Physical Benefits of Yoga
1. Helps improve chronic low-back pain
If you work at a desk (or couch) all day, you may be experiencing some low back, shoulder, and neck pain due to poor posture. “Yoga improves posture, which can prevent low-back pain, as well as shoulder and neck pain,”.
2. Builds body awareness
When you ground your body to hold all the poses, you recruit a bunch of both big and small muscles. Yoga also focuses on proper form—you need to activate the right muscles—which creates a better understanding of how your muscles, joints, and tissues work together. This can help ensure you move safely.
3. Fights fatigue
When you move—like by doing some yoga stretches during the day—your heart pumps more oxygen-rich blood to the muscles and organs in your body. This can help reduce fatigue and tierdness
4. Promotes balance
Balancing yoga poses, such as Warrior III, Chair, Eagle, Tree, and Crow, help challenge your stability, since removing a base of support (say, by standing on one leg) requires you to activate certain stabilizing muscles. This helps improve your balance, which is particularly important as you get older
5. Eases you into regular exercise
If you’re new to exercise—or are easing back into a workout routine after a break—vigorous exercise may not seem to be the most appealing. That’s why many people looking to get started exercising turn to yoga: It’s a low-impact workout that’s easy on the joints, is accessible for most fitness levels, and requires no special equipment
Mental Benefits of Yoga
1. Improves your mood
Of course, no type of exercise can “cure” mental health conditions like anxiety and depression—and it can be annoying to be told to “just work out” if you’re dealing with them. But the combination of gentle movement and focused breathing may have some mental health benefits, meaning yoga may play a role in how you feel if you experience those condition
2. Helps your mind relax
Whether you’re doing a few Cat-Cow flows or lying down in "Savasana", yoga turns on your relaxation response. By focusing on your breathing and releasing tension in your muscles and joints through the poses, you’ll usher in a sense of calm
3. Provides a calm “end” to your workout
After a tough workout, cooling down with a quick yoga stretch could help loosen up your muscles and ease your mind out of that high-intensity mindset. Courtney suggests following a box breathing technique to boost those benefits while stretching afterward
4. Improves focus
Holding a yoga pose correctly takes a combination of concentration and endurance: You need focus to move your body into the pose, and stamina to keep it there for that set amount of time. This combination not only helps your yoga performance, but it can also help you sharpen your mental focus on other stressful situations in your everyday life
5. Cultivates resilience
While yoga activates your body’s relaxation response, it isn’t always a walk in the park. Performing twists, binds, and inversions in yoga poses can help you learn how to sit with discomfort and embrace it. But challenging as they may be, there’s an end to each pose.
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