YogaLove

Appears courtesy of Southern Charm.

Y’all, I think we can all use a bit more yoga in our lives. It has been a goal of mine to practice more yoga, especially since being diagnosed with psoriasis. However, I haven’t exactly met this goal.

Things have to change. There is another health issue, a bit more serious than my psoriasis, that I am now dealing with. One of the “treatments”? Practice more yoga.

All roads are leading to ME PRACTICING YOGA.

I don’t know why I never could stick to my goal of practicing more yoga. Maybe I’m just not attracted to it?

Well, I’m going to MAKE myself attracted to yoga again, to where I’m just dying to jump back in. Hopefully, my little experiment/blog post will work on you too! So here it goes …

Benefits of Yoga

There are LOADS of benefits of yoga, with the following being top 10:

1. Stress Relief

Yoga can help reduce the effects of stress on your body. One of the benefits of yoga is that it encourages relaxation and can lower the amount of cortisol in your body.

2. Pain Relief

Daily exercises of yoga can help ease the aches and pains of the body. Many people with very serious diseases have reported less pain after these daily exercises, such as asanas or meditation.

3. Better Breathing

You will learn to take deeper, slower breaths with daily exercises of yoga. It will help to increase your lung function and set off the body’s relaxation response. This can be one of the most powerful benefits of yoga.

4. Flexibility

You will notice your level of flexibility will increase, which will help with your range of motion. Sometimes in the yoga daily exercises, people cannot even touch their toes. The benefits of yoga will include lengthening the muscles, tendons, and ligaments in your body to help you become more flexible.

5. Increased Strength

Yoga poses use all the muscles in your body and help you increase your strength level from head to toe. The benefits of yoga and daily exercises will help you strengthen your muscles close to the bones, which increase the support of your skeletal system as well.

6. Weight Management

You will see the benefits of yoga begin to affect your scale. Daily exercises are always recommended, but yoga helps reduce the level of cortisol in your body. This aids in weight loss and fat burning.

7. Improved Circulation

Yoga will help improve your body’s circulation. In turn, with daily exercises, you will see the benefits of yoga with lowered blood pressure and pulse rates.

8. Cardiovascular Conditioning

Even the most gentle style of yoga will help to lower your resting heart reate and increase your overall endurance. This is one of the important benefits of yoga to help improve the amount of oxygen taken in during the daily exercises.

9. Focus on the Present

You can have greater coordination, memory skills, reaction times, and improved concentration skills by utilizing yoga for daily exercises. These benefits of yoga will extend far out of the yoga center.

10. Inner Peace

What more could you want. This is one of the primary reasons that people do daily exercises of yoga. This is one of the most important benefits of yoga and is also one of the more easy ones to attain.

Cortisol is mentioned a few times in this top ten list. For those of you who don’t know, cortisol is a dangerous little hormone. Too much cortisol can lead to anxiety, weight gain and even depression. As you can see from the benefits listed above, yoga lowers the cortisol in your body by slowing your breathing and your body down and by allowing you to relax.

Accessibility

Luckily, yoga is easily accessible these days. If you are reading this blog, you have access to some form of yoga, and most likely in some cheap and/or free form.

If you can afford to, yogadownload.com has classes you can download. Also, most of their 20 minute classes are FREE!

Amazon.comis another place to get cheap on demand videos and/or dvds! I’m obsessed with their Video On Demand, right now!

Styles of Yoga

There are a lot of types of yoga, so before you decide you don’t like yoga based off one class, try another style. This post only covers a few styles. There are many more!

Anusara. This is my personal favorite. According to anusara.com: the highest intention of practicing Anusara yoga is to align with the Divine. As we deepen our alignment with the Supreme, we step deeper into the flow of Grace.

Even the description gets me every time. Beautiful.

Ashtanga. Think Gwyneth Paltrow and Madonna.

Six established and strenuous pose sequences practiced sequentially as progress is made. Ashtangis move rapidly, flowing from one pose to the next with each inhale and exhale.

Bikram. I’m so scared to try this style. It maybe be TMI, but I sweat enough without being in a sauna!

Yoga poses in a sauna-like room. The heat is cranked up to nearly 105 degrees and 40 percent humidity in official Bikram classes.  It will be a series of 26 basic yoga postures, each performed twice.

Hatha.

This style encompasses nearly all types of modern yoga. It is typically a basic and classical approach to yogic breathing exercises and postures.

Power.

An active and athletic style of yoga. Classes called “vinyasa” or “flow” can be vastly different but, in general, stem from this movement and from ashtanga as well.

Restorative.

You can spend up to 20 minutes in each pose, which means less posses. Often you will use strategically placed props like blankets, bolsters, and soothing lavender eye pillows to help you sink into deep relaxation.

What are you thoughts on yoga?

If you practice, how have you benefited? Where do you take class? What is your favorite style??

If you don’t practice, are you interested in starting to practice now? What style would you like to try? Would you do a studio or dvd?

If you’re interested in more things Yoga, be sure to check out Fitblogger’s Yoga Week posts with tons of tips, map reviews, prop descriptions and more!