I have been practicing yoga for 9 years now, and I need to tout the mental and physical benefits of yoga because I want to spread the advantages that I have reaped from this practice. Not many people know this, but just adding a handful of yoga poses into the mix can improve your health in unbelievable ways.
According to Linda Schlamadinger McGrath, who is a yoga practitioner and founder of YogaSource in California,
“On a physical level, yoga helps improve flexibility, strength, balance, and endurance. On an energetic level, yoga teaches you how to cope better with stress by cultivating a sense of ease in both active or passive poses. On a psychological level, yoga helps to cultivate mindfulness by shifting your awareness to the sensations, thoughts, and emotions that accompany a given pose or exercise.”
If you are someone who is passionate about yoga, like moi, you must already know how yoga benefits us; from sleeping better to seldom falling sick, practicing yoga can help you in numerous ways. It increases your energy levels, and literally fills you with more life by improving the flow of breath or prana.
Let us have a look at the why one should practice or continue practicing yoga.
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15 benefits of yoga
My love affair with yoga inspired me to dig deeper into the studies about the benefits and advantages of yoga. I read about how yoga can lower the risk of getting ill and also help people recover from an illness. Today I want to share my learnings with you hoping this will help you the way it has helped me. 
- Develops your flexibility
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The first benefit that comes to mind is better flexibility. I remember, on my first day at yoga class, I couldn’t even touch my feet without bending my knees. Now a backbend is a child’s play for me! Sticking to the practice is key to improve flexibility.
By improving your flexibility, yoga makes sure you do not get back pain as it loosens up your tight hamstrings and prevents the flattening of your lumbar spine. Inflexibility, apart from causing back pain and hip pain, can also cause poor posture. Yoga helps prevent that.
- Builds muscle strength
Yoga aids in strength building of our muscles. This, in turn, protects our muscles from arthritis. Elderly people who practice yoga are less likely to fall. Strength building is done in other forms of exercise too, but when done with yoga, it is complimented by flexibility.
- Perfects your posture
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The next thing yoga helps you with is it improves your posture. Our heads are heavy, round and big like a bowling ball. With yoga, we learn how to accurately place the head on an erect spine. This corrects our posture, and also makes sure our necks and back muscles are not strained which otherwise, can cause neck and back pain.
- Prevents cartilage and joint breakdown
When we practice yoga, our joints are made to go through their entire range of motions. As a result, we are less likely to develop degenerative arthritis. The cartilage around our joints receive nutrients and get strengthened only when its fluid is properly squeezed out. This causes a new supply to be produced which is then soaked up by the cartilage. If this does not happen the cartilage wear out with time, exposing our bones and making them more susceptible to breaking.
- Protects your spine
Our spine is a shock absorber, and so it’s upkeep is essential. Practicing asanas that have a number of backbends, some forward bends and plenty of twists, will help you keep your disks lithe.
- Betters your bone health
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The weight-bearing exercises are known to enhance our bone strength and keep osteoporosis at bay. Some yoga postures require us to lift our own weight; postures like downward-facing dog and upward-facing dog help increase bone density. Yoga also helps lower our stress levels by reducing the secretion of cortisol.
- Increases your blood flow
Yoga improves the circulation of blood through our system. The exercises which aim at relaxing our body, helps increase the flood of blood to our hands and feet. This, in turn, ensures more oxygen reaches our cells. As a result, our cells function better.
The twisting exercises and poses of yoga squeeze out the toxic poison from our cells and internal organs. Consequently, more oxygenated blood reaches our organs. The level of hemoglobin in our blood is also enhanced by yoga. It makes the platelets less sticky, and lowers the amount of clot-causing proteins present in our blood. Blood clots can cause strokes, and so, yoga prevents such strokes and decreases risks of a cardiac arrest.
- Drains your lymphs and boosts immunity
The exercises that involve contracting and stretching of muscles, increase the drainage of viscous fluid that contains immune cells from our lymph nodes. As a result, our lymphatic system is strengthened. It can then fight infection better, terminate cells that are cancerous, and help get rid of the toxins that are produced by our cells.
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- Ups your heart rate
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Practicing power yoga improves your heart rate by getting it into the aerobic range. This, in turn, reduces the risk of a heart attack. It also helps relieve depression.
Ashtanga exercises get your heart rate up which enhances cardiovascular conditioning. The breathing exercises, moreover improve the way you breathe during exercises. According to a study, people who practice pranayama regularly could do more exercise with very less oxygen compared to people who do not practice pranayama.
- Drops your blood pressure
Yoga helps relieve hypertension. According to studies published in The Lancet, which is a British medical journal, the Corpse Pose or Savasana can help people with high blood pressure. The study observed that within 3 months of practicing Savasana regularly, the systolic blood pressure dropped 26 points while the diastolic blood pressure dropped by 15 points, on an average.
- Regulates your adrenal glands
Yoga reduces the levels of cortisol in our body. Cortisol is usually secreted by our glands at the time of crisis. This can weaken our immune system. High levels of cortisol is seen to cause depression osteoporosis, hypertension and resistance to insulin. By lowering the cortisol levels in our body, yoga helps against all these diseases.
- Makes you happier
Whenever I feel a little unhappy, I sit in Lotus Pose and before I know it, I am feeling a lot better. According to a study, practicing yoga on a daily basis improves the levels of serotonin in the body. It also lowers the levels of monoamine oxidase, which otherwise breaks down neurotransmitters.
Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin as researched and found that left prefrontal cortex improves the mediators’ activity, which further, increase the levels of serotonin causing us to be happier. This activation of mediators was found in people who practice yoga on a regular basis.
- Founds a healthy lifestyle
Being able to be more energetic while eating less, yoga helps on both fronts. When you practice yoga daily, you burn calories. This encourages you to eat healthy because you start looking at your body as a temple, a temple that you want to give the best to. You will automatically start eating food that helps you improve physically, emotionally and spiritually.
- Lowers blood sugar
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Yoga not only lowers the blood sugar levels but also the LDL or bad cholesterol levels in the body. It, furthermore, increases the levels of HDL or good cholesterol levels.
Practicing yoga benefits people with high blood sugar by lowering the levels of cortisol and adrenaline in the body. It, then encourage the loss of calories and weight. By improving the bodies sensitivity to the benefits of insulin, yoga helps lower blood sugar levels.
- Helps with concentration
One of the most important advantages of yoga is how it improves our ability to focus on the present. It helps us live in the moment, and so, seize the moment. According to a bunch of studies conducted recently and in the past, practicing yoga regularly helps expand memory, improve coordination, and quicken the time we take to respond. It is also seen to progress IQ scores.
Practitioners of Transcendental Meditation show greater ability to solve problems. They also can remember and recall details better. This is mainly because yoga helps us not get distracted by thoughts and helps concentrate completely on the problem at hand.
That is all we have on today’s post on benefits of yoga. This is not an exhaustive list. For that matter, there can never be an exhaustive list when it comes to talking about the advantages yoga has to offer.
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Let us know how yoga has benefitted you personally. You can use the comment section below to share your experiences.
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Until next time!
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