Yoga Pose

Benefits of Yoga

There are many benefits to practicing yoga.  Yoga benefits both the mind and the body because as you practice yoga meditation, the poses work to achieve mind/body harmony and assists the mind in working in sync with the body.  Yoga helps us clear our mind and focus on the tasks at hand.  I’m sure many of you reading this have found it difficult to perform your tasks and activities because there are so many distractions in your mind!

We live in an environment of stress.  Between the fast paced work of the Internet and the constant bombardment of bad news from radio and televition, stress is the number one culprit that affects our entire body – the physical, endocrinal and emotional aspects.  However, yoga benefits all our bodily systems by correcting the affect of stress on our body.

Physically, yoga benefits by cleansing the body and increasing flexibility  – the yoga postures, practiced on a regular basis, can trigger the different joints of the body, especially those that aren’t usually activated with regular aerobic exercises.  Yoga, with its gentle stretches, increaseds the lubrication and movement of the joints and increases the flexibility of the tendons and ligaments.  Yoga movements also work on the internal organs of the body.  Yoga poses stimulate and masssage the organs of the body which is said to keep away disease.

It is interesting to note that yoga can also increase awareness of your body which is useful in that it may assist you in detecting an impending health disorder or body infection.  This is another way that yoga benefits are apparent.

Yoga helps flush the toxins out of the body  thus offering a whole body detox.  Yoga benefits the body by increasing the blood supply to every part of the body.  This increased blod supply can lead to benefiots such as anti-aging , increased energy and a great zest fo rlife.

As a physical exercise, yoga benefits the body because it tones your muscles.  Because of the stretches and poses, those muscles which haven’t been used for years will be activated and encouraged to grow, giving more support to the spine and skeleton.

Basically, what yoga does is bring the mind and body into harmony, and once that is done, the benefits to the body increase.  Once the mind and body are in harmony, you are equipped to do anything!