These are the Benefits of Adding Yoga into Your Daily Routine

By: Nicole McCray

Are you curious about yoga but a little bit intimidated by all those poses? We get it – but you’ll be happy to hear yoga is more approached than you may think. Plus, it has great therapeutic benefits, too! Yoga is all about turning inward and aligning the mind and body, offering a variety of integrative mental and physical benefits. It’s a complete guide for day-to-day living and a grounding practice in a high-stress world.

Yoga is an ancient practice that has been used to promote mental and physical health for thousands of years. The practice is unique because it combines the benefits of meditation with physical poses.During yoga practice, you’re training your muscles to handle daily challenges. But at the same time, you’re also practicing mindful breathing and mental focus to keep you grounded.

Yoga poses, called asanas, are specially designed to strengthen your muscles, align your bones, and relieve mental and physical tension. During a session, the practitioner becomes more focused and sensitized to physical and emotional feelings. It promotes calmness in the mind, opens the heart, and promotes positivity in daily life.

In terms of physical benefits, yoga is known for strengthening your core and, ultimately improving posture. According to integrative medicine practitioners at Rahav Wellness, “When we spend much of our day hunched over a desk, we often develop lower back, neck, and shoulder pain due to poor posture.”

Practitioners at Rahav recommend daily yoga practice to their patients with chronic back pain for two reasons. First, the physical poses build strength and stability in the core, which helps to relieve back pain and improve posture. Second, the meditative practice of yoga promotes relaxation, which also helps to relieve chronic pain due to due muscle tension. Standing Forward Bend, Child’s Pose, and Cat/Cow are some of the best poses for chronic lower back, neck, and shoulder pain.

Also, yoga can improve your work life, too. We all experience that afternoon slump sometimes and that’s where yoga can really come in handy. Getting your body moving oxygenates the blood and gets the heart pumping, delivering blood to the organs and muscles.

Performing some yoga stretches when you’re feeling fatigued can reduce tiredness and help you feel more focused. But even more than that, the gentle movements and focused breathing of yoga can stimulate the vagus nerve and trigger the parasympathetic nervous system. Workers who practice yoga during the day are often less stressed and anxious than those who don’t. When you need energy, alertness, and stress reduction during your workday, try inversion poses like Downward Facing Dog and Forward Fold.

In addition, it’s no secret that a lack of quality sleep can impact your overall health, your mood, and your mental and physical performance. Yoga promotes relaxation, which can also improve sleep quality. Try performing some gentle yoga poses at bedtime to help you prepare for a good night’s sleep and notice the difference!

From Hatha yoga to hot yoga, there are tons of different styles of practice. If you’re brand new to yoga and looking for the integrative benefits discussed above, Hatha is a great place to start – and there’s tons of free resources available online.