Yoga is a form of therapy that is increasingly backed by science. Respected researchers at medical institutions including Duke and Harvard have studied the potential health benefits of yoga. The most promising results come from a practice combines asana with pranayama and meditation.
The benefits being studied are not just for seasoned yogis. Many studies included those who were new to practice and suffering from existing conditions.
Click here: Yoga As A Way of Life
Some of the health benefits that have gained:
Increased Fitness:
Improved flexibility is one of the most obvious benefits of yoga, but it is one that can lead to multiple benefits, including a reduction in aches and pains. Tight hips can affect the alignment of the thigh and shin bones, causing knee pain knees. Tight hamstrings flatten the lower spine, which can cause back pain.
Many yoga asana build muscle strength as well. You can grow stronger and maintain muscle mass using just the weight of your body.
While Flow or Ashtanga classes can get your heart rate up, even gentler yoga exercises improve cardiovascular fitness. Studies have found that yoga lowers the resting heart rate, increases endurance, and can improve your maximum uptake of oxygen during exercise.
Click here: Best Steps to Increasing Your Physical Activity
Pain Relief:
Yoga shows promise as a treatment for relieving some kinds of chronic pain. This can have positive spin offs for mood and need for medication. In one study of people with chronic neck pain, yoga reduced pain scores by more than half. Yoga can even help some back pain. In one study, researchers worked with more than 200 people with persistent lower-back pain. Those who took yoga classes reported less pain and better functioning… and benefits lasted for several months!
Click here: How to Get Your Back Shape in Back Pain
Reduced Depression:
After eight weeks of practicing three times a week, the patients reported significant decreases in both anxiety and depression.
Another study found a significant increase in serotonin levels and a decrease in both the levels of an enzyme that breaks down neurotransmitters and cortisol.
Click here: Tips to Reduce Depression
Emotional Health:
Long-term meditation practitioners demonstrate changes in brain structure. Scientists have shown that meditation increases activity in the area of the brain associated with positive moods and emotional resilience. This relates to being less reactive under stress and feeling happier.
Classes that include the spiritual elements of practice, not just asana, guide you to explore concepts of gratitude, empathy, and forgiveness, as well as a sense that you’re part of something bigger. Many of these concepts have been linked to our happiness and sense of well-being.
Mental Sharpness & Protection Against Cognitive Decline:
Various aspects of yoga train your attention or mindfulness, which helps your brain work better. One study found that following a hatha yoga session study participants completed a set of mental challenges both faster and more accurately than they did after a brisk walk or a jog.
Meditation may help ward off age-related cognitive decline. The parts of the brain associated with cognitive processing thin with age, but have been found to be thicker in long-term meditators.
Better Sleep:
A Duke University analysis of studies on yoga for psychiatric conditions found evidence that yoga can be helpful for treating sleep disorders. A combination of asana, pranayama and meditation relaxes your muscles, slows your heart rate and helps you control worry to make you ready for sleep. Compared with postmenopausal women who did passive stretching, yoga practitioners showed a big drop in incidence of insomnia.
Reduced Inflammation & Stress Responses:
A chronic state of inflammation can raise your risk for disease. Researchers at Ohio State University found that regular yoga practitioners had much lower blood levels of an inflammation-promoting immune cell called IL-6 than a group new to yoga. When both groups were exposed to stress, the regular yogis showed smaller spikes of IL-6.
Yoga has been linked to lower cortisol levels. Chronically high cortisol levels are linked with depression, osteoporosis, high blood pressure, insulin resistance, compromised immune response and memory issues. It may lead to weight gain and visceral fat, which contributes to the risk of diabetes and heart attack.
Slowed Cellular Aging:
Cells include structures called telomeres, which get shorter over time. When telomeres get too short and cells can no longer divide, they die. An enzyme called telomerase helps preserve their length. A program which included an hour a day of yoga showed a 30 percent increase in the activity of telomerase.
Better Immune Activity:
One of the first studies to look at how yoga affects genes indicates that practice can alter the expression of immune-related genes in blood cells. This suggests yoga may have the potential to influence how strongly the genes you’re born with affect your health.
Meditation has the most science backing a beneficial effect on the functioning of the immune system, appearing to both boost response when needed to fight infection and lowering it in cases of some autoimmune disease, such as psoriasis.
Better Spinal Health:
When researchers compared the vertebral disks of yoga teachers to healthy, similar-aged volunteers, the teachers’ disks showed less evidence of age-related degradation. Bending and flexing may help push more nutrients from the blood vessels through the outer layer of the disks, keeping them healthier over time.
Reduced Risk Factors for & Improved Management of Diabetes:
Adults at risk for type 2 diabetes who did yoga twice a week for three months showed a reduction in risk factors including weight and blood pressure.
In people with diabetes, yoga has been found to lower blood sugar by lowering cortisol and adrenaline levels, encouraging weight loss, and improving insulin. Managing blood sugar levels decreases the risk of diabetic complications.
Click here: Easy and Helpful Tips to Avoid Diabetes
Weight Loss:
Hatha Yoga also helps you burn calories and get toned muscles with improved flexibility. According to a study conducted by the American Council on Exercise, the average person burns nearly 3-6 calories per minute doing yoga, accounting to 180 calories burned during one hour class. Some yoga poses put a strain on the muscles. This causes muscles to get ripped, but in a good way. Once the muscles get ripped, they require energy to rebuild themselves. They utilized the energy from the stored fat in your body.
A 185-pound person can burn up to 400 calories with one hour Hatha yoga while a 155-pound person will shed up to 300 calories.
Yoga also promotes mindfulness, making you more aware of your eating habits and feelings of fullness. This can help suppress overeating and weight gain; it may even lead to weight loss. Some of the best hatha yoga poses for losing weight are Seated Forward Bend, Shoulder Stand, Warrior Pose, and Half Moon Pose.
Click here: 13 Tips To Help You Lose Weight
Healthy Heart:
Certain yoga poses improve cardiovascular health; enhance lung capacity; and strengthen respiratory function. It also promotes calmness and relief, thereby reducing the occurrence of hypertension, which is one of the leading causes of heart problems. Moreover, they improve blood circulation and minimize inflammation as well.
Yoga poses also stretch muscles, making them more sensitive to the insulin that is important for checking blood sugar. Then, yoga poses involve deep breathing to calm down blood pressure. Mind-calming meditation is another important part of yoga to ease the nervous system and stress as well. All these activities can help prevent disease.
