An Introduction to the Benefits of Yoga

What benefits Yoga has for everyone including children

Did you know that 14 million people who practice yoga are over 50 years old? The number of people who practice yoga has increased by over 50% in the last 4 years. 

There is a stigma around yoga that people believe all you do is breathe and sit around for an hour. This is far from the truth. Yoga can help you strengthen your body, helps with overall balance, and ensure your mind, body, and soul stays healthy and as young as possible. 

In this article, we are going to share with you the overall health benefits of yoga and how it can help women, men and even children. 

The health benefits of Yoga

Yoga helps to improve your strength, balance as well as flexibility 

Yoga is all about slow movements and deep breathing. This will help increase your blood flow, warm up your muscles, and hold a pose for a long time, you will start to strengthen the muscles you are using during the pose. 

Helps relieve back pain 

Moving your body in certain positions will help you stretch out those muscles. Once you stretch out the muscles, you will see that your back pain will start to ease with time. The American College of Physicians, recommend yoga as a treatment plan to help ease chronic lower back pain. 

Yoga can help ease arthritis symptoms 

Johns Hopkins reviewed 11 studies that found that gentle yoga movements have helped to ease some of the discomforts that are present due to tender and swollen joints caused by arthritis. 

Helps you relax and sleep better 

Research has shown that be adding bedtime yoga routines to your daily routine, can help you get into the right mindset and help prepare your body to fall asleep. The research has also shown that nighttime yoga can help you stay asleep. It reduces the number of times you wake up during the night. This results in a good night sleep which leaves you feeling refreshed and ready for your day when you wake up the next morning. 

The benefits of Yoga for women

Did you know that women account for 72% of yoga practitioners? Yoga can help women in a lot of areas in their lives. Some of the benefits include but are not limited to:  

Helps during pregnancy and labor

Yoga can help you with pain throughout your pregnancy as well as your labor. Research was done in 2015 that found not only did yoga help with stress management during labor but it also helped to reduce pelvic pain. It is important to note that in some cases, yoga can cause contractions so please check with your doctor about starting yoga before you do it. 

Improve overall sex life

A study was conducted in India and they found that after a 12-week yoga program, 75% of the participants said that they were more satisfied with their sex life. It was found that yoga helped to improve all 6 sexual functioning areas such as desire, orgasms as well as lubrication. 

Improves PMS Symptoms 

A publication was released in the International Journal of Women’s Health and Reproduction Sciences. Researches found that yoga helped with emotional, behavioural as well as physical symptoms that are associated with PMS. 

The benefits of Yoga for men

Even though more women practice yoga than men, more men are starting the see the benefit of yoga. Between 2012-2016, the number of men who do yoga increased from 4 million to 10 million participants. 

Weight loss

Yoga helps improve your gut health. The stretching, breathing as well as bending help to massage your internal organs. This results in an instant boost in your metabolic rate. Yoga is a mindfulness practice that can translate into awareness of your eating, sleeping and lifestyle habits. 

Injury prevention 

Yoga helps to alleviate the pain in your joints. It also helps to warm up your muscles which reduces the risk of injury. 

Improve sexual performance 

Studies have shown that men of all ages can improve their sexual performance when practising yoga. You will increase your flexibility, lower your stress levels which can lead to better sexual performance. This includes improvements in the sexual areas of: 

  • Performance
  • Confidence
  • Orgasms
  • Erections 

The benefits of Yoga for kids 

Yoga is not just for adults, children can benefit from yoga as well. Some of the benefits include but are not limited to:

Manage anxiety

Being a kid in the times that we are living in can be very stressful. The breathing exercises that are done during a yoga session will help children to learn about stress management. This is a healthy and natural way to help children and in the future, they will be able to manage stressful situations better which will give them a better lifestyle and overall better mental health. 

Improves emotional regulation 

Yoga does not only teach physical lessons, it also teaches emotional lessons as well. It will help children learn how to be in the present whilst learning to relax and gain a peaceful state of mind. This will result in better emotional regulation. 

Increases children’s body awareness and mindfulness 

The different yoga poses will help children learn about their body and the different movements that their body is capable of making. This will also provide kids with an outlet so they will not have outbursts during class. 

Conclusion 

About 36 million Americans practice yoga and due to the benefits that yoga gives you, it is no surprise that it was forecast that over 55 million people would practice yoga by 2020. 

Having a better understanding of the benefits of yoga can help convince you to start looking after your body more holistically. To find out more about yoga and how it can help certain areas of concern, sign up for our emailing services as we are going to be posting more on Yoga and how it can benefit your mind, body as well as soul.