Health Benefits of Yoga

If you have integrated exercise into your daily life, you’re already miles ahead of many fellow Americans. As long as you keep active, your quality of life will be substantially better than those who lead a sedentary lifestyle. That being said, some exercises are more beneficial to your overall health than others.

Below we discuss just 5 of the many health benefits of yoga. We hope this inspires you to try something new- perhaps with us on the farm! Be on the lookout for our upcoming Yoga on the Farm program, opening this Spring!

Flexibility

The first time you try yoga, you probably won’t be able to bend over and touch your toes, or do advanced positions like a backbend. With enough practice, however, you will eventually notice a steady loosening- opening the possibilities of all kinds of positions. Why is this good? Your aches and pains will soon go away. Your tight hips have the potential to cause alignment issues.  Tight hamstrings can lead to back pain due to the flattening of the lumbar spine. Start stretching and feel your flexibility change your life!

Posture

Do you have horrible posture? Steady yoga practice will help fix that! Poor posture can lead to a wide array of health issues. Back, neck, muscle and joint problems are just the beginning. Yoga helps you concentrate on body form, not just for yoga-related positions but overall daily life. Stop slumping your body and avoid flattening the normal inward curves in your neck and lower back!

Prevent Cartilage and Joint Breakdown

Yoga takes your muscles and joints though a range of motion that they may not otherwise get if you lead a sedentary lifestyle. Joint cartilage works very much like a sponge in that it’s fluid needs to be squeezed out in order for it to absorb fresh nutrients. Inactive cartilage will wear out, no longer acting as a cushion for your joints- causing pain and leaving you very susceptible to injury. You’ll help prevent degenerative arthritis or mitigate disability with frequent yoga practice.

Increases Blood flow

The relaxation exercises you learn in yoga do wonders for your circulation. Yoga not only gets oxygen to your cells, improving function- but the variety of poses have powerful affects on allowing oxygenated blood move through your internal organs and limbs.  If you have swelling in your legs from kidney or heart problems, this would help.
The levels of hemoglobin and red blood cells will also benefit from yoga- which helps carry oxygen to your tissues. Platelets become less sticky and therefore help you prevent blood clotting, as the promoting proteins are cut as a result of the activity.

Makes you happy and relaxed

Studies have shown that your levels of serotonin rise dramatically with frequent yoga practice.  It encourages you to take long, deep breaths, focus on the present, let go of anxieties and every day stressors.  Your sympathetic nervous system gets a break and balances out with your parasympathetic nervous system- which promotes relaxation and a lower heart rate. Additional benefits include, physical balance, deeper sleep and tension release.

Quite frankly there are too many benefits to count, but we’ll keep discussing more of them as time passes 🙂

Stay tuned: We are excited to introduce you to Andrea Lynne- yoga instructor and phenomenal photographer! She’s coming to teach Yoga at Dalby Farm this coming year 🙂