benefits of yoga

Benefits of Your Yoga Practice

Hatha yoga is a 5,000-year-old practice of physical and mental exercise that was originally designed to free the body of pain and the mind of distractions, so a person could sit quietly and meditate. It began in India as a spiritual practice of the Hindu religion.

But times have changed and yoga is no longer for skinny celibate men who wrap their bottoms in white gauze and beg for a living. Yoga exploded on the American scene in the 1990s as a tool for stress reduction and chronic pain management.

My favorite line regarding the practice is, “Yoga is good for what ails ya. It doesn’t matter if it’s physical, mental or spiritual, yoga will help.”

Although hatha yoga is usually not practiced a part of a religion in America, there are other branches of yoga that are and some people want the Full Monty experience, so they spend time in ashrams, a.k.a. yoga communes, absorbing yoga philosophy of vegetarianism, celibacy, frequent daily prayer and meditation and non-violence.

But for Americans just looking for a low impact form of exercise, hatha yoga is a wonderful tool for “whatever ails ya.”

To begin, the word “hatha” means union. In this case, it is the union of ida, and pingala, two sanskit words that mean moon and sun. Huh? In simple language it is the joining of two opposite energy fields that reside in the base of the spine, the lumbar or sacral area. These two energy systems run up the spine to the head and crisscross at various points surrounding the endocrine glands which in the Hindu tradition enclose the “chakras,” a sanskit word, literally meaning energy center.

As a person does the physical postures of yoga, these two energy systems, are awakened. Often depicted as snakes, similar to the caduceus, the energy climbs the spine and in the process restores a balance between the body and the mind. One of these serpents, the ida or moon, represents feminine energy and intuition. The other serpent, the pingala, represents masculine or logical thinking. When these two serpents are in balance, union occurs. We feel both relaxed and energized, calm and alert, ready to move through life openhearted and grounded.

In the process of these slow rhythmic movements or asanas, another sanskit word meaning postures, the body becomes stronger and more flexible.

Among other things, what this means to you is you will have better posture. Yoga teaches you how to stand properly so that your head is directly above your neck and back, not slightly turned to one side or the other, something that involuntarily happens to many people. Because you learn to stand properly, you have better posture, less back pain, less arthritis in the back, better lung capacity and overall better health. You will also find that you can stand much longer than ever before without foot, leg, back, neck or head pain.

Just standing upright correctly is worth it’s weight in yoga classes, but if that’s not enough for you, as you learn more of the postures, you’ll find that all the little chronic aches and pains are not as bad or are disappearing. Headaches, indigestion, arthritis, joint pain, constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, PMS, high blood pressure, insomnia, stress, shallow breathing, circulation, depression, anxiety, mood swings, flat feet, and most of all …… STRESS either disappear or are minimized with a regular hatha yoga practice.

In short, yoga is good for what ails ya.

What you will acquire for your 20 minutes three times a week is a better looking and feeling body. Yoga firms muscles, so your arms and legs will tone up. Because many of the postures require you to lift your own body with your hands and feet, you are literally lifting weights during a practice (without the barbells of course.)

You will acquire more peace of mind. Remember ha-tha means union of logic and intuition. You will have greater body awareness. Even if you don’t follow the signals, you’ll know more about what and when to eat, where to turn to go shopping, when to make a phone call because your intuition will increase. You’ll have more self-confidence because you’ll look and feel better.