Why Yoga is the best exercise you could be doing right now

Yoga is one of the most complete exercises that you can do to improve easily your health and
physical aspect. Yoga postures have multiple benefits, not only physically but also mentally and

spiritually. Yoga contributes an expansion on every field of human existence. Its practice guarantees

a healthy body, a stable mind, and a calm spirit.

Even though Yoga is not an exercise of impact, it provides a lot of benefits for our body. One of the
principal benefits of Yoga is flexibility. The variety of postures that Yoga offers for a workout routine
strengthens and increases the flexibility on the muscles, ligaments and tendons. These tissues

surround the muscles and improve our locomotors systems state. According to a recent research on

Universidad de Antofagasta, people who practice yoga improve their flexibility joint mobility in a 35%
at month 8 of practice. Another great benefit of Yoga is the improvement of bone density. It is well
known that exercises in which there are load of weight, strengthens the bones and prevents illnesses

like osteoporosis. A lot of Yoga postures require lifting our own weight and holding it partially in

different articulations. Postures like Head dog down and Head dog up strengthen tremendously
arms and shoulders, parts of the body really liable to fractures to people with osteoporosis. Yoga

also strengthens the circulation of blood in our body which is an important function because it allows

the transportation of substances for the organism to do its vital activities. Relaxation exercises that

you can learn in Yoga can help to the circulation of blood in your body, transporting oxygen to the
cells. Torsion postures are made to drain the blood of your intern organs and allow the oxygenated
blood flow to them when you liberate the posture. Inverted postures like inversion over hands, head

and shoulders make the blood on the hips and legs flow to the heart where it is thrown to the lungs

to be oxygenated and refreshed.

Yoga is well known as a journey to self-awareness of your body. With a thoughtful and conscious
practice of Yoga you start to learn to observe, hear and feel your body. When you just start
practicing Yoga, the first thing that youre going to learn is a little bit about biology. At the
beginning, Yoga masters teach you about the parts of your body that works in Yoga practices, how

to exercise them and how they work on your system. One of the basis that Yoga masters teaches at
the beginning of the sessions is that you must separate the schiums in postures in which you need to
be sit, otherwise after a few minutes you are going to feel a lot of pain on that part of your body.

After learning the basics and how every part related to the practice work on your body, you start to
learn by yourself the limits that your body has. It is really common to make mistakes on Yoga
practices at the beginning because we tend to over demand our body in order to follow the rhythm

of the class. As we practice more regularly we learn that Yoga is not an exercise in which every
member of the class has to be in the same level. Yoga is different for everyone; everyone has

different weaknesses and strengths. Some people may have good flexibility to imitate torsion
postures but not enough strength to lift their whole body into a headstand posture. Even if you think
you only can do one Yoga posture, it is okay. Yoga benefits everyone, even with the less amount of
effort when doing the postures. After you learn your limits you realize what things are good for your

body and what not. When you are in this stage of knowing what makes you body feel good you start
enjoying more Yoga practices, not only because you know and feel until what point you can make

your body resist to the postures, but also because you start to know what postures are more benefit

for you. For example, there are a lot of Yoga postures that helps women to relief menstruation pain.
A recommended posture for relief the pain is to put your legs up to the wall while you lay down on
your back. For someone with scoliosis it may be a little bit uncomfortable this position because of the

position of the back. An option for people who suffers of scoliosis could be Paschimottanasana

posture. This posture requires basically only to sit on your schiums and touch your foots. Now that
you know about the parts of your body that are involve in the practices, the limits that you have and
what makes your body feel good, you start enjoying more the practices and you feel more the

benefits of it.

The psychological benefits of Yoga are spectacular. Yoga not only improves your relationship with
others but also with yourself. The stress is a state of mental tiredness produced by things like an over
demand of ourselves on the university/work, conflict with peers or family, situations that goes out of
our hands, etc. Yoga descends Cortisol levels. High levels of Cortisol can indicate a depression in

human begins, just as with rats. Researcher over the time has shown that rats with high level of
Cortisol unchain compulsive search of food behavior, and there no doubt that we can observe this
exact same pattern reflected in human behavior when suffers from depression. Yoga can also help us
with our anger management. Yoga intensifies the consciousness. The more conscious you are, it will
be easier for you to liberate yourself from destructive emotions, as it is anger. Researches suggest
that chronic episodes of anger and hostility are related with heart attacks. Yoga reduces anger

increasing feelings of compassion and interconnection calming nervous system and the mind. As you
calm your nervous system, Yoga also helps you to be happier. Conscious Yoga practices increases

the level of serotonin and decrease the levels of monoamine oxidase, an enzyme that annul the
neurotransmissions, and also levels of Cortisol related to depression. A research of Wisconsin
University has discovered that the left pre-frontal cortex increased its activity in moments of

meditation in the Yoga practice. This has been related with the highest levels of happiness and better

function of the immunologic system.

Yoga is an exercise that complements all aspects of life. It not only keeps you healthy and flexible,
Yoga can also help you psychologically improving the image that you have about yourself and the
relationship with people in your daily routine. You can transform your life into a positive one only
by doing Yoga regularly. If you make Yoga your life style you will be able to see progress in the
vision about life really quickly, realizing the importance of maintaining a healthy life taking care of
your body, mind and spirit.