Uses of Yoga and Importance of Yoga for Physical Health
yoga is not just about asanas. It has got much more to offer than that. the following are some of the benefits you can get from yoga:-
Increase life expectancy by at least ten years because yoga helps reduce high blood pressure, stress, and anxiety levels. It also boosts your immune system, which protects you against various diseases and infections.
One of the essential uses of yoga is that it helps improve flexibility. The more flexible your muscles are, the better you will perform physical activities such as running and playing sports without hurting yourself or causing any inflection or injury.
Slow down aging by maintaining a youthful appearance. Because yoga increases blood circulation, it reduces wrinkles and makes your skin look more radiant. Yoga also improves posture, which prevents sagging skin that is the most common problem in old age.
Reduce back pain by strengthening your muscles and engaging them properly while doing various physical activities. This will decrease stress on your spine, thus making you feel less pain than before participating in yoga.
Unlock your creativity by stimulating the right side of the brain, which is responsible for imagination and inspiration. Let’s face it; no one can be a creative genius when they’re stressed out all day long. Yoga helps you relax your mind and body to unleash your inner creativity.
Increase mental power by calming your brain and balancing your left and right brain wave patterns. This will make you feel more in control of your emotions, thoughts, and behavior which will help in improving work performance in a better way.
Manage your weight better by controlling the glands that regulate appetite and calorie burning. Yoga also helps increase muscle mass, making it easier to maintain a healthy weight without compromising your strength and stamina.
Increase in flexibility, endurance, and muscle tone. Yoga helps increase blood flow to the muscles, which aids in recovery after a strenuous session of exercises or workout in the gym. It also increases stamina and energy levels which results in more intense and more prolonged workouts and activities.
Improve sleep by calming the nervous system, which naturally increases melatonin production (sleep hormone).
Increase lung capacity by expanding your chest and rib muscles, making it easier to breathe while exercising or doing physical activities.
Increase your body’s ability to burn fat effectively by balancing blood sugar levels. Yoga regulates insulin secretion, which helps manage cravings for sugar. It also helps boost metabolic rate, which increases fat burning by 20 percent, thus resulting in weight loss.
Increase strength without increasing muscle mass by engaging the muscles surrounding the joint and bones to support your body during physical activities. This prevents injuries common among physically active men and women who have relatively weak muscles for their size.
Increase mental strength by strengthening your willpower and self-discipline, which are the essential factors determining success or failure.
Twenty benefits of yoga:
1. Yoga strengthens and tones the muscles and improves flexibility. It is a complete workout for your body as it exercises all your body parts without putting extra load on any one part of the body. In addition, performing yoga regularly increases your metabolic rate and helps burn more calories throughout the day. So you stay active even though you sit at one place for hours.
2. Stressless and stay healthy: Yoga helps reduce anxiety, stress, and depression. It relaxes your muscles and makes them supple, imparting a relaxation response to the brain, thereby reducing stress levels by decreasing cortisol secretion from the adrenal gland.
3. Lose weight without dieting: As yoga increases metabolism in the body, it helps you lose weight without dieting. If combined with a good exercise regime, it is even more effective in increasing your loss rate.
4. Yoga can help out athletic performance- Athletes who do yoga say they are better able to focus on the game, visualize their movements, and have increased upper body strength, core stability, and flexibility.
5. Yoga early in the morning energizes you for the day ahead- For people who are new to yoga, meditating on an empty stomach first thing in the morning is one of the best ways to start your day. Allowing about 45 minutes for this activity before breakfast, you would feel energetic and rejuvenated all day.
6. Yoga tones your muscles- Yoga tones all the muscles in your body, especially the core and abdomen.
7. Reduce weight with yoga: Symptoms like fatigue and depression can occur if you are obese or overweight. Performing yoga regularly reduces excessive fat around the waistline and delivers results more quickly than going for a run every day or sticking to a calorie-controlled diet.
8. Yoga makes you look beautiful: Yoga gives you a toned and graceful figure, glowing skin, and lustrous hair, making people stare at you in admiration and envy!
9. Reduced risk of heart attack and stroke: Performing yoga regularly reduces cholesterol levels in your body, thus reducing the risk of heart attack and stroke.
10. Increases flexibility- As your body becomes more flexible, you can work out in different positions with ease. Yoga helps your body perform optimally when trying new activities or trying to master old ones.
11. Immunity gets a boost: Yoga stimulates the thymus gland, which plays a vital role in immunity by producing T-cells that fight infections and disease. Regular practice of yoga also enhances the activity of the lymphatic system, which fights against colds, allergies, and other conditions.
12. Helps you cope with stress better: Breathing exercises in yoga help control your reaction to stressful situations by enabling you to hold on to a feeling of calmness and control even when things go wrong.
13. Control over the aging process: Yoga slows down the degenerative changes that occur in your body as you age, thus helping you keep young and beautiful for a longer time.
14. Helps to cure respiratory problems like asthma- Practicing pranayama (breathing exercises) helps with asthma and respiratory problems associated with aging like snoring.
15. Helps you perform better at work: Yoga keeps your mind and body active throughout the day and helps keep you off sleep until you feel refreshed in the morning, thus allowing you to perform better at work.
16. You can do yoga anywhere- Yoga does not require any equipment or a particular place to help you burn fat and tone your muscles.
17. Yoga is free of cost- Unlike joining a gym, yoga does not require any hefty fees for equipment or membership. All you need is a little space in your house and a yoga mat which costs minimal compared to the health benefits it provides.
18. Yoga helps cure hormonal imbalance- Yoga provides stability to the endocrine system, which controls all hormone-related activities in the body.
19. Helps fight depression: The rhythmic breathing performed during yoga releases hormones like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, making you feel happy. This way, yoga helps fight depression many times better than psychotherapy or medication.
20. Yoga helps you control and cope with pain: Yoga increases the serotonin levels in the brain, which reduces the production of substances that cause pain, thus allowing you to fight it better.
Importance of yoga for physical health:
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The importance of yoga in physical health is discussed below.
Yoga, also called a “unified breath and movement system,” calms the mind and reduces stress, resulting in better health. yoga also helps regulate the overproduction of cortisol due to stress, which can create many problems in the body like excess belly fat, high blood pressure, etc.
Yoga also helps regulate the overproduction of insulin, which can help reduce the risk of chronic diseases. Yoga also increases body flexibility which can increase the range of motion in joints and reduction in pain.
Yoga also balances hormones like cortisol when it is out of control, and it increases belly fat & risks for chronic diseases like diabetes or heart disease. Yoga also helps to balance blood sugar levels in the body and decrease cravings.
Yoga also strengthens muscles, reducing the risk of injury and pain with daily activities like walking, running, and doing household work. Yoga also decreases the stiffness in joints which results in less pain with movement when practiced regularly.
Benefits of yoga asanas:
there are many benefits of yoga asanas, like they increase the body’s flexibility, help strengthen the core muscles, reduce stress and anxiety, etc.
increases blood circulation:
by deep breathing during yoga exercises, our oxygen intake increases which help in the proper supply of nutrients to all parts of the body, thus increasing blood circulation throughout the body. It also helps to detoxify the body by sweating it out. this helps in curing many illnesses like arthritis, heart diseases, or even cancer.
increases flexibility:
with increased blood supply, more oxygen flowing through the body, our muscles get nourished, thus increasing their elasticity, resulting in a better range of motion.
Relieving stress and anxiety:
practicing yoga asanas regularly as a part of a yogic lifestyle helps us to gain mental clarity. It also relaxes the mind and body, which improves our quality of sleep and decreases stress and anxiety levels in the brain. As a result, we tend to be happier, more focused, and more productive at work or home with lower stress levels.
Helps fight against autoimmune diseases:
yoga strengthens our immune system, which helps fight against autoimmune diseases like arthritis, asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome, etc.
Increases self-awareness:
yoga asanas help us to know ourselves better. They help us understand our body’s limitations and capabilities. In addition, it teaches the practitioner about their feelings and emotions. With practice, we can have control over our minds and emotions.