Now, more than ever, it’s time to try yoga.
Many people become convinced that yoga is not for them before they even give this ancient form of exercise and stretches a try. They see pictures of advanced yoga students in contorted body positions and think that the discipline is not within their reach. What they don’t understand is that yoga can be adapted to suit most beginners and delivers many benefits. If you are thinking about trying yoga, now is the right time to begin.
1. Yoga improves posture.
In order to do the standing or seated positions in yoga, you will need to learn how to maintain a straight back. Most people are surprised by how quickly those straight backs during yoga cross over to erect posture when you are doing daily activities. In the beginning, you will drag your slumped-over self into your daily yoga workout and will leave looking taller and more self-confident. Yoga will make your mother proud of your posture, and that is really saying something if you grew up with a mother like mine.
2. Yoga helps you breathe better.
During your yoga classes, you will spend a great deal of time focusing on your breath. This is central to the practice. In the beginning, proper breathing techniques are included in the exercises, but more experienced students will learn how to do exercises that are entirely focused on breathing. Learning how to breathe more deeply allows you to collect your thoughts and center your position which leads to an amazing reduction in stress levels.
3. Yoga helps you to sleep better.
All yoga sessions include a cool down and relaxation portion of the class. After stretching and working various muscle groups, the final part of a class is to lie down on the ground or sit in the lotus position with eyes closed. The instructor talks the students through the process of releasing tension. Many people literally fall asleep during this part of the class. However, even if you don’t sleep during class, most students find that they get more restful sleep at night.
4. Yoga improves your mental, emotional, and physical health.
This might seem like a big claim, but the benefits of yoga do extend well past physical improvement. Yoga includes periods of meditation while the yoga postures are being held. Since the exercises are held for increasing amounts of time, yoga teaches people how to be in the moment. That skill improves emotional and mental well-being over time.
5. Yoga changes lives for the better.
The core practice of yoga is meditation, and meditation is more than simply sitting quietly in a dark room. The practice helps people to assimilate their experiences and learn to accept them. This downtime from active life provides needed processing time for your brain and creates the opportunity for a more focused life moving forward. The practice of yoga is designed to begin with the physical and touch us at every level of our lives.
Aren’t you convinced it’s time to try yoga?
I hope this article has convinced you to at least consider joining a friend when she invites you to a yoga class.