The Amazing Health Benefits of Yoga

Practicing Yoga has some Great Benefits for your Health

I have been addicted to yoga for several years now, and I must say when I first started my primary motivator was to get more flexible. However, over time, I have found that yoga has been a positive impact on my overall Health. While increased flexibility is a significant health benefit, it is just the beginning.

I want to share with you some of the terrific health benefits of daily yoga practice and the programs I use to get the most out of it.

Increased Flexibility

This one is obviously a no-brainer. However, many people may not quite realize the advantage of becoming more flexible. It is not just that you can contort your body into different positions. Increasing your flexibility is excellent for your muscles because it gets them accustomed to pulling and contracting. If you just let your muscles idle, they become tight and are much more likely to rip or tear when doing activities.

Flexibility is also great for developing good posture. Doing yoga and more importantly, doing yoga correctly, helps your body to have the correct posture and fix imbalances you may have.

Toned Muscles and Increased Strength

Some yoga poses are more about getting into a calm state of mind, and others take immense strength to pull off, many are somewhere in between. The great thing about yoga is that it can be, and you can dial it in to make it extremely intense!

Avid yogists become much stronger. Muscle strength is from the stretching and then the constant prolonged contractions during a pose. Yoga is fantastic at becoming stronger but not bulking up, which is something I really love!

Many people think yoga is nearly identical to meditation, and while they can be similar in areas, yoga can be a great workout. Don't underestimate the power of yoga; it is one of the best bodyweight workouts you can do.

Yoga helps to keep your joints healthy

Yoga is a full range motion workout. This is extremely important for your joints because your joints are supposed to move. It's kind of like inanimate objects with moveable parts when you don't move them, and they start not to function well and eventually seize up.

Your joints are somewhat similar. When you go through a controlled full range of joint motion, you help to stimulate them and keep them working at a high level for longer. This is because when you are moving around your joints are getting increased blood-flow and nutrients to the general area. This can help stave off degenerative arthritis as well as other ailments.

Yoga helps to maintain or strengthen bone density

Osteoporosis is a huge problem for women. When bones weaken, there are a ton of issues. Weaker bones are more likely to break, which causes a world of issues, but it will also create a cycle where your bones get even thinner, thus they are easier to break. And so on...

This is because when you exercise, you are strengthening your muscles, which puts extra pressure on your bones. Your body notices this and adds more material to your bones to increase their durability.

Your muscles actually get their strength from your bones, increases muscle strength increases how tightly they are to them. Strength training is well known for increasing bone strength because, to get significantly stronger, bones are required to as well.

Take Arnold Schwarzenegger for instance, when we were bodybuilding, he was lifting tons of things that would snap the average person's bone in half. But he was able to lift because of the training he went through - his bones got stronger.

Yours will, too, from doing yoga. Obviously, they are not going to get as strong as a body builder's, but yoga is a great low impact strength training workout, and to keep your bones stronger and more durable.

Yoga helps to lower blood pressure

Not all yoga poses are meant to be workouts; some are about getting into a relaxing state and just enjoying the feeling of zen.

It turns out this is not only good for reducing stress and your overall mental state, but it also has some serious benefits to lowering high blood pressure. It seems the higher the blood pressure, the more significant the impact.
Yoga can help promote a healthy lifestyle.

This is not just yoga, but working out tends to cause people to get into healthier lifestyle choices. I know when I started running again every day, I no longer felt like eating sugary foods or fast food meals. For some reason, it just did not sound appetizing!

This happens a lot with yoga, yoga is a very healthy activity to partake in, and as you start doing yoga more, you will generally begin making healthier lifestyle choices on your own. This can be simple things like drinking more water daily, less junk food intake, less fast food, more physical exercise, etc...

Yoga is a "gateway drug" to a healthier life.

Yoga can help to lower blood sugar

This goes hand in hand with the healthier lifestyle bit, but yoga can have tremendous benefits with lowering blood sugar.

This is because yoga inspires a healthier lifestyle helps with losing weight, which in turn helps to lower blood sugar levels and intake.

Not to mention the act of the workout also helps to burn calories and to boost your body's metabolism. All of this can help normalize blood sugar levels.

Yoga helps with your focus

I have always had a hard time focusing on tasks. This was true in school, and it is right in the workforce. I tend to zone out, or always think of other things than the task at hand.

I have found that after doing yoga daily, that I can focus on things again. I think this is because yoga helps calm and clear your mind. This helps to stop thinking about the redundant thoughts in your head, which can help with mental focus.