The practice of yoga goes back more than 5,000 years. Traditionally it has been an Eastern practice, but in recent decades it has become very popular in the West. Yoga involves stretching the body and getting into different poses while concentrating on your breathing and keeping it slow and controlled. There are various styles of yoga: some focus on the physical poses and are used purely as exercise while others are more meditative or spiritual; some move quickly while other styles are more relaxing.
Yoga has proved so helpful in managing tension that it is used in some schools to help students deal with the stress of taking tests and to cope with just being a teenager in today’s hectic world. It has been shown to be effective for relieving anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, and back pain, and in helping cancer patients and children who have asthma. For example, a study published in September 2009 found that Iyengar yoga sessions provided meaningful improvement in blood pressure in people who had hypertension. (Cohen 2009)
10 Reasons To Say Yes to Yoga
Benefits of yoga include:
- Reduces stress
- Helps provide better sleep (can help you beat insomnia)
- Reduces cortisol levels (the stress hormone)
- Relieves symptoms of allergy and asthma
- Lowers blood pressure and heart rate
- Produces a sense of well-being
- Increases strength and flexibility
- Reduces anxiety and muscle tension
- Slows the aging process
- Spiritual growth
