Benefits of Incorporating Yoga into Your Life

Very few individuals will argue that the practice of yoga offers vast health benefits when compared to leading a sedentary lifestyle. In fact, most individuals agree that the mental and physical benefits associated with regularly performing a yoga routine are extremely valuable to enhancing their overall quality of life.

Yoga is one of the few exercise types that targets both the physical and mental aspects of good health and fitness and has been regularly performed for literally thousands of years and by millions of people. From a broad health, fitness and mental well-being perspective regularly practicing yoga improves the following items:

• Improves cardiovascular endurance

• Develops muscular strength and tone

• Strengthens the entire core area

• Improves balance, flexibility, coordination, and joint range of motion

• Increases mental clarity

• Calms and centers the mind

As is evident, regularly practicing yoga can provide vast benefits, both physically and mentally. This being said, adding yoga as a part of your overall lifestyle will provide a wealth of benefits to not only your daily life today, but as you age as well. Provided below are some facts and statistics that may prove beneficial to realizing how valuable yoga can be in enhancing the overall quality of your life.

1. In terms of blood pressure, a study done in 2004 revealed fantastic benefits. A group of 25 people with an average blood pressure of 142mmHg (systolic) and 86mmHg (diastolic) participated in traditional yoga for 11 weeks. At the end of the study the average blood pressure of the group had dropped to 126mmHg (systolic) and 75mmHg (diastolic).

2. Of the total population that participate in traditional yoga on a regular basis, 27% are considered senior citizens and 34% are considered overweight (among the highest of any popularized physical activity) based on a 2004 study.

3. A 2002 study of 35 people that did relaxing yoga for 20 minutes a day revealed marked improvements in mood and severe drops in blood pressure (135/95 average) to (120/80 average). The group had only been doing the activities for 6 weeks.

4. A recent study of relaxing yoga as it relates to sleep revealed that people who regularly engage in relaxing yoga at least one hour before going to sleep were: 56% more likely to fall asleep in 10 minutes or less; 67% more likely to stay asleep; 78% more likely to awake feeling rested and rejuvenated. The study used a testing group of 15 and a control group of 25.

5. Studies have shown that adding relaxing yoga to any conventional diet plan (along with exercise) is more successful than a diet and exercise plan that does not incorporate relaxing yoga. A 2008 study showed that in a group of 30 people, 18 people were able to stick to a diet and lose their goal amount of weight in the time allotted. 15 of the successful people had incorporated relaxing yoga into their diet plans.

6. Dr. Jennifer Daubenheimer recently performed a study on women that showed great strides in yoga's ability to prevent and curb eating disorders and heighten mood. With all of the women in the study (older than 37 and college aged) Dr. Daubenheimer found marked increases in mood and decreases in the chances of developing an eating disorder.

7. In a study performed on 10 people recovering from lung conditions, fast paced yoga was shown to reduce recovery time by 60% more than people that did not participate in fast paced yoga.



8. A study in Australia performed tests on cyclist's to see if stretching (they used flexibility yoga) before a 2 hour workout increased their power and speed during their exercise routine. They measured the output of the cyclists in both groups and found that even though the group that did not stretch warmed up, their power output was greatly lowered.

9. A survey was taken among people who practice flexibility yoga and a random group of people who exercised but did not generally stretch beforehand. In the group that regularly exercised, injuries were about 65% more common than those that practiced flexibility yoga. The group that practiced flexibility yoga participated in the same activities as the ones who did not.

10. Performing various yoga poses and stretching positions to assist in the recovery from an injury have been reported to decrease the amount of time that is required for some injuries to heal. The yoga positions that proved to be the most beneficial were the gentle stretches that could be held for a minimum of 20 consecutive seconds and without too much additional pain.

11. The results of a survey exploring the reasons behind injury related yoga revealed that of all the people that used this style to recover, 50% had back injuries and 35% had knee injuries. The rest were arms, (7%) shoulders, (5%) and necks (3%).

12. In a recent study, 4 out of 10 physically active people claimed that Yoga was their primary training tool for remaining motivated in activities not related to Yoga.

13. By using a EEG (electroencephalography, or device that measure several brain waves) scientists have found that the specific waves that show that a person is at peace or free from worrying thoughts greatly increase during chanting yoga.

14. When you control breathing while exercising, breath becomes more regular and any form of activity becomes about 56% more effective. Remembering to breathe while lifting the body rather than holding your breath is important for muscle oxidation and the prevention of strains.

15. A study in India found that, when testing 335 pregnant women, practicing yoga increased the chance of a vaginal birth by 54% and the chance of a normal birth weight (above 2500 grams) than a control group that only did simple exercises.

16. Of the benefits that women claim pre-natal yoga has to offer, 76% say that the relief of pain is the most valuable. The increase in digestive system productivity comes in at a much lower 21%.

17. A study done in 2005 found that in 15,500 average people (over 4 years), ones that did yoga lost 5 pounds by doing a 30 minute session per week. The ones that did not do yoga gained an average of 14 pounds.

18. A study of people with chronic diseases (AIDs, obesity, asthma, arteriosclerosis) found that doing yoga in a weight loss regimen actually relieved the symptoms of these diseases.

19. A study of 5 morbidly obese people (2 males, 3 females) concluded that with a healthy diet and only yoga as exercise, the combined weight loss was 617 pounds over 2 years. Find all your health & http://fitandmuscle.com/ information right here We have a large They participated in three 90 minute sessions of Hot Yoga a week.

The practice of yoga has been performed for thousands of years and for good reason. The physical and mental benefits associated with regularly performing a yoga routine are well documented and have unquestionably stood the test of time.

Yoga is slightly different than most exercise types in that it places an almost equal level of importance on the mental aspect of good health and wellness. In contrast, most exercise types focus largely on just the physical aspect of good health.

By combining the two, regularly practicing yoga provides a well-balanced and centered approach to achieving good health, fitness, and mental wellness.

To this end, adding a yoga exercise routine, that you regularly perform, to your overall fitness regime will prove to be highly beneficial to enhancing your overall quality of life.