Yoga is a physical, mental and spiritual discipline to develop strength, flexibility, breathing capacity and health. Yoga helps in developing body awareness and improves concentration. It is an easy way to relieve stress, tension and prevent diseases.
Benefits of yoga:
Reduces back pain.
Improves flexibility of the spine.
Supported breathing exercises help strengthen the lungs and improve oxygen supply to the muscles. This helps relaxes the breath-control mechanism which helps overcome back pain due to strain on spinal nerves or muscles. Strengthened respiratory muscles also reduce symptoms of asthma, bronchitis etc., such as wheezing, shortness of breath and coughs that might lead to pneumonia or tuberculosis (CDC). Yoga practices such as postures for seated forward bend ‘Uttanasana’ normally relieve low back pain because it activates abdominal organs with strong pressure by pushing downward through legs which strengthens bones supporting lower back . Improves balance & co-ordination: The practice of simple dance like poses help build core strength & improve coordination between multiple limbs without much effort (Gillman & Gillman 2010; Jain et alYoga is a fascinating subject for me. I have always been interested in exercise, but the health and mental benefits of yoga are hard to ignore. Yoga has helped me with stress, breathing, flexibility and overall body awareness. It has also improved my moods dramatically and it helps keep me healthy by keeping my mind focused on positive things rather than negative ones.
What is more intriguing to me about yoga though is its history and how it came to be as we know it today. When I first started practicing yoga, I was initially drawn to the physical side of things because that’s what I thought people practiced it for: tight muscles, flexibility and overall losing weight/getting fit. After some research though, I found out that most of those reasons weren’t even close to why the practice began in India over 5 thousand years ago. The practice was derived from spirituality which created a way for practitioners to connect with their bodies and minds through breathing techniques while focusing on postures or poses that stretched or strengthened certain parts of their bodies like arms or legs or back etc..
