An ancient practice that stretches back thousands of years in the nook and cranny of India. A complete mind-body experience that goes above and beyond conventional endurance and fitness drills. Four letters: Yoga.
Yoga is more than just a flexibility, breathing, and focus-oriented sport. It has an array of little-known benefits that most of have heard of, and here is a quick primer on that.
1. It’s an Excellent Stress Reliever
Yes, we are living in changing times. We get fired more often; we make poor choices every weekend. And life comes fast at you when you expect it. Fortunately, extensive research shows that yoga reduces one’s blood pressure, in addition to lessening their stress and anxiety levels.
The next time you feel strung up and frustrated, remember it is time to hit the mat. What’s more, getting into the habit of frequenting a yoga studio is a sure way of staying at the top of your game regardless of what happens around you.
2. Sharpens Your Mind
Feeling a little edgy? A little rusty and all over the place? Yoga might be just what you need to get back on track. As you may already know, physical exertion is among the best ways of sharpening your focus/memory. But yoga takes it to a whole another level by throwing meditation into the mix.
3. Eases Physical Pain
Back pain, knee pain, neck pain…you name it. Yoga, through a combination of complex stretching exercises, is a natural antidote of most of the common lifestyle joint ailments that a characteristic of our sedentary lives. In extreme cases, yoga contributes immensely in relieving such chronic or repetitive pains.
4. It a Good Way to Spice up your Workout Regimen
Drop the weights every once in a while for the mat. Yoga may not seem like a ‘fat burning’ type of practice, but it is among some of the best ways of sculpting formidable muscles using your own weight. If anything, yoga gifts you almost similar muscle-building benefits that one gets by performing extended, lengthy pushups, leg lifts, and squats. The results are usually well-primed and toned muscle groups that get stronger and taut with each successive yoga session.
5. Therapeutic; Relieves Migraines
Maybe it is the meditation. It could be the physically exerting nature of many yoga poses that distracts your mental focus long enough to pave the way for a calming effect. Either way, yoga has been proven to help reduce the intensity and frequency of chronic migraines in most sufferers.
6. Helps You Sleep Better
In a world where it is becoming increasingly easier to be an insomniac, thanks to the nerve-wracking and hectic schedules that most of us have, yoga is a welcome relief. In fact, forget those highly-commercialized and overrated sleep aids. Nighttime yoga moves will lull you into a peaceful slumber better than your regular sleeping pills.
7. Improves your Sex Life
Unable to rise to the occasion? Are those mind-blowing orgasms becoming a little elusive of late? Frequenting a yoga studio is a great way of boosting your sexual performance especially if you’re too young to be managing lifestyle diseases. This is actually one of the reasons some yoga teacher training academies encourage incorporating this practice as early as possible in life.
8. Encourages you to Cultivate a Tendency of Pushing Your Limits
Yoga is structured to be a progressive physical and mental workout outfit. Like anything else challenging in life, you’re advised to start with the easiest and most gentle moves as you advance to a few complex and really taxing workouts. Besides, the classes are organized in a manner that you’ll learn the tenets of endurance and strength training progressively. Apply this to any other sphere of your life, and you’re halfway towards excelling at anything challenging and onerous.
9. Improves Your Flexibility, Helps you Avoid Workout Injuries
Yoga classes are built on the recognition of one’s body’s limits and needs. Regular yoga practice is a great way of learning how to assess yourself in the gym, running or while playing a sport to lessen the likelihood of avoidable injuries. What’s more, since it is primarily founded on stretching exercises, a yogi’s toned and stretched muscles heal and recover faster after an arduous workout stint.
10. Helps One Control their Breathing
Pranayama, also known as breathing exercises, constitutes of a huge chunk of yoga. They encourage one to adopt a more centered and focused way of breathing. The benefits of this transcend simple stress relief/management, and asthma patients who practice yoga regularly can attest to it.
The Bottom Line
Yoga might be a 4-lettered ancient Indian practice, but its benefits span over four dozens areas of your life. And if this is not enough to convince you, then what else is?
