Benefits of Yoga

Benefits of Yoga:

There are more health benefits of yoga than you can probably imagine.  Some of them are more obvious, like increased strength and flexibility.  But did you know that yoga has many mental benefits as well? Yoga has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety, help heal depression, and just put you in an all around better mood.  It does this by helping you focus your energy and attention inward which cultivates self-acceptance and self-control through a more in tune mind-body connection. Yoga has also been shown to improve concentration, attention span, social skills, and memory.

Aside from strength and flexibility, yoga gives the body an overall detoxification by wringing out the organs.  This process helps to combat aging and disease progression.  Yoga can help you achieve and maintain a healthy weight because it helps to regulate your thyroid and metabolism.  You will find that you have increased energy and balance, as well as improved posture, especially if you are coupling your yoga with regular visits to the chiropractor!  Yogis also find that they get a better night’s sleep due to a combination of the many health benefits yoga has to offer.

Because yoga improves circulation and increases oxygenation, it has been shown to lower blood pressure, decrease pulse rate, and improve cardiovascular endurance and respiratory function.  It can also help to regulate the gastrointestinal system and improve the immune system overall because when you practice yoga, the poses literally give your internal organs a massage, thus stimulating them to function more efficiently.  

Some of the diseases yoga has been linked to improving and/or preventing are Alzheimer’s, heart disease, osteoporosis, and type II diabetes.  

Meditation, which is a part of the practice, has been shown to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s.  In addition, studies show that practicing yoga increases GABA (brain gamma-aminobutyric) levels.  Low GABA levels have been linked to the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.  

Yoga encourages a healthy heart by lowering stress levels and blood pressure, maintaining a healthy weight, and improving cardiovascular function.  In addition, it has also been shown to increase insulin production in the pancreas which combats type II diabetes.

Yoga strengthens bones because it is a weight-bearing exercise.  It also decreases cortisol levels in the body which may help preserve calcium in the bones, thus slowing the progression of osteoporosis.  
With so many benefits yoga has to offer, it is difficult to touch on them all.  Here are some other benefits of a regular yoga practice: better muscle tone, increase range of motion in the joints, better eye-hand coordination, dexterity, endurance, and depth perception; lowering cholesterol, glucose, and sodium levels. Yoga also helps alleviate symptoms of arthritis, asthma, and carpal tunnel syndrome, as well as muscular dystrophy, migraines, and scoliosis.  It also helps with chronic bronchitis, sciatica, back pain, allergies and constipation.  Yoga can even help those fighting cancer by improving strength, raising red blood cell count, and providing and overall sense of well-being.

With so many benefits to yoga, you are sure to find a way that it can improve your quality of life… so what are you waiting for?  Change your life today, it’s never too late (or too early) to start thinking about a healthier you!