Three Reasons You Should Practice Yoga

Yoga has become a trendy fad all around the world. Everyone from famous movie stars to your next door neighbor is starting to practice yoga. In case you have never tried it and are curious, I would like to explain how yoga might be of benefit to you.

Prior to discussing the reasons for practicing yoga, it is useful to know something about the nature and origins of yoga. The practice of yoga originated in India several thousand years ago. Yoga is a comprehensive system of exercises and its goal is physical, mental and spiritual well-being. The main components of yoga are physical postures, relaxation techniques and meditation exercises. Today it is the physical aspect, the physical postures known as “asanas” that is the most popularly practiced form of yoga and you can find it taught in gyms, health clubs and studios all around the world.

Now that you have a basic overview of yoga, let’s look at why you should think about beginning the practice of yoga.

1. Yoga will bring you greater overall physical health. The first benefit that most people are interested is physical, and yoga really delivers in this department. Yoga postures combined with a good diet can help you to avoid diseases and maintain your health and vitality. This is especially important for your digestive system, as the yoga postures will help it to work properly and help you to avoid problems such as constipation, acidity and indigestion which are often the cause of more serious problems. In addition, the yoga postures when combined with deep relaxation and meditation also help to lower blood pressure which is enormously important as you grow older.

2. Yoga will improve your physical appearance. It is no secret that many people practice yoga in order to slim down and look better. Is yoga really effective for this purpose? The simple answer is that if you can improve your physical health then you will certainly look better. Ask a biologist to explain the evolutionary importance of “beauty” and he or she will tell you that living creatures generally choose partners who appear to give them a good chance to spread their genes and produce healthy offspring. You may not be thinking about this when you see a beautiful woman or a handsome man but the glowing skin and attractive figure that you see is the outer signal of inner health. That’s why the health benefits of yoga will help you to not only feel better, but to be more attractive to those around you.

3. Yoga can help you to deal with stress. Living in the 21st Century is stressful. There is a biological cause to our predicament. When primitive humans were threatened, their bodies started pumping hormones and blood and got them ready to either fight for their lives or run away from danger. We have inherited this same kind of body and this is problematic for us. If you are running or fighting for your life it may be OK to sweat and turn red, but it doesn’t look so good when you are in a stressful meeting at work with your colleagues.

As our civilization gets more complex, it also becomes a more stressful place to live. The reason for this goes back to our primitive ancestors. When they were threatened by the dangers of the environment, their bodies started to pump blood and hormones started to work so that they would be ready to either fight with all their might or run as fast as they could. We have inherited the same biological system but this is often very troublesome for us. If you are fighting or running it doesn’t matter if you turn red or sweat profusely. This kind of “fight or flight” response is not so useful when the danger that confronts you is a hostile boss at work! If you practice yoga postures and supplement them with deep relaxation and meditation you can attain a state of inner mental balance and peace that will enable you to remain calm even in the face of extreme provocations and stress.

I could go on with more benefits of practicing yoga but the three things I have just mentioned should be enough to pique your curiosity and either find out more about yoga or to begin practicing it today.

Tagged with: Exercise

Filed under: Exercise

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!