Posts Tagged ‘Yoga Benefits’

Yoga: More Than Just Exercise

Many benefits have long been known by those who practise yoga. Yoga Benefits include physical, psychological, and biochemical properties. From a holistic approach, yoga provides complete health benefits, and has done so for people from all walks of life.

If you are one of the many people suffering from chronic back pain, yoga and the stretching behind it are proven ways to relieve those pains. Almost always, bad posture can result in back pain. Due to the fact the correct posture is core to the practice of yoga, back pain can improve by the strengthening of those muscles involved in good posture.

For years magazines, newspapers, television and advertising have told us how important it is to reach and maintain a healthy weight. We know that the speed of our metabolism is the key to how quickly and easily we lose unwanted weight. Practising yoga speeds up our metabolism and helps the body not only to reach the desired weight, but to maintain that weight. Of course proper diet is also an essential component to weight loss, by taking the time to add both healthy eating and yoga to your lifestyle you can maintain your ideal weight.

Yoga is not only a good alternative or addition to a weight loss program, it can also be used to help those suffering from painful conditions such as arthritis. With the different positions practised in yoga it helps to keep joints supple and improves muscle joint mobility. This in turn with the increased blood flow to all the major organs helps to improve conditions like arthritis, at the same time improving overall health and body maintenance including lowering blood pressure and cholesterol levels.  

Having looked at the benefits to the physical body, organs and joints, we should also note that the benefits to yoga are also seen from a psychological stand point. Taking the time to practise yoga daily, or a few times a week will lower stress levels and help you deal with your daily routine. Yoga has been shown to improve mood and overall happiness. it is important in a busy life to take time for ourselves. A few hours a week to ourselves will help improve our sense of well being and  help us centre ourselves so we can take on challenges that home or work life throws at us. Having looked at the advantages to our body, joints and muscles by practising yoga, we shouldn’t forget about the improvement yoga has to our overall sense of well being. Taking a few hours a week for ourselves can lower and maintain stress levels and help how we deal with new stresses when they do arise. It become easier to deal with stress if you can take the time to let some of it go, this not only will improve the way you deal with stress, but will help with your mood overall.

As you can see, yoga is a great way to improve your overall mental and physical health. It has been practised for centuries and used by all different types of people from around the world to improve their health and their lives. I hope after reading this article you will consider taking some time for yourself and look at yoga as a great addition to your life and health routine. Why not find yourself a local Yoga center and sign up for a beginners class or hire yourself a private Yoga coach.

The advantages of Power Yoga

Together, Power Yoga is a truly exhilarating experience. Here we exercise our bodies and minds leaving us feeling energized and refreshed! Power Yoga is the translation from the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit, meaning”Asthanga Yoga” – meaning power Yoga. Power yoga is practiced by almost every age of person and almost every physical ability. While performing Power Yoga remember to think of uniting all the elements of your being– uniting your body, your mind and your breathing. It helps to strengthen not only the person’s body, but also his mind and overall well-being. Yoga student have seen the benefits of the all round workout that this style of yoga can give and this has made Power Yoga very popular in this country. Power yoga is taught in a variety of different yoga studios as well as traditional gyms that are quickly adding these studios to their list of available classes.heres some of the benefits of Power Yoga

Health benefits of Power Yoga

Increasing the Body’s flexibility with Power YogaThere are many different health benefits to practicing power yoga on a regular basis. Power Yoga is the translation from Sanskrit of “Asthanga Yoga” – meaning power Yoga. It comes from the yogic belief that Mind, Body and Breathing can help govern and reach well being. In addition to strength, however, there are other health benefits for not just the body but the mind as well. The body becomes more flexible when practicing power yoga since the poses require many different stretches and contortions when holding them. This enables the body to gain strength and flexibility at the same time, opening passageways that may have been bound up for years, constricting blood flow and holding in toxins. Increased blood flow is an additional benefit to practicing this type of yoga, as well as balance and coordination, since these are also needed to perform the poses correctly and to hold them.–  flexibility and control. Although the workout often appears to be easy since it is so smooth and flowing, looks are deceiving since all the Power Yoga poses require that the individual hold his own body weight throughout the series of five or more deep breaths that he needs to take before the pose is over. This requires strength from the muscles that the respective asana concentrates on. Power yoga consists of a series of poses that individuals perform in a very controlled manner, smoothly flowing from one to another. This requires a high level of concentration and body control that has to be mastered and gives the students a great workout as well.

Developing Strength with Power Yoga

Developing your strength is an additional benefit of power yoga. The first is obvious from the previous paragraph

Breathing & Mental Discipline and uniting your mind and body with Power Yoga

Yogis belief is that Pranayasana i.e. controlled breathing, combined with yoga poses can help reach mind and body harmony. Power Yoga requires discipline and concentration. Mental health is bolstered through the breathing techniques that are used in the poses of power yoga. Even when its difficult, a constant level of breathing is maintained throughout the Power Yoga class. Since Power Yoga requires a very high level of discipline and concentration, it provides a high level of concentration and relaxation to the person participating in the yoga class which he can carry over into his work life. The breathing is always deep and slow, being pulled in and out through the nose, rather than through the mouth. It is always pulled through the diaphragm so that it is deep and provides the necessary oxygen to the body. While performing Power Yoga remember to think of uniting all the elements of your being– uniting your body, your mind and your breathing

How Yoga benefits the Circulatory System And Why This Is Important

An essential part the circulatory system is what keeps us going.  It is also referred to as the cardio-vascular system and consists of the heart and the blood vessels.  The hearts job is to pump blood to different parts of the body and this blood carries vital nutrients and oxygen to the different organs.  It travels via the blood vessels.  The heart is divided into four compartments that each have a different role.  The compartment on the upper right is responsible for collecting the incoming impure blood from all over the body and moving it on to the lower right compartment.  The lower right compartment sends the blood on to the lungs for purification.  The purified blood is then returned to the heart – this time in the upper left ventricle from where it is moved into the lower left compartment and then back out as fresh, pure blood to the remainder of the body. 

The blood is primarily carries through main arteries that are thick tube like structures leading from the heart around the body.  The arteries branch into many sub arteries which in turn will divide into thin-walled capillaries.  The capillaries interact with the organs directly and due to their thin walls they pass oxygen and nutrients to the organs and tissues that need them the most.  The used resources are ejected from the tissue and back into the capillaries to be fed on through specialized veins to return the impure blood back to the heart to start the entire process once more.  This is a difficult job as the pressure has decreased this far from the heart so the veins are assisted by valves to regulate the flow.

The important thing to understand about the way the circulatory system is set up is that it has two main parts, the blood system and the lymphatic system.  It is the job of the lymphatic system to remove waste from the circulatory system.  The two different systems run almost side by side but while the blood system has a pump – the heart – the lymphatic system does not have a single organ designed to power it’s operations.  This job falls to the muscles, which pump the lymphatic system by contracting and expanding.  This is of course where Yoga comes in.

Yoga is a discipline unique in it’s combination of focus on body, mind and spirit.  The body component is taken care of with a series of poses and postures, which are designed to clear blockages in the circulatory system and ensure that everything is flowing as it should at an even regular rate.  It also flexes the muscles and strengthens them very efficiently over time with a minimal amount of ‘grunt’.  This strengthening and constant working of these muscles pumps the lymphatic system and makes out body many times more efficient at the removal of waste matter.  As a result people who practice Yoga regularly can expect that they will have a greatly enhanced immune response system and be able to deal with infection and disease better than their non-Yogi counterparts.

Furthermore the benefits start before this.  Yoga sessions will usually being with a series of standing exercises emphasizing long slow breathing exercises.  These breathing exercises are common to all forms of yoga and force us to concentrate on our breath and it’s pathway trough the body each time we take a fresh breath.  The exercises are designed especially so that people are not restricted in where and when they can practice them and ideally would use them instead of our slower shallower normal breathing pattern.  
  
Because the breaths are longer and deeper the oxygen intake is increased.  Combined with the enhancing effects that the exercises have on the regularity of circulation in the blood system the oxygen is much more efficiently transported to the muscles of the body.  If these muscles, along with our other organs and tissues are not receiving the oxygen and nutrients we need then we starve them and become ill as a result.

As you can see Yoga is of great assistance to the complex and interlocking system of circulation.  It recognizes the basis and importance of the system and helps to being it back into balance.