Hello everyone!
Many people think about doing yoga, but never bring their ideas to life. They don’t know which direction of yoga to choose, they can’t find a good instructor, they can’t find time for classes, or they’re just lazy.
In this article, we will look at how you can benefit from yoga once you start the practice. What effect does yoga have on the soul, body and mind.
After yoga came to the Western world and began to gain more and more followers, scientists began to study how yoga affects a person’s physical and psycho-emotional state. The data provided in this article is entirely based on scientific research.
So, let's go.
YOGA IMPROVES FLEXIBILITY
The development of flexibility is one of the first and quickly noticeable effects of yoga. During first grade, many people can't even touch their toes, let alone bend back. But with regular practice, the impossible becomes possible, and practitioners perform exercises that they could not even dream of before.
YOGA DEVELOPES MUSCLES
Strong muscles are much more than beautiful body. They help prevent diseases such as arthritis, back pain, and improve metabolism in the body. In addition, by doing yoga, you develop strength in balance with flexibility.
YOGA IMPROVES POSTURE
Incorrect posture causes many health problems. Fatigue, drowsiness, headaches and back pain, decreased performance, curvature of the spine, poor digestion - this is not a complete list of consequences. Therefore, it is very important that yoga helps improve posture.
YOGA IMPROVES JOINT CONDITION
In each yoga class, you work absolutely all the joints of the body, improving their elasticity and preventing diseases such as arthritis, arthrosis and joint inflammation.
YOGA STRENGTHENS THE SPINE
In yoga, special attention is paid to working with the spine. It is not for nothing that in Eastern culture it is called the “Stem of Life”. Bends back, forwards, and twists help supply nutrients to the spine and develop its flexibility.
YOGA STRENGTHENS BONES
Exercise using your own body weight strengthens bones and prevents osteoporosis. This principle is applied in many yogic poses.
YOGA IMPROVES BLOOD CIRCULATION
Yoga exercises work in such a way that when performing twisting asanas, old blood is squeezed out internal organs and joints, and when you come out of the pose, new oxygenated blood flows to them. Inverted poses promote blood flow from the legs and pelvis to the lungs, where it is also enriched with oxygen.
Yoga helps increase hemoglobin levels and increases the number of white blood cells that carry oxygen to tissues, which helps thin the blood. This reduces the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
YOGA STRENGTHENS THE LYMPHATIC SYSTEM
The contraction and stretching of muscles during asanas promotes the movement of lymph (a clear, viscous fluid rich in immune cells) in the body. This allows lymphatic system better deal with infections, destroy cancer cells, and remove toxic waste from cells.
YOGA IMPROVES CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM
Performing asanas, just like aerobic exercise, significantly reduces the risk of heart disease and helps get rid of depression. Studies have shown that yoga practice stabilizes the resting heart rate, improves endurance and promotes oxygen supply to internal organs.
YOGA NORMALIZES PRESSURE
Dr. Debbie Cohen from the University of Pennsylvania studied the effects of yoga on the blood pressure of 58 volunteers aged 38 to 62 years.
The participants were divided into 3 groups. Members of the first focused on diets, weight loss and walking. The second group of volunteers did yoga, and the third group added a diet to their classes.
As a result, the second group recorded a more significant decrease in pressure indicators than the first - from 133/80 to 130/77. But the results of the participants in the third group, contrary to expectations, were not too different from the results of the second group.
YOGA REGULATES THE FUNCTION OF THE ADRENAL GLANDS
Yoga helps reduce the level of cortisol, a hormone produced by the adrenal cortex. It is a stress hormone and with any physical or psychological stress its level increases, which allows you to concentrate and increase attention. All organs in response to increased level cortisol levels begin to work in enhanced, emergency mode. People whose hormone levels are elevated are overweight and like to eat up all their stress with something tasty.
YOGA MAKES PEOPLE HAPPY
Research has proven that yoga can help relieve depression. When performing asanas, the level of serotonin (the hormone of happiness) significantly increases, which contributes to good mood and improving overall well-being.
YOGA REDUCES WEIGHT
We often hear: if you want to lose weight, eat less, move more. Yoga helps shape healthy image life without imposing rules and counting calories.
Yoga practice works on the physical and emotional planes. Performing asanas is movement. And stabilization of mental emotional state eliminates overeating and promotes the choice of healthier food.
YOGA LOWERS BLOOD SUGAR LEVELS
Yoga lowers blood sugar and bad cholesterol levels and increases good cholesterol levels. Research has shown that this occurs due to a decrease in cortisol and adrenaline levels, which in turn promotes weight loss and improved insulin sensitivity.
YOGA IMPROVES CONCENTRATION
One of the main components of yoga is focusing on the present. Research has found that regular classes yoga improves coordination, reaction and even IQ scores. People who practice meditation show the ability to solve problems faster, remember information better, and recall events in memory. Perhaps this is due to the fact that they are not burdened by an endless stream of extraneous thoughts.
YOGA HELPS YOU RELAX
Yoga helps you calm down, slow your breathing, and focus your attention on the present, shifting the balance from the sympathetic nervous system to the parasympathetic nervous system. It helps restore strength, reduces heart rate, lowers blood pressure, increases blood circulation in the digestive and reproductive systems and gives a relaxing effect.
YOGA IMPROVES BALANCE AND COORDINATION
With regular yoga practice, the ability to feel your body and its location in space increases and balance improves. By gaining good balance, you will be less likely to stumble and fall. This is especially important for older people, as they gain more independence and can take care of themselves.
YOGA DEVELOPS CONTROL OVER THE BODY
Some advanced yogis have the ability to completely control their body, which confuses scientists. There are stories of yogis who could hibernate, go without food or water for a long time, stop their heart, and fall asleep in one minute. By doing yoga, you too can learn how to relax and fall asleep when you're struggling with insomnia, or mentally increase blood flow to your pelvis when you're trying to get pregnant.
You can read more about the capabilities of yogis in the article “The incredible abilities of yogis.”
YOGA RELEASES MUSCLE TENSION
Have you ever noticed that you have a death grip on your phone or steering wheel? Or do you wrinkle your forehead when you think or work?
These unconscious habits lead to chronic tension, muscle fatigue, pain in the joints, arms, wrists, shoulders, neck and face. By practicing yoga, you will begin to notice which parts of your body are tense and learn to relax those muscles.
YOGA CALMING
The rhythm of modern life forces us to be on the move all the time; our brain works 24 hours a day, even during sleep. Naturally, our nervous system is constantly tense. Yoga helps you calm down and relax. Restorative practices such as savasana (dead body pose), pranayama (breathing practices) and meditation allow the nervous system to rest. And as a result, they improve sleep and reduce stress.
YOGA IMPROVES THE FUNCTION OF THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
Asanas and pranayama improve performance immune system, although scientists are inclined to believe that meditation brings maximum benefit to the immune system. Meditation stimulates the immune system when necessary: it increases the level of antibodies during vaccination, or, conversely, reduces the function of the immune system when it is necessary, for example, to reduce too high immune defenses in autoimmune diseases such as psoriasis and others.
YOGA INCREASES LUNG CAPACITY
Yogis try to take fewer breaths, but deeper ones, which helps to calm nervous system and is more efficient breathing. Moreover, it helps improve lung function and ensure more oxygen enters the blood.
YOGA IMPROVES INTESTINAL FUNCTION
Such gastrointestinal diseases ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, can be complicated by stress.
Yoga, like the other physical activity, relieves constipation and theoretically reduces the risk of developing bowel cancer because it helps food move through the intestines faster. It is believed that twisting poses are especially helpful in relieving constipation.
YOGA GIVES PEACE IN THE SOUL
Yoga helps calm the ever-wandering mind, relieve anxiety, reduce sensitivity to stress, and alleviate overwhelming feelings such as fear, anger, irritation, regret, which again result in stress.
Stress, in turn, causes various health problems, ranging from migraines and insomnia to high blood pressure, sclerosis, eczema, and heart attacks. So, stay calm and live happily ever after.
YOGA INCREASES SELF-ESTEEM
Many people suffer from too low self-esteem. If you solve this problem with drugs, overeating, hard work, or promiscuity, you will pay for it with your physical and mental health. If you practice yoga, gradually your attitude towards yourself and others will begin to change, you will begin to experience feelings of gratitude, compassion and forgiveness, you will discover a completely different side of yourself, and you will also feel part of something Bigger.
YOGA RELIEVES FROM PAIN
Yoga will help relieve pain. According to several studies, practicing asanas and meditation reduces pain in people with arthritis, back pain, fibromyalgia, carpal tunnel syndrome and other chronic diseases.
YOGA GIVES POWER
Yoga will change your life! By practicing yoga, you will soon realize that without any effort, you will eat better, feel more energetic, think positively, cope with life's difficulties more easily, and even be able to get rid of bad habits that have haunted you for years.
WITH YOGA NO MEDICATION IS NEEDED
If your medicine cabinet looks more like a pharmacy, it's time to take up yoga. A study of people suffering from asthma, high blood pressure, and diabetes showed that practicing yoga helped them reduce the dosage of medications, and in some cases, stop taking them completely. You can’t find money for yoga, maybe you can cut down on pills?
YOGA TEACHES LOVE
Love may not overcome all obstacles, but it definitely helps in curing diseases. By giving love to your family, friends and community, you are helping yourself first. With regular yoga practice you will become friendlier, kinder and calmer. Additionally, yoga philosophy advocates telling the truth and taking only what you really need.
YOGA CLEANSES THE BODY
Yoga also includes cleansing practices - kriyas. Exists large number various techniques, ranging from fast breathing exercises before cleansing internal organs, such as the intestines.
YOGA TEACHES YOU TO HELP YOURSELF THROUGH HELPING OTHERS
Karma yoga (helping others) is inseparable from the philosophy of yoga. By helping others, you help yourself. Helping others gives your life new meaning, and your own problems seem less scary when you see what others are struggling with.
YOGA WILL HELP YOU BECOME THE MASTER OF LIFE
Most people who are treated with methods traditional medicine, passively receive help from doctors. By doing yoga, you take responsibility for your life into your own hands. Yoga gives you the tools to change and you can feel better from the very beginning of your practice.
EVERYTHING IS INTERCONNECTED
Surely, while reading all these points about the benefits of yoga, you noticed that one follows from the other. Change your posture and you will change your breathing. Change your breathing and you change your nervous system. This is one of the most important lessons of yoga. Everything is interconnected.
Once you start practicing yoga, you will realize that not only your health and appearance will change, but also your perception of yourself and the world around you. Most likely, more conscious and interesting people will appear in your environment. New goals and plans, new hobbies and interests will appear, and the very course of life will change.
Start practicing yoga soon and get all 33 benefits.
With sincere sympathy, Olesya.
Yoga has been practiced for more than five thousand years. Generally speaking, yoga improves not only physical capabilities human body, but also contributes to the spiritual development of a person, his enlightenment. By immersing themselves in meditation, mastering asanas and practicing pranayama, yoga students achieve the unity of soul, mind and body, learning to direct their internal energy exclusively to creation.
So yoga has a beneficial effect on:
- Human health, the state of his physical body;
- Inner spiritual world.
Let's look at each of these aspects in more detail.
Vegetarianism as an integral component of yoga practice: what are the benefits?
First of all, we note that it is impossible to simply visit a yoga room and then leave it to live without taking into account the basic truths of the ancient teachings. What does it mean? This means that yoga is a philosophy of life, a way of eating and a style of behavior.
If you really decide to change your life and do yoga, pay attention to your diet. Since practicing yoga requires a serious, disciplined attitude, you will need to study the sources and comprehend some of the truths of Yama. The basic truth is ahimsa, i.e. non-violence. This means that to cleanse your karma and body, you must stop eating meat. You can easily find a complete replacement for meat foods among products of plant origin. That is, in order for yoga classes to bring successful results as quickly as possible, it is recommended to switch to vegetarianism.
The benefits of vegetarianism are:
- Acceleration of the body's metabolic processes;
- Slowing down the aging process of the body;
- Prevention of diabetes;
- Prevention cardiovascular diseases;
- Prevention of oncology.
And most importantly, a person is cleansed of negativity that pollutes his karma.
What are the benefits of yoga? Of course, with practice
Everyone knows that the main ways to work on yourself, your body, are mastering and, as well as meditation.
The sages say: “Until the flexibility of the spine disappears, a person is young.” And this is completely justified! After all, not a single property of our body, in the sense of physiology, disappears as quickly as flexibility. Regular, correct and conscious performance of asanas can not only maintain the flexibility of your body, but also restore it, no matter what age you are.
So our first conclusion: Yoga maintains the elasticity of muscles and ligaments, and also ensures joint mobility.
Numerous studies in the field of medicine have proven that our immunity directly depends on the condition of connective tissues, which include: bones, ligaments, tendons and cartilage. Here we go second conclusion: asanas and pranayama help improve the body’s recovery processes, as well as its immunity.
Thanks to proper and balanced nutrition, excess sugar, salt and cholesterol leave our body. Fat layer melts before our eyes.
Conclusion three: while doing yoga, a person loses his overweight.
Practical yoga classes will help regulate the level of carbon dioxide in the blood, which results in improved metabolism and changes in the speed of biochemical processes in tissues.
Conclusion four: yoga slows down the aging process of the body and gives you a second youth.
Since the teaching of yoga a priori denies the presence of harmful habits in humans, such as alcoholism, drug addiction and smoking, we can avoid their negative influence.
The beneficial effects of yoga on our spiritual world
Among the many styles of yoga, Hatha yoga is the most popular. "Ha" is the "Sun", "Tha" is the "Moon". The meaning of the term “hatha yoga” follows naturally - “the merging of two opposites into one.” The ability to pacify the storm of passions within ourselves, which yoga teaches us, helps us ultimately come to an understanding with the outside world.
Harmony with others, and most importantly, with ourselves, helps us take our own lives to a new level. Things immediately go uphill, peace and tranquility reign at work and in the family.
It is very important to find a teacher, a wise mentor who will teach you to concentrate and relax. Simultaneous concentration and muscle relaxation promotes the production of serotonin, the hormone of joy, which, in turn, can help a person cope with stressful situations.
By learning to cope with your negative emotions, you will gain control over yourself, over your own life. It is not without reason that the first two stages of hatha yoga (out of eight) are the comprehension of moral principles and self-development. Only after mastering these stages do students move on to physical exercises.
Yoga as the most important tool for self-education
Yoga teaches us to cultivate such important personal qualities as discipline, responsibility, and rationality. By accustoming ourselves to regular weekly scheduled classes and daily work on ourselves, we improve ourselves and develop ourselves. Over time, we transfer all these skills from the gym to our lives, our daily responsibilities.
Think about it, how often do you want to lie down or sit in a chair in front of the TV or computer because you are tired and think that you have the right to relax? It’s even worse if you choose entertainment with alcohol as a tool for “relaxation.” At such moments, your mind is clouded, you begin to mistakenly believe that this is rest, which over time develops into bad habits. The reason for this may be promiscuity, which must be combated, and on the other hand, the reason may be a person’s inability to be firm, because it is always easier to go with the flow. Meanwhile, after such a “rest” a person needs about another day to come to his senses. Sign up for yoga classes and you will understand that during the sessions you relax, gain strength and energy. You will learn to save your time and use it rationally. Among other things, with the help of yoga you will come to the conclusion that you need to value yourself, your time, and not waste it.
In the modern world, everyone strives to monitor their health - eat right and exercise. However, people don’t even think about what yoga does for health, both physical and spiritual. Many famous personalities prefer yoga because the practice helps to work with both the body and the mind. At the same time, you can practice not only in the gym with a guru, but also try yoga practice at home.
What is yoga for?
Before starting yoga classes, it is better to familiarize yourself with what types of yoga exist, since each direction is individual and is not suitable for everyone. There are also health restrictions for some types of practices.
To begin with, you can try all directions and choose the one that you like the most.
At the same time, the maximum positive effect You can gain from practicing by performing yoga poses competently and in compliance with all the rules. Each asana is aimed at working a specific muscle group and opening certain energy channels.
When performing asanas, you should not commit violence to the body. The main thing is a state of harmony and balance.
The practice is gradually conquering the whole world. People who practice for several hours and once a week claim that the classes have changed their lives in better side. Such activities have a large number positive points.
Practitioners claim that yoga is good for health and has a beneficial effect on it:
muscle flexibility and strength develops;
joints, bones, spine are strengthened;
posture is formed;
blood circulation improves;
the functioning of the cardiovascular and lymphatic systems improves;
blood pressure and adrenal function are normalized;
improves coordination and balance;
Improves immunity and lung function thanks to special breathing techniques.
Yoga has a positive effect not only on physical condition person, but also has a positive effect on the psycho-emotional state. After several practices:
the person feels happy;
more calm and relaxed;
internally balanced and harmonious;
classes help increase self-esteem and give inner strength;
Her philosophy is also aimed at helping others and loving oneself and the world.
Regular practice promotes weight loss, as a person finds inner balance, eats less stress, and prefers healthy eating. People suffering from problems excess weight, you may be interested in yoga for weight loss.
Girls who are in an interesting position, against the background of changes in the body, also experience changes in their perception of the world, so yoga for pregnant women will help them improve their women's health and prepare for the changes that await them.
Yoga is a philosophy about physical and emotional health and their balance. Practice provides enormous benefits for a person - health improves, inner peace and harmony with oneself sets in, and it is important to learn to listen to your body. We hope that we have answered the question of what yoga classes provide, and you can calmly move on to performing asanas.
Sport
Looking for motivation to practice yoga? We invite you to learn 38 ways yoga can help improve your health. Perhaps after this you will grab a mat and go to a yoga class for some practice.
If you've tried yoga before, you've probably already noticed that yoga has a positive effect on your well-being - perhaps you sleep better, get fewer colds and feel like you can relax more. However, if you are telling a beginner how yoga works using expressions like "It increases the flow of prana" or "It energizes your spine", you are likely to encounter skepticism and criticism.
It is best to offer more specific explanations to interested individuals who are just starting to practice how yoga can improve health, cure illnesses and relieve pain, and so on. Understanding the benefits of the practice will help you stay motivated to start, and will also help you teach others how yoga works in a language they can understand.
1) Flexibility
Improving the flexibility of the whole body is one of the main and obvious benefits of yoga. During your first session, you most likely could barely reach your toes. However, over time, you noticed that it was becoming easier for you to perform poses that at first were difficult for you or were not given at all. You may also have noticed that the painful sensations have begun to subside. This is not an accident. Weak hips can place stress on the knees due to misalignment of the femur and tibia. Weak muscles The hips can put stress on the spine, leading to back pain. Lack of flexibility in muscles and connective tissues such as connective membranes (fascia) and ligaments can lead to poor posture.
2) Strength
Strong muscles give much more than an attractive body. They also protect us from diseases such as arthritis and back pain, and help prevent the risk of falls in older people. If you can strengthen your muscles through yoga, you can balance them through flexibility. If, for example, you go to the gym and train your muscles, they will become strong, but this will not increase your flexibility.
3) Correct posture
Your head is somewhat like a bowling ball—it's round, big, and heavy. Keeping your head over a straight spine does a lot of good for your neck and back muscles by supporting them, giving them balance. Tilt your head a few centimeters forward and you will feel the tension in your muscles. By keeping your head tilted for 8-12 hours, you will realize that it is not surprising that at the end of the day you will feel very tired. Fatigue is not your only problem. Incorrect posture leads to problems with the back, neck and other muscles and joints. When you slouch, your back and neck become curved, and prolonged stay in this state leads to back pain, degenerative arthritis of the spine.
4) Joint and cartilage health
Every time you do yoga, your joints work at full capacity and rotate their maximum distance. This helps prevent degenerative arthritis and also engages areas of cartilage that usually remain immobile due to lack of movement. Connective tissues cartilages are like sponges, they receive fresh nutrients only when their fluids are squeezed out and new ones are absorbed back. If these areas are underused, they wear down, exposing the bones, which ultimately results in leg pain.
5) Spinal disc health
The spinal discs - shock absorbers between the spine and compressed nerves - must be mobile. This is how they get the nutrition they need. Practicing yoga, including balanced poses, back bends, back arches, and crunches, will give your discs flexibility.
6) Strong Bones
It is well known that weight training helps strengthen bones and prevent the development of osteoporosis. Many yoga poses are designed to allow you to lift your body weight. For example, poses such as downward-facing dog and upward-facing dog help strengthen the bones in the arms, which are especially vulnerable to damage from osteoporosis. Yoga practice improves spinal bone density, according to research from the University of California, Los Angeles. Yoga's ability to reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol helps maintain calcium in the bones.
7) Improve blood circulation
Yoga helps improve blood circulation. Relaxation exercises promote good blood circulation, especially in the arms and legs. Yoga also helps deliver more oxygen to your cells, which make them function better as a result. Twisting poses squeeze venous blood out of the internal organs and help deliver oxygenated blood as you come out of the twisting position. Inverted poses such as headstand, handstand and shoulderstand help venous blood from the legs and pelvis return to the heart, where it enters the lungs and is better oxygenated. This is especially beneficial for those who have leg problems due to poor heart and kidney function. Yoga also helps increase hemoglobin levels and increases the number of white blood cells that carry oxygen to tissues. This thins the blood, preventing blood clots from forming, and reduces the level of blood proteins, which contribute to blockage of blood vessels. This reduces the risk of heart attacks and strokes, since blood clots often lead to these problems.
8) Strengthening the lymphatic system
When you contract and strengthen your muscles and move your whole body through yoga poses, you improve the drainage of lymph (a viscous fluid rich in immune cells). This allows the lymphatic system to better fight infections, destroy cancer cells, and remove toxic waste from cells.
9) Healthy heart
When you exercise your heart regularly through aerobic activity, you can significantly reduce your risk of heart disease and also relieve depression. Although not all yoga poses involve aerobic activity, if you do challenging exercises, you may notice that your heart rate increases. Even if some poses don't get your heart pumping, they still promote good adaptation. cardiovascular system. Research has shown that yoga practice lowers your resting heart rate, improves endurance, and helps you take in more oxygen during exercise—all of which have many cardiovascular benefits.
10) Pressure reduction
If you have high blood pressure, you can improve the situation with yoga. Two studies of people with hypertension published in the British Medical Journal The Lancet, compared with the action of Shavasana ("corpse pose") with the usual lying on the sofa. After 3 months, research results showed that Savasana reduced systolic blood pressure (maximum level) by 26 points and diastolic blood pressure (minimum pressure) by 15 points. The higher the initial level of pressure, the more it decreased to normal levels.
11) Relief from anxiety
Yoga helps reduce cortisol levels. Under normal conditions, the adrenal gland produces cortisol in response to an acute crisis, which temporarily stimulates immune system function. But if cortisol levels are still elevated after the crisis has passed, it can harm the immune system. A temporary rise in cortisol helps preserve long-term memory, but chronically high level can damage memory and lead to permanent brain changes. What's more, excess cortisol is linked to depression, osteoporosis (it leaches calcium and other minerals from bones and interferes with bone formation), high blood pressure, and insulin resistance. In rats, high levels of cortisol, according to scientists, lead to behavior in which rodents tend to eat more when irritated or stressed. The body receives extra calories, which are stored as belly fat, meaning you begin to gain weight and increase your risk of developing diabetes and heart disease.
12) Happiness and relief from depression
Are you upset about something? Sit in Lotus position. Or better yet, do the Half-Elevated Pose - standing on one leg, straighten one arm forward, and with the other grab the other leg from behind, making a bend in the back. Although these poses can be quite challenging for beginners, with practice they can help relieve depression and also help significantly increase serotonin levels, reduce monoamine oxidase (an enzyme that breaks down neurotransmitters) and cortisol. Ph.D Richard Davidson from University of Wisconsin discovered that left side The prefrontal cortex of the brain shows activity during meditation, which indicates that the person receives a fairly high portion of happiness and his immunity increases. More serious activation of this zone is observed in those who regularly practice yoga and meditation.
13) Solving excess weight issues
Move more and eat less - these recommendations are received by everyone who wants to lose weight. Yoga classes give you physical activity and also contribute to the transition to proper nutrition. Regular yoga practice gets you moving more, so you burn more calories, and the spiritual and emotional components of your practice will help you do more. right choice food products and can help solve the problem of excess weight. Yoga also inspires you to eat more mindfully.
14) Lower blood sugar
Yoga helps reduce sugar and bad cholesterol levels and increases good cholesterol levels. For people with diabetes, research shows that yoga lowers blood sugar in several ways: by reducing cortisol and adrenaline levels, helping with weight loss, and improving insulin sensitivity. By lowering your blood sugar levels, you can reverse many of the effects of diabetes, including heart attacks, kidney failure and blindness.
15) Improve memory
An important component of yoga is focusing on the present. Studies have shown that regular yoga practice improves coordination, reaction time and even IQ scores. People who practice transcendental meditation demonstrate the ability to solve problems and receive and remember information better. This may be due to the fact that they are less distracted by extraneous thoughts.
16) Calm the nerves
Yoga helps you relax, slow your breathing, and focus your attention on the present, shifting the balance from the sympathetic nervous system to the parasympathetic nervous system. The latter helps to calm down, restore strength, it reduces breathing and heart rate, lowers blood pressure, increases blood circulation in the digestive and reproductive systems and gives a relaxing effect.
17) Improved balance and coordination of movements
Regular yoga practice enhances proprioception- the ability to sense your posture in space, and also improve balance. People with poor posture and mobility problems usually have poor proprioception due to knee problems or back pain. Good balance will prevent you from falling. This is especially important for older people, as they gain more independence, can take care of themselves, and visit doctors less. For everyone else, poses like Tree Pose help you feel more stable in your legs.
18) Body control
Some advanced yogis can control their body in unusual ways. Scientists studied yogis who could cause unusual heart rate, generate special indicators of the electroencephalogram, and, using meditative techniques, raise the temperature of the hands. That is, this demonstrates that with the help of yoga you can learn to increase blood circulation in the pelvic area if you want to get pregnant, or force yourself to relax if you have insomnia.
19) Relieving muscle tension
Have you ever noticed that you can grab the phone with a death grip or make a grimace while staring at the computer screen? These unconscious habits can lead to chronic tension, muscle fatigue, pain in the joints, arms, shoulders, neck and face, which only increases stress and worsens mood. When you begin to practice yoga, you begin to feel where tension is held, perhaps in the tongue, eyes, muscles of the face or neck. If you have the right mindset, you can eliminate tension. However, for large muscles, it may take years of practice to learn how to relax them.
20) Calm
Stimulation is sometimes good, but not always for the nervous system. Yoga helps you get rid of turmoil modern life. Restorative asanas, yoga nidra (a form of guided relaxation), Savasana, pranayama and meditation support pratyahara - the technique of withdrawing the senses from objects, which helps calm the nervous system. Another effect that regular yoga classes have, as studies have shown, is improved sleep. This means that you will be less tired and have less stress.
21) Improvement of the immune system
Asanas and pranayama (a system of breathing exercises) can improve the function of the immune system, although scientists believe that meditation provides the greatest benefit to the immune system. Meditation helps stimulate the immune system when it is needed, for example, to increase the level of antibodies during vaccination, and also reduces the function of the immune system when required, for example, it helps to reduce the effect of inappropriately aggressive system function in autoimmune diseases such as psoriasis and others.
22) Healthy breathing
Yogis try to take fewer breaths, but deeper ones, which helps calm the nervous system and is more effective breathing. In 1998 the magazine The Lancet published studies in which people with pulmonary problems due to coronary heart disease learned a yogic technique known as " full breath"After a month, their average respiratory rate decreased by 13.4 -7.6 breaths per minute. At the same time, their ability to tolerate physical activity improved significantly, as did oxygen saturation. Moreover, yoga helps improve pulmonary functions, including maximum volume of inhaled air and its effective exhalation. Yoga promotes breathing through the nose, which helps clean the air, warms and moisturizes it (cold, dry air contributes to asthma attacks in people who are especially sensitive to the disease), and delays the entry of dust and pollutants into the lungs.
23) Good job intestines
Ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, constipation - all these troubles can get worse. If you experience less stress, you will suffer less. Yoga, like other physical activities, relieves constipation and theoretically reduces the risk of bowel cancer because it helps food move through the intestines more quickly. And although there has been no scientific evidence yet, yogis believe that twisting poses will especially help get rid of constipation.
24) Peace of mind
Yoga helps calm an anxious mind. In other words, it helps slow down your thoughts and relieve you of the frustration, regrets, anger, fears and desires that cause stress. Since stress brings a host of health problems, from migraines and insomnia to lupus, multiple sclerosis, high blood pressure and heart attacks, if you learn to calm your mind, you're more likely to live happily ever after.
25) Signs from above
Many of us suffer from chronically low self-esteem. If you suppress this problem through drugs, overeating, hard work or debauchery, you will pay for it with your physical and mental health. If you turn to positive ways to build self-esteem, such as yoga, you will feel small glimpses at first, and then more. major changes your sense of self. If you practice yoga regularly for self-examination or to improve your self-awareness, rather than just for variety after going to the gym, you can find a completely different side of yourself. You will experience feelings of gratitude, compassion and forgiveness, and you will also realize that you are part of something Big. Although improved health is not the most important goal of spiritual development, it is often an accompanying phenomenon.
26) Pain relief
Yoga helps relieve you from pain. According to several studies, asanas, meditation, or a combination of both, reduces pain in people with arthritis, lumbar pain, fibromyalgia, carpal tunnel syndrome and other chronic diseases. If you can relieve your pain, your mood will improve, you'll be more active, and you won't need to take medications.
27) Healing by fire
Yoga helps you change your life. In fact, this is the greatest power that yoga has. "Tapa"– a Sanskrit word meaning “heat” – this is fire, the discipline that fuels yogic practice and on which regular practice is built. The tapa you develop can be strengthened throughout your life to overcome inertia and break bad habits. Once you start practicing yoga, you will notice that your life changes: you start to eat better, exercise more, quit smoking after several years of unsuccessful attempts.
28) Gifts of the Guru
Good yoga instructors can provide many healthy tips. The best ones don't just teach you how to do various poses correctly. They monitor which poses you should do, when you need to go further or slow down a little, help you relax and make your practice the most effective for you personally. Having a respectful relationship with your teacher will help you learn many useful things.
29) Less medications
If your medicine cabinet resembles a drugstore, it might be time to try yoga. Studies of people with asthma, hypertension, type 2 diabetes or obsessive-compulsive disorder found that yoga was able to help them reduce their food intake. medicines, and for some it allowed them to completely stop taking medications. If we talk about the benefits of taking fewer medications, then there are a great many of them: savings, getting rid of side effects, the risk of dangerous interactions and so on.
30) Getting rid of anger
Yoga and meditation promote awareness. The more knowledge you have, the easier it is for you to cope with destructive emotions such as anger. Research suggests that chronic anger and hostility are highly associated with heart attacks, as are smoking, diabetes and high cholesterol. Yoga appears to help relieve anger by increasing feelings of compassion and connectedness, as well as calming the nervous system and mind. It also improves your ability to cope with life's challenges, endure bad news, and find the strength to cope with events that unsettle you. You will be able to react quickly in the right situation. There is evidence that yoga speeds up our reactions. IN difficult situation you can find the right decision and you will suffer less.
31) Good relationship
Love cannot overcome everything, but it can help heal. By cultivating emotional support from friends, family, and community, you help yourself, improve your health, and heal from illness. Regular yoga practice helps develop friendliness, compassion and strong self-control. In addition to the yoga philosophy's emphasis on not harming others, it also encourages telling the truth and taking only what you truly need. This is what will help you improve your relationships with many people.
32) The power of sounds
The basics of yoga - asanas, pranayama and meditation - help improve health, but yoga can give you much more. Let's take, for example, chanting - chanting mantras. Mantras promote a longer exhalation, which helps shift the balance to the parasympathetic nervous system. If you chant mantras in a group, they can be more beneficial and you will experience a more powerful physical and emotional experience. Recent Research Swedish Institute Karolinska have shown that humming sounds—such as those produced by chanting the sound “Om”—open the sinuses and facilitate drainage.
33) Relieving the suffering of patients with serious illnesses
If you imagine a certain image during yoga nitra or other practices, you may notice changes happening in your body. Several studies have shown that guided imagery can help reduce post-operative pain, eliminate frequent headaches and improve quality of life in people with cancer or AIDS.
34) Cleansing the body
Kriya– cleansing practices are another element of yoga. They include many practices, ranging from quick breathing exercises to cleansing internal organs such as the intestines. Jala neti– gentle cleansing of the sinuses using a saline solution – helps remove dirt and viruses from the nose, prevents mucus from forming, helps clear the sinuses.
35) Benefiting yourself through serving others
Karma yoga(service to others) is also an integral part of yoga philosophy. Even if you do not seek to serve others, your health will improve if you do so. Researchers from University of Michigan found that older adults who volunteered less than 1 hour per week were three times more likely to be alive after 7 years. Serving others gives your life meaning, and your problems seem less daunting when you see what others are struggling with.
36) Healing Hope
Most patients treated with traditional methods are passive recipients of care. In yoga, what you do for yourself matters. Yoga gives you the tools to change and you can feel better from the very beginning of your practice. You notice that the more you practice, the more benefits you bring to yourself. As a result, you achieve the following: you begin to take care of yourself, you discover that your participation gives you the power to change, and you also see that these changes give you hope. Hope, in turn, itself helps to heal.
37) Everything is connected
When you read about the benefits that yoga gives you, you notice a lot of similarities. This is because all these things are closely related to each other. Change your posture and you will change your breathing. Change your breathing and you change your nervous system. This is one of the most important lessons of yoga. Everything is connected: your pelvic bone is connected to the talus bone, you are connected to society, the society around you is connected to the world. These relationships are vital to understanding yoga. This comprehensive system simultaneously uses many mechanisms that complement each other and produce many effects.
38) The Power of Placebo
If you believe that you will get the best, you can get it. Unfortunately, many traditional scientists believe that if something works due to the placebo effect, it doesn't count. However, many patients, when they truly want to be cured, recite mantras at the beginning or end of yoga classes or during meditation practices or simply throughout the day, this speeds up their recovery. Even if this is a placebo effect, as many people think, what's wrong with it if the person is actually cured?
Most people who start doing yoga are interested in two things:
- Health
- Losing excess weight
Well, yes, there are, of course, those who really want to find the meaning of life, solve their problems, etc. However, most people still ask exactly how to improve lost health, and.
Traditionally it is believed that in order to reset extra pounds, intensive physical activity, thanks to which excess calories are burned. All this is true, but this is not the only and incomplete way to solve the problem. Of course, there are types of yoga in which you really have to sweat a lot, for example, Bikram yoga or Ashtanga Vinyasa. But “classical” Hatha yoga also promotes weight loss if we do everything correctly and understand how it all works.
Excess weight is, in a way, an indicator (one of the indicators) that something is wrong in our body and/or in life, balance is disturbed, there is no harmony - and these are not just some “impractical” and ephemeral concepts. No. All this is directly related to both diseases and obesity (or simply extra pounds).
For example, one of the yoga teachers shared a story when one of the women who studied with him lost almost 5 kg of weight in a week. When he asked the woman what she thought was the reason for losing so much weight, she replied that for the first time in a very long time she was able to step away from her daily problems and just relax.
Often, thanks to such “simple” relaxation, the connection between the body and consciousness is restored, and the lost balance returns to us. And when there is balance (internal and external), everything returns to normal, including weight.
So here you go first reason, showing what is good - it allows us to relax, part with problems and stress, thanks to which we restore connection with our body and mind, helping everything come into balance and find harmony. Of course, this becomes possible through regular yoga practice.
Yoga cleanses
Second reason why yoga helps you lose weight - it's a release from toxins.
Typically, being overweight is a sign that your body has accumulated too much waste. By getting rid of them, you will also get rid of excess weight. Don't think that this is a reason separate from the first one. No, they are related. When a person experiences stress and cannot relax, this creates unnecessary tension on all systems of the body, they begin to work less efficiently, as a result, not all waste products of cells are successfully removed from the body, and toxins accumulate. This especially applies to our internal “filters”: the liver and kidneys.
Thanks to regular yoga practice, our organs are well toned, various deposits are removed from them, which allows them to work with maximum efficiency again. For example, it gently massages the kidneys, stimulating their work. has a beneficial effect on the liver. Twisting poses tone the nerves and tissues around the spine, Uddiyana Bandha helps remove toxins from the intestines and stimulates digestion.
Most yoga poses stretch and strengthen muscles and tendons, develop joints and ligaments, and improve blood circulation. All this optimizes metabolic processes in the body, which, in particular, are responsible for the removal of toxins.
Yoga releases repressed emotions
Third reason why weight loss occurs with the help of yoga is that it is usually not taken into account when choosing the “optimal” way to lose weight - this emotional sphere.
Many people have probably heard of such a thing as “emotional eating”? Its essence lies in the fact that we try to “suppress” negative feelings or emotions by eating (often at the wrong time and in the wrong quantities) our favorite food or indulging ourselves in our other weaknesses.
When food is taken under such circumstances, it really, in a sense, turns attention to itself, tearing it away from unpleasant thoughts. However, the problem is that this negative emotional energy does not go anywhere, remaining in the body, as a result of which the internal balance is disrupted, and the person becomes fat.
As you can see, this third reason is related to the first two. Through yoga we can release these repressed emotions. How does this happen? In short: through yoga practice, you begin to feel better first own body, then the mind; then you begin to feel the connection between body and mind, and how our thoughts and feelings affect the body, and vice versa - how the state of the body affects our thoughts and emotions.
Sometimes the very performance of poses can lead to a “outburst” of suppressed emotions, thanks to the deep impact of yoga asanas. One woman shared the experience that while she was doing the pose, she gently tilted her head back in the final position, at which point tears spontaneously flowed from her eyes and she felt as if a heavy burden had been lifted from her shoulders. After this, she felt extraordinary lightness and peace.
The practice of yoga allows you to feel better, to feel how everything is connected: both in our body and in the world that surrounds us. When you begin to feel what is happening inside you and around you, you begin to better understand these processes, and over time, even manage them.
Yoga promotes weight loss
So, here are three reasons (although, of course, they are not the only ones) how you can lose weight with the help of yoga. All you need to do is just remember to lay out the mat every day. Good luck!
