Health benefits of yoga make many people take classes and keep up a regular practice.
If you’ve ever wondered what a daily practice can do for you, here are just some of the health benefits of yoga that will make you want to take classes right now.
Yoga: Is It For Everyone?
Most yoga studios are located in either a local gym or in a small studio owned by a private instructor. But they’re usually opened to all ages and generations. Most yoga studios also advertise to all fitness levels. It’s incredible that such an old form of exercise is so widely regarded in the health and fitness community, and so accessible to the layperson.
And, it doesn’t matter whether you’re 9 or 90 – you can do most yoga exercises.
Getting Fit With Yoga
Yoga isn’t just about working out. It’s about living a healthy lifestyle and changing your attitude about the way you live your life. Many of the lessons you learn in class translate over into the rest of your life. You learn about diet and medicine, about how to reduce stress and how to cope with disappointment.
You also learn about the limits of your body. Peace and tranquility are often achieved through focused training, which appeals to most people. But, if you only practice in class, you’re never going to get the full health benefits of yoga.
Yoga’s deep breathing and meditation exercises, for example, need to be practiced outside of class for them to have any lasting benefit for your body. They can help you shift from a high-stress mindset to one where you can actually think and make good long-term decisions, no matter what’s going on around you.
How To Improve Dental Health with Yoga
Did you know there are dental health benefits of yoga? It’s true. Saliva, which is important for washing out your mouth and removing food particles and bacteria contains antibacterial enzymes. These enzymes break down food and make it easier to swallow.
When your salivary glands slow down the production of saliva, then bacteria can grow, sometimes significantly. This is how “morning breath” happens, in fact. It’s the slowing down of saliva when you sleep. A dry mouth creates an environment that’s perfect for the little bugs to grow. Chronic dry mouth can cause plaque buildup and eventually lead to tooth decay and gum disease.
But, by practicing yoga, you can help prevent your mouth and throat from drying out. You can stimulate the salivary glands, and because yoga incorporates poses like twists, forward bends, and inverted poses, it helps further increase saliva production.
The Khechari mudra is said to be able to get the salivary glands activated. The process drawing the tip of the tongue along the roof of the mouth, and then back toward the nostrils and into the upper throat. You hold this pose with your eyes and mouth closed for as long as you can. And, the mudra will eventually draw saliva into the mouth.
By stimulating saliva production, you can help your body reduce the growth of bacteria and mitigate the spread of toxic substances through your bloodstream and digestive system.
Getting Strong With Yoga
Of course, many people take yoga because they want to get strong. Yoga’s focus on strength and flexibility is an incredible benefit. Yogis use their own body weight to increase their strength, balance, and agility. Each of the basic yoga poses is built to reinforce the muscles around your spine, which is important for stability and core strength.
When the core is weak, then you develop back, shoulder, and neck pain. Strengthening the core relieves you of this pain.
Yoga practice also strengthens your digestive system and can help you improve certain kinds of health conditions. It may also help with constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, and acid reflux disease.
Conclusion
Many people take yoga for the health benefits. Some of these benefits include:
- Increased endurance
- Increased strength
- Increased flexibility
- Mental focus and endurance
- Arm and shoulder strength
- Overall strength, including core and leg strength
- Abdominal strength
There is almost no condition that yoga cannot help. Because it uses body weight as the resistance, you can easily control how much stress you put your muscles under. And, you can increase resistance by trying more challenging poses.
The meditation, dietary, and herbal practices found in yoga can also improve your basic health, including dental health. This is why serious practitioners look to yoga as more than just a form of exercise. It’s a lifestyle.
Kudos for this well tuned Yoga article.