
Yoga is a blend of mental, physical, and spiritual disciplines that, when woven together, gives a potent dose of health. Yoga is derived from the Sanskrit word Yuj, which means ‘to connect”. So basically, the goal of Yoga is to connect to your spiritual self and develop self-consciousness.
Maintaining a daily yoga practice can benefit both mind and body, and the best part of doing Yoga every day is that only 15 min yoga sessions a day can drastically impact your health.
Still not convinced? Here are the 11 benefits of doing Yoga every day :
1. Doing Yoga everyday helps in Increased flexibility
One of the most widely accepted benefits of yoga is increased flexibility. You may anticipate seeing an improvement in your mobility in as little as a few minutes a day in positions like Warrior and Downward Facing Dog, regardless of how flexible you are or how stiff you are.
You don’t need to be very flexible to begin your yoga practice. The beauty of yoga is that it can be modified and developed at all levels of skill.
According to US researchers, male college students who participated in weekly yoga sessions for 10 weeks had “substantial gains” in flexibility and balance compared to a control group who did not.
2. If you do yoga every day, You can Build the strength
Lifting heavy weights isn’t the only way to gain muscle mass; daily yoga can also help you gain strength.
The research done in the Chinese University of Hong Kong showed that men and women who took a 12-week Hatha yoga course showed significant gains in muscular strength compared to a control group.
It takes a lot of strength to build up the Yoga poses as it requires coordination, balance, and power. However, you will get stronger and more physically fit because you use your body weight to strengthen all of your major muscle groups.
3. If you do yoga every day, you may lose weight
If you want to lose weight, you don’t need to do harsh dieting and exercise every day. After all, exercise is only one part of the equation when it comes to losing weight.
Research conducted by the University of California showed that Restorative yoga, which is done at a leisurely speed with extended holds and plenty of deep breathing, was found to assist overweight women to shed belly fat.
When you do yoga, you move your body and burn calories. Even if you’re not working up the sweat, you’re engaging your parasympathetic nervous system (the body’s rest and digest function) and lowering cortisol levels in the blood. Both of these things can help you lose weight.
Aside from that, stress is a major contributor to weight gain, and yoga can help you de-stress.
Also read – 11 Yoga Poses For Pregnant Women
4. Doing Yoga every day can Increase your energy
Daily yoga practice is supposed to activate the primary energy centers (called chakras) in your body spiritually. Great poses for extra energy are those that extend the spine, such as the tree pose, allowing energy to circulate throughout the whole body, and poses that open the chest, like the cobra pose, encouraging the intake of more breath.
According to University of Waterloo research, doing 25-minute sessions of Hatha yoga will boost your energy levels significantly. This is assumed to be linked to endorphin production, improved blood supply to the brain, and a decrease in ruminative thoughts.
5. Looking to Improve Concentration? Do Yoga every day.
Starting a yoga practice can help you re-center if you’re having trouble reading your book or completing work without taking frequent breaks. In addition, certain types of yoga asana practice necessitate physical self-improvement as well as devotion.
As you train your mind to achieve your goals, your continued attention to your yoga asana practice can lead to a high degree of focus and dedication in other aspects of your life.
Yoga positions demand that you focus on your breathing. The act of analyzing your breath relaxes your mind and helps you relax psychologically.
In a study conducted by the University of Illinois, Hatha Yoga dramatically improved participants’ capacity to focus and retain new knowledge after just 20 minutes of yoga.
6. You could combat your depression and anxiety if you do yoga every day
While medicine and psychological therapies are the official treatments for depression, several studies have shown that yoga can be a very beneficial alternative. The stress hormone is to blame.
Anxiety thrives on future-focused thinking, and it grows as you become more pessimistic about what might happen. Depression on other hand is living in the past and stressing over what happened in past.
Because you are present in the moment when you practice yoga every day, you will have less worry. That’s because your breath, thoughts, and movement work together to keep your thoughts from spiraling out of control.
Whether you’re cultivating an energetic, strength-building practice or a more restorative, soothing practice aimed at calming the mind, this is true.
Cortisol levels that are too high reduce your body’s ability to produce serotonin, the happy hormone (and other neurotransmitters like dopamine, which is responsible for reward and motivation). Yoga can help lower cortisol levels.
A session on the mat can help to relax your thoughts if you suffer from anxiety. According to a study, yoga can help with the symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder, which is defined as long-term, persistent, and overwhelming anxiety about everyday life occurrences.
7. Do you often Get chronic pain? Doing yoga every day can help.
Whether it’s from an athletic injury, chronic pain, or a slip and fall, our bodies can perceive pain in various ways. So, if you’re seeking a natural solution to managing pain, if you practice yoga every day, you might find relief on the mat.
Holding our muscles, ligaments, and tendons in an improper position for too long causes discomfort. Yoga helps by stretching and relaxing these muscles while also strengthening the opposing muscles. Yoga could be perfect for people who suffer from joint problems like arthritis.
This is because yogis have greater grey matter in the brain regions responsible for pain modulation. Mind-body practices appear to have a protective effect on brain grey matter, counteracting the neuroanatomical effects of chronic pain.
8. If you do yoga every day, you may sleep better
A better night’s sleep is another of yoga’s more common benefits. Insomnia is a major problem in today’s world. If you are one of the millions of people who cannot sleep at night, then you should definitely try doing Yoga.
According to a study conducted by the Swami Vivekananda Yoga Research Foundation, participants who practiced yoga fell asleep faster, slept longer, and felt more rested than those who did not.
Try soothing postures like forwarding fold (uttanasana) or reclining on your back with your feet up the wall the next time you’re having trouble sleeping. Because it can aid in the restoration of your normal circadian rhythm, after a few weeks of yoga practice, you will realize that your body is readjusting to its natural balance.
From a cellular level all the way up to your strength, physical appearance, and mental health, the higher your sleep quality is, the healthier your complete body will be.
9 . Yoga every day helps to improve the immune system
Are you vulnerable to falling ill, regardless of the season? And can you bet that no matter what you eat or drink to boost your immune system, you’ll get sick when flu season arrives?
If that’s the case, incorporating a regular yoga practice into your immune-boosting routine is a must. Yoga is scientifically proven to improve the immune system.
Yoga moves engage the parasympathetic nervous system, which aids digestion and slumber, while the sympathetic nervous system, which controls your fight-or-flight response, is less activated. This results in an improved immune system.
10. Doing yoga every day can increase your lifespan.
Yoga’s numerous advantages not only improve your quality of life but can also add years to it. Just a 15 minutes session on the mat can increase your lifespan to several years.
According to research from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, intensive practice counteracts the biological effects of aging. For example, participants experienced reduced oxidative stress, less DNA damage, more BDNF (a hormone that tells brain cells to form new connections), more sirtuins (a set of enzymes that enhance cellular health), and more telomerase after 12 weeks (which lengthens DNA telomeres).
Yoga has numerous benefits to your body. One of the major benefits is it takes care of the heart. Yoga can boost heart rate into the aerobic range. Studies found that yoga can lower resting heart rate, increase endurance, and improve maximum uptake of oxygen during exercise—all reflections of improved aerobic conditioning.
11. If you do yoga every day, you may be happier
Are you having a hard time and constantly fighting with yourself? Do you remember the last time you were happy? Life can get hard sometimes and sometimes we just want to be happy. After all, that’s what matters most, happiness.
What if I say, a 15-minute session on the mat can make you happy? It sounds ridiculous, right? But, it is scientifically proven that Yoga makes you happy.
By working at the physical and psychological levels concurrently, yoga reduces stress at each level and this reduction in stress is supported by the work done at other levels.
Yoga postures combined with deep breathing facilitate deep relaxation that combats stress and makes you happy.
When you exercise, your body produces chemicals known as endorphins into your bloodstream. Endorphins enhance mood by reducing pain perception in the body.
Apart from this, meeting in your studio or collective place of practice in times of isolation or loneliness can enhance your mood even more by providing a sense of community and collectivism.
Conclusion
Starting a daily yoga practice can be intimidating at first, but just a 15-minute session on a mat can have a drastic impact on your health and life.
So, get rolling on the mat, and eventually, you would realize the physical, mental, and emotional advantages are so valuable that you would never miss a day on the mat.