Emma Taylor
24 November 2019
In our lifetimes, we get to enjoy many blessings and joys but along with those happy moments are times of disappointment, stress and chaos.
Finding ways to relieve stress and feelings of anxiety from daily routine can help with battling these hurdles. Many turn to yoga in hopes to find peace during hectic times, while others start a yoga practice to build strength, gain flexibility and lose weight.
In your first group class, the poses and sequencing can be overwhelming at first. Once a student learns the poses and starts to enjoy its benefits, yoga can turn into a lifelong practice.
Here are seven amazing benefits of regular yoga practice.
Mindfulness
You may have heard of mindfulness from meditation talks. It is truly a wonderful feeling of calm and stability. You start to be aware of the smallest of things in your life. Maybe it’s noticing how many steps between home and the shop, or how the trees blow in the evening breeze. It could be the awareness of traffic sound, or the feeling of the texture of fabrics.
Appreciating these little moments that are overlooked so often can change how life is lived in a positive way.
Increasing physical strength
Undertaking regular yoga practice means that your body will become stronger and yoga poses will feel much more accessible. Discovering body awareness and incorporating appropriate cues from instructors can take your regular yoga practice to another level.
Yoga will never be easy, however the body builds up strength to support the practice in time. Certain daily activities that felt difficult before will get easier. Activities such as walking up stairs, balancing to put on shoes or picking up children can become less challenging.
Improving your posture
Many of the postures in yoga strengthen the spine and the muscles surrounding the spine. Embracing regular yoga practice, you will learn techniques on how to carry the body in everyday life. Some yoga poses and classes strengthen various muscles, which will help improve the posture.
Much of your daily practice may be to maintain a tall spine in each pose. A great yoga class will train the practitioner to take daily habits such as a hunched over body out of the practice.
Reducing stress
Coping with stress is an inevitable part of life, however being able to monitor it with breath and introspection can change the outcome of many situations. After regular yoga classes, you may find that your stress begins to subside, as you learn the techniques of yoga.
Increasing happiness
Many people tend to increase their happiness by turning to the wrong solutions, such as food, alcohol, or prescription drugs. These things may seem to be helping, but they don’t.
As your yoga continues, you will become aware of the various scenarios that are mentally or physically demanding will change the outcome of many situations.
People often also find that the residual buzz from a yoga practice can deliver some of the happiness people struggle to find.
Boost in confidence
There are so many poses and ideologies in yoga that make the practice a lifelong journey. There is always another variation to achieve or a style to discover. One of the most gratifying feelings is when accomplishing an asana (posture) that you felt was too difficult to achieve only a few months ago.
This regular yoga practice gives you a level of subconscious confidence that you may have been searching for. Each time you achieve a new posture, these small achievements ignite a positive sense of self.
Improved clarity
Life can be very stressful at times, with work, children, responsibilities, finances, stress and other pressures.
Your mind eventually seems to fill and become cluttered with useless information and chaos. Regular yoga practice is an antidote to this mental fog. It is helpful with clearing the mind, however the meditative aspects of yoga can change thoughts drastically.
Summary
Regular yoga practice solves many things about your life, from mental health through to physical health and everything in between.
You will find that there are yoga classes and schools in every state of Australia, with all capital cities and many regional areas having regular yoga classes. Undertaking regular yoga practice, you will find yourself improving slowly over time.
As life continues, these yoga classes will change you for the better with the help of a little thing called yoga.
