Yoga evolved over 5000 years ago. This well-known activity literally involves physical exercise combined with meditation. Statistics carried out in the USA show that 11 million Americans practice yoga and they eventually end up gaining lots of health benefits that come with practicing yoga. This indicates that yoga is a practice performed by many people and is very beneficial to health. One of its health benefits to the body is helping people lose weight. Here are some of the benefits of yoga that can help in weight loss.
Yoga and weight loss
Some people doubt the effectiveness of yoga in losing weight but the fact is yoga can be used as a great technique for losing weight. All you need to do is to have regular and gentle yoga exercises and be fond of consuming well-balanced diet meals and living a healthy life.
Yoga is easy to adapt
Yoga is safe, inviting and very effective when carried out in the right manner. It is also very easy to be adapted at a personal level. Since it is gentle, it can motivate you to be aggressive and more persistent in carrying out the proper yoga exercises, which can eventually translate to weight loss.
Yoga helps with toning your muscles
The practice of yoga involves intense body poses that help to strengthen the muscles. The activity overall proved very effective for weight loss since it improves the rate of metabolism by burning out excess fat in the body.
Yoga makes your body flexible
Yoga practice helps you to become flexible in your body movements. This practice also improves your posture and makes your muscles stronger, which contributes to enhanced flexibility. In this way, you can lose weight more easily as you exercise on a daily basis.
Yoga Reduces stress
Breathing and meditation techniques help to calm your mind and decrease anxiety, depression, and stress. When your stress levels are reduced, the stress hormone cortisol is also reduced, making the body to burn down fats rather than storing them. The resultant effect will be a healthier body.
Apart from weight loss, yoga is very important to your body and mind. The following are benefits of yoga:
- It helps to create a connection between your body and mind. Yoga practice such as breathing techniques and physical poses help the body to be in harmony with the mind, as the exercises require both mental and physical awareness.
- Yoga creates self-awareness, which helps you to understand how your body works. The self-awareness will dictate how you think and make you optimistic about every decision you make, your diet and lifestyle. This will make you lead a healthy life.
- Yoga relieves stress that you encounter in your daily life. It helps you to disconnect from the stressful world and creates a sense of happiness as you practice it.
- Yoga creates in you a sense of worthiness which makes you appreciate who you are. As you concentrate and meditate during yoga sessions, your mind and thoughts are shaped so that you can view yourself as important. This makes you feel good about yourself as it alleviates low self-esteem.
- Yoga improves the efficiency of your digestive system. Stretching your muscles and taking a healthy organic diet can help to alleviate irritable bowel syndrome, acid reflux, and constipation.