Give Yoga A Chance!
Why should you practice yoga? What are some of the benefits of yoga? Read on, and maybe this blog will help you to understand why you could love yoga as much as I do!
Yoga can seem like an ancient, mysterious, and exotic art form (or form of exercise). It's impressive, yet intimidating. With all of my experience with yoga, after hundreds of hours on the mat, I finally realized that yoga simply makes me feel good. It's relaxing, energizing and strengthening. It has changed my perspective in life. I feel physically strong, my hormones are more balanced, and my stamina has increased. It's made me more spiritually aware of my body, and it has helped me be more empathic.
Yoga is an acquired preference. When I was a child, I did not like to brush my teeth (who really did!), my parents pushed and prompted, at times cajoled and now as an adult I'm faithful about brushing my teeth. So now I brush everyday to keep my teeth healthy, and because I like the feel of my teeth being clean and healthy! A somewhat similar concept occurs with yoga, at first, it took me a lot of strict discipline, and a huge amount of effort for me to establish a daily practice. After 3 years of faithfully practicing yoga, I now practice because I feel good during and after. I feel calm, strong, and flexible in mind and body.
Yoga helps with flexibility. When our bodies age, we get stiff and our muscles tighten up. Our range of motion in our joints diminish, and you may not feel as alive as you once were. As this happens, your body becomes less efficient, and you are more prone to disease. Yoga can retard, and at times reverse this tendency to stiffen as you age. The benefits of being more flexible from yoga can be felt after your very first yoga class or session!!
Yoga helps with balance. We all favor one side of our body over the other, most of us are asymmetrical, and this state of not being in balance creates stress on your body. This stress can lead to falls, or injuries. Yoga creates symmetry throughout your entire body.
Yoga will improve your strength and tone all sorts of muscles in your body! The weaker you are, the heavier you will feel. The stronger you are, the lighter you will feel! When your tone of your body increases you'll have an easier time moving your body, your metabolism will increase and you'll be far less prone to injury.
I have only very lightly touched on the few benefits of yoga in this blog. Let me give you some more benefits of yoga that you may find interesting:
-improved sleep
-increased overall energy
-lowering of your blood pressure
-improving your skin complexion
-body detoxification
-decreased feelings of anxiety or depression
-improved gastrointestinal functions
-lowering of blood sugar levels
-decreased incident of osteoporosis
-reduction of asthma symptoms
I could go on and on with this list, but I'm sure you get the gist! Yoga is good, yoga is good for your body, your mind, and your spirit. Don't let those pretzel type postures that you see in commercials scare you away from yoga. Yoga is for everyone, the young, the old, the fat, the skinny, the sick, the healthy. Give yoga a chance :)
