It’s no exaggeration when I say the world is seeking yoga! It’s such popular and wide-spreading. In this article, we shall discover 10 benefits of yoga practice in detail.
Table of Contents
Overview of Yoga
Yoga is one of the most practiced methods of FITNESS all around the world. In simple words, Yoga is a mixture of breathing exercises called pranayama, meditation, poses (asanas), and kriyas that altogether help your bodies in different ways. As far as the origin of yoga is considered, the method was invented in India. Flipping the pages back, yoga is originally practiced by the yogis. And in the present day, there are different schools of yoga spread across the country in different states.
Do you know? One of the oldest and most famous schools of yoga is HATHA YOGA
If you have ever wondered what are the benefits of yoga, here are the answers to your long-pending questions that will simply blow your mind:
Listed below are 10 benefits of yoga most of which are science-backed and proven and recommended by health and yoga experts around the world.
10 Benefits of yoga
1. Improves flexibility
According to what researches and studies have to say, practicing yoga on a daily basis is sure to increase your flexibility. Sitting for long hours has become inevitable these days, as we are depending predominantly on computers and other gadgets. As a result of the prolonged posture of sitting, a major group of muscles in our body like the butt muscles, hamstring, shoulder, and lower back get tightened. Consequentially, the flexibility of these muscles get affected and may even result in pain or stress. Well, enough of it! When you practice certain yoga poses regularly (like the mountain pose), it stretches the muscle fibers and increases its elasticity, thus resulting in enhanced flexibility and increased range of motion.
Suffering with back pain? There are specific yoga poses to boost your muscle power and its stiffness.
2. Improves inner and outer strength
In certain yoga poses, you will have to bear the weight of your body in different ways like balancing on one leg or arms as in the mountain pose. The whole body’s weight gets distributed and as a result, it enhances the strength of specific muscles. Furthermore the weight-bearing capacity of the muscles is naturally enhanced with yoga. It is also a proven fact that yoga helps in getting your muscles toned which results out of continuous strengthening.
As you continuously practice yoga, it soars your inner strength you will find miraculous benefits in terms of having better control over your senses.
Addicted to something? Well, go on for yoga practice as it helps you in easily overcoming addiction or other kinds of bad habits.
3. Better body balance
This is one of the most important among the 10 benefits of yoga. As you age, your body balance gets decreased significantly. Worry not, here you have Yoga!
In yoga, there are asanas like vrikshasana or the tree pose in which you have to stand in one leg. This asana helps you in improving the core strength and stability. This results in better body balance on the whole and allows you to stand erect and straight. Regular practice increase proprioception, grip strength, and wrist splinting as well.
4. Enhanced flow of blood
Daily practice of yoga results in increased blood flow and circulation to all the vital organs of the body. For instance, as you perform the downward dog pose, it amplifies blood flow to the face. As a result of good flow of blood to eyes, your vision improves and wrinkles in your face get reduced. You get healthier altogether in all your facial organs – it’s that simple! One other asana that is evident of improving blood flow is the Shirasasana. It increases blood flow to the head i.e. it increases oxygen supply to the brain which benefits you with healthy hair growth and aids in repair of damaged brain tissues.
It is important to note that there are specific yoga poses to increase blood flow to specific parts of the body. Yoga basically helps in the good distribution of blood throughout the body. Furthermore, yoga can also boost RBC counts and hemoglobin which brings down the likeliness of blood clot and heart disease.
So, if this is a lazy day doing nothing, go on and roll down the yoga mat and start practicing some yoga poses – may you feel refreshed and rejuvenated instantly.
5. Boost your brain power and focus
Yoga practice is very much physical. it demands mental attention on what your body is doing which means, it resists your wandering mind and results in peace and calming effect on the mind. As you constantly show keen mental attention during yoga, it increases your power of focus in the brain and you will see an uptick in memory power.
So, you are going to be the king of doing your day-to-day activities! Become a pro in whatever you do!
Do you know? Studies say, regular yoga practice results in improved coordination of mind and body, increases IQ, reaction time, and overall memory – isn’t that WOW!
As far as the nervous system is concerned, toga helps in relaxing the entire system. For example, in the yoga called Nidra, your body will go through intense relaxation of all the senses. It further increases general awareness, and keeps you protected from devastating emotions such as anger or depression.
The benefits of yoga are also inclusive of curing obsessive-compulsive disorder.
6. Get better sleep and breathe
Here is one more important benefit among the other 10 benefits of Yoga. It regulates breathing. Pranayama is a yogic breathing exercise which allows you to take deeper breath. It is a fact that most of us are not aware of the way we are breathing. Often times, we only take shallow breath which is unhealthy. By practicing Pranayama, our body practices to take deep breathes to the entire body which in turn increases supply of oxygen to different parts of body. Besides, there is a host of other benefits of taking deep breathe including calming effect to your mind, rejuvenating damaged tissues, and lot more.
Plus, yoga also helps in clearing the nasal passage and it is highly recommended for people with allergies.
Discover Kriyas
KRIYAS also called cleansing rituals helps in cleansing the pathways of our bodies helps to keep allergies, viruses and other harmful pathogens at bay.
Yoga increases your body’s energy level and vitality by altering your breathing patterns. It helps you in lowering the rate of breath and rather increases its intensity while also increasing your cardiovascular endurance.
You also need to know that yoga has a branch of sounds, sounds like OM which when chanted helps in opening the sinuses and helps in its drainage.
Hint on sleep cycles
Coming on to your sleep cycles, yoga helps in maintaining your circadian rhythm. It regulates your sleep pattern and lets you enjoy better quality of sleep by positively impacting your body’s melatonin secretion.
7. Protects posture
In this era of complete digitalization, we are bound to perform long hours of sedentary works. Excessive use of gadgets has become an integral part of our day-to-day dealings. And this results in improper body posture. This can be easy with regular yoga practices. Yoga plays an active role in posture correction, as it involves stretching the tight muscles and strengthening weak muscles. Ultimately, it helps in maintaining body balance and posture. Many yoga poses are in fact recommended in physiotherapy to align your posture.
Suggested Read: 10 Incredible Benefits of Surya Namaskar you got to believe! Glowing Skin and WeightLoss
8. Reduces stress and pain
One of the key factors causing diseases is stress. And yoga is a prime stress buster. Physical activities like yoga demand great mental attention, so when you’re doing it, you will forget about other issues that keep you bothered. This serves as one of the 10 benefits of yoga.
Do you know about the hormone Cortisol?
Yoga also helps in maintaining the adrenal gland that emits cortisol. This hormone is produced by our body during crisis situation. Sometimes the cortisol levels stay high even after the situation ends. And this may result in various health defects. Worry not, with regular practice of yoga, you can keep cortisol levels under control. Continued practice of yoga has an effect of lowered levels of stress, fatigue, depression, anxiety
Yoga is also used to reduce pain. A combination of asanas and meditation helps in reducing pain caused by arthritis, back pain, fibromyalgia, other chronic conditions, it reduces the pain and enhances the mood.
9. Enhances your body’s immune system
Yoga is a holistic approach to benefit our body in multiple ways. It reduces stress, works on our breathing, increases blood flow, and also tones our muscles. Studies further show that it stimulates the lymph nodes and thus inducing lymphatic juices which are rich in white blood cells and other immune cells. These altogether fight against carcinogenic agents and other pathogens and considerably enhances your body’s immunity.
What more do you need than better immunity, especially at times of such pandamic?
10. Improves abdominal health
Practicing yoga improves your gut health. This is one of the major benefits of yoga.
Poses like the supine twist increases the bowel moment, improves your gut health, and also detoxifies your entire system. Further, it promotes a better excretion process by cleansing the intestine.
Do you know that the causes of ulcer or constipation may also be your excessive stress levels?
The twisting motion in yoga helps in removing the toxins from our system. It is proven in studies that Detoxification delays aging, and keep us young.
Yoga makes the practitioner a mindful eater, and this make us more aware of what we eat which indirectly has its impact on our abdominal health.
Wind up note
Apart from these major 10 benefits of yoga, there are host of other advantages as well for you immediately kick-start the practice. The benefits of yoga are incredible and aids you in maintaining healthy body-mind relations. Your life can’t get any better than achieving piece of mind with increased body awareness and self esteem!
More than just an exercise, yoga is believed a journey to the inner self that initiates the feelings of gratitude, empathy, and forgiveness when practiced in a spiritual way and under spiritual guidance.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can pregnant women perform yoga?
Yes, but only after doctor’s consultation.
Can children perform yoga?
Yes, children can perform yoga if they age above 5 years.
