It’s not a secret that regular yoga practice has numerous physical and mental health benefits. Even 10-15 minutes of yoga a day can bring a big change in your overall life quality. And while yoga practice can improve your life in many different ways, this post is focusing on the most important physical benefits of yoga.
5 Important Physical Health Benefits Of Yoga
1. Increased Flexibility
Improved flexibility is one of the most commonly known benefits of practicing yoga. It’s a myth that you have to be flexible to do yoga. If you think you are not flexible enough, that’s exactly the reason to start practicing yoga. Regular yoga practice helps you stretch your muscles. Yoga poses can be modified to all ability levels and once you start practicing regularly, you will soon enough see the difference in your flexibility.
2. Increased Muscle Strenght
Unlike many types of fitness classes, yoga balances strength with flexibility. For example, take such a popular yoga pose like a downward-facing dog. This pose stretches the shoulders, hamstrings, and calves and strengthens the arms and legs at the same time. It’s a great way to improve your overall fitness.
3. Weight Loss
There are different reasons why people gain weight and in many cases, yoga can be helpful. Yoga promotes an overall healthy lifestyle, so if your weight gain was caused by unhealthy habits, yoga can help to improve them. Yoga teaches you to listen to your body and become more mindful of yourself and your surroundings. Regular practice reduces stress and improves the quality of sleep which both have been linked to unhealthy eating habits. In terms of exercise, some styles of yoga like Ashtanga, Vinyasa and Power yoga are pretty vigorous and help burn calories. So, overall, yoga can be an important part of a weight loss program.
4. Increased Energy
You may not believe in chakras (energy centers in the body), but yoga also helps to boost your energy in the way other types of physical workouts do. Plus, yoga incorporates physical exercise with breathwork, teaching you to breathe more deeply and bring more oxygen to your cells. Try doing yoga for 10-15 minutes every morning and see how your energy level changes.
5. Back Pain Relief
Back pain is nowadays one of the most common health problems among people living a sedentary lifestyle. When the job requires you to seat in a chair for 8 hours, it’s hard to get enough movement for your spine. Yoga helps strengthen abdominal and back muscles that help the body maintain a healthy posture and stretch tight hamstrings which are a common reason for lower back pain. This alone can already reduce or eliminate back pain.
10 minute Office Chair Yoga Break
