6 surprising benefits of doing yoga
Yoga has been around for thousands of years, and many people have taken it up and found that it has helped them in lots of ways. Some celebrities do yoga and are very big fans of it, from Tom Hanks, David Beckham, Jennifer Aniston to Colin Farrell. All of them have expressed openly how much they benefited from a regular yoga practice.
Closer to home, with so many studios and gyms running classes, and also in local halls and community centres, even in the workplace, if you want to start a class, how would it help you? We all know that it can improve mobility and flexibility, but below are 6 others ways that you may not have known about.
1. Stress
Stress is a state of emotional or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances. This can be work related, due to family life, our financial situation, or just caused by the pressures of daily living. We are bombarded with bad news on the tv and on social media. It can be very hard to escape from it. We end up feeling anxious, unable to relax, and this can lead to a myriad of health problems. Yoga is a perfect antidote to stress, and it reduces the pressure on the nervous system. This allows the stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol to lower and the happy hormones to rise, often leaving us with a feeling of wellbeing and calm.
2. Heart and lung function
The focus on breathing during your yoga class really can have enormous benefits on the heart and lung function. This isn’t really the practice of pranayama, but the simple act of inhaling and exhaling with awareness that is part of every yoga posture. You will probably have heard your teacher encouraging you to inhale or to exhale in postures. Traditionally you inhale into back bends, exhale into forward bends, and then inhale or exhale to come out of a pose, as well as breathing naturally in the pose. It’s not stressed breathing, it is natural, controlled breathing that gently raises your heart rate and makes your lungs work. You may even feel the heart rate increase as you do yoga. Doing this consistently will inevitably have positive benefits for both the heart and lungs. It can help to regulate blood pressure too.
3. Sleep
It is estimated that around a third of adults have some sort of sleep issue. This can include having difficulty getting over to sleep, or waking up regularly during the night, or even clinical conditions like insomnia. There have been several studies carried out on how yoga can improve sleep (Read the results here), and they found that yoga did significantly help, compared to the control group. They found that particular poses like savasana, forward bends and legs up the wall were best, and that hatha yoga was the style of yoga that most promoted good sleep. So if you have sleep issues, it is worth giving an evening yoga class a go, or even sign up for one that you can do at home. You may see the results in as little as 6 weeks.
4. Digestion
Yoga can aid digestive issues by increasing circulation, strengthening the diaphragm and promoting movement in the gastrointestinal tract. It can be great for anyone suffering from IBS. Some of the best postures are those that are done on the tummy (prone) like cobra, locust and bow pose, along with twists and wind releasing postures. Yoga can reduce bloating and constipation too. It should be noted that yoga is best done with nothing in the digestive tract, so eating before a class isn’t really a good idea.
5. Immunity
As I already mentioned, yoga can reduce the stress hormones that supress the immune system, so when you do yoga and you are less stressed, your immune system can function better. Unlike other types of exercise that focus on one or two parts of the body, yoga works on everything. So it helps to stimulate the lymphatic system, to rid the body of toxins, plus sends oxygenated blood back to the lungs, and get rid of toxins that way too. Sometimes when you feel run down, the best thing to do is to rest, and there a certain types of yoga, such as restorative, that focus on rest only. These are the types of practices that you need to be doing to keep your bodies in-built immunity functioning fully.
6. Inflammation
This is a bit of buzz word these days. We hear a lot about inflammation, and how it can be the underlying cause of many of the most prevalent diseases. Chronic inflammation happens when the inflammation has been around for a long time and starts to affect every day life. There are many factors that can contribute to it, so looking into your lifestyle is the best way to start to tackle it. Yoga can often help with stress management, and in particular the slower, more therapeutic styles can regulate the nervous system. Often with our lifestyles our bodies are working against us, not for us, with too much activity, and not enough rest. When you start to make time for yourself to invest in your health and wellbeing, the effects of inflammation can start to subside, and you regain some of your vitality.
It is important to make sure that you get the right class and the right teacher when you are coming to yoga for therapeutic purposes. Some types of yoga might not have the desired effect, especially if they are more fitness based. Check the experience of the teacher that you are thinking of going to, maybe give them a call and talk to them about your needs. Good luck on your journey back to health!