Why Yoga in

addition to usual
Exercise?

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 Why Yoga In addition to Usual Exercise?

Yoga postures may not be something youve thought about for the
purposes of improving your overall health and wellness. But research
shows that even a daily, two-minute routine can strengthen core muscles
throughout your body. Simple yoga moves can also improve your balance,
increase your flexibility and even boost your mood. They can be tailored to
every fitness level and come with advantages for your attitude and outlook,
as well.
Performed daily or at least three days a week, slowly but surely youll
find yourself becoming stronger, more flexible, and with a fresher outlook
for your day. Special equipment is not a requirement. You need a few
square feet of space and a mat, but dont let that stop you from starting
now. If you want, you can get that later.

Why Yoga in Addition to Basic Exercise?

One of the appeals of yoga is that its considered low impact, which
means that it wont jar your bones. Its also excellent for relieving stress.
Mens Fitness recently observed, quoting Sadie Nardini, host of Rock
Your Yoga: Along with training your body, yoga trains your mind to see the
bigger picture and act from integrity instead of freaking out. If you want to
be more James Bond than Charlie Sheen, get yourself on the mat. 1
For increased flexibility, yogi, author and Ayurvedic practitioner
Cameron Alborzian advises, Think of the body as a sponge filled with dirty
sink water. Gentle twists help to wring the sponge out and purge toxins.
At the same time, youre also lowering your heart disease risk,
according to a joint Harvard School of Public Health and Netherlands
Department of Radiology study.2 In the in-depth study, those involved in
yoga showed significant improvement in body mass index and body weight,
systolic and diastolic blood pressure, triglycerides and heart rate. In fact,
researchers didnt find any difference between the benefits of yoga and
other types of exercise.
Research also indicates that yoga helps decrease chronic pain,
fatigue and obesity, helping practitioners lose an average of 5 pounds. It
may even help alleviate problems like irritable bowel syndrome and
asthma.

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 Mens Fitness recounted several other fringe benefits of practicing
yoga, such as decreased workout or sports injuries, improved endurance for
better sex, plus sculpted and strengthened muscles due to working muscle
groups. Additionally, cleansing toxins helps you smell better. Thats always
a plus.

Yoga Changes Your Brain

You heard that right. While helping people with stress, depression
and anxiety, yoga is also noted for helping to literally change your brain for
the better.
In 2015, one study3 used magnetic resonance imaging to compare
the age-related changes in gray matter between regular yoga practitioners.
In fact, as The Huffington Post reported:
Yoga protects the brain from the decline in gray matter brain
volume as we age. People with more yoga experience had brain volumes
typical for much younger people. In other words, yoga could protect your
brain from shrinking as you get older.4
The left side, or hemisphere, of the brain protects your gray matter
and increases brain volume. Thats the side of your brain that allows you to
feel positive emotions such as joy and happiness.
The left hemisphere of your brain is also directly linked to your
parasympathetic nervous system. Scientists call it the rest and digest
network; it allows you to relax.
That brain-body connection isnt just some psychologists idea of
how the brain probably works: the physiological connection even shows
up in positive emission tomography, aka PET scans, and brain imaging
studies of people who meditate. According to The Huffington Post:
In some regions of the brain, 50-year-old meditators were found to
have the gray matter volume of 25-year-olds. These changes to the brain
can occur within a few months. One study found brain changes after only
eight weeks of a mindfulness-based stress reduction program.

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 The regions of the brain responsible for learning, memory, cognition
and emotional regulation showed growth. In contrast, the areas of the brain
responsible for fear, anxiety and stress shrank.5
Researchers working in a similar realm found neurological changes
after only eight weeks of a mindfulness-based stress reduction program.
Specifically, the magnetic resonance images (MRI) taken of the brains of 16
study participants (and 17 in a control group), who were completely
uninformed regarding any positive or negative aspects of Mindfulness-
Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), were tested before beginning and after
finishing the program.
Not only did the gray matter of the group of 16 demonstrate
increases in gray matter concentration in the left hippocampus, scientists
examining the test confirmed that participants showed ameliorate(d)
symptoms of a number of disorders. As written in the journal Psychiatry
Research:
The results suggest that participation in MBSR is associated with
changes in gray matter concentration in brain regions involved in learning
and memory processes, emotion regulation, self-referential processing and
perspective taking.6

Practicing Yoga to Change Your Mind

The way practicing yoga is able to change your brain, of course, is
directly related to how it can change your mind, which are two separate
issues. Mens Fitness noted that:
In the midst of a jam-packed schedule, committing to the relaxed
space of a yoga class might be the only way for some guys to slow down
and breathe right.
Scott Rodwin, founder of Radiance Yoga, explains that breathing
exercises, called pranayama, have been developed over thousands of years
to calm and tame that endless stream of thoughts.
This, he says, leads to greater concentration as you work your way
through each pose and, in most cases, a calmness that lasts the rest of
the day.
Benefits from yoga express themselves in ways you might not
imagine. It doesnt take long, though, for advantages to emerge, such as:

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 Improved sleep Even chronic insomnia, worsened by
psychological arousal that keeps your mind spinning, is eased by
practicing yoga, one study says.7
Better brain function Studies indicate that 20 minutes of Hatha
yoga helps boost the speed and accuracy of mental processing better than
the same amount of time spent in aerobic exercise, plus it lowers stress.8
Reduced migraines Just three months of yoga helped
significantly reduce the number and severity of migraine headaches in 72
patients involved in a study on the effectiveness of yoga.9
Diminished peripheral health problems Researchers indicated that
yoga can be helpful for conditions like chronic pain, epilepsy, depression,
anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by increasing brain
chemicals like gamma amino-butyric acid (GABA).10
The Huffington Post observed that from the time someone begins
practicing yoga to getting into it a little more in-depth, their reasons for
continuing it change.
Two-thirds of yoga students and 85 percent of yoga teachers have a
change of heart regarding why they do yoga most often changing to
spirituality or self-actualization, a sense of fulfilling their potential. Yoga
offers self-reflection, the practice of kindness and self-compassion and
continued growth and self-awareness.11
As one yogi noted, Yoga can change the heart but were not just
talking about blood pressure.

A 2-Minute Yoga Routine

Personal trainer Jill Rodriguez demonstrates a simple, two-minute
series of yoga poses, called asanas, in a video designed for you to start
slowly. Practicing daily with special attention to your breathing, youll
become more flexible over time.
Childs pose Kneel with knees spread slightly, stretch your arms
straight out to rest your palms on the mat in front of you, and lower your
head between your elbows. Relax and stretch your back. Breathe slowly
and deeply in through the nose and out through the nose five times.
Then rise to a hands and knees position, palms flat to the mat directly
under your shoulders and knees under your toes for the next stance.

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 Cat-Cow To loosen your hips and back, arch your back toward
the ceiling, tucking your tailbone and chin inward. For the cow position,
slowly raise your head while dropping your stomach toward the mat so that
the small of your back is curved upward. Hold each position for five
breaths.
Downward-facing dog Begin on hands and knees. Curl your toes
under so you can slowly lift your knees off the mat to straighten your legs.
Your hips are your highest point as your arms are outstretched and your
body forms an inverted V. (When youve practiced this stance a few
times, you can at this point slowly tighten the V formation, pushing your
stomach toward your thighs.) Slowly begin lowering your heels to the mat
behind you. Take your five deep breaths.
Forward fold Palms down on the mat, slowly bend your knees,
lift your heels from the mat and walk your feet toward your hands. Keep
your knees as bent as you need to (but with practice keeping them as
straight as possible). Relax your arms; place them on your knees if you
want, but continue the folded stance. Hold for five breaths.
Warrior II Stand, feet together, and take a wide step sideways.
Point your right foot forward while your left foot is positioned to the left
about 60 degrees. Facing front, hips and shoulders straight, bring your
arms upward to shoulder height, palms down.
Bend your left knee so that your hips are balanced over your core,
while straightening your right leg. Turn your heard so youre looking over
your left hand. Hold for five breaths. Shift your stance so that your feet are
turned 60 degrees the other direction, and repeat, breathing at the end.

The Mountain pose This is how you want to end each session, to
relax, arms loose at your sides, for another five breaths.
Its best to be barefoot and wear light-weight, non-constricting
clothes for this. You may also use either a yoga mat or the carpet of your
living room floor.

Source: Basic Yoga Moves to Improve Balance, Mood and Flexibility

By Dr Joseph Mercola
Guest writer for Wake Up World

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Article Sources:

The Huffington Post July 10, 2016

1 Mens Fitness 2016
2 Eur J Prev Cardiol. 2016 February;23(3);291-307
3 Front Hum Neurosci. 2015 May 12;9:281
4, 5, 11 The Huffington Post July 10, 2016
6 Psychiatry Res. 2011 January 30;191(1):36-43
7 Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback. 2004 December;29(4):269-78
8 Human Kinetics 2012
9 Headache. 2007 May;47(5);654-61
10 Medical-Hypothesis May 2012 Volume 78, Issue 5, Pgs. 571-579