.

“We are in the process of developing new recipes that are sugar, gluten and dairy free,” shares Valdes, who says her South Beach clientele is all about glamor and chic. These skilled bakers are known for the artistic detail they add to their specialized cupcakes for weddings and fundraisers, such as pearls and roses adorning the Vanilla Bean Madagascar creations. You grow, girls!

Rather bake em yourself? Many of these gourmet cupcake companies offer cupcake party baking kits for around $42 that ensure hours of fun and a terrible mess for moms as the guests go crazy stirring, blending, frosting and decorating their visions. Either way, the naturally beautiful end result seems to be taking the cake.

Main Image: Cupcakes Nouveau

Image One: Yummy Cupcakes

Image Two: Cupcakes Nouveau

Image Three: Luanne Bradley

The post Green Ecosalon Recipes: Gourmet Cupcakes on the Rise with the Vegan Wise appeared first on EcoSalon.

While we generally avoid traditional paper gift wrap these days, a Berkeley MBA and mom has developed a line of more responsible coverage for those gifts: reusable, recycled bags.

Josie Gaillard’s Living Ethos made its debut in San Francisco this summer in selected boutiques. Now, the versatile and vivacious eco-chic wrap is available on the web.

What makes this attractive paper one to chase?

The sustainable gift bags come in 30 varied prints that are as attractive as upholstery fabrics. But instead of being assembled with cheap cotton, they are a high quality fabric born of recycled plastic bottles (hurray) and come with coordinated grosgrain ribbons also made of the same PET materials (hurray, again!).

They can be reused countess times – for gift-giving or storage – which is the goal when it comes to paper products. Just yesterday, I presented a bottle of wine in one, and the recipient returned the bag to me to use again. That was special.

The bags come in four sizes – mini, small, medium and large to fit small items like books and trinkets to larger gifts such as wine, clothing and toys. $28 for set of four. They are sewn locally in the Bay Area and the shipping envelopes also are reusable.

It’s all part of Gaillard’s effort to make it easier for consumers to “live their ethos.” Gaillard, a solar energy marketing professional turned entrepreneur, has a passion for product design and promises more stylish, sustainable goods to come.

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