Yoga and its benefits – is yoga exercise really good for you?

A unique combination of physical, mental, and spiritual activities to create harmony between mind and body is yoga. It is a unique combination of various physical postures, breathing techniques with meditation or relaxation. It has become popular worldwide based upon the different poses that enhance the over life quality. Yoga is well known for its various postures and poses. Some of these poses are not part of traditional yoga, where the primary focus was to expand the spirituality by breathing patterns and mental focus. As the tradition became popular in the west at the end of the 19th century, it gains innovation with time. 

Modern yoga has innovated with a primary key to exercise, strength, stretch, flexibility, and breathing. It can help improve physical and mental wellbeing. There are many types and styles adopted by different practitioners, and each one has its benefits. Not the one specific technique is superior or authentic to others. It depends on your choices to adopt the one appropriate for your fitness level. Over time, innovations resulted in Yoga Ball, which can help you perform many yoga exercises on the ball to improve your overall fitness and health. You can even use this Yoga Ball at any time and anywhere. 

Benefits of Yoga:

There are unlimited benefits of performing yoga. Yoga does provide health benefits beyond calories burning and muscle strengthening. It helps you improve not only physical health but also mental health. Here is a brief overview of some benefits of yoga;

• Better Body Posture:

If you need to work for long hours on a desk or have low mobility, it can hurt your back and make you feel tired. Performing yoga can help you in this regard by improving your posture and preventing back pain. Moreover, it helps in preventing pain in the neck and shoulders. You will feel improvement in your body energy and mobility. You can say your body is in a correct posture when your back is straight, shoulders squared and relaxed, chin up, chest out, and stomach in. When you are in a good posture, gravity does not load one structure, but its effect uniformly distributes. It can save you from many health disorders like damage to the spine and different muscle aches, leading to severe risks. 

• Weight loss and body maintenance: 

Yoga plays a significant role in your physical appearance. People who practice yoga with a proper diet have more in tune bodies. Researches explored that those who perform yoga daily gain less weight during middle adulthood—similarly, those who were overweight lost weight. Your BMIs Body Mass Index also lowers as you practice yoga in a routine. It is also related to your mindfulness. Proper eating with such activities can create better chances of a fit and healthy body. Body maintenance also contributes to an improved lifestyle. 

• Increase Flexibility and Balance: 

Do you face difficulty in bending or moving? Have you ever wished you could easily touch your toes by bending forward? Yoga can help you with all that. Yoga poses stretch your muscles, Which allows your muscles to become less stiff or tired so you can move better. Research has shown that people improved their flexibility by up to 35% by performing yoga only for eight weeks. If you regularly stretch your muscles during different yoga practices, your muscles become flexible, which will help you move better. Practicing yoga for just 15 to 20 minutes a day can make a big difference for those looking for better mobility and increasing flexibility. Balance is also an integral component of yoga, with control over your body position. Within a few days of regular training, you will feel that your overall balance will improve. 

• Muscles Strengthening: 

Yoga is not just about mental relaxation, but it targets your major body muscles, improves your core, and gives you an overall strength if performed correctly. Regularly performing yoga practices is the key to build stronger muscles and strengthening the existing muscles. Your bodyweight acts as tension during specific yoga poses, which is tearing the muscle fibers. In response to this tearing, the body tends to build more muscles as a backup. However, it is important to incorporate different training into your workout routine. As Barajas says, “Practicing Yoga is an amazing additive to your strength training.” You will feel your body muscles strengthened from arms to back, legs, and core. A strong core also helps reduce pains and injuries. Practitioners find that their swimming abilities also improved with effective body movements. 

• Increase self-esteem: 

The yoga philosophy tells us that we pose everything inside our body to live a happy or challenging life. It means all the things we seek already exist in our body; all we need is to trust in our abilities to improve a situation, make the best decisions, and solve a problem. Yoga teaches us to be confident in questions like Do I look okay? Or How good am I doing? We should be convinced and do not need approvals from others. In other words, we need to learn ‘Body Mindfulness.’ Body mindfulness means choosing self, validating words that affirm your body. When you are body mindful, you do not need to compare yourself with others or measure your waist against someone else. You will become your ideal and need not to bring changes in the name of social standards. However, it is not a simple way to achieve this level, and it is not like you wake up one day and start loving yourself. But you need to work with dedication to master this level, and it is only possible if you start practicing using mindful language. You will have to build mental endurance and consistency for your work, where yoga is an excellent starting point. 

• Improves Sleep Quality: 

Are you taking pharmaceutical supplements for sleep? Do you want to have a night of quality sleep? A national survey explored that 55% of those who perform yoga get better sleep and reduce stress. The yoga poses Bring calmness to your body and brain, which ultimately leaves too a good sleep time. It is preferable to practice yoga right before bedtime with gentle and calming yoga breathing techniques. It will help you relieve the tension and stress of the whole long day, and there are more chances to get a peaceful night’s rest.

• Improves Lung Function: 

Breathing is a critical factor in yoga. Breathing in yoga strengthens our health and enhance our life energy. Yoga is one of the highly effective approaches to keep your lungs and body healthy. It helps in maintaining the chest muscles, increasing the lung capacity, and boost oxygen intake. Some yoga poses like Pranayama activates the air-cells of the lungs and enhance the lungs functioning. Daily practicing helps in gaining breath control, correct breathing patterns, and increase oxygen intake. As you Hold the yoga poses, it works by expanding the lungs and expanding the space to breathe by opening up the chest region, which relaxes the tight muscles and uses the dead-space area of the lungs. It also helps sort out the respiratory system problems like sinus, asthma, shortening of breath, and allergies. 

• Builds Self-Esteem: 

The term self-esteem means the way we perceive our personality. It is known that yoga brings positivity to your life. It helps you take a positive approach to life. It allows your mind to relax, which lowers the chances of your impulsive behaviors. Research showed that people who engage in yoga for just 90 minutes a week have the right body image and self-esteem. It boosts my self-esteem physical achievements. The spiritual aspect of yoga creates an inward connection, which puts the body in tune with feelings. This connection makes you feel good and high about yourself. You will have a positive image of yourself, and you will feel confident, superior, and satisfied. 

• Keep you Away from Diseases: 

Studies clearly showed that yoga could help prevent diseases. It reduces stress and lowers blood pressure. It also improves cardiovascular health, which ultimately reduces the chances of heart disease. Similarly, it has also glucose reducing capabilities along with the potential of encouraging Insulin production. This all helps in preventing type || diabetes.

Moreover, it is also seen that reduction in asthma medications is also a result of regular yoga. In addition to preventing diseases, it helps to reduce or eliminate allergy symptoms. Specific breathing patterns also soothe nasal passages, which relieve allergies. Some poses and overall body postures improve the digestive system efficiency so that any problem of constipation is also eliminated. 

• Boost Mental Health: 

Sometimes you may feel anxious or tensed, but if you start regularly practicing yoga exercises and breathing deeply, it will calm your nervous system. Yoga is psychology that works with the mind, increase mental strength, and reduces stress. Shreds of evidence have shown that yoga can be the best therapy to cope with migraine frequency. It stimulates the vagus nerve, which improves mental health. Yoga can elevate Gamma-Aminobutyric acid levels, which prevents diseases like Alzheimer’s Disease. Stress reduction and restoring the overall body balance in yoga directly help in preventing Epileptic Seizures.