Benefits Of Yoga: Build Strength And Endurance
Yoga is also a great addition to your exercise regime if you are looking to boost strength and endurance.
In a study published in the Asian Journal of Sports Medicine, 79 adults performed 24 cycles of sun salutations six days a week for 24 weeks. The results showed a significant increase in upper body strength, endurance, and weight loss. A significant decrease in body fat percent was also observed in female participants.
Meanwhile, a 2015 study in Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine of 173 participants had similar findings, showing that 12 weeks of Hatha yoga practice lead to improvements in endurance, strength, and flexibility.
Why Do People Do Yoga
After my last weekend of yoga teacher training, a friend asked me over dinner, “Why do you do yoga? So you can learn to do what… headstands?”
Why do people do yoga?
More than 90 percent of people come to yoga for flexibility, stress relief, health, and physical fitness. But, for most people, their primary reason for doing yoga will change. Two-thirds of yoga students and 85 percent of yoga teachers have a change of heart regarding why they do yoga — most often changing to spirituality or self-actualization, a sense of fulfilling their potential. Yoga offers self-reflection, the practice of kindness and self-compassion, and continued growth and self-awareness.
Yet the health benefits are very real. Yes, yoga can increase your flexibility, improve your balance, and decrease your cholesterol. A recent review in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology shows that yoga reduces the risk of heart disease as much as conventional exercise. On average, yoga participants lost five pounds, decreased their blood pressure, and lowered their low-density cholesterol by 12 points. There is vast growing body of research on how yoga improves health problems including chronic pain, fatigue, obesity, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, and more.
Betters Your Bone Health
Its well documented that weight-bearing exercise strengthens bones and helps ward off osteoporosis. Many postures in yoga require that you lift your own weight. And some, like Adho Mukha Svanasana and Urdhva Mukha Svanasana , help strengthen the arm bones, which are particularly vulnerable to osteoporotic fractures. In an unpublished study conducted at California State University, Los Angeles, yoga practice increased bone density in the vertebrae. Yogas ability to lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol may help keep calcium in the bones.
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Your Bones May Get Stronger If You Do Yoga Every Day
Did you know that if you spend just 12 minutes every day doing a set of selected yoga postures, you can stave off bone loss? That was the conclusion of a study published in the journal Topics in Geriatric Rehabilitation in 2015, which surveyed hundreds of volunteers over a ten-year period. “Bone mineral density improved in spine, hips, and femur of the 227 moderately and fully compliant patients,” the study’s authors wrote. “Bone quality appeared qualitatively improved in yoga practitioners.”
That’s not all that yoga can do for your skeleton, either, says certified personal trainer Monica Straith. “Your bones will get stronger because you’re working against gravity,” she revealed to The List. “This creates a healthy amount of tension that encourages new bone growth.”
Given that women are far more likely than men to develop osteoporosis in their lifetime, according to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, adopting a yoga practice can be an especially important tool for ladies in their fight against bone loss. Sounds like a good reason to do yoga every day.
It Will Improve Your Posture
Yoga is pretty effective at helping you develop some premium, proper posture, since a lot of the breathing and seated positions require a straight back for proper effect. Good posture is definitely going to develop during yoga practice.
Youll start off slouching and slumped, reflecting the figure of someone who spends most of the day at their deskbelieve me, Ive been thereand yoga will help sculpt your back into the kind of poised posture thatll make you walk taller and feel immensely better about it.
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Reasons Why Yoga Is Not Good For Christians
by Dr. Laurette Willis .
Would you agree that there are spiritual forces we cannot see?
You may be surprised to learn that yoga, which many think is just exercise, is actually a spiritual practice. Christians may think twice before starting a yoga practice please.
1. Yoga is Dedicated to a different lord . You can learn more about The Lord of Yoga HERE.
2. Yoga leads people away from Christ. Yoga means to yoke and it’s a different yoke than the one Jesus refers to For My yoke is easy and My burden is light .
One alternative to this is CERTIFIED PRAISEMOVES INSTRUCTORS who are bringing Christian Fitness Ministry to their churches. What a blessing!
3. Yoga poses are offerings to the 330 million Hindu gods . Acts 15:29 says to abstain from THINGS offered to idols. Learn more about Yoga poses, breathing and hand gestures HERE.
INSTEAD, PraiseMoves Postures focus on the Word of God we meditate upon or speak aloud while doing stretching, strengthening postures. The Foundation of PraiseMoves is the Word of God. The exercise is the witty invention to get you more into the Word of God, and MORE OF THE WORD OF GOD INTO YOU!
4. Yoga has a spiritual nature that is psychic and metaphysical. This is one reason why experts, such as Professor Subhas Tiwari of the Hindu University of America says, Yoga is Hinduism.
Professor Tiwari also said, Efforts to separate yoga from its spiritual center reveal ignorance of the goal of yoga. .
Great Reasons To Practice Yoga
Jenn SlawsonJenn SlawsonCertified Yoga Teacher and Technical Writer
Yogi writer aka YogaWriteGirl View more
I am asked so often about why I do yoga, why other people should do it, and what it can do for them. One of the first things I tell people is that the reasons that I started and continue to do yoga are very personal, just as it should be for them.
Its not that I dont share those reasons when Im talking with people one on one, but the point I try to make is that yoga is different for everyone.
Yes, there are visible physical benefits to yoga, but for me it quickly became so much more than that. It is that part of yoga that led me to want to be a teacher, the part where I could introduce the non-visible parts of yoga to anyone who would listen.
Here are five of the greatest reasons to practice yoga.
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How Does Yoga Work
Yoga works in many different ways. Just as there is no one way that yoga works, there is no one way or reason to practice yoga. Before deciding to practice yoga, you must set an intent. Your intent is why you want to practice yoga and the benefits you want to experience from your practice.
Once you have your intent set, you should talk to your doctor before committing to practicing. You want to ensure that you dont have any contraindications to practicing such as low blood pressure or spinal injuries. You should also talk to a yoga instructor to find out which style of yoga is the best for you to practice.
Each style of yoga has different movements and breathing patterns. Practicing each style will give you many different benefits physically and mentally. Some of the different styles of yoga are:
- Vinyasa: different asanas set up in sequences to focus on flowing through each asana with your breath
- Iyengar: focuses on breath and achieving perfect alignment emphasizes using props to help achieve perfect alignment and comfortable breath
- Hatha: slow movements focusing on breath, balance, and strength
- Ashtanga: a set sequence of asanas focusing on the breath and flow can be very physically demanding
- Hot yoga: also known as Bikram yoga in some communities. This style of yoga uses a set arrangement of asanas practiced in a room set to a high temperature with a carpeted room.
- Restorative yoga: a meditative yoga to help release tension in the body and mind
Does Yoga Count Towards My 150 Minutes Of Activity
Most forms of yoga are not strenuous enough to count towards your 150 minutes of moderate activity, as set out by government guidelines on exercise.
However, yoga does count as a strengthening exercise, and at least 2 sessions a week will help you meet the guidelines on muscle-strengthening activities.
Activities such as yoga and tai chi are also recommended for older adults at risk of falls, to help improve balance and co-ordination.
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Yoga Teaches You To Know Yourself
Unlike group sports activities, yoga is a very internal and personal practice. Even though you might have practiced in a class with lots of other people, the focus is still on what is happening inside you. Pratyahara is one of the Eight Limbs of Yoga, and it refers to turning ones senses and awareness inward in order to discover more about the persons own body and mind. We have to live with this body and this mind for a whole lifetime, so its worth taking time to get to know it, and even make friends with it.
- Come home to yourself in this yin class with Anat Geiger.
Yoga Myths : You Cant Do Yoga If You Have A Bad Back
Fact: Around 80 percent of Americans will experience back pain at some point in their lives, according to theAmerican Chiropractic Association. These people will then go on to spend at least $50 billion a year on treatment. However, yoga could provide an effective and cheap alternative. Several studies have shown that yoga helps ease lower back pain, including one in the Annals of Internal Medicine that found it as effective as physical therapy.
Meanwhile, a meta-analysis of seven studies in the Journal of Yoga and Physical Therapy found participants who practiced yoga reported less lower back pain and greater functional ability. Interestingly, the benefits were reported to continue for 12 to 24 weeks after the sessions had finished.
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The Health Benefits Are Very Real But Few Understand How It Affects The Mind
Posted June 22, 2015
After my last weekend of yoga teacher training, a friend asked me at dinner, Why do you do yoga? So you can learn to do what, headstands?
Why do people do yoga?
More than 90% of people who come to yoga do so for physical exercise, improved health, or stressmanagement, but for most people, their primary reason for doing yoga will change. One study found that two-thirds of yoga students and 85% of yoga teachers have a change of heart regarding why they practice yogamost often changing to spirituality or self-actualization, a sense of fulfilling their potential. The practice of yoga offers far more than physical postures and headstandsthere is self-reflection, the practice of kindness and compassion, and continued growth and awareness of yourself and others.
Yet the health benefits are very real: Yes, yoga can increase your flexibility, improve your balance, and decrease your cholesterol. A recent review in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology showed that yoga reduces the risk of heart disease as much as conventional exercise. On average, yoga participants lost five pounds, decreased their blood pressure, and lowered their low-density cholesterol by 12 points. There is a vast and growing body of research on how yoga improves health concerns including chronic pain, fatigue, obesity, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, weight loss, and more.
As Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron explains:
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Selected References
Yoga Has Tremendous Physical Benefits
Practicing intensive yoga formats such as Ashtanga, Vinyasa, Hot Vinyasa, and other forms of Power yoga will absolutely make changes in your body. You could lose weight, and you will most definitely strengthen and tone.
What you wont see coming is that as your body grows stronger, so will your mind. You will develop increased focus, patience, and self-awareness. You will probably also find yourself wanting to know more about yoga, which means you will research it, and as a result become objectively smarter, too.
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Helps Me Stay Focused
In our modern world we are assaulted with distractions. And now that we have smartphones we have portable units that suck us into a vortex of being anywhere but the present. Come to think of it, when was the last time I emptied my bowels while not looking at Facebook? Every day I have to make a conscious decision to avoid the chaos of modern living and genuinely direct my attention to what is happening in front of my face whether it’s work, chores, or spending time with others. I want to be a person who is actually there living it.
Yoga Will Give You 60 Minutes Of Time For Just You
While that may sound selfish, when you really think about it, how much time do you ever give yourself to disconnect and just be? Unless you march to the beat of a different drum and already do yoga, you are probably listening, talking, planning, watching, reading, or typing most of your day.
For 60 minutes, you can step on a mat to breathe deeply into your body to either sort everything out or to let it all go. Its 60 minutes that will help make you a better person, mentally and physically.
What you wont see coming is that at first, 60 minutes a few days a week may seem like a long time, but before you know it, 60 minutes six days a week wont be enough. You will want to realign your life so that you will always have space for yoga.
Yogi writer aka YogaWriteGirl
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Create A Solid Morning Yoga Practice With Morning Flows
Enjoy a unique online yoga class for each day of the week with Morning Flows, a 7-class yoga program exclusively on YA Classes by YogiApproved.
- Sets the mood for sleep
- Helps you to unpack your day and clear your mind
- Helps to relieve any stress or anxiety that your day may have created
- Allows you to tap into the calming, quiet benefits of evening energy
Cons:
- You may be too tired to practice more vigorous styles of yoga
- You may be tempted to skip your practice because you had a hard day or youd prefer to unwind on the couch with Netflix
- If you practice a more soothing and relaxing style of yoga, you may fall asleep
Favorite National Yoga Studios
CorePower Yoga offers yoga classes that provide a high-intensity workout, as well as a retreat for your mind. We believe in working every muscle and every emotion is the motto on the brands website. Get ready to work and sweat. Studios are open in 23 states and Washington, DC, and classes can be streamed online.
Yoga to the People is about yoga for everyone. Yogis of all levels, ages, and backgrounds are welcome, including those who have never taken a class before. And to live up to the studios founding principle of making yoga available to all, classes are either low-cost or donation-based. Studios are currently open in New York, California, and Arizona.
YogaWorks offers beginner-level yoga class through challenging advanced classes in all different styles of the practice. YogaWorks studios are open in several states. The brand also offers yoga retreats. And classes can be streamed online.
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Supports Your Connective Tissue
As you read all the ways yoga improves your health, you probably noticed a lot of overlap. Thats because theyre intensely interwoven. Change your posture and you change the way you breathe. Change your breathing and you change your nervous system. This is one of the great lessons of yoga: Everything is connectedyour hipbone to your anklebone, you to your community, your community to the world. This interconnection is vital to understanding yoga. This holistic system simultaneously taps into many mechanisms that have additive and even multiplicative effects. This synergy may be the most important way of all that yoga heals.
Reasons To Practice Yoga Naked
Recently, I have become a lot more interested in yoga. Working from home has been a great opportunity to practice this discipline and really push self-discovery. In the morning, I make a cup of coffee and participate in at least 30 minutes of yoga before I begin my day. Sure, there are days when I dont really feel like it. But, once those 30 to 60 minutes are up, theres never been a time that I regret pushing myself to do it.
We hear about the benefits of yoga all the time. But until you try it for yourself, its tough to really gain a true appreciation. You have to open your mind in order to harness its potential. I was one of those people who thought its just another form of exercise, but I was very wrong.
When I first began, I invested in a nice little yoga outfit. Of course, nothing flashy or over-the-top, just something comfortable. But apparently, I was out of the loop. Stripping down to your birthday suit seems to be where its at. Heres how naked yoga can improve your life!
Being naked isnt that odd
Before we dive into the benefits of being nude, Im not telling you to show up to your next yoga class with nothing more than your hair flowing down your back . There are classes that do encourage this liberating activity, so you can always make the switch.
So, the next time youre rolling out your yoga mat in your living room, why not strip down? Here are five great reasons to give it a whirl:
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2. Break away from social norms
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