Yoga is a holistic mind and body practice that is rapidly increasing in popularity. Yoga’s physical benefits include improving flexibility and balance; additionally, chronic pain conditions like rheumatoid arthritis or multiple sclerosis may be reduced with regular yoga practice.
Mentally, yoga teaches us to slow down and control our thoughts for reduced stress and anxiety. Keep reading to discover more of its physical, emotional and spiritual benefits!
Physical
Yoga can help improve flexibility, strength and balance. Yoga also acts as an exercise form that reduces pain while increasing range of motion for injury prevention. Depending on the style of yoga practiced, poses may involve lifting or moving bodyweight which builds strength; proprioception and visual systems training also aids balance enhancement.
Yoga can provide a relaxing and therapeutic form of physical exercise, helping reduce stress. Yoga’s focus on breathing techniques and physical postures can give a sense of mental clarity while relieving anxiety. This also works for when you go to yoga studios.
Yoga can be an excellent way to help older adults improve their balance, particularly through poses that involve balancing on both legs. Yoga poses that strengthen hip, ankle and knee muscles can prevent falls and broken bones as people age; additionally it reduces inflammation and pain, helping lower risk factors associated with health conditions like heart disease or arthritis (Djalilova 2019). Studies have also demonstrated how regular practice of 150 minutes or more per week improves quality of life significantly (Djalilova 2019).
Mental
Yoga’s meditative practices and physical postures bring mind and body together. Studies have revealed how this practice can relieve various illnesses, issues, or diagnoses.
Yoga provides us with a means of shifting our balance away from sympathetic nervous system’s “fight or flight” response towards more peaceful parasympathetic state, helping ease anxiety, depression and stress while simultaneously increasing energy and happiness levels.
Yoga can be used alongside professional therapy to address mental health, specifically PTSD symptoms such as flashbacks, anxiety and high heart rate. Studies have also demonstrated how regular yogic practice improves concentration and focus, helping individuals move through the peaks and valleys of mental illness more quickly. Yoga may also foster self-esteem, confidence and a sense of personal control for those living with chronic illness (Kelley 2020).
Emotional
Yoga is a complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). It aims to improve health while decreasing stress-related illness through physical exercise, breath control, meditation and relaxation techniques. Yoga has also been proven effective at lowering blood pressure, decreasing heart rate and improving strength, flexibility and breathing capabilities.
Studies demonstrate the benefits of yoga for depression, anxiety and mood-related disorders by increasing self-awareness, mindfulness and emotional regulation. Yoga also enhances counseling and psychotherapy therapies by building positive self-image, confidence and self-efficacy in clients.
Yoga can also help relieve chronic pain, such as headaches and migraines. By stimulating the vagus nerve, yoga can reduce migraine attacks’ frequency, intensity, duration, relief timeframe as well as tension relief within the body – aiding blood circulation which in turn may ease headache symptoms. Yoga also promotes better sleeping patterns by decreasing insomnia-inducing conditions that disrupt normal sleeping patterns while increasing secretion of melatonin which acts as a hormone controlling sleep-wake cycles.
Spiritual
Yoga’s spiritual side helps people discover greater meaning and purpose in life, according to studies. This can include living intentionally as well as embracing aspects of yoga philosophy such as self-awareness, mindfulness and connecting with the world around us.
Yoga can also help people foster kindness and empathy toward themselves and others during difficult times, which yoga has been shown to do. Yoga has also been found to foster feelings of gratitude, forgiveness and empathy in practitioners.
Yoga practiced regularly – which includes physical postures (asanas), breathing exercises (pranayama) and meditation – can improve mental health by decreasing stress levels, improving sleep quality and strengthening immunity systems. Yoga may also help alleviate depression and anxiety by encouraging people to take control of their thoughts, emotions and behaviors and take ownership over them; leading them toward peace, joy and contentment in daily life while increasing self-confidence while teaching focus on living in the present moment.