The Benefits of Starting Yoga

The Benefits of Starting Yoga

Yoga is one of the most widely practiced forms of exercise in the world.

On Oahu, we are lucky to have many experienced yoga instructors, as well as some of the most beautiful places to practice yoga. Whether it is yoga on the beach or finding your Zen on the top of Koko Head, finding your practice is within arms reach.  There are countless benefits to doing yoga, but here are our top 7.

7 Reasons to Start Yoga Today

 

Yoga improves your flexibility. This may seem obvious but it is important because it’s SO beneficial to flexibility and range of motion. When starting yoga for the first time, don’t be surprised if touching your toes seems like your most impressive feat! Yoga takes a lot of practice and attempts. Don’t expect to be able to do advanced yoga poses when you are just starting out, and definitely don’t try something advanced that you haven’t tried before. Yoga is a slow and steady process that will limber up your muscles and increase flexibility, rushing it may cause pulled muscles or other injuries.

Yoga helps with your posture! In every yoga move, form is very important. It’s important that you keep your stomach muscles tight and your back in the position that the pose suggests. Because of constantly keeping your body aligned, you will improve your posture. Yoga elongates your body and forces you to stretch out your body and stand up straight.

Yoga increases your blood flow. By stretching your muscles and doing yoga poses, you’re actually increasing circulation in your body. Through different poses you can increase blood flow to certain parts of your body. You also will increase the oxygen that is going into your blood cells which will make them function more efficiently as a result.

Yoga makes you happy! Regular practice of yoga can relieve depression symptoms and release serotonin levels in your body. All forms of exercise are known to do this, but yoga is also known for aiding in relaxation and stress relief. At the University of Wisconsin, Richard Davidson, Ph.D., found that the left prefrontal cortex showed heightened activity in meditators, a finding that has been correlated with greater levels of happiness and better immune function.

It’s a workout! Yoga isn’t considered a high cardio intense work out but it is phenomenal exercise for your body. It involves body weight poses that are great for elongating and toning your muscles. It burns calories and increases your heart rate while also improving your resting heart rate. There are also yoga classes that are instructed at a higher speed that are considered aerobic exercise.

Yoga is known to improve your balance because of all of the core strength that is incorporated in the poses. The better core strength that you have, the better balance you will have as well. This is most common in people that are practicing yoga regularly. When your balance gets stronger it means that you are less likely to be prone to fall or to have clumsy moments.

Yoga can help ease your chronic pain. Because your muscles are doing things that they wouldn’t do, many times poses are recommended in order to help ease back and hip pain. There are many poses that involve stretching and strengthening your spine. Several studies state that yoga can help ease the pain of arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome. Yoga is a natural pain reliever that is awesome for your body.

OSR offers chiropractic care, physical therapy, acupuncture, and massage therapy in Kailua for our patients. At Oahu Spine & Rehab, we strive to exceed our patient’s expectations of achieving better health and a higher quality of life. We do this by delivering superior service in an integrated, multidisciplinary care system. We take pride in helping our patients understand and enhance their body’s natural ability to heal.

Resources: https://www.yogajournal.com/article/health/count-yoga-38-ways-yoga-keeps-fit/

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