photo credit: -mrsraggle-

Thanks to Mary Ward for sharing this post and some great reasons for practicing yoga.

Yoga has gained much popularity recently and it’s no wonder why! Yoga can improve not only your physical shape,  but also your mental and emotional wellbeing. People are turning to this exercise at all stages of their lives so let’s find out just why that is.

1. Better Health: Yoga helps with both your physical fitness and your mental wellness – it contributes to your overall health. Practicing yoga on a regular basis will help you to look better and feel better!
2. Feeling of Contentment: As yoga helps you to become more centered and confident in your own body, you may find that you feel happier.
3. Perspective: Yoga classes often include some meditation which can help bring perspective to your problems and help you to deal with them in a healthy way.
4. Stress Management: As you meditate and focus on breathing, your stress levels decline. Life seems  more manageable and as you move through the practice you will notice your body releasing tension and becoming more relaxed.
5. Better Shape: Yoga increases your flexibility, your muscles will grow stronger and it will improve your posture. Yoga helps your body to function as it should and promotes physical fitness.
6. Improved Mood: Yoga promotes an attitude of acceptance and introspection helping  you to view ideas from new and perhaps more positive angles. Yoga has been shown to alleviate depression.
7. Gratitude: Yoga and meditation help you to focus on what it is that you are grateful for.
8. Disease Prevention: Yoga is believed to help lower cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure and help to prevent the onset of diabetes and heart disease.
9. Positive Outlook: The endorphins that are released after a yoga workout along with the breathing, mental focus and meditation, all contribute to a feeling of wellbeing.
10. Variety: Many people turn to yoga as a new form of exercise – something different to try.  Perhaps you are physically fit but are looking for something else that yoga has to offer, such as stress relief, mental flexibility,  relaxation or maybe you have an interest in the spiritual aspects.

If you already take part in yoga, you no doubt can add to this list.  If you haven’t yet, there’s no reason to wait and 10 reasons to try!

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About Mary

Mary Ward blogs about various health care job issues, including how to study to obtain an online MHA.

Related posts:

1. 6 Reasons to Practice Diaphragmatic Breathing
2. 8 Reasons to Practice Headstand (Salamba Shirshasana)
3. When Did You Decide to Begin Your Yoga Practice – And Why?

Where are you at in your journey with yoga? Do you practice regularly- on the beach – and look incredibly tranquil and beautiful and . . . long? Or are you a little more like me- starting again to try to create space in your life for a yoga practice?

I’ve tried to implement yoga into my routine in the past and have never kept up with it for more than a few days. The strange thing is I couldn’t figure out why it turned out that way. I enjoyed the poses and felt great while I did them and after I was finished. I was able to do far more than I thought I would be able to without feeling like a complete idiot. I loved the way yoga made my body feel longer and leaner from the very first time I did it.

So why didn’t I follow through? Mindset.

Like every thing we do in our lives, committing to a yoga practice requires the appropriate mindset. For me, that doesn’t mean just buying a mat and those really cool yoga pants.It doesn’t mean I need to figure out how to incorporate the word “Namaste” into my everyday language or committing to eating wheat germ and hummus.  For me, the right yoga mindset had to begin from the basic place of “Yes, I CAN do yoga. Yes, yoga IS for someone like me.”

I am in my mid-40s – 46 to be precise. I have had a lot of health issues in the past decade or so. Most of these have been brought on by the fact that I have never made taking care of myself a priority. I’ve spent my adult life raising my two daughters on my own, choosing some less-than-successful relationships and working too many hours trying to keep the bills paid. There just never seemed to be enough time, energy, money or focus left at the end of the day to take care of myself. In fact, because I was stressed out and not keeping wellness as a priority, I generally made choices that worked against my well-being and health rather than in favor of it. Fast food, eating on the run, zoning out to the television and feeling “too tired to exercise” all contributed to too much weight, not enough energy and an overall sense of not liking my body very much.

If that part of the story sounds familiar to you at all, then I hope this next part sounds like a journey you are willing to take with me. Join me here twice a week and together we will make the changes in our lives we’ve been longing to make. We’ll talk about what it’s like to begin a yoga practice when you’re not exactly young and bendable as well as how to begin adding some meditation and mental wellness activities into our daily routines.We’ll share our struggles and our successes- and a whole lot of laughter. If we do it together, we’ll do it for life!

I’d love to hear from you as you tackle your own yoga beginnings. Leave a comment below and let me know your struggles, successes and stories. We’ll learn to do this together- and this trip is going to be an adventure!

Till next time,

Teresa

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