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Yoga postures balance the body and increase strength, flexibility, and cardiovascular levels; while breathing awareness techniques can release tension and help us maintain focus; both in our yoga practice and in our day-to-day lives.
According to a recent Harvard Medical School survey, 90% of Americans who have practiced yoga have found it helpful for a number of health conditions, including back or neck pain, anxiety, arthritis, depression and fatigue. Yoga makes you more stress hardy, relaxes and rejuvenates you, improves your strength and provides a general sense of well-being. Other benefits of yoga practice include: preventing pain and injury; slowing the aging process; increasing self-confidence and improving concentration; developing correct body posture; and increasing flexibility in joints and spinal column.
The Yoga Alliance recently published these Top 10 Reasons to "Make the Connection" with yoga:
1. STRESS RELIEF: Yoga reduces the physical effects of stress on the body. By encouraging relaxation, yoga helps to lower the levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Related benefits include lowering blood pressure and heart rate, improving digestion and boosting the immune system as well as easing symptoms of conditions such as anxiety, depression, fatigue, asthma and insomnia.
2. PAIN RELIEF: Yoga can ease pain. Studies have demonstrated that practicing yoga postures, meditation or a combination of the two, reduced pain for people with conditions such as cancer, hypertension, arthritis, back and neck pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and many other chronic conditions. Some practitioners report that even emotional pain can be eased through the practice of yoga.
3. BETTER BREATHING: Yoga teaches people to take slower, deeper breaths. This helps to improve lung function, trigger the body's relaxation response and increase the amount of oxygen available to the body.
4. FLEXIBILITY: Yoga helps to improve flexibility and mobility, increasing range of movement and reducing aches and pains.
5. INCREASED STRENGTH: Yoga postures use every muscle in the body, helping to increase strength literally from head to toe.
6. WEIGHT MANAGEMENT: Yoga can aid weight control efforts by reducing the cortisol levels as well as by burning excess calories and reducing stress. Yoga also encourages healthy eating habits and provides a heightened sense of well-being and self-esteem.
7. IMPROVED CIRCULATION: Yoga helps to improve circulation and, as a result of various poses, more efficiently moves oxygenated blood to the body's cells.
8. CARDIOVASCULAR CONDITIONING: Even gentle yoga practice can provide cardiovascular benefits by lowering resting heart rate, increasing endurance and improving oxygen uptake during exercise.
9. BETTER BODY ALIGNMENT: Yoga helps to improve body alignment, resulting in better posture and helping to relieve back, neck, joint and muscle problems.
10. FOCUS ON THE PRESENT: Yoga helps us to focus on the present, to become more aware and to help create mind-body health. It opens the way to improved coordination, reaction time and memory.
For more information on the benefits cited here, please visit the Yoga Alliance website at www.yogaalliance.org.
