The technique of yoga was invented about five thousand years ago, when mankind did not have the options and privileges to avail advanced exercising facilities. It is so inspiring to think that even thousands of years ago mankind used to be as healthy as we are today; in fact, healthier than us, despite lacking the advantages of using hi-tech gym services and remarkable advancements in medical technology. Yoga is a technique which involves a series of physical exercises, particularly designed to address specific physical and mental health conditions. According to experts, yoga helps to unite mind, body and soul. This process of exercise was developed with the purpose of improving physical and mental health condition by boosting self-esteem, controlling and stabilizing central nervous system and removing bad thoughts and negativity from our mind. Although this remarkable exercising method was invented many years ago, its noticeable health benefits started to get more exposure through recent awareness programs and it became more popular among people when they started to notice its miraculous effectiveness.
Yoga is a scientific process which helps to establish a successful relation between mind, body and soul. Nowadays, people from all over the world, regardless of their age, gender and geographic locations have recognized the power of yoga in eliminating various health complications. So, if you are confused about the usability of yoga and thinking that should I do yoga? The benefits of yoga as an exercise are mentioned here to help you end your confusion.
1. How yoga helps in weight loss?
Yoga helps to reduce weight. The main advantage of this method is that it can be followed easily by people from any age group. So, older people with special medical conditions such as heart disease or physical inflexibility can easily do this exercise under the supervision of trained professionals. Central nervous system is responsible for controlling almost all of your major physical and mental activities. So, if this part of human brain is controlled effectively, it will be possible to solve many health problems easily. The problem of overweight can be induced by many factors such as reluctance toward increased physical activeness, excessive stress leading to imbalanced food consumption or increased consumption of sugar and fat rich foods. Yoga helps in weight reduction by eliminating the root cause of obesity. After several experiments, researchers have agreed that this process helps to eradicate obesity by reducing stress and improving food consumption habit of a person. Apart from that, thyroid gland is also quite known for its considerable effect on the metabolism process of our body. Few of the yoga techniques are specifically designed to control and normalize our thyroid gland and help in effective metabolism process. Better metabolism in turn helps in fat replacement and increasing body energy.
2. How yoga works towards stress reduction?
Deep breathing exercises of yoga aim to calm your mind. To be more specific, while you do the deep breathing technique of yoga, it helps to lower the production of stress hormone called catecholamine. Besides, it also helps to decelerate the level of neurotransmitter hormones like dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine, which in turn increase the feeling of calm. Researchers have also found that yoga helps to increase the level of oxytocin hormone, which is also responsible for improving the sense of relaxation.
3. How yoga improves sleep?
As a result of reduced stress, it becomes possible for us to sleep properly. This is another important factor, which plays an essential role in overall weight management. After several years of research, scientists found that sleep has a deep connection with your weight. People suffering from sleep disorder often suffer from obesity. This happens because in absence of sufficient sleep, human body releases ghrelin hormone, which increases hunger feeling and food cravings. Therefore, by improving oxygen rich blood circulation in brain, relaxing and calming your mind and boosting self-esteem, yoga helps to improve your overall mental health condition and thus helps us to sleep better.
4. How yoga helps to reduce back pain?
Stretching exercises of yoga helps to get rid of body pain. Those exercises reduce muscle tension. It helps to increase the secretion of natural painkillers in the body. Experts say that when we exhale during breathing exercise, our muscles tend to relax. Therefore, breathing exercise can help to release muscle pain. Yoga is effective in reducing back pain. It helps to decrease back pain by making the bones strong and flexible. By reducing overall body weight, yoga helps to minimize stress of the bone joints.
5. Yoga helps to increase body’s flexibility
Due to aging process, human body slowly loses its flexibility. Yoga helps to improve blood circulation in every corner of your body and brain. This process also helps to delay your aging process, assure detoxification system to help your body get rid of the harmful toxins (responsible for damaging important tissues and cells of body) and increase joint lubrication. That is why the yoga technique of exercise is highly recommended for older people. People suffering from osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis may see incredible improvement in their condition by practicing specific yoga poses and postures.
6. How yoga helps to promote heart health?
Yoga helps to improve biochemical response of your body. Therefore, it is also very beneficial for enhancing the overall health of your heart. Feedback from many people and results of various experiments have shown that yoga assists in lowering stress, blood pressure, and cholesterol level and thus helps to uplift the overall condition of your heart. Medical experts say that yoga has some anti-oxidant effects, which help to decrease cholesterol and triglyceride level and increase immune system. Experiences of many people also say that power yoga is highly effective for strengthening the heart muscles and improving blood and oxygen circulation inside your body.
The main objective of physical exercises is to improve the overall functions of our body and mind. So, when your medical supervisor advises you to increase the level of physical fitness, practicing yoga is the correct answer, if you want to see some effective results. Health benefits of yoga will appear slowly, but, last for a longer time. This method of exercise has no other side effects or risks of physical injuries. Above all, remember that this is the only universal method, which has no limitations related to age or gender.