The benefits of a consistent yoga practice are unique to each student. The effects may be as practical as greater flexibility, stamina, and focus or as far reaching as improved relationships, greater self esteem, a renewed vitality for life. It is through your own exploration that you will understand yoga as "self-development" or "the penetration of consciousness into day-to-day life." The following is a limited list of yoga?s potential benefits:
Skeletal System
Through various postures and movements, yoga increases the blood supply to joints, improving mobility and helping to prevent stiffness later in life. Weight-bearing postures stimulate bones to keep them strong and sturdy.
Muscular System
By stretching muscles and ligaments in a conscious manner, yoga postures help create suppleness, flexibility, and good overall muscle tone, consequently also decreasing potential for injury from exercise/sports.
In addition, the postures aid in relieving muscles of accumulated tensions, whether physical or emotional, that deplete our energy and suppress our sense of well-being.
Digestive System
It has been estimated that eighty to ninety percent of chronic, degenerative diseases are associated with poor digestion, poor metabolism, lack of assimilation of nutrients. Many yoga postures alternately compress and release the organs of digestion – the liver, spleen, pancreas, stomach, intestines. This increases absorption and assimilation or nutrients, and aids in proper elimination, removal of wastes.
Circulatory System
From small, simple movements to larger, more dynamic poses, yoga oxygenates, purifies and supports the entire circulatory system. Elasticity in blood vessels is increased, allowing blood to flow properly to tissues, organ, glands.
Lymphatic System
The Lymph system is a network of vessels that runs alongside the circulatory system and works to filter out organisms such as toxins and germs that cause disease. It produces white blood cells and also generates antibodies. One crucial fact about the lymphatic system is that it operates without a pump and must depend on movement to keep it flowing. The movements of yoga – especially the inversions and openings of the areas around the armpits, throat, groins – greatly support the body own immune system.
Respiratory System
Connecting breath and movement is key to a holistic practice. Shallow, irregular breathing impairs the function of cells, organs, glands, causing fatigue, decreased concentration and memory. Deep diaphragmatic breathing practiced in yoga encourages the relaxation response, improves lung functioning, and promotes mental clarity.
Nervous System
The main messenger between the brain and body is the spinal column. Yoga postures and movement promote improved alignment and circulation within the spinal column. In addition, the breath, coupled with an attitude of self-acceptance throughout the practice calms the entire nervous system, optimizing its health.
Endocrine System
The glands of the endocrine system regulate hormone function. They are responsible tor growth, metabolism, hunger, thirst, menstruation, insulin, alertness, the fight-or-flight response. The systematic expansion and contraction in yoga postures cleanses the glands with increased blood flow, thereby strengthening the entire system.
Body-Mind-Spirit
The first written, codified system of yoga states : "Yoga in the cessation of the fluctuations in the mind".
The physical practice of yoga provides the perfect practice grounds to experience this stillness. In a yoga classroom we learn how to drop away from the ordinary mind that is constantly judging, comparing, and rationalizing who we are. Each pose is then a meditation-in-motion where we can observe the intricate relationship between mind, body and heart. Incredible focus and peaceful concentration can be cultivated.
A transformation can occur when we take that learned connection off the mat and into our daily lives. As we broaden our awareness to include body/mind/spirit (instead of just the chattering mind) we begin to find a deeper connection to our true Self. The compassion we show ourselves on the mat can bring the spirit to a softer, more light-hearted place where it is natural for us to act and speak from the heart and with compassion.
What yoga offers as a unique discipline is the practice of harmonizing all aspects of our nature. With postures, with breath awareness, with keen observation and compassion, we afford ourselves the opportunity to explore and realize our potential. In this way, yoga is not only a science but it is a process of self-study, to understand our personal connection unto the whole of life.
