The art of yoga has been around for hundreds of years, and it involves numerous breathing exercises, meditation, and many poses, which are all designed to hopefully get you to relax, and to reduce your high stress levels. Many people take part in yoga nowadays, and people are beginning to understand the benefits that are both physical and mental. We lead very busy lives, and we very seldom set aside some time for ourselves to recuperate, and to gather our thoughts. Yoga allows us to do this, and it is also a fantastic way to remain very flexible into our old age, as it keeps our body and joints limber, and well lubricated.
If yoga is something that you are seriously considering doing, then you must make sure that you are properly equipped to learn this art form. You may need various accessories like yoga pants, a yoga mat, and knee, and wrist pads. The point of yoga is to create a healthier body and mind, and so you need these things to make the experience more comfortable, and safer. If you are still caught in the middle with regards to the benefits of yoga in your daily life, then the following should help you to make up your mind.
- It decreases your stress levels – Cortisol is the element that our bodies produce, which leads to stress. Studies have proven that yoga helps to decrease the amount of cortisol that our bodies produce. Understanding exercise physiology, along with the benefits of yoga, helps to reduce our emotional stress. We all carry around a lot of anxiety and worry, and yoga provides the perfect outlet in which we can achieve a better quality of life, and better mental health.
- Improves your heart health – It is important for us all to have a healthy heart, as this is the one thing that is pumping blood around our bodies, and thus supplies our organs and tissues with the nutrients that they need. Yoga promotes lower blood pressure, which helps you to avoid issues like heart attacks, and strokes. If used in combination with a good diet, people have reported decreases in bad cholesterol, and for those that already have some kind of heart disease, doing yoga helped to stop the progression, by almost 50%.
- Better sleep quality – When you are finding it difficult to get a good night’s sleep, it’s probably due to the fact that you are overweight, have high blood pressure, and suffer from depression and mood swings. Adding yoga into your daily routine can help to promote better sleep patterns, and also help you to fall asleep faster. Even our governments understand the real benefits of yoga for health.
Hopefully the above benefits have helped you to make an informed decision, about taking up yoga as a daily routine. It helps with your overall mental ability and balance, and it will increase your overall body strength. As we get older, this becomes more and more important.