YOGA

Benefits of Yoga 

Weight loss

A research by the American Dietetic Association showed that your yoga practice can help you lose weight. Yoga is a physical exercise, and any physical activity burns calories. But there’s more to it than that. Improving your mind-body connection promotes healthier lifestyle choices, including your diet. As you become more aware of what you feed your body, you intentionally control your eating habits: eating less junk food, watching your diet and becoming a healthier you.

Brain booster

This ancient practice is much more than a physical workout. The mind concentrates on the practice and trains you to be mindful no matter what you are doing. This activity then translates into better performance at work, especially when focusing on a challenging situation. Yoga also supports your creativity.

Like any other muscle in your body, training your brain strengthens it. A study in the Physical Activity and Health paper revealed that a 20-minute yoga session stimulates your brain as much as running on the treadmill pumps up your muscles. In addition, yoga and meditation decrease stress, anxiety, and depression while increasing happiness and the overall quality of life.

Digestion and detoxification

Whether the culprit is a huge meal, oily food, or something more serious like IBS, bloating and indigestion never feels good. Regular yoga practice helps in the detoxification of internal organs. A combination of deep breathing, stretches that aim at abdominal organs and twists that massage and compress internal organs; this sequence relieves a wide range of digestive discomforts like gas, constipation and bloating. When released, fresh blood, oxygen, and nutrients flow through the digestive organs, improving their functionality. Easier digestion means more energy for the body.

Fights food cravings

Sometimes you can’t help but pop food into your mouth, especially after an intense workout when your body is desperate for some energy. However, regular practice builds up your defenses against sudden food cravings. A study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, found that regular yoga practice is tied to mindful eating, particularly through breath awareness, which builds the mind-body connection.

Strengthens bones

If you are new to yoga, even holding a simple downward dog pose for a few seconds can cause the muscles in the upper half of the body to tremble. This is good—some trembling means the muscles in the arms and shoulders are being challenged as they support more of your body mass. Not only do yoga poses improve upper body strength; they also strengthen bone density and help prevent osteoporosis, arthritis, and fractures in general.

Better posture

An inappropriate body posture is not only ugly; it also has adverse effects on the body. Poor body posture has been linked to health issues like lipped discs, neck spasms, frozen shoulders, backbone joint problems, and overall muscle fatigue.

Luckily, there are many things you could do for improving your body posture, with yoga topping the list. Yoga is one of the best ways for solving bad posture issues since the objective of every pose is to center your body. Various yoga poses require your whole body to work in coordination, which means everything from your neck to your shoulders, lower body, and back.

Less Pain

Most of the aches and pains that creep up on us are linked to our lack of motion and physical activity. Yoga is one thing you can do to ease that pain. Soon after practicing yoga, your body will begin moving into its proper alignment. When that happens, chances are a lot of your aches will disperse. Asana yoga and meditation can help to reduce arthritis pain, knee joint pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, back pain, and other painful chronic conditions.

It’s important to remain positive and realize that it’s not likely going to be an overnight process. There are certain poses you can do for pain management, but these will vary depending on what is hurting. You can do routines for back pain, knee joint, as well as any specific body part that’s giving you trouble.

Better Circulation

With all of the twisting motions and upside down poses, yoga can really get your heart pumping and blood circulating. This means fresh blood and oxygen are delivered to your vital organs and cells, improving their function. According to various studies, twisting poses wring out toxic blood from internal organs and let oxygenated blood flow in. Inverted poses encourage toxic blood flow from the legs and pelvis back to the heart and then pumped through the lungs where it’s oxygenated again.

A regular yoga practice also thins the blood which can decrease the risk of heart attack and stroke, since they are often caused by thick blood lumps. Additionally, yoga can help reduce swelling in the hands and feet. Yoga postures like the chair pose, downward dog, and warrior pose are a few asanas that can improve circulation. Therefore, in order to reap the benefits, you need a regular yoga practice.

Practicing yoga on a daily basis leaves many positive impacts on your life. The key to happiness and inner peace lies within yoga. So, in order to enjoy its long-lasting benefits, you need to practice it religiously with a focused mind and lots of patience. The more involved you are in your yoga practice, the healthier the benefits. If you are new to the practice, take a yoga retreat to an exotic location with your family. You will come back hungry for more!