Done for thousands of years, yoga has proven to be one of the oldest practices for self-development. It combines meditation, ethical disciplines, breathing control, and physical postures.
Even though it originated from the East, yoga is now gaining popularity in the West as well. In fact, many companies are beginning to recognize the benefits yoga has. Many will now sponsor yoga programs for their workers because they see that it improves their workers' health and output.
People have begun to use yoga for stress relief as well. The power of yoga comes from the combination of meditation, stretching, physical movement, controlled breathing, and mental imagery. The definition of yoga is "to bring together". It is known to combine and unite a person's mind, body, and spirit.
Whether you do yoga for spiritual transformation or for physical improvement, the benefits of doing it are numerous. These benefits would include increased strength and flexibility, sounder sleep, reduced anxiety and tension, slower aging process, lower blood pressure, improvement in medical conditions, and much more.
Because of the numerous benefits of yoga, it has a great payoff considering the amount of work you put into it. Yoga is done by performing different poses and stretching the body while accompanying it with slow and controlled breathing.
Doing yoga helps your body be relaxed and energized at the same time. Yoga has variations of style as well. Some of them would require doing the movements quickly, similar to an aerobic workout while others focus on the relaxation poses.
What is good about yoga is that the benefits it has could be enjoyed by almost everybody. People of all ages, and walks of life can use yoga for relaxation, and practicing it will have many physical, mental, and spiritual benefits.
Another good thing about yoga is that most of the poses can be done anywhere, and the time period of yoga sessions could range from minutes to hours. All of this gives the person more freedom to choose his individualized yoga session. With all the benefits of yoga, there are also some downsides as well.
To reap all the rewards and benefits, you need to have commitment in what you are doing. You need to set aside time to make things happen. Your physical limitations could also deter you from doing some of the more difficult poses.
Just remember, yoga has a lot of benefits for your body, but it requires a lot of commitment and effort, but if you persevere, the benefits you get will get will amaze you.
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