Yoga is an ideal exercise for the body and mind. Practicing yoga offers a number of health benefits, including a healthy and strong body, peace of mind, increased focus and concentration, etc. Yoga has had its significance since ancient timesI It is true that Yoga has helped many of us to live calm and peaceful lives.
Let’s take a look at 9 proven health benefits of yoga:
- Improves your Flexibility and Posture
Regular yoga practice stretches and tones the body muscles and also makes them strong. It also helps improve your body posture when you stand, sit, sleep or walk. This will help relieve you of body pain due to incorrect posture.
- Lowers Blood Sugar
Yoga lowers blood sugar and LDL (bad cholesterol) and boosts HDL (good cholesterol). In people with diabetes, yoga has been found to lower blood sugar in several ways: by lowering cortisol and adrenaline levels, encouraging weight loss, and improving sensitivity to the effects of insulin. By getting your blood sugar levels down, you decrease your risk of diabetic complications such as heart attack, kidney failure, or blindness.
- Weight Loss
Yoga for weight loss can be effective in boosting your metabolism, and build stronger muscles, two things that are essential for weight loss. If you start to eat more whole, organic foods while performing a daily yoga routine, you’ll be more likely to see the pounds come off quicker!
- Better Breathing
Yoga includes breathing practices known as pranayama, which can be effective for reducing our stress response, improving lung function, and encouraging relaxation. Many pranayamas emphasize slowing down and deepening the breath, which activates the body’s parasympathetic system, or relaxation response. By changing our pattern of breathing, we can significantly affect our body’s response to stress.
- Circulation
Yoga improves blood circulation by transporting nutrients and oxygen throughout your body, yoga practice provides healthier organs, skin, and brain.
- Energy
Regular yoga practice provides consistent energy. In fact, most yogis say that when you perform your yoga correctly, you will feel energized after your yoga session rather than tired.
- Yoga Naturally Reduces Pain
This is one of the most important health benefits of yoga! There are countless studies proving that yoga can be very effective at relieving pain. It doesn’t matter if you suffer from fibromyalgia, arthritis, or migraine headaches, yoga has been proven to effectively reduce pain from all these ailments. If you are one of the millions of people that suffer from back pain yoga can make that pain practically disappear.
- Cardiovascular Conditioning
Even a gentle yoga practice can provide cardiovascular benefits by lowering resting heart rate, increasing endurance, and improving oxygen uptake during exercise.
- Mental Sharpness
Regular practice of yoga has been proven to help with memory and concentration, and even, in recent studies, it’s been shown to help treat Alzheimer’s disease.