Yoga – Benefits

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At the physical level, yoga and its cleansing practices have proven to be extremely effective for various disorders. Presented below is a brief overview of some of the benefits of yoga –

1. Increasing Flexibility – Yoga makes you flexible, thus preventing bad posture and back pains.
2. Builds muscle strength – Strong muscles help prevention of arthritis and back pain.
3. Perfects your posture – Bad posture causes pain and spine degeneration. Yoga prevents slumping and cures bad posture.
4. Prevents cartilage and joint breakdown – Yoga ensures complete motion of all types of joints, preventing any breakdown due to ill-use.
5. Protects your spine – Yoga asanas with backbends, forward bends and twists keep the spinal disks supple, thus strengthening your spine.
6. Betters your bone health – Many movements in Yoga asanas strengthen the bones. Yoga lowers levels of cortisol-stress hormone – which keeps the calcium intact in the bones, thus keeping them strong and healthy.
7. Increases your blood flow – Relaxation exercises in Yoga help blood circulation. Many poses in Yoga help the flow of venous blood back to the heart. The poses help boost levels of hemoglobin, preventing anemia.
8. Drains your lymphs and boosts immunity – Yoga helps in drainage of the lymph (fluid rich in immune cells). Drainage of this fluid helps fight infections, destroy cancerous cells and dispose toxic waste from the body.
9. Ups your heart rate – Increase in heart rate lowers the risk of heart attack and relieves depression.
10. Drops your blood pressure – Yoga, especially Savasana, reduces hypertension.
11. Regulates your adrenal glands – Adrenal glands secrete cortisol in response to stress condition. However, if cortisol levels are still high, it impairs the immune system, causes memory loss and lead to permanent brain damage. Yoga is known to reduce the levels of this hormone.
12. Makes you happier – Consistent yoga practice decreases depression, leads to significant increase in serotonin levels, a decrease in the levels of monoamine oxidase (an enzyme that breaks down neurotransmitters) and cortisol. All these factors contribute to elevating your feeling of being happy.
13. Founds a healthy lifestyle – Yoga increases movement, decreases food intake leading to a healthier lifestyle.
14. Lowers blood sugar – Yoga lowers blood sugar levels and LDL (bad) cholesterol and boosts HDL (good) cholesterol.
15. Helps you focus – regular yoga improves coordination, memory, IQ and reaction time.
16. Relaxes your system – Yoga helps you control your breath, helps you relax and has a calming effect on the body.
17. Improves your balance – Yoga helps you correct your bad posture and improves your balance.
18. Maintains your nervous system – Yoga improves blood flow to pelvis, if you are trying to get pregnant, induces relaxation if you are suffering from insomnia.
19. Releases tension in your limbs – Yoga helps us recognize where one holds tension in the body. Continuous practice of yoga helps you release your tension.
20. Helps you sleep deeper – Yoga helps you become less stressed, less tired and helps you sleep better.
21. Boosts your immune system functionality – It has been seen that regular practice of yoga increases levels of antibodies in case of infections leading to improved immunity.
22. Gives your lungs room to breathe – Yoga improves lung function, including maximum volume during intake of breath and efficient exhalation.
23. Prevents Irritable bowel syndrome and other digestive problems – Ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome and constipation are as a result of stress. Yoga is thus responsible to cleanse the body of all waste and prevent these disorders.
24. Gives you peace of mind – Yoga dispels stress thus helping to cure migraines, insomnia, lupus, MS, eczema, hypertension and heart attacks.
25. Increases your self-esteem – Yoga helps you realize your true worth, thus teaching you that you are a manifestation of the Supreme Being. It inculcates better health, which indirectly increases your self esteem.
26. Eases your pain – Yoga can reduce your pain caused due to arthritis, back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome or other such chronic conditions.
27. Gives you inner strength – Yoga helps you make positive changes in life.
28. Helps keep you drug free – Studies show that people suffering from asthma, high BP, Type II diabetes have seen a reduction in their medicine dosage due to yoga.
29. Benefits your relationships – Yoga helps you become more humble, increases friendliness, compassion leading to better relationships.
30. Uses sounds to soothe your sinuses – Yoga helps in better drainage of the sinuses due to regular meditation and chanting.
31. Keeps allergies and viruses at bay – Practicing yoga helps internal cleansing of intestines, drains sinuses and prevents build up of mucus.
32. Encourages self care – Yoga helps you take better care of yourself by regular exercises.
33. Uses the placebo effect, to affect change – Yoga increase your belief in yourself and causes a positive attitude to develop. This is a kind of placebo effect that helps cure your ailment.

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