If you’ve read other blogs, you already know one of the benefits of yoga is stress relief. That can help both your mental health and physical body. When you learn to calm your mind, you’ll be able to deal with stress immediately. The breathing techniques from yoga help calm the mind. At the same time, they also help lower blood pressure, slow heart rate, relax the body, and improve overall outlook and good health.
Yoga can help protect your muscles from injury.
Yoga boosts flexibility, which increases the range of motion. An increased range of motion helps prevent muscle pulls and tears. Many of the flexibility exercises are also yoga poses. The warrior pose of yoga is similar to the Western exercise, the lunge. The bridge pose is also a bridge exercise. Yoga can help relax muscles, reduce lower back pain, increase flexibility, and build strength.
Yoga helps reduce chronic pain.
Like traditional stretching exercises, yoga increases flexibility and relaxes the muscles. That can help reduce chronic pain like back pain. It helps reduce the pressure on the joints to relieve joint pain. You’ll burn extra calories to help you lose weight, but for weight loss, the biggest benefit is the mindfulness yoga creates. You become more in touch with your body, and more aware and careful with what and how much you eat.
As noted before, yoga is a stress buster.
Stress plays a role in all aspects of health, both physical and mental. It causes the production of stress hormones that increase inflammation. Cortisol, one of the stress hormones, is associated with the accumulation of abdominal fat, the most dangerous type of fat because it crowds the organs. The reduction of abdominal fat can help prevent insulin resistance. Stretching the body with yoga can help increase lymph flow to boost the immune system, it can help prevent bone loss from osteoporosis and even reverse it.
- Yoga helps you sleep better at night. A good night’s sleep reduces stress and helps balance the satiety-hunger hormones. Lack of sleep reduces satiety hormones and increases hunger hormones.
- Doing yoga can reduce the number of headaches and their intensity. It also helps lubricate the joints by increasing the circulation of synovial fluid that lubricates the joints.
- Yoga can improve functional fitness and help older people remain independent longer. It helps lower blood pressure, reduce inflammation, and aids in strengthening the body to perform the functions of daily living.
- Even though yoga is a gentle exercise, always check with your healthcare professional before starting any exercise program. There are yoga classes for people of all fitness levels. Find one that’s right for you.
For more information, contact us today at Wellness On A Dime Coaching