The Health Benefits of Yoga

The health benefits of yoga include:

Lowering blood pressure

Reducing stress and helping with anxiety and depression

Yoga promotes muscle relaxation (helping people sleep better)

Muscle strengthening

Yoga improves your general fitness and flexibility

Increases lung capacity

Feel-good chemicals are released from your brain.

Imbalances can be balanced; repetitive stress imbalances can be straightened out.

Basically, you feel better, breathe better, stand straighter and handle stress better when you practice yoga on a regular basis.

The side effects of aging can also be decreased with yoga. As we age we lose muscle strength, we are less stable on our feet and sometime a little less sure of ourselves.

Women sometimes suffer through menopause. Check out this great website about menopause and read how yoga is a suggested activity to alleviates some menopausal symptoms. Practicing gentle yoga relaxes you, easing some of the changes your body is going through. At the same time, you are building strength and confidence. Since menopause is something our bodies need to go through, let's do what we can to make it easier on ourselves.

Another consideration is Fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia is recognized by widespread pain, often accompanied by extreme fatigue and multiple other symptoms that can be very debilitating. Check out FibromyalgiaHope.com for ways that yoga, plus lifestyle changes and nutrition, can help your body heal the way it is designed to do, without the side effects of medications.

Yoga makes you feel younger. It is said in the wisdom of yoga that when we release muscles and the tensions they hold we feel younger. I tell people in my classes all the time that they will feel like teenagers when they leave. Check out this website if you want to find some staying young secrets.

For all ages the most needed health benefits of yoga is the stress relief . An awful day of aggravations can melt away in just one yoga class.

For more information on how to manage your stress click here: Ways-to-manage-stress.com.

easy yoga pose

When I first started practicing Yoga it was another form of exercise that I added to my routine. I was a stressed out single mother of three. I used exercise to reduce stress and I thought it worked pretty well. Then I started feeling healthy changes and I became more passionate about learning all that I could about yoga. I didn't know that there were health benefits involved, but I noticed that things that once would irritate me - didn't. If I was angry I could step back and figure out what I was angry at and why without acting out. An awareness develops in your body and mind that allows you to breathe through situations rather than stress out about them.


A controlled breathing practice carries many of yoga's health benefits. Yoga promotes communication from the mind to the body. If you add your breath to your stretch it helps you to relax the muscles and allows them to lengthen.

Likewise, if you control your breathing in a stressful situation it could alleviate the stress your body takes in. By practicing simple breathing techniques you can actually avert a stressful situation.

Too much stress is never a good thing. Stress releases a chemical called "cortisol" into your body. Cortisol gives you an adrenaline rush to escape a "fight or flight" situation. If you're under constant stress you release too much cortisol and it can cause problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease, and depression.

This website seems a little geared toward women, but men can enjoy the health benefits of yoga just as much. My husband never practiced yoga before I met him 7 years ago. Since he started practicing with me his posture has improved, he has gained flexibility, and after working in the construction industry all day he looks forward to a yoga class to relax him a few times a week.

Take advantage of the health benefits of yoga. People have been practicing yoga for thousands of years. The ancient practice is now being researched to medically prove the physical and mental benefits.

Of course you should check with your doctor before starting any new exercise routine. I find that many doctor's encourage yoga (my husband's doctor did!) But you should still check just to be on the safe side.


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