Over the last two weeks, I’ve covered the basics of chakras and talked about whether or not they can be useful to a non-religious yoga practice.

Since I’ve established that I do think that there’s benefit to incorporating chakras into a yoga practice to at least a small degree, I’m going to explore the idea a little more fully. I don’t plan on devoting a ton of time to becoming an expert, but I’m the kind of person who likes to look at a thing from all angles whenever possible.

If you’re not that kind of person, that’s okay! You can skim the rest of this series or skip it entirely; I won’t be offended.

For those of you like me, today’s angle is the idea of energy flow in a yoga practice. Chakras are a part of this, but there are also two related concepts that are the focal point of this post:

• Prana, or breath
• Nadis, or pathways

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In my last post, I very briefly went over what the seven chakras are. Truly gaining a deep understanding of them seems, in my opinion, really hard to do.

I plan to revisit each chakra in more detail in future posts, but for now I’m going to focus on answering the question of whether or not an understanding of chakras is necessary or helpful for a good yoga practice.

Before I dive into answering this question, I’m going to answer another question that you may or may not be asking:

Why does this even matter?
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I’m the type of person who needs things to be logical. I want facts, rationale and sensibility. I’m not great with emotions; I don’t find comfort in religion, and I’m often dismissive of things that come across as too spiritual or emotion-driven.

I’ve always cherished my logical brain and scoffed at people who allowed themselves to be spirited away by religion, astrology, healing energies and things like that.

And yet, here I am, gearing up to talk about chakras.

Why?

Because it has been pointed out to me on many occasions that I’m bad about throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.

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We focus a lot on our faces and necks in the beauty community, but…we have a lot more skin to take care of.

No judgment from me if your body is neglected though because I’m pretty sure I’ll never have a full-body Glass-Cloud-Butter Skin Glow™.

One thing I do focus on for my body is managing breakouts.

I get a LOT of questions about clearing up body breakouts, particularly back acne, or “bacne.” While my back may never be model-perfect, I’ve more or less figured out how to keep it and my other problem areas as clear as possible.

Today I shall impart this wisdom unto you, dear reader.

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I’m all about NOT doing DIY skincare out of your kitchen for a lot of reasons, but I can definitely make an exception for one or two simple things.

The holidays are upon us (ready or not), so I figured that I’d share one of my favorite quickie recipes for making a cheap yet pretty gift that basically anyone will appreciate: a fragrant body scrub.

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