10 reasons for a YogaLife

Yoga will change everything. As Swami Sivananda said,

‘You can have calmness of mind at all times by the practice of yoga. You can have a restful sleep. You can have increased energy, vigor, vitality, longevity and high standard of health. You can turn out efficient work within a short space of time. You can have success in every walk of life’.

So here are the ten core reasons for a YogaLife:

1. Stress Relief:  Yoga reduces the physical effects of stress and worry on the body. By promoting deep relaxation and exercise yoga helps reduce the levels of cortisol, which is a significant stress hormone. Similarly, yoga relaxation helps lower blood pressure and heart rate as well improving breathing, digestion, sleep and the immune system. Other benefits include reduced symptoms of depression, anxiety, asthma and fatigue.
2. Pain Relief:  Current studies reveal that the mental and physical practices in yoga can significantly reduce and manage pain, for people living with cancer, MS, autoimmune diseases, hypertension, arthritis and other chronic conditions. Back and neck pain caused by stress can also be reduced.
3. Better Breathing:  Over time many people forget how to breathe correctly.  Yoga teaches us to take slower deeper, controlled breaths, which improves lung function, increasing oxygen intake and energy. Better breathing also benefits a calmer mind and outlook.
4. Flexibility:  Yoga helps improves flexibility, posture and mobility. At their first yoga class many people cant touch their toes but after a while the range of movement increases as they learns to use their muscles.  Yoga postures will lengthen and gently stretch muscles, ligaments and tendons resulting in better body alignment while reducing aches and pains.
5. Strength and tone: Yoga postures use every muscle in the body helping to increase strength throughout the body. Body shape will improve as the skeletal and muscular systems are strengthened.
6. Weight management: Yoga practice will burn calories but more importantly it will naturally point towards healthy eating habits. As you become more self aware and calmer the need to reduce stress through comfort eating and drinking will eventually drop away. Chocolate and red wine after a while become a treat rather than a necessity.
7. Improved systems: Yoga practice will help cleanse, strengthen and improve the nervous, circulation, respiratory and hormonal systems. Yoga postures also massage and compress internal organs like the lungs, heart, liver, kidney, pancreas etc, to help improve functioning.
8. Cardiovascular Conditioning: Yoga practice will lower heart rate and blood pressure. Through improved breathing it will also improve oxygen intake during work and exercise.
9. Here & Now: Through improved concentration and deeper self-awareness Yoga helps us to focus on the present. It’s only in the ‘eternal now’ where you really exist and where you can make a difference.
10. Discovering the real you: Yoga is about clearing away whatever is in us that prevent our living in the most full and whole way. With yoga, we become aware of how and where we are restricted – in body, mind, and heart – and how gradually to open and release these blockages. As these blockages are cleared, our energy is freed. We start to feel more harmonious, more at one with ourselves. Our lives begin to flow – or we begin to flow more in our lives.