Top 10 Health Benefits of Yoga

Did you know that more than 36 million people practice yoga? These yogis have spent north of $16 billion buying yoga equipment. That’s a lot of yoga pants and mats! What do all these people know that you don’t? Most yogis are definitely on to something.

If you thought that the main benefit of yoga was getting to wear comfy pants, there’s a lot more. Here are ten health benefits of yoga you need to know about now!

Enhanced Concentration

It is easy to know whether you are reaching your full potential. If you feel that you are lagging at work, in your career, or in school, it could be that you are having trouble concentrating. Today, focusing has become quite challenging for many. With all the stresses and activities taking place, most people only manage to tune into something for a couple of minutes before losing focus.

Knowing how to stay plugged in is a good way to sharpen your concentration and productivity. Yoga helps you sharpen your concentration and your mental processing. This happens through stimulation of the brain and nervous system, which occurs during the activity.

Get Quality Sleep

If you are struggling with insomnia there is good news for you: yoga will help you stop counting sheep at night. The quality of sleep you have has a significant impact on the way your body and mind function. If you do not believe it then try staying up for more than 24 consecutive hours without sleep. You will be putting yourself at risk of high BP, mood swings, and many other issues.

Once you start yoga, you will realize that your sleep patterns improve. Yoga helps keep you relaxed and calm through the night. This way, you wake up feeling refreshed and ready to face the new day with a healthy and productive attitude. If you have been using sleeping pills–with possible side effects, it is time you tried yoga.

Yoga Helps Reduce Pain Naturally -More Health Benefits of Yoga

Are you suffering from pain in your back or joints? You might have tried the strong painkillers available bust still have an issue with the pain you are experiencing. Turning to Yoga could be the trick to helping that pain disappear. The ultimate goal of yoga is to clear your mind and connect with your inner self- mediation if you will. Research has proven that with the right posture and regular yoga practices as you meditate, you can alleviate any pain in the body.

In fact, this might sound audacious if you have never tried yoga and meditation. But, meditation is better at pain relief compared to morphine. You may be thinking about finding getting a pair of yoga pants on and starting right away! Keep reading because it gets even better!

Weight Moderation

Most people struggling with weight issued do not think about yoga as their first option for a weight loss intervention. Usually, it is something like jogging, dieting, or even spending countless hours at the gym. For you to lose weight, you have to be taking in fewer calories than you are using up. When you exercise you burn calories. And that is where yoga comes in. It is important to note that not all types of yoga will help you lose the number of calories you desire.

There are numerous poses that you can try out to achieve different results. Nonetheless, it is good to understand that the food you eat also plays a vital role. You cannot feed yourself with twinkies and pie throughout the week and expect to cure it all with some yoga poses once every week.

Some of the Yoga poses you can use to help you lose weight include:

• Paschimottanasana
• Sarvangasana
• Virabhadrasana
• Garudasana
• Bhekasana

The other way yoga helps you lose weight is through stress reduction. There is a strong correlation between stress and obesity. This is due to the attempted self-medication that goes on when you reach for comfort foods while stressed. However, you can change that behavior by replacing it with a healthier alternative–yoga. With yoga, you get to lower your stress level and this allows you to make better choices regarding the foods you chose to eat.

Prevention of Degenerative Illnesses

As you grow old, your body becomes weaker and more prone to illnesses that come with age. However, that does not have to be the case. Even if you are genetically predisposed to degenerative illnesses, you can avoid them completely thanks to Yoga. ALS, Osteoporosis, Heart Disease, Multiple Sclerosis and certain types of Cancers are a few examples of degenerative illnesses.

Many of these illnesses are things you will only be able to manage, rather than cure once you get diagnosed. Nevertheless, there’s no need to worry. It is possible to avoid them altogether. Regular yoga will help you stay healthier and younger for a long time. Here are a couple of reasons why yoga can assist you in the prevention of degenerative illnesses:

• Increased Oxytocin
• ATPase increases
• Thyroxin increases
• Prolactin increase
• Decrease in Sodium
• Decreased Glucose
• Decreased Cholesterol
• Increased Lymphocyte count
• Increase in Haemoglobin &
• Increased serum protein

It is your choice to live a healthier and youthful life. With yoga, you will be able to enjoy every moment of your life without having to worry about many of these degenerative diseases.

Improve Your Breathing

The ancient yogis had a belief that human beings had a limited number of breaths. To them, slowing down breathing was a way of helping you live longer. There are many illnesses you can cure by using the right breathing techniques. Yoga is about posture and breathing. Mastering this ancient art will give you a healthy life in several respects.

Yoga will help you increase your lung capacity and have the ability to slow down your breath. Scientists have linked controlled breathing to the length of your lifespan.

Increase Your Flexibility, Strength, and Agility

Various sports increase your strength. Others are also excellent in improving your gracefulness. However, few activities are capable of giving you strength, flexibility, and agility at the same time. Yoga helps you do all that. Even professional athletes are capable of overcoming injuries and improve their movement thanks to yoga.

Yoga also helps victims of severe surgical procedures that have led to the loss of proper movement. Many use yoga to regain their agility and total control of motion.

Improves Your Mood

Unless you are Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, being in a bad mood is not a sign of normalcy. Everyone hates feeling down in the dumps. It stops you from doing the things you love, forming meaningful relationships and living up to your full potential. A bad mood affects your attitude, and when attitude is tampered with you can expect that everything else in your life will head south due to it.

Luckily, yoga has the answer to that. As you practice yoga, you are exercising. During this process endorphins (feel-good hormones) release. These hormones boost your moods and are also a natural painkiller.

Normalize Your Blood Pressure

Having a blood pressure that is too high or too low can be fatal. Your doctor might put you on medication to assist you in normalizing your pressure. It is quite rare to find one that will suggest yoga. However, now that you know about it, you can test it and see for yourself. Yoga is an excellent way to deal with hypertension because it helps reduce stress. With the right poses, the results will surprise you.

Excellent Coping Mechanism

Finally, yoga also helps you cope with difficulties, which could cause you mental disturbance. Grief, coping with pressure, and emotional pain can cause maladaptive thoughts, which in turn leads to bad behaviour and habits. With yoga, you get a healthy way of coping with trauma, loss and many other problems life may throw your way.

Improved coping strategies not only help you stay focused and stress-free, but they also allow you to avoid stress-related illnesses, which could cause your health to deteriorate. In essence, yoga allows you to live a full life.

Reaching Your Full Potential is Important

Clearly, yoga helps you improve both your mental and physical health. When your body and your mind are in perfect harmony, you are capable of reaching your full potential your career whatever it is yo do. If you enjoyed reading about the health benefits of yoga, you will love many of my other posts. Feel free to contact me with any question.