12 ways Yoga Improves Your Life
Most people discover the practice of yoga because they have suffered an injury, feel stressed and overwhelmed, or were introduced to yoga by a friend.
I started yoga because I experienced terrible sciatica pain from bad posture, but also because I have had scoliosis (sideways curvature of the spine) since my teens. I began to notice how much better I felt after my yoga practice, yet this feeling would slowly dissipate two or three days later.
An experienced yoga teacher named Joy came to my house every four days to guide a practice for me. I looked forward to these sessions. Joy would give me a handout with the yoga poses to practice in between our sessions. I wasn’t very good at following this which made me feel disappointed with myself. You know the usual; I am too busy, I like sleeping in, I’m tired, I’ll do it tomorrow……
These excuses eventually led me to sign up for a yoga teacher training program. My reasoning was; I am financially investing in this training so need to be diligent and practice every day!
This was a major turning point in my life, and I have never looked back since.
Did my sciatica go away? It sure did.
Did my scoliosis go away? No (as it’s structural) but I manage it with my yoga practice.
I want to share with you the many benefits yoga has, especially when you practice 3 times a week or more. You can practice at a studio in your area or join my online studio to watch yoga and meditation videos at your convenience at home, the office or while you travel, from your mobile, laptop or home computer.
Here is a link to a free video so you can have a look at how easy it is to join………………………………………
12 benefits of Yoga
1. Reduce stress, anxiety and depression. Yoga is a true 'mind-body' activity. The physical postures, breathing exercises, and meditation help bring the mind and body together. This leads to the activation of the 'relaxation response’ which is calming and restorative, helping to lower breathing and heart rates, decreases blood pressure, and increase blood flow to the intestines and reproductive organs. After yoga, you feel calmer and more relaxed.
2. Improve strength, balance and flexibility. Combining movement and deep breathing increases your blood flow and warms up the muscles, while holding a pose builds strength and stamina.
3. Improve your flexibility and eases pain. Improved flexibility is one of the first and most obvious benefits of yoga and aches and pains start to disappear.
4. Lower your resting heart rate, increase endurance, and can improve your maximum uptake of oxygen during exercise. All reflections of improved aerobic conditioning.
5. Lower blood pressure and slow your heart rate. A slower heart rate can benefit people with high blood pressure or heart disease, and people who've had a stroke. Yoga also assists with lowering your blood sugar and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and boosts HDL (“good”) cholesterol. In people with diabetes, yoga has been found to lower blood sugar in several ways: by lowering cortisol and adrenaline levels, encouraging weight loss, and improving sensitivity to the effects of insulin.
6. Boost your immune system, raising antibody levels in response to a vaccine and lowering it when needed like mitigating an inappropriately aggressive immune function in an autoimmune disease like psoriasis.
7. Improve your posture. Yoga helps your body awareness so that you notice more quickly if you're slouching or slumping.
8. Relieve back pain and keeps your spine supple. Spinal disks (the shock absorbers between the vertebrae) can herniate and compress nerves.
9. Improve bone health. Weight-bearing exercise strengthens bones and helps ward off osteoporosis. Yoga’s ability to lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol may help keep calcium in the bones.
10. Lower cortisol levels. Normally, the adrenal glands secrete cortisol in response to an acute crisis, which temporarily boosts immune function. If your cortisol levels stay high even after the crisis, they can compromise the immune system. Temporary boosts of cortisol help with long-term memory, but chronically high levels undermine memory and may lead to permanent changes in the brain. High cortisol levels have been linked with major depression, osteoporosis, high blood pressure, and insulin resistance.
11. Improve your breathing and increases lung capacity.
12. Makes you happier. Having a consistent yoga practice improves depression and increases your serotonin levels (key hormone that stabilizes our mood, feelings of well-being, and happiness. This hormone impacts your entire body. It enables brain cells and other nervous system cells to communicate with each other. Serotonin also helps with sleeping, eating, and digestion) and a decrease in the levels of monoamine oxidase (an enzyme that breaks down neurotransmitters) and cortisol.