Yoga is a popular method of exercise, practicing mindfulness and improving wellness. It’s an ancient practice that has been found to offer many benefits for the mind and body. Here are four of those benefits.
1. Pain Relief
Yoga incorporates gentle stretching exercises, which can assist in natural pain relief, particularly for the back and neck. Some yoga moves and poses are designed to help you feel relief immediately, including movements meant to loosen stiff necks and cool you down after a workout. You can also do yoga to warm up before a workout, which can help prevent muscle pain and stiffness after a workout. Other moves and poses are designed to help lessen your pain slowly, introducing movements to help increase your mobility and manage chronic pain in areas such as your lower back.
2. Mindfulness and Stress Management
Practitioners like Gale Tobin explain that yoga is not only good for the body but also for the mind. It can help you manage stress via its incorporation of deep breathing exercises and meditation practices. Meditation and deep breathing can help you calm down when you’re feeling stressed, which can help you feel more positive overall. Yoga also provides you with a healthy coping mechanism for stress relief.
3. Improved Flexibility, Strength and Balance
Yoga is an excellent method for improving your flexibility, strength and sense of balance. The gentle stretching common to yoga movements and poses will help you safely increase the flexibility of your joints and muscles over time. Holding poses is a good method for toning muscles and building strength in your muscles. Many poses can be done by standing, lifting one leg or balancing on your hands, toes sitting bones or head, all of which require and build balance. There are ways to modify all yoga poses so they’re easier to settle into and hold, which means you can work your way up to full poses as you build your flexibility, strength and balance.
4. Arthritis Symptom Management
Not only can yoga help relieve regular aches and pains in your body, but it can also help you manage pain and stiffness related to osteoarthritis and other similar chronic conditions, such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. Yoga is gentle and low-impact, so it’s a safe form of exercise for those experiencing these conditions and related symptoms.
There are many avenues you can take to begin practicing yoga. You can attend in-person classes, check out videos and informational articles online or talk to a physical therapist.
