Yoga is renowned for its ability to unite the body, mind, and spirit, which is related to the belief that both mind and body are one, and that bodies are able to reach perfect harmony enabling them to heal themselves.
Yoga has increased in popularity in recent years, with an estimated 6 million Americans currently engaging in regular workouts. Part of yoga's popularity is simply that it provides so many health benefits. It assists a person in becoming more aware of their body: their posture, their alignment, and the way they move. Yoga helps people become more relaxed and centered, less prone to stress, more energetic, happier, healthier, and more peaceful.
To start a typical class, breathing and mild stretching exercises are performed to prepare the participants mentally as well as physically. Most classes consist of performing the asanas (yoga poses) either individually or linked in flows (known as vinyasana). At the end of each class there is a short period of meditation or relaxation in shavasana (the corpse pose).
Yoga comes in many different forms. These different types of produce different benefits in the body. Iyengar is excellent for promoting correct bodily alignment, and may utilize tools such as cushions, blocks, and straps. Yoga performed in a hot room is known as Bikram. It is made up of a set of 26 asanas which are performed in a particular order. Both of these are forms of Hatha yoga which is commonly practiced in the US for its physical strengthening and breathing.
How can you benefit? Yoga promotes excellent flexibility, is great for the circulation, and also increases muscle strength. The benefits go beyond the physical body, as it also promotes a calm and relaxed state. Yoga has, as one of it's most basic goals, the aim of balancing a person's life with respect to mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health.
From a scientific standpoint, yoga has been studied and practiced for thousands of years. While the practice is ancient, the principles have been studied and proven by modern medicine to be beneficial. Over the years, substantial research has been done on the health benefits, through the Asanas and through Pranayama (breathing). Yoga has been shown to produce three sorts of effects on the body: physiological, psychological, and biochemical.
Physiologically, yoga has been shown to decrease the heart rate and breathing rate, lower blood pressure, improve the efficiency of the cardiovascular system, improve excretion, assist in hand/eye coordination, aid in weight normalization, and decreasing pain. Psychologically, yoga benefits both mood and overall subjective well-being, it helps remove anxiety and depression, allows improved concentration and learning, and helps improve social skills, and general self acceptance. Biochemically, yoga brings about many changes in the body, from decreasing blood glucose, sodium, LDL and VLDL cholesterol and total white blood cell count, and increasing HDL, hemoglobin, and total serum proteins.
One of the best things about yoga is that as a single practice it can do so much more for the body than most other forms of exercise, and as such can easily fit into even the busiest lifestyle. - 30453
Yoga has increased in popularity in recent years, with an estimated 6 million Americans currently engaging in regular workouts. Part of yoga's popularity is simply that it provides so many health benefits. It assists a person in becoming more aware of their body: their posture, their alignment, and the way they move. Yoga helps people become more relaxed and centered, less prone to stress, more energetic, happier, healthier, and more peaceful.
To start a typical class, breathing and mild stretching exercises are performed to prepare the participants mentally as well as physically. Most classes consist of performing the asanas (yoga poses) either individually or linked in flows (known as vinyasana). At the end of each class there is a short period of meditation or relaxation in shavasana (the corpse pose).
Yoga comes in many different forms. These different types of produce different benefits in the body. Iyengar is excellent for promoting correct bodily alignment, and may utilize tools such as cushions, blocks, and straps. Yoga performed in a hot room is known as Bikram. It is made up of a set of 26 asanas which are performed in a particular order. Both of these are forms of Hatha yoga which is commonly practiced in the US for its physical strengthening and breathing.
How can you benefit? Yoga promotes excellent flexibility, is great for the circulation, and also increases muscle strength. The benefits go beyond the physical body, as it also promotes a calm and relaxed state. Yoga has, as one of it's most basic goals, the aim of balancing a person's life with respect to mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health.
From a scientific standpoint, yoga has been studied and practiced for thousands of years. While the practice is ancient, the principles have been studied and proven by modern medicine to be beneficial. Over the years, substantial research has been done on the health benefits, through the Asanas and through Pranayama (breathing). Yoga has been shown to produce three sorts of effects on the body: physiological, psychological, and biochemical.
Physiologically, yoga has been shown to decrease the heart rate and breathing rate, lower blood pressure, improve the efficiency of the cardiovascular system, improve excretion, assist in hand/eye coordination, aid in weight normalization, and decreasing pain. Psychologically, yoga benefits both mood and overall subjective well-being, it helps remove anxiety and depression, allows improved concentration and learning, and helps improve social skills, and general self acceptance. Biochemically, yoga brings about many changes in the body, from decreasing blood glucose, sodium, LDL and VLDL cholesterol and total white blood cell count, and increasing HDL, hemoglobin, and total serum proteins.
One of the best things about yoga is that as a single practice it can do so much more for the body than most other forms of exercise, and as such can easily fit into even the busiest lifestyle. - 30453
About the Author:
Yoga is more than a passion for Ana Paula Hernandez, as she has made it her entire career. She has been instructing new yoga devotees in the correct yoga poses and yoga postures for over twenty years.
