Yoga is a Hindu discipline focussing on breathing, meditation and different body poses. It is a huge practice and growing in popularity, helping people improve their mental and physical health. Attitude Organic has recognised 10 benefits of yoga to persuade anyone to get stretching and meditating!
10 Benefits of Yoga
Physical Benefits of Yoga
Flexibility
Different yoga poses stretch your muscles, therefore improving your flexibility. This is with regular practice though! It is important to be consistent with yoga so don’t expect to be able to do the splits after one session.
Strength
When practising yoga, you will find yourself having to balance in new and sometimes strange positions. This will build on your strength as you get used to holding up your body weight. Yoga dominantly strengthens your arms, legs, back and core through regular practice.
Posture
If you’re working on a computer all day, you may find that your back becomes hunched. It can be hard to restore your once good posture but yoga can really contribute to this. Downward Dog is a very popular pose for improving posture when performing the manoeuvre properly. Your back must be straight, stretching your spine. Once you have mastered this pose, alongside other yoga stretches, such as the Cobra you will notice an improvement in your posture.
Prevents Cardiovascular Disease
Focussing on your breathing is essential in yoga. Regular, controlled breathing can help to lower blood pressure. Yoga also helps to reduce stress and high blood pressure, which is a cause of heart disease. Thus, yoga really does help reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
Look and Feel Younger
Yoga helps to increase your body’s levels of telomerase which slows down the body’s ageing process. Therefor, regular yoga practice will help you to feel younger by improving breathing, posture and flexibility. It also makes you look younger by also protecting and increasing telomerase.
Mental Benefits of Yoga
As well as physical benefits, there are many mental benefits of yoga.
Reducing Stress, One Of The Top 10 Benefits Of Yoga
Deep breathing exercises are proven to reduce stress. If you feel like you can’t stop thinking at night, yoga is for you. The practice requires you to tap into your happy places and stay grounded (physically and mentally), this will make you feel more relaxed and turn your big worries into small ones.
Increases Energy
As your stress level decreases through focussed breathing and empowering poses, your energy will increase. This is because yoga helps your body to produce cortisol, a hormone which controls your energy levels. You will be able to say goodbye to your morning coffee or sugar rush. Indeed, if you practice yoga every morning, you will be ready for the day ahead, naturally!
Improves Concentration
When focussing on your breathing, you become more aware of the environment around you and can tune in on the things that really matter. Different poses also help to stimulate the brain such as the lotus pose. If you have a big project to be working on, or a lot of small tasks that you need to complete, yoga will help you feel motivated and rejuvenated.
Sleep Disorders
As already mentioned, yoga helps you to improve your energy levels naturally. You should be able to say goodbye to energy supplements, which are commonly linked to interrupted sleeping patterns. Decreased stress levels will also allow you to sleep better.
PTSD
Yoga is extremely powerful. To the point that it can help those who have suffered traumatic experiences and losses in their lives. Yoga helps PTSD sufferers to move forward and contribute towards getting rid of PTSD symptoms. Yoga has been proven to help veterans with PTSD by decreasing their stress and tension levels, helping them to relax and connect with their body. For PTSD sufferers it can become easier for treatment for the disorder, aiding recovery.
There are more than 10 benefits of yoga, however, these physical and mental benefits are enough to make anyone want to start practising. If you’re stressed about work or just looking for an exercise that helps you to feel connected to your body, yoga is the best way forward! 15-30 spare minutes is all you need for a cleansing, rejuvenating yoga experience. Check out our article on yoga apps if you feel that you’re too busy for yoga!
Words by Rebecca Jones
