Not only is the popularity of this form of exercises remarkable, but so is the results and benefits that people are getting from Yoga every day. The benefits can be broadly split into three different groups – physical benefits, mental benefits, and spiritual benefits.
Physical Benefits of Yoga
Yoga is at its core a group of exercises. Some disciplines will use these exercises to prepare the body for a deeper meditative process, but they will still experience physical benefits from performing them as exercises. Yoga increases the oxygen intake, removes blockages in the circulation to ensure it’s safe delivery and also stimulates the lymphatic system to aid in the removal of toxins from our system, leaving our bodies auto immune system more free to deal with invading disease or viruses.
Beyond this internal health which many people take for granted, Yoga will also greatly increase a person’s balance, flexibility and muscle strength.
Mental Benefits of Yoga
Many people see this as the most import benefit that we can gain from Yoga. It will of course depend on what your priorities are, but the mental benefits of it are certainly impressive. The ability to focus on ones breathing has a natural consequence of allowing extraneous thoughts to melt away and a state of calmness to be introduced. This is not a feat to be taken lightly as it provides a valuable skill in the ability to remain calm amidst turmoil. A mother can use this when everything happens at once in the home, a businessperson can use it to focus on a single task despite everyone around him being panicked or a soldier can use it to block out the bullets and noise and focus on an important task.
Yoga also requires a high level of discipline from those practicing it – both the discipline required to perform the exercises themselves and the discipline needed to stick to a regular exercise regime. Again, this is something that comes surprisingly easy to people once they have mastered the basis of the Yoga breathing exercises.
Spiritual Benefits of Yoga
Generally newcomers to yoga will not understand these benefits for some time. There are several benefits that can fall into the ‘spiritual’ category. Yoga itself is built around a philosophy that includes its own set of ethics, but these are seldom taught as part of Western Yoga practice. Instead, the spiritual benefits we talk about tend to be a persona acceptance of yourself and contentment with your place in life. For some people it goes beyond that but discussing spiritual feelings is always difficult to do so broadly. Overall, the level of spiritual satisfaction you get is likely to depend on your own personal beliefs.
