Last Updated on 08/02/2025 by admin
The Benefits of Yoga
Jennifer started practicing hatha yoga whilst studying at Edinburgh University in 1992. She then converted to ashtanga yoga whilst living in London with leading ashtanga yoga teachers Liz Lark and Mark Ansari in1995. Then she became qualified to teach in Kundalini Yoga teacher in 2002 whilst living in New York. In 2005 she became certified in New York with Yamuna Zake to teach Body Rolling.
As an ancient practice and meditation, yoga has become increasingly popular in today’s busy society. For lots of people, yoga provides a retreat from their chaotic and busy lives. It provides many other mental and physical benefits.
Enhancing fitness
Yoga is known for its ability to soothe tension and anxiety in the mind and body. But it can also have an impact on a person’s exercise capacity. Researchers studied a small group of sedentary individuals who had not practiced yoga before. After eight weeks of practicing yoga at least twice a week for a total of 180 minutes, participants had greater muscle strength and endurance, flexibility, and cardio-respiratory fitness.
A boost to weight loss and maintenance
People who practice yoga and are mindful eaters are more in tune with their bodies. They may be more sensitive to hunger cues and feelings of fullness. Researchers found that people who practiced yoga for at least 30 minutes once a week for at least four years gained less weight during middle adulthood. People who were overweight lost weight. Overall, those who practiced yoga had lower body mass indexes (BMIs) compared with those who did not practice yoga. Researchers attributed this to mindfulness. Mindful eating can lead to a more positive relationship with food and eating.
Yoga helps with back pain relief.
Yoga is as good as basic stretching for easing pain and improving mobility in people with lower back pain. The American College of Physicians recommends yoga as a first-line treatment for chronic low back pain.
Yoga benefits heart health.
Regular yoga practice may reduce levels of stress and body-wide inflammation, contributing to healthier hearts. Several of the factors contributing to heart disease, including high blood pressure and excess weight, can also be addressed through yoga.
Yoga connects you with a supportive community.
Participating in yoga classes can ease loneliness and provide an environment for group healing and support. Even during one-on-one sessions loneliness is reduced as one is acknowledged as a unique individual, being listened to, and participating in the creation of a personalized yoga plan.
Improved mood
All exercise can boost your mood by lowering levels of stress hormones, increasing the production of feel-good chemicals known as endorphins, and bringing more oxygenated blood to your brain. But yoga may have additional benefits. It can affect mood by elevating levels of a brain chemical called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which is associated with better mood and decreased anxiety.
Yoga boosts your immune system
Any form of movement is great for keeping the immune system healthy. With yoga’s twisting, inverting, back bending, and calming, the body can spend more time within the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) and less with the sympathetic nervous system (the fight or flight system, which causes stress and inflammation and dramatically lowers the immune system).
Yoga helps you to focus
Because your mind will be quieter and clutter-free it’s easier to direct the energy to where you want it to go. In yoga they say you develop one-pointedness concentration through practice. You train the mind to become aware and present. Research has shown that after a yoga class you are generally better able to focus your mental resources, process information more accurately and learn, hold and update pieces of information more effectively.
Yoga reduces anxiety
Shallow breathing, poor posture and tense muscles are both results and causes of anxiety. If you’ve been stuck in an anxiety cycle for a long period of time, it’s likely that your body has almost learned to protect itself by remaining tense, physically closed off and with very short, sharp breaths. The mind and body are so closely interlinked, that physically deepening the breath, improving posture, and relaxing the muscles in a safe space can all help reduce anxiety.
Yoga helps you to be more mindful
Mindfulness is a buzz word now and – with all the apps and downloads – has become a billion-dollar business. Mindfulness, however, doesn’t have to mean meditating for long periods of time, and it doesn’t have to be something profound that’s difficult to keep up. Being mindful just means paying a little more attention to each action you do, allowing you to be more present, aware, and alive in each mom
