The Positive Health Benefits of Doing Yoga

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Yoga. Some love it, some not so much. Whether you are a yoga lover or simply a yoga doer (or maybe you could care less about yoga), there’s no denying that participating in yoga has many positive health benefits. I love yoga. I find it to be very relaxing, strengthening, and in some cases empowering. I haven’t always had a love for yoga. In fact it took me a very long time to find my rhythm with yoga.

When I use to practice yoga I always found that I was exhausted afterwards. Yoga is meant to be challenging, but not in a manner where you have exhausted all of your energy. After a yoga session I would be so exhausted that I always ended up falling asleep when I was done. As a result of this I didn’t really practice yoga as often as I wanted to because I didn’t like the idea of not having any energy to be able to do anything else afterwards.

However, two years ago I started practicing yoga once a week for an hour of day. Since it took me a while to find my groove with yoga, a lot of the same experiences I was having prior to practicing yoga once a week were still happening for me. I was finding that I was still exhausted afterwards and that all I wanted to do was sleep. It took me about 2 months of consistently practicing yoga once a week to be able to shake these effects from the practice.

Now that I no longer experience exhaustion and sleepiness after a good yoga session, I have actually found that I have a ton of energy, motivation, and inspiration to do a lot more with my day. It is because of my new experiences and appreciation for yoga that I have decided to share with you some of the positive health benefits that come from consistently practicing yoga.

Curious to know more? Then read below!

**If you’re interested in starting a daily or weekly yoga routine, first things first, you’ll need a yoga mat! This Gaiam Printed Yoga Mat (pictured below) is currently on sale for just $10.56!

1. Improves your flexibility

This is perhaps the one thing that yoga is most well known for. Consistently practicing yoga can improve your flexibility. While I am not 100% flexible, I can honestly say that I am more flexible now than I have ever been in my life. That flexibility becomes a part of me the more I practice yoga and my hope is that soon I will be able to finally do the splits. To do yoga effectively requires you to stretch the body. Every single limb.

You have to stretch your legs, your arms, and even your torso. For beginners this may feel like your body is being ripped apart. However, the more you do it the less it feels this way. You begin to understand that you are releasing any tension that you are holding in specific areas of your body that have found a way to make a home in your muscles. You are also lengthening your body. When you stretch you are releasing that tension, loosening up your muscles, and training your body to be more flexible.

Positive Health Benefits: flexibility, stretching and lengthening of the limbs

2. Strengthens the body

Much like stretching yoga can strengthen your body. Yoga requires you to engage your muscles, which naturally strengthens them. Depending upon the pose you choose to do will require a great strength and concentration to be able to do the move well. In these cases you learn to engage your muscles for a short period of time (maybe about 30 seconds or so) before either returning to the starting position or moving to another one. One way to look at yoga and the effects of strengthening your body, is to think of it like strength training.

In strength training, you use weights to help build up muscle for specific areas of your body. Well do I got good news for you! Using yoga as a strength training method doesn’t require any weights at all (and you can skip the gym!). Instead, you use your own body and as the “weights” while stretching a specific target area of your body. Yoga as a tool for weight training can assist in engaging muscles in your body that are often times either overlooked or hardly ever used. Having strong muscles from the inside out can assist in everyday activities, like sitting, bending over, and even walking.

Positive Health Benefits: strengthening of the muscles from the inside out to assist with everyday activities

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3. Increases your energy

I know I said that when I use to practice yoga I always felt exhausted and sleepy afterwards. Well, now when I practice yoga I don’t feel this way and I have come to learn why. Yoga in some ways can be a considered a cardio workout. Usually prior to engaging in cardio you should eat something high in protein. I learned that you should do the same with yoga. Before I started practicing yoga consistently I would never eat before engaging in the practice. Instead I would just jump right into it as a means to just get it over and done with.

Now before I engage in yoga I try to eat something beforehand. Whether that’s a smoothie, eggs and toast, or even a bowl of fruit. I try to fuel my body with foods that are packed with protein and can give me energy so that I can be strong for my hour yoga session. In addition to eating foods with protein I also make a point to drink a cup of water. I have found that this ensures that my body is hydrated during the session (since of course yoga will make you sweat), it reduces fatigue, and I don’t come out of the session completely burnt out.

Positive Health Benefits: reduces fatigue and increases your energy levels to do more throughout the day

4. Assists in weight loss

This is still a new and unfamiliar area to me. I read that yoga can assist in weight loss. I knew that yoga helps to restore the hormonal balance in your body, but I never knew that it did a lot more than this. To put it simply, the connection yoga has with weight loss is the fact that you are moving your body from one position to another, nearly seconds sometimes a minute apart, over the span of 30 minutes to an hour on average.

Like I mentioned above yoga can be replaced as a cardio workout. When you engage in yoga, your metabolic system becomes activated and assists you in burning fat. When you practice yoga on a consistent basis you will begin to see the weight loss effects taking place. Naturally that kind of movement with the body is going to shape and tone your body. So why wouldn’t it help you lose weight as well?

Positive Health Benefits: activates the metabolic system to assist in burning fat which helps with weight loss

5. Reduces stress and anxiety levels

This is my favorite and mainly most important reason why I practice yoga. I experience high levels of anxiety on a daily basis and sometimes I have a hard time reducing those anxiety levels. With yoga I have found it easier than ever to reduce my stress and anxiety levels. Yoga requires you to concentrate on exactly what you are doing, even if it’s just sitting there and engaging in deep breathing for 10 minutes. It is because of this I find yoga to be the perfect distraction.

Yoga promotes relaxation. This relaxation goes way beyond the body, we experience it in our minds and breathing as well. Yoga encourages you to practice being calm, and to increase your ability to be present. There is a balance that comes with engaging in yoga and the more you practice it, the more you learn how to activate that balance. This balance encourages you to find peace within the practice, while also learning how to integrate the calmness in yoga into your everyday life, thus helping with the reduction of stress and anxiety.

Positive Health Benefits: encourages calmness to assist the reduction of stress and anxiety  levels

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6. Helps you become a better breather

Deep breathing is essential to a good yoga practice. Yoga teaches you how to breathe deeply and fully from your belly. You learn how to allow for the air to travel through your lungs and make its way out of your mouth and into the world in a mindful manner. I like to think of yoga as the foundation of any yoga practice. If you’ve never taken a yoga class before, usually the class starts and ends with deep breathing.

The deep breathing practice in yoga is known as pranayama. Pranayama encourages you to focus on slowing down your breath, and fully engaging your core to allow for the deep breathing process to begin. Pranayama can also assist in creating calmness, relaxation, and the total amount of air you are able to hold in your lungs. One of the biggest benefits of pranayama is the benefit of creating a clear mind, especially in stressful situations.

Positive Health Benefits: pranayama encourages calmness, slow and deep breathing, relaxation, lung capacity, and a clear mind

7. Can help you cope with depression

Much like using yoga to reduce stress and anxiety levels yoga is a great coping tool to manage depression. Since effective yoga requires a great deal of concentration, it can serve as the perfect distraction from the blues. When you engage in specific yoga poses, like the legs up the wall pose, you are releasing feel-good endorphins. These endorphins temporarily erase feelings of depression, and when practiced on a consistent basis can become the perfect self-care activity to help manage your depression.

Positive Health Benefits: helps to manage depression

8. Improves your concentration

Since yoga is a self-care activity that requires you to be precise with every moment in order to feel its full effectiveness, it also requires for you to concentrate on what you are doing. All too often we spend our days with a split attention. We somehow manage to convince ourselves that we are good at mulit-tasking, however this is not true. When we mulit-task we are dividing our attention, which means we are not being present in the moment.

A regular yoga practice and help improve your concentration levels. When you engage in yoga you learn to not easily be distracted by things. You appreciate the feeling of being present in the moment. Yoga can help improve your current concentration level, as well as extend it. Yoga by no means is easy, not even beginner yoga. So the practice will put your concentration to the test, and if you are able to handle it, the benefits can be very rewarding.

Positive Health Benefits: improves current concentration levels and can extend your concentration ability

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9. Encourages you to be more mindful

Mindful living requires mindful self-care practices. Believe it or not yoga encourages the individual to live a more mindful lifestyle. The idea of mindfulness is deeply rooted in the Buddhist culture. Mindfulness is also highly recognized in various forms of meditation. In yoga, mindfulness helps you learn how to shift your awareness to the specific sensations, thoughts, and emotions that you are feeling in the present moment.

Mindfulness also promotes the health benefits of calmness and relaxation, reduction of stress and anxiety, increase in energy, and an overall deeper appreciation for who you are.

Positive Health Benefits: promotes mindfulness which promotes calmness, relaxation, reduction of stress and anxiety, increase in energy, and self-acceptance

10. Increases your quality of life so that you can live a happier one

Perhaps the most important benefit that comes from practicing yoga is the fact that it improves your overall quality of life. Yoga encourages self-love and acceptance, and when we love ourselves and we are accepting of who we are, we are happier in our life. A consistent yoga practice encourages an increase in serotonin, the happiness hormone. Naturally this can decrease levels of depression and anxiety.

Positive Health Benefits: encourages self-love and acceptance, increases serotonin, and naturally decreases depression and anxiety

There are so many positive health benefits to practicing yoga consistently. These are just a few. What did you think? Did any of these health benefits stand out to you?

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-Xo

Kimora