10 Benefits of A Daily Yoga Practice To Get You Back on Your Mat

Are you interested in practicing yoga but still have no reason to do it? Check out the following 10 benefits of daily Yoga practice and you will find it interesting to get back on your mat every day.

Here we go!

1. Yoga increases your flexibility

It’s worth practicing yoga regularly and consistently in order to build muscle memory and gain more flexibility. Take your time and be patient!

2. Yoga boosts your immune system

It’s completely true that any form of movement is great for keeping the immune system healthy. With yoga’s twisting, inverting, back bending, and calming, the body is able to spend more time within the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) and less with the sympathetic nervous system (the fight or flight system, which causes stress and inflammation and dramatically lowers the immune system).

3. Yoga improves your strength

Besides stretching and bending, yoga requires a surprising amount of strength. Physical strength is important in order to prevent injury, boost the immune system and metabolism, and help make everyday tasks easier.

4. Yoga helps you to focus

It’s believed that Yoga helps develop one-pointedness concentration through practice. You train the mind to become aware and present. Research has shown that after a yoga class you are generally better able to focus your mental resources, process information more accurately, and also learn, hold and update pieces of information more effectively. 

5. Yoga soothes your skin

The skin is one of the first places in the body to display signs of stress and nutrient deficiency. By practicing a combination of some of the more calming aspects of yoga, such as Pranayama and meditation, as well as an active yoga practice, the body and all its systems receive better circulation and the reduced stress levels can even help reduce conditions like acne and eczema.

6. Yoga reduces anxiety

Shallow breathing, poor posture, and tense muscles are both results and causes of anxiety. If you’ve been stuck in an anxiety cycle for a long period of time, it’s likely that your body has almost learned to protect itself by remaining tense, physically closed off, and with very short, sharp breaths. The mind and body are so closely interlinked, that physically deepening the breath, improving posture, and relaxing the muscles in a safe space can all help reduce anxiety.

7. Yoga helps you to breathe better

The emphasis on breathing in yoga is something beginners often struggle with, but over time moving with the breath becomes second nature. Just the ability to breathe more fully and deeply can have a very profound impact on overall health and is worth practicing every day. You might not have the postures with you for your whole life, but you have your breath in every moment.

8. Yoga helps you beat the blues

Movement is one of the best ways to bring about a good mood, and yoga is an especially effective medicine when it comes to battling the blues. Yoga taps into the nervous system, helping to release hormones that improve the mood. Focusing on something positive each time we practice yoga is also an effective way to imprint that positivity into the mind, so the more you practice, the more you’re likely to notice yourself smiling…

9. Yoga boosts your metabolism

A morning yoga practice will help to get the blood, breath, and muscles moving before breakfast, therefore allowing the nutrients from your food to be better absorbed. A strong practice can help build muscle, dramatically boost metabolism, and breathing fully and deeply increases circulation, also helping the metabolism to stay ticking along nicely.

10. Yoga improves your balance (in body and mind)

Balancing yoga postures help the brain to fire neurons that help with muscle memory and spatial awareness, and using the feet regularly in a daily yoga practice can strengthen the muscles of the foot, of which there are over 100!

Source: ekhartyoga