The Importance of Yoga
Why Yoga is Still Relevant in 2012
Every day you face tremendous amounts of pressure. You wish that the stress was only limited to your workplace, but it trickles down into your personal life as well. You’re a perfectionist when it comes to micromanaging the people around you, but you don’t remember the last time you took out time for yourself.
Zumba and aerobics may be fun, but they don’t have a calming, soothing effect on your frayed nerves. They may be exciting but they don’t help you form that vital connection between your mind and body. With yoga you learn how to control your life, and the emotions, feelings and bodily sensations that you experience. Browse through the importance of yoga to understand why it is still relevant in this day and age.
Yoga Importance # 1 - No More Stress!
Have you heard of lifestyle diseases? They encompass all those diseases that are rampant during a particular time period. In this modern, tech savvy age, the most common lifestyle diseases are stress related. Your overburdened work life is taking you closer and closer to heart diseases, cholesterol problems and hypertension. It is also responsible for those snappy moods and constant headaches.
So how can you get rid of this tension? Slouching on the couch in front of the television does not count as relaxing! If anything, the flickering light strains your eye muscles and causes further headaches. We recommend that you replace ‘Televison Time’ with ‘Yoga Time’! Yoga soothes your nervous system and relaxes your body. Deep breathing exercises enhance your blood circulation and energy levels, rejuvenating your tired, worn out body. This modern life is fast enough as it is. Yoga forces you to pause, remove yourself from the never ending hustle bustle and focus on revitalizing your mind and body!
Yoga Importance # 2 - Take Control!
It’s easy to get lost in a sea of overwhelming negative emotions. Stress, anger, anxiety, frustration, helplessness and an overload of tension- you face these and then some every single day of your life! While other exercises provide a temporary respite from these troubles, yoga teaches you something that you can use anytime, anywhere without needing your yoga gear. Learning how to control your body is a key part of yoga. Most of the asanas focus on achieving that perfect sense of core balance. And how do you think you achieve that? Well, by learning how to control your body movements, by understanding how much energy needs to be exerted to maintain perfect balance.
This control over your physical body strengthens the connection between your mind and body. So whenever a negative emotion overwhelms you and makes you feel like you’re losing control over yourself, your yoga training will help you to take a deep breath, steel yourself and allow you to control how these feelings affect your mind and body, instead of letting them control you.
Apart from enhancing your self-awareness, yoga can also increase your cognitive performance by promoting mental clarity, a relaxed state of mind and sharper concentration!
Yoga Importance # 3 - Save Up On Those Medical Bills!
The price of almost everything is sky rocketing, and the last thing you want is to be bogged down with a hefty medical bill for ailments that you wish you could cure naturally. Yoga is the answer to your wish! There are a multitude of yoga types and the cumulative health benefits are just as diverse. Yoga can cure respiratory problems such as asthma; reduce the risk of high blood pressure problems; alleviate back pain; promote pain management through greater self awareness, and cure and reduce the effects of arthritis.
Yoga Importance # 4 - Lose Weight, for Good!
Unlike rigorous diet plans and other exercise regimes, yoga postures are designed to stimulate the inherent fat burning centers of your body. Asanas such as the fish posture target the thyroid gland which plays an instrumental role in the body’s metabolism of fat. Greater thyroid secretion allows the body to burn fat and use it to fortify the muscles and release more energy.
Additionally, deep breathing enhances the oxygen content delivered to the body’s cells. This speeds up the process of energy production in which fat features as a major raw material. Moreover, by reducing stress and tension, yoga also curbs stress induced binge eating!
Conclusion
The lifestyle propagated by this modern, high speed age demands yoga, maybe more than ever before. Without yoga, your life will stay stuck in a vicious cycle of stress, anxiety and more stress! Kill your chances of suffering from a nervous breakdown, and start practicing those asanas!
