The Health Benefits Of Yoga

Yoga is more than just a popular workout program, full of flexible young women in stretchy pants – it’s also used as an effective therapy for healing the mind and the body. Much has been said about yoga and its positive effects on one’s well-being. In fact, yoga is so powerful that it can be used to bring about both physiological and psychological benefits.

But there’s certainly nothing new about the practice of yoga. It’s been practiced by people all over the world for many years and involves meditation, concentration, various postures called asanas, and breathing exercises, called pranayama. Yoga can be used to improve everything from flexibility to mental concentration, making it a great choice for a number of different reasons.

The following are some of the health benefits you’ll get from the practice of yoga:

Physiological Benefits of Yoga

Yoga enhances muscle flexibility. Through the stretching involved in different yoga postures, the lactic acid – which causes tension and stiffening – that accumulates in the muscles is released, reducing post-workout pain and increasing relaxation.
Aside from flexibility, yoga also enhances strength. There are several different types of yoga that focus on developing muscle tone, including ashtanga and power yoga. If you practice these styles regularly, you’ll see a noticeable increase in strength and muscle endurance.
Yoga leads to pain reduction. As the muscles of the body are strengthened through yoga, you’ll feel less joint pain and back pain. In fact, people who practice yoga regularly experience less of the pain associated with aging than those who live sedentary lives.
Yoga improves breath capacity and lung function through breathing exercises called pranayama. You’ll learn to control your breath response in stressful situations, tone your lung muscles and clear your nasal passages.
Yoga can also help you to lose weight. People who practice yoga on a regular basis tend to lose more weight than people who don’t, not by burning extra calories, but because of increased mental awareness. Yoga helps people to become more aware of their bodies, helping them to better determine whether they’re really full or if they’re actually hungry.

Psychological Benefits of Yoga

It’s clear that yoga helps to relax and calm down the mind. Therefore, people practicing yoga on a regular basis generally report a decrease in their feelings of anxiety, stress, and depression.
Since yoga involves meditation, people who practice yoga will enhance their concentration and attention spans. Self-control is also improved through the practice of yoga. Experienced yogis are better able to control feelings of aggression and to calmly handle every situation.
On a related note, studies have shown that women who practice yoga feel more satisfied with themselves than women who don’t. There are also fewer incidences of eating disorders in women who practice yoga regularly. Thus, yoga helps to improve body image perceptions and promotes a healthier body image – especially in women.
Yoga also helps people to accept themselves and increase their level of self-awareness. Through self-acceptance, yoga practitioners are able to improve their comfort level in social interactions with others.
Yoga eases stress and makes a person worry less, resulting in enhanced memory skills and the ability to learn and retain new information.