3 Reasons Why You Should Start Doing Yoga Now

Why You Should Start Doing Yoga Now?

Yoga has become a popular form of exercise in the last several decades. Globally, people have come to accept the physical and psychological benefits of yoga. A complete yoga practice can include exercise, breathing practices, meditation, mindfulness, and even diet.

Plus, there are plenty of companies as well as private instructors that provide classes online these days!

Today, let’s examine some of these benefits, focusing on yoga exercises, meditation, and breathing.

1. Improve Your Physical Strength and Flexibility

There is promising evidence to suggest that a regular yoga practice can reduce body mass index (BMI) in overweight and obese populations; however, other forms of exercise are better at burning calories than yoga. Despite this limitation, yoga was more beneficial than physical activity in other regards.

Yoga and other forms of exercise are great for increasing muscular strength and skeletal stability. Yoga is a great way to maintain muscle mass as we age. It’s unknown whether yoga is better at building and maintaining muscle than other forms of exercise.

Improvements in bone and joint health are additional benefits of yoga. Yoga and other forms of exercise are effective in managing and preventing arthritis

Perhaps the most notable benefit of yoga is increased flexibility. The hallmark postures of a yoga exercise are very effective at improving mobility and flexibility. These improvements were more significant than those seen in other forms of exercise.

In a time when the majority of gyms and studios are closed, yoga is a great way to work on your physical strength and flexibility with minimal equipment!

2. Support Your General Health and Wellness

Yoga has many other benefits for physical health. For example, yoga can improve heart health by lowering cholesterol. Other forms of exercise reduced cholesterol, but they weren’t as effective as yoga. Yoga can also improve outcomes in patients with heart failure, though the level of improvement is small.

Stress reduction is another great benefit of yoga. People practicing yoga show lower levels of cortisol, the body’s primary stress hormone. High levels of cortisol are implicated in many chronic health issues, including heart failure.

Additional health benefits from yoga include:

• improved kidney function
• reduced antioxidant activity
• normalized blood sugar for those with type 2 diabetes

3. Destress and Be Positive

Yoga can also benefit mental health. We mentioned stress reduction earlier as a physical benefit, but it is also a psychological benefit. Scientists have looked at people’s perceptions of their stress in addition to cortisol levels. These studies indicate that people experience less stress after yoga exercises and breathing practices.

People who practiced yoga also showed improvement in positive feelings and a decrease in negative emotions.

Perhaps as a result of mood improvements, people practicing yoga also benefit from improved quality of life. They experience less fatigue and tend to sleep better.

Those with mental illnesses can benefit from yoga, too. Yoga has been shown to help those with the following conditions:

• anxiety
• depression
• schizophrenia

People with schizophrenia experienced fewer psychotic symptoms after practicing yoga for four months. They also performed better at work and had improved relationships with family and friends.

From stress relief to flexibility to strength, yoga is a great addition to a daily routine.

References

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