So many aspects of modern life are just trendy for no reason other than being trendy. If you don’t have a gluten allergy, avoiding gluten won’t do much, and kale is just crunchy lettuce. Unfortunately, yoga often gets lumped into that branch of trendy pseudoscience. Not only has yoga been around for thousands of years, yoga has actual, measurable effects on the human body. The strengthening of muscles alone provides plenty of reason for you to try yoga, but here are a few more things that may convince you.
Relief from Chronic Pain
Much of chronic pain is the stiffness in your muscles and bones. Even if something else is at the source, having a body that’s all locked up can only exacerbate that pain. Yoga gets all of you moving and stretching, and can majorly alleviate the areas of you that are afflicted by chronic inflammation and pain.
Increases Everyday Abilities
Everyone knows that yoga makes you more flexible, but it’s often presented in an unrealistic way, with the trained yogi who can tie themselves up in knots. Since that sort of flexibility is beyond most of us, it isn’t a great incentive. Flexibility comes into play all the time in smaller and more mundane manners. Anyone who has ever strained while putting on a sock or stretching to grab something knows what I mean. If you start to do yoga, you will find yourself moving more easily in those small but significant ways.
Can Help You Lose Weight
Just because there isn’t a lot of frantic movement can make you think that yoga doesn’t exercise, but one session will disabuse you of that notion. It is a lot of work for your body to maintain those poses, and that work translates into burned calories. Not only that, but the stronger muscles you get through doing yoga will make other forms of exercise much easier. A session of yoga can be a great lead-in to a workout, or a workout on its own.
Improved Posture
One of your first lessons in yoga is how to hold your weight, and the more you practice, the more you will find yourself standing straighter and holding yourself better. Posture issues magnify over time, so the sooner you can ensure you have good posture, the less long-term damage you will do.
When starting out with yoga, it’s best to have some instruction, so that you know you’re doing it right. If you’re looking for yoga classes in Wayne, NJ, give the Advanced Fitness and Wellness Center a call.
