News — Yoga

 

If you have a regular yoga practice, you’re probably well aware of the benefits that come with time spent on the mat. Not only are you able to reduce stress and increase mindfulness, every minute you spend in a yoga pose benefits your body by increasing flexibility, strengthening muscles, and burning calories.

You also achieve the following things by doing yoga regularly:

• Perfect posture.

  Poor posture contributes to back, neck, muscle, and joint problems. It also causes unnecessary pain and degenerative arthritis in the spine. Yoga helps balance your head which gives your neck and back muscles relief. They don’t have to work as hard to support it when your head is properly balanced over your spine when it’s erect.

• Prevention of cartilage and joint breakdown.

  Prevent degenerative arthritis by giving your cartilage the nutrients it needs. When you do yoga, you’re essentially squeezing fluid out so that new fluid can be soaked up. This prevents the cartilage from wearing out.

• Protection of your spine.

  When a spinal disk gets herniated, it compresses nerves and prevents them from getting much-needed nutrients. Yoga lets you give your disks the attention they deserve. As you twist and bend forward and backward, you’re helping them remain supple. Make sure that you learn the proper pose so you don’t injure yourself while moving.

• Increased blood flow.

  Any type of relaxation exercise such as yoga increases circulation. You’ll feel it occurring in your hands and feet. Yoga helps with red blood cell production which carries oxygen to the body’s tissue. It helps decrease heart attack and stroke, too. That gives you another incentive to get off the couch and onto your mat each day.

• Lymphatic system drainage and boosts in immunity.

  Yoga drains the lymph and helps the lymphatic system fight infection. It gets rid of waste from the cells and even destroys cancerous cells. When stretching and contracting muscles, be mindful of all the good it is doing for your body. Yoga drains negative thoughts along with your lymphatic system.

• A higher heart rate.

  Yoga can be highly aerobic which gives your heart a good, strong workout. This prevents your risk for heart attack and gives you a healthy boost of serotonin which helps fight depression. Yoga makes your body and mind feel great!

It’s never too late to start a yoga practice. In fact, there isn’t much to it, but you do need some gear if you want to be successful at it. For example, you’ll need a yoga mat and loose, comfortable clothing. Athlete Beyond offers a wide selection of fitness apparel for both men and women so shopping our site gives you one less thing to do before getting started with your yoga practice.

You’ll want to wear clothing that looks great and feels great to move in. Athlete Beyond’s apparel is offered in limited runs so make sure to buy your favorite gear before it sells out. Bookmark our website and make sure to visit us often for new clothing for men and women.

The benefits of regular yoga practice are boundless. Yoga has been known to reduce stress, increase flexibility, build muscle, improve posture, and increase blood flow. It can help you focus, sleep better, breathe better—the list goes on .

Daily exercise is already a great way to reduce stress, but yoga in particular has a strong effect on the body and mind by creating mindfulness through awareness of the breath. If you’re skeptic, “mindfulness” and “awareness” might just sound like silly fad words. But even psychologists point to mindfulness as a way to better cope with major and minor life events by observing experiences without judging them as good or bad.

If you’re interested in the calming effects yoga can have on the mind and body, you might benefit from giving it a try. We’ve compiled a list of 10 yoga poses to relieve stress to help you get started:

1. Child’s Pose

Child’s pose calms the mind and helps relieve stress and fatigue. It also stretches the hips, thighs, and ankles, and can relieve back and neck pain. 

2. Corpse Pose

Corpse pose is a great pose for mindful meditation. It relaxes your mind and body, relieves mild depression, lowers blood pressure, and can help ease headache, fatigue, and insomnia.

3. Legs Up the Wall Pose

This deeply relaxing pose calms the nervous system and aids in digestion. Combined with deep rhythmic breathing, this pose can help quiet the mind and get you ready for sleep.

4. Cat-Cow Pose

Cat-cow is actually a combination of two poses in a gentle flow. It warms the body, brings flexibility to the spine, opens the chest, stimulates the kidneys and adrenal glands, and relieves stress and anxiety.

5. Tree Pose

Tree pose helps develop balance and mind/body awareness. It calms and relaxes your central nervous system, while it strengthens your thighs, groin, shoulders, core, calves, and foot muscles. Find how to do it here.

6. Extended Puppy Pose

This pose helps relieve tension in the shoulders, spine, upper back, and arms. It can help ease chronic tension, insomnia, stress and anxiety.

7. Seated Forward Fold

This toe-touching pose provides a deep stretch to the entire back of the body, while calming the nervous system and emotions, and stimulating the reproductive and urinary systems.

8. Eagle Pose

Eagle pose focuses on balance and eases tension in the legs, shoulders, and back. (https://yogainternational.com/article/view/eagle-pose-step-by-step)

9. Reclining Bound Angle Pose

This pose helps relieve stress and mild depression, as well as symptoms of menstruation and menopause. It stimulates the abdominal organs and increases blood flow, and provides a stretch for the inner thighs, knees, and groin (http://www.yogajournal.com/pose/reclining-bound-angle-pose/).

10. Cobra Pose

Cobra pose opens the chest, improves circulation, and reduces fatigue and stress. It also has the added benefit of toning the abdomen while stretching the entire back and shoulders.

Ready to throw on a pair of yoga pants and get started? Check out Athlete Beyond for athletic apparel to keep you cool and comfortable throughout your practice.

 

Many people overlook the many benefits to yoga and shrug it off as a boring activity, however, yoga can be beneficial to men and women alike and can provide people with some life changing rewards. Not only can yoga benefit your body while trying to get in shape, but also it can benefit your mind and quality of life. Here are just a few of yoga’s many beneficial factors.

1. Reduces Stress 

Yoga can reduce stress by giving you a calming routine to escape to each day. Once yoga becomes a part of your routine, it will be something you look forward to in order to release your mind from the many stresses of the day and relax. 

2. Increases Flexibility 

Yoga can be a difficult activity for many at first, because it focuses so much on flexibility. But if you stick to it, yoga will increase your flexibility and be a great way to stretch out your muscles. If you add yoga to your regular workout routine, it can help you feel less sore after lifting weights. 

3. Increases Strength and Tone 

Yoga will increase your strength and tone as well as flexibility by forcing you to hold difficult positions and engage your core muscles. Accompanied by a cardio and strength training workout plan, yoga can help you see results faster and keep you from getting stiff and pulling muscles.

4. Increases Energy

By getting your heart pumping and your body moving, yoga will increase your energy throughout the day. The lazier you are, the more tired you become. By getting up and getting active, your body will thank you and in turn, will be more energized and ready to take on the day. Consider doing yoga as a part of your morning routine in order to wake up and start the day. 

5. Better Sleep Quality

Another benefit of getting active in general is better quality of sleep. An active lifestyle provides you more energy during the day and then trains your body to rest at night when you are sleeping. Being active and doing yoga will provide you will deeper sleep at night for your muscles and mind to recover.

Yoga is not an activity for the lazy. Yoga can be difficult and provide great strength training and cardio benefits. Incorporate yoga into your current exercise routine in order to improve not only your fitness level, but also your quality of life as a whole.