Health Benefits of Yoga - Psycological - Pysiological - And Beyond
Practitioners of yoga will often make some pretty sweeping statements, such as that with yoga, there is "a unification of the body, mind and spirit acquired through regular practice" of the yoga exercises and techniques. It's a great concept, but what is the reality of the health benefits of yoga?
One of the fundamental beliefs that yogis and yoginis share is that mind and body are a unified structure, which can find harmony and heal itself, when in a proper environment. It is believed that this "proper environment" is the result of regular yoga practice.
Due to these principles, as well as the results obtained by regular practitioners, many doctors consider it as having therapeutic results, and recommend it for curing a series of illnesses, mainly related to the nervous system.
While it seems obvious from the previous discussion that there seems to be many health benefits of yoga which would make it of value, let's look at it from a few more angles.
Yoga Is Not New
Yoga is not a recent philosophy of life by any means. It has been practiced for thousands of years. During this time, untold numbers of people have benefited from the results they obtained...results ranging from mild to astonishing. Moreover, many investigations and studies have been conducted in order to clearly establish the areas in which people could obtain health benefits through regular and extended practice. The information obtained after conducting the investigations was grouped in three categories, establishing that yoga practitioners are likely to observe improvements in what concerns the physiological, psychological, and biochemical aspects of life.
Physiological Impact of Yoga
From the physiological point of view, prolonged practice of the discipline can help cure pulse rate decreases, respiratory and blood pressure dysfunctions, it can contribute to stabilizing the nervous system equilibrium, to normalizing gastrointestinal functions and endocrine function, increase joint ranges of motion, raise endurance levels, increase energy levels, help provide immunity to diseases while increasing cardiovascular efficiency, improve eye-hand coordination, speed up reaction time, improve dexterity, increase or improve depth perception, lead to better sleep, and many other effects.
These physical health benefits of yoga are enough to get many people interested in the discipline, but read on and learn more about what it can possibly do beyond simply health and physical fitness.
Psychological Impact of Yoga
The second category, comprising psychological benefits, points out that yoga can also contribute to increasing somatic and kinesthetic awareness, improving self-acceptance and self-actualization, social skills, producing an overall sense of well-being. Yoga also is effective in improving concentration, memory, attention, mood, learning efficiency, symbol coding, etc.
Biochemical Impact of Yoga
As for the biochemical benefits of yoga, we can enumerate such events as substantial decreases of glucose, sodium, cholesterol, total white blood cell and remarkable increases of vitamin C utilization, total serum protein, hemoglobin etc.
Furthermore, various studies have revealed that yoga exercises are extremely effective when it comes to increasing the level of joint flexibility, together with the level of lubrication of joints, ligaments and tendons. As someone with osteoarthritis I personally can testify to how, even with my limited range of motion and flexibility, regular yoga practice has been able to increase that flexibility, relieve pain, and improve my range of motion.
Another interesting aspect has to do with the fact that yoga is one of the very few techniques, which can perform a massage of all the internal organs and glands, including the ones that are hardly ever stimulated during the lifetime of a person, such as the prostate. The stimulation and massaging of the internal organs proves to be beneficial when it comes to preventing and keeping away diseases.
Moreover, these ancient and efficient techniques provide a detoxification process for your body as well. When stretching the muscles and performing a thorough routine, due to the design and function of the exercises themselves you ensure the optimum quantity of blood supply to all points of the body. As a consequence, toxins are eliminated from your body and certain undesired processes, such as aging, are considerably delayed. Yoga breathing, in addition to providing calming effects while oxygenating blood and tissue, also helps detoxify the body as well.
As a final remark, all the psychological and physical health benefits of yoga presented here are simply in addition to the most important aspect provided by regular yoga practices; that is the harmony and the synchronization between body and mind, as well as strengthening your mental, physical, and emotional systems.
