The Homemakers Magazine

Yoga benefits both the body and the mind equally. This fact alone makes it a great fitness choice. Add in that it is a type of exercise that can easily be adapted to not only your current fitness level but also to physical limitations resulting from injury or chronic conditions, and you have found a real winner. Yoga is a non-impact, gentle system of stretching and strengthening that can be either relaxing or stimulating depending on the type and choice of poses.

Among the numerous yoga benefits are muscle strengthening, toning and building. It also increases flexibility, mobility of joints and even improves digestion and elimination. It is great for anyone suffering from heart conditions, asthma and other breathing disorders, conditions such as arthritis that affect the muscular and skeletal systems. It eases the effects of repetitive strain injuries, strengthens bad knees and relieves muscle tightness in the shoulders, and neck.

 Physical Yoga Benefits:

 Flexibility

Moving your body through stretching poses that position your body in ways it is not used to will help make it more flexible and increase the range of motion in your muscles and joints. With practice, your back, shoulders, hip and hamstrings will become more flexible.

 Strength

Because yoga does not use any weight lifting but that of supporting your own body during the poses, it is increases strength while being adaptable to your current fitness level. Some poses require you to balance on one leg; while with others, you will support a comfortable percentage of your weight on your arms. You will move slowly through a series of poses to increase strength. Other yoga benefits from strengthening poses include: better posture, spine reinforcement, back pain relief, increased stamina, and improvements to blood circulation. Some poses serve to stimulate the endocrine system and release toxins.

Muscle tone

Strengthening poses also serve to increase muscle tone, you can expect to build longer, leaner muscles as compared to the shorter, bulging muscles created by weight lifting.

Because it is such a gentle method of strengthening and toning muscles, it is recommended for pregnant women. In fact, yoga during pregnancy is helpful throughout the entire gestational process.

Pain Prevention

Increasing strength and flexibility is extremely helpful if you want to reduce certain types of back pain. For anyone who spends a lot of time working on computers or driving cars, back pain can be a real problem leading to tight muscles and even spinal compression. Yoga poses address these problems by stretching the back muscles gently but thoroughly. Another benefit to yoga is that it strengthens the muscles that hold your spine in proper alignment and that also helps to prevent back pain.

Breathing

We rarely pay attention to how we breathe and as a result, many of us breathe too shallowly to get enough oxygen into our lower lungs. Pranayama or yoga breathing exercises enable us to pay more attention to our breathing habits and increase our lung capacity. Some types of breath serve to calm our nervous system; others clear our nasal cavities and passages. This provides not only physical benefits but also mental benefits as well.

Mental Benefits:

Mental Calmness

Even though yoga is a physical practice, when you focus intently on your body and breath, you also experience mental calmness similar to meditation. It is actually a good introduction to meditation techniques.

Stress Reduction

One of the best ways to reduce stress is through physical activity. When you combine the physical aspect of yoga with the meditational aspect of focusing on the breath, you will find that you release the troubles of the day and relax your mind. You will become detached from the stress of your daily activities and learn to focus on being “in the moment”.

Body Awareness

Done properly, there is a precision to yoga that increases body awareness greatly. The movements are slow and often subtle enough to help you focus on your body in ways you have never done before. With continued practice, you will begin to bring this awareness into your everyday life rather than just during actual yoga activities leading to a level of comfort with your body, bringing along with it more confidence.

These are just a few yoga benefits you can expect to enjoy if you take up this popular practice. It is fun and healthy for the whole family and suitable for everyone. Be sure to be honest with your instructor about your fitness level and to bring his or her attention to any limitations you might have so that the poses can be modified to your ability.  There are many types of yoga to choose from so be on the lookout for classes in your area.