What Are The Benefits Of Yoga?
Posted on 28. Nov, 2009 by Ana Paula Hernandez in Women's Health
Through the practice of yoga, a person can expect a uniting of spirit, mind, and body, as yoga is based on the belief that mind and body are a single entity, and that when the body reaches a state of harmony it can heal itself.
Yoga has increased in popularity in recent years, with an estimated 6 million Americans currently engaging in regular workouts. Part of yoga’s popularity is simply that it provides so many health benefits. It assists a person in becoming more aware of their body: their posture, their alignment, and the way they move. Yoga helps people become more relaxed and centered, less prone to stress, more energetic, happier, healthier, and more peaceful.
To start a typical class, breathing and mild stretching exercises are performed to prepare the participants mentally as well as physically. Most classes consist of performing the asanas (yoga poses) either individually or linked in flows (known as vinyasana). At the end of each class there is a short period of meditation or relaxation in shavasana (the corpse pose).
Many forms of can be practiced, and there are many classes offered. There are different benefits to be gained from engaging in the various forms. Iyengar is great for promoting the right bodily alignment, and may use props like straps, blocks, and cushions. Bikram (also known as hot yoga), is performed in a heated room. There are usually 26 poses performed in a particular order in a class. Hatha yoga includes both Iyengar and Bikram, and both are common in the US, for their promotion of good breathing and strengthening.
What are the benefits of yoga for you? For starters, it promotes flexibility, and improves both circulation and muscle strength. It’s benefits, however, are more than physical, as it also helps promote relaxation and calmness. It is designed to balance a person’s life, with respect to physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health.
While it has been practiced for thousands of years, more recently it’s also been the subject of scientific studies. Through these studies, modern medicine has demonstrated the practice of yoga to be beneficial. The health benefits of yoga have been studied, through both the asanas and pranayama (breathing). The result is that it benefits the body in three ways, physiological, psychological, and also biochemical.
As far as physiology is concerned, yoga is able to reduce the respiratory rate and pulse, it can lower blood pressure, improve cardiovascular activity, assist in the body’s excretory systems, aid in weight control, and effect a decrease in pain. Psychologically, yoga has been demonstrated to improve overall mood and feelings of well-being, it can decrease both anxiety and depression, improve the concentration, assist in learning, and even improve social skills and depth perception, as well as an overall increase in self acceptance. Biochemically, yoga has been shown to decrease blood glucose, sodium, both LDL and VLDL cholesterol, and increases HDL cholesterol and hemoglobin, and also creates a decrease in overall white blood cell count.
Yoga is a simple way of improving overall health, as it can do so much more than other forms of exercise for all over body benefits.
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