As a fitness professional, personal trainer and yoga instructor, I come across many people who shy away from yoga. Are you one of these people? Have you been told by your doctors, physical therapist, friends, family members or psychologists that adding a yoga practice would greatly benefit your life? Have you avoided taking a class or have you attended one or two classes and then completely given up? There are many reasons why you may have had a hard time committing to a yoga practice and I can go into details on them in another post. In this post I want to explain why Yoga is a League of Superheroes for Health and Fitness success, provide you with the many benefits of developing this practice and convince you to give it a try or try it again.

You are probably already aware that yoga will increase your flexibility and help you to relax. However, there are many additional benefits to developing a yoga practice that you may not be aware of. So, I will go into detail about them here.

The Many Superpowers of Yoga.

Body Awareness Warrior

Yoga will help you become more aware of what is going on in your physical body and help you develop a very strong connection to it. The word Yoga comes from the word “yoke” or unite and its main goal is to increase your connection to your body. Yoga challenges you to really feel what is occurring in your body and to address it’s needs. I often tell my students that if they can accomplish this during their practice than they have completed the class successfully, no matter what their poses looked like during class. I believe this is the number one benefit of a yoga class. You learn how to truly listen to your body and give it what it needs. We often tell our bodies what we want from it, how we want it to look, how we want to feel and how we want to perform. Most people go though life always trying to change their bodies without ever listening to what it is trying to tell them. By being more aware of your body you are able to…

Identify injuries and illness before they pose a problem.
Increase your self-esteem and self-worth, which improves your wellbeing.
Better manage your weight and physical abilities by addressing your body’s needs.

Stress-busting Crusader

Yoga is a type of exercise and all types of exercise relieves stress by keeping the body healthy and releasing endorphins and other hormones that improve your mood. However Yoga has some stress reducing qualities that other forms of exercise do not have. This makes it a superhero when it come to stress-busting. Watch out pharmaceutical companies, Yoga may be able to put you out of business when it comes to helping people decrease stress and relieve anxiety.

Yoga’s stress-busting tool kit

Yoga focuses on the breath. When practicing yoga we often breathe through each of the poses. By moving through each pose on our inhale and exhale we remain in the present moment. And by being in the present moment we rarely find any stress. Most of our stress and anxiety comes from either thinking about the past or future problems in our life. If we are able to connect with the present moment we will realize that we are ok. In yoga each breath is tied to the present moment; you are not breathing in the past or the future, but only right now. Focusing on each inhale and exhale prevents other thoughts from entering and is one way to clear the mind. Yoga also encourages deep and slow breathing. This type of breathing allows your lungs to fill and empty more completely allowing for your body to take in more air and your cells to absorb more oxygen. Happy, oxygenated cells make for a more peaceful and happy oxygenated body.
Yoga also relieves stress through stretching different areas of your body. When you are stressed, you store tension in different places in your body. This can make you feel tight and cause pain. Pain can cause more stress and anxiety which tightens your muscles even further. It is a viscous cycle that can only be broken with some much needed stretches.
The act of holding yoga poses, or asanas, can also act as a form of meditation and helps to center the mind. The poses often require a lot of physical effort and concentration, so other thoughts and worries are pushed to the side. This act of holding poses and producing physical effort activates a different part of your brain and gives your stressed out brain a much-needed break.

Inflammation and Arthritis Eliminator.

Yoga has been shown to reduce inflammation and relieve many arthritis symptoms. Stress triggers a “fight or flight” response in our body. This response increases the production of nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kB). This is a molecule that regulates gene expression and causes inflammation at a cellular level. Studies have shown that people who practice yoga or other mind-body exercises reduce the production of NF-kB and cytokines which leads to a reversal of inflammatory gene expression and a reduction in the risk of diseases related to inflammation such as arthritis. Next time you are feeling some pain from inflammation or arthritis try some relaxing yoga poses before you take those anti-inflammatory drugs.

Heart Health Champion

There are a few ways that yoga is our Heart Health Champion.

Some yoga practices can be quite vigorous. Moving through those Sun Salutations can increase your heart rate making this a cardiovascular workout. By increasing your heart rate and making it pump more blood throughout your body you are strengthening your heart muscle.
Stress triggers a rise in heart rate, blood pressure, and the release of stress hormones, all of which are hard on your cardiovascular system. Yoga helps to reduce this stress and activates the opposite effect, known as the rest-and-digest response. By practicing yoga regularly you are able to cultivate this response much easier during stressful situations.
Yoga also helps you feel more connected to your physical body and by feeling connected you are more likely to treat it with respect and love. Yoga has been shown to lead to healthier habits such as eating a more nutritious diet and reducing toxins that you are putting into your body. These changes are very beneficial to your heart health.

Mood Master.

Yoga doesn’t only reduce your stress. Yoga can be a Mood Master by helping you feel more energized, joyful and content in your life. All forms of exercise boost your mood by lowering levels of stress hormones, increasing the production of feel-good chemicals (endorphins), and increase the oxygenated blood to your brain. However, yoga is our superhero in this category because it also can affect mood by elevating levels of a brain chemical called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which is associated with better mood and decreased anxiety. And it has been shown that meditation which often accompanies yoga reduces activity in the limbic system. This is the part of the brain dedicated to emotions. By practicing yoga regularly you fill find that “bad days” are a thing of the past.

Sleep Superstar

Yoga is our Sleep Superstar for a few reasons. First by decreasing your stress yoga can help you fall asleep more easily and achieve a deeper state of sleep. Practicing mindfulness along with yoga has been shown to increase your melatonin levels. Melatonin is a sleep hormone that helps regulate sleep. Deep breathing which is learned though your yoga practice can also help with improving your sleep and has been shown to improve sleep apnea in some individuals.

Pain Abolisher

The Pain Abolisher yoga practice. By practicing yoga regularly you may be able to abolish many of your daily aches and pains. It has been shown that yoga can decrease your pain perception, meaning you feel your pain is less strong and severe than it was before. It does this by dissociating negative emotions from pain, making it easier accept pain and connect with it. Yoga can also reduce pain associated with inflammation by decreasing the body’s stress response as we saw above.

Flexibility and Balance Booster

You are probably not surprised to hear that Yoga will increase your flexibility. This is probably the number one benefit most people think of when they think of yoga. It is designed to increase your flexibility. As you practice regularly you will find that poses you can not get into or are very difficult for you become easier over time. Many people still believe that one needs to already be flexible in order to enjoy practicing yoga. This is as silly as thinking one already needs to be full in order to enjoy a good meal. The act of practicing is where you obtain your flexibility so do not let a lack of flexibility hold you back.

Yoga also greatly improves your balance. It does this in a couple of ways. First many of the poses build muscle mass. By building muscles your body will have more strength and stability, making balancing much easier. Yoga also improves your body awareness, focus and concentration as we learned above. These are all important factors when it comes to balance. Most yoga classes provide you with an opportunity to practice your balance skills by holding poses such as Tree Pose, Warrior 3, ext. However, you are increasing your balance just by being present during all of the poses in a yoga class.

Breathing Rescuer

Yoga is our Breathing Rescuer by teaching us how to breath with intention and reminding us to focus on our breath. Hatha Yoga is the style of yoga most associated with breathing. However, almost ALL yoga styles include Hatha Yoga. It is the practice of moving with your breath. By incorporating breathing into your yoga practice you are able to practice mindfulness by staying in the current moment (your breath) as you move through the poses. We often breath very deeply and slowly as we practice yoga. We breathe in and out through our nose and completely fill-up and empty the body of air. If you are looking to take your breathing practice further, yoga can help you out there as well. Yoga includes many breathing practices where you learn how to breathe differently and produce different sensations in your body and mind on and off your mat.

Metabolism Megastar

This one might surprise you. When we think of improving our metabolism we often think of traditional cardio and strength activities. However, yoga is our Metabolism Megastar because as you learned above it does incorporate cardio and strength activities while doing SO much more. Moving though yoga flows will definitely get that heart rate up, while holding poses builds your muscles. However, it is the connection of the body and mind that makes yoga our Megastar. By being more connected to your physical body, you are much more likely to treat it with respect and care. You will WANT to eat better, sleep better, eliminate toxins, and complete your practice. These all contribute to an improved metabolism making yoga one step above the traditional strength and cardio activities.

The Yoga League

As you see from above. Yoga is the Superhero of Health in Fitness. It is not just a practice to help with flexibility or a practice to help reduce stress. It is an entire League of Superheroes, ready and waiting to help you achieve health and fitness success.

If you are interested in beginning a yoga practice and do not know where to start, I have the perfect program for you. Check out my 4 week yoga program. In this 4 week program you will learn 24 basic yoga poses and how to put them together to feel comfortable and confident in a yoga class. Each day ( Monday – Saturday) I will give you one new pose to learn. I will share the benefits of this pose, describe how to complete the pose successfully and provide you with a short video to follow. You will also have the opportunity to review and practice all of the other poses learned that week to become more familiar with them. On Sundays, we will combine the weeks poses into a simple yoga flow. On the last day of the program you will receive a complete 40+ minute class combining everything you have learned in the program.