Yoga is not merely a physical practice; it’s a way of life, a healthy way of living a life. When you indulge in a yoga practice, you commit to a lifestyle that includes healthy eating patterns, social interaction, and dinacharya (lifestyle).

Yoga is an age-old philosophy deeply rooted in health and wellbeing. It’s every practice, from physical postures to breathing exercises to meditation, influences the physical, psychological, and emotional health in magnificent ways.

The practice of yoga provides many more amazing yoga benefits to keep you in good health than you think. Check these out:

1. Stress Relief: Stress is commonplace in the lives of urban people. The kind and degree of stress differs from person to person. Some suffer from physical stress, some from mental, while many face emotional distress. Yoga, the ancient science is more than effective in relieving all kinds of stress. The body postures help release trapped tensions in the body parts, meditation lowers cortisol levels in the brain, and other yoga practices provide solace to the soul.
2. Elevated Mood: When there is no stress, life is happy. Isn’t it? Thanks to yoga. Also, practicing pranayama gives a boost to oxygen levels in the brain, leaving you happier and more contented than ever before.
3. Lower Risk of Injury: Unlike other forms of exercises, yoga is a low impact exercise thus reducing the chances of being injured during the practice. Additionally, the performance of yoga asanas strengthens the body muscles, balances opposing muscles, increases bone density that protects your body from injuries in the long turn.
4. Increase in Flexibility: People are often driven by the misconception that being flexible is necessary to perform yoga. But, the truth is flexibility is the byproduct of yoga practices. When you do yoga poses the ligaments, tendons, fibers receive stretch, and joints are lubricated well allowing you to move more freely.
5. Improved Muscle Tone: Every yoga pose if practiced correctly helps to strengthen an organ of the body without putting a strain on the muscle groups. Both downward and upward dog postures create upper body strength, standing yoga poses tone upper leg muscles and lower back.
6. Regulates Blood pressure: High and low blood pressure is dangerous for health. Stress is one of the reasons for high blood pressure along with other factors. With breathing exercises, the lung capacity expands thus increasing the intake of oxygen which lowers stress, and assists in keeping blood pressure in check. Pranayama is also effective for slowing down the heart rate.
7. Better Posture: By practicing yoga, you can maintain a healthy weight, muscle strength, flexibility– the traits of good health. Because of all these, the posture gets improved. The abdominals and back fully support the weight, and you are able to sit and stand in an upright manner.
8. Enhances Blood Flow: With yoga get your blood flowing. Restorative yoga poses in yoga enhances blood circulation, especially in the hands and feet. Yoga poses bring more oxygen to the cells helping them function better. Twisting yoga asanas discharge venom blood from the internal organs and infuse oxygenated blood into the system. Inverted yoga postures like headstand flush fresh blood into the body. Yoga gives a boost to hemoglobin levels and red blood cells cutting the chances of blood clots, strokes, and heart attacks.
9. Boost to Immunity: When you move your body in yoga postures, you encourage the drainage of lymph. This assists the lymphatic system to fight infections, destroy the cancerous cell, and dispose of toxic waste for better functioning of the immune system.
10. Weight Loss: If you commit to the practice of yoga, you move more, and eat healthily. The yogic body movements help burn calories, and the spiritual dimensions of yoga encourage you to address unhealthy eating patterns on a deeper level. Yoga makes you a conscious eater.
11. Concentration Improves: It would not be wrong to say that meditation is the science of better concentration. An important component of meditation is focusing on the present moment. It augments concentration, coordination, memory, and IQ.
12. Relaxes The System: The science of yoga contains relaxation yoga poses that refreshes the body, breathing exercises rejuvenate the mind, and meditation activates parasympathetic nervous system. On the whole, yoga is a calming and restorative practice.
13. Peace of Mind: In yoga, fluctuations of the mind are ceased, and peace is fostered. By doing yoga, you learn to quiet your mind, the key to living a longer and healthier life.

Yoga is a holistic science of keeping health in a state of wellness. Practice it to enjoy fitness benefits for eternity.