Health benefits of yoga!

This week, I ‘introduced’ Stephanie to yoga.  She’s done at home videos, but never a class led by a real live instructor!  She blogs, “After class I was so relaxed. More relaxed than I've been in a long time since I moved to Chicago.”  Yoga offers endless benefits to your mind and body.

As a runner, I depend on yoga to keep me flexible.  I lea rned the hard way that when muscles get tight, it is dangerous.  I suffer from a common problem a lot of people have called plantar fasciitis.  It is when irritation and swelling of the thick tissue on the bottom of the foot cause arch/heel pain.  There are a lot of causes for this condition, one of them being a tight achilles tendon which is connected to the calf muscle.  I have extremely tight calves which pull on the achilles which could be the source of my foot pain. There is a noticeable difference when my calves are tight and when they are stretched out.

I just gave you one benefit of yoga, but there are hundreds more!  Here are just a few:

Consistent yoga practice creates a more efficient metabolism.

People who practice yoga sleep better.

Yoga detoxifies the body, which has been shown to delay aging.

Yoga improves posture by strengthening the core.  With a strong core, you reduce your risk for injuries.

Regular yoga practice provides consistent energy.  If you perform yoga correctly, you will feel renewed and energized after the session instead of tired.

Yoga teaches you to have control over your body and with more yoga experience, you will feel your overall balance improve outside of the class.  This also gets tied in with body awareness... Which leads to a greater self-confidence.

Your overall mood improves when you practice yoga.

Yoga reduces stress and hostility.  The concentration required to do yoga forces you to shut off your mind chatter and focus all your attention on the task at hand.  Lowering stress also decreases the risk of heart disease.

Yoga losers high blood pressure and cholesterol by increasing blood flow and burning fat.

Yoga has been shown to increase the level of red blood cells in the body.  Red blood cells carry oxygen through the body.  A lack of red blood cells can result in anemia and low energy.

The consistent practice of will improve muscle tone.

Yoga is non competitive.

Yoga practice improves hand-eye coordination.

It is well documented that weight-bearing exercise strengthens bones and helps prevent osteoporosis. Additionally, yoga’s ability to lower levels of cortisol may help keep calcium in the bones.

There is some (not a lot yet) evidence to show that regular yoga reduces asthma symptoms.

Along with asthma, regular yoga helps and/or prevents a slew of health problems.  Arthritus, mutiple sclerosis, cancer, muscular dystrophy, migraines, scoliosis, chronic bronchitis, OCD, and sciatica are just a FEW!


And my FAVORITE health benefit to yoga is that it immensely helps with ANXIETY!  I suffer from anxiety almost daily.  The controlled breathing used in yoga is a trick I use to get me through a spout of anxiety and it works like a charm!


So now that I have thoroughly bored you with the health benefits of yoga, go try it out for yourself if you have not and let me know how it goes!