Achieving Flexibility and Fitness With Yoga?
Yoga is essentially a lifestyle, dealing with all the aspects of our being. The physical postures, or asanas that are widely perceived as yoga, are just one aspect of a very profound science of life. The Eight Limbs of Yoga, articulated by C.E. Patanjali in the Yoga Sutra, describe the eight aspects of a yogic lifestyle. These aspects guide the yogi on a path self-development to harmonize the body, mind and spirit and attain enlightenment.
Achieving Flexibility and Fitness With Yoga?
Yoga has been around for thousands of years and has evolved into what it is today. Most yoga classes will first primarily focus on the different physical poses that are used and will then add in some breathing and meditation techniques. If relaxation is the reason someone is looking to do some yoga, there are classes that primarily focus on that also. Yoga is a great way to relax and allow stress to be lifted away. Still other classes work more on flexibility and learning to move your body in new ways.
Learning the different positions and improving flexibility is a big part of yoga. Some will shy away from yoga because of this. They feel that they are not flexible enough to do it, but the truth is, anyone can improve their flexibility by doing yoga. The different poses used within yoga are made to safely stretch out a person’s muscles which will improve their flexibility over time. It can also help in improving the range of motion within their joints.
The different poses within some forms of yoga will help to strengthen muscles too. The more someone does yoga and the longer a person uses the different poses will determine how quickly or how defined their muscles will become. Certain poses will help in strengthening upper body, lower body, or abdomen muscles.
With all of the flexibility and strength that a person gets from doing yoga, their posture will be improved too. After doing yoga for some time, a person becomes more aware of what they are doing with their body. So when they begin to slouch they realize it quickly and will straighten up.
While practicing yoga, deep breathing is used. The purposeful use of deep long breaths helps to expand a person’s lung capacity. The deeps breaths are also beneficial in relaxing a person’s body. To help in the relaxation process within yoga, meditation is used. Within meditation, a person will learn to clear their mind of all of the thoughts that are floating around. After learning to clear the mind, a great sense of stress free relaxation is felt.
With all of the benefits that yoga has on a body with deep breathing, flexibility from different positions, and muscle strength, different types of research has been and continues to be completed in order to determine and verify the different health benefits that yoga has on a person. One of the benefits that yoga has is on relieving stress and slowing a person’s heart rate which then helps to lower blood pressure. This in turn will help to reduce the risk of stroke. Yoga has also been involved with improving a person’s immune system and lower cholesterol level.
Yoga has many benefits on a person’s body and is continually being researched to see what further benefits it has. If anyone is looking for a way to improve their health, better their flexibility and posture, and to enhance muscles, then yoga is the way to do it.