Getting Healthy With Yoga and a Yoga Mat

By on July 24, 2015 in Exercise, Training with 0 Comments

Yoga PractionerPeople have always believed that yoga can do more for your body than just keeping it fit and flexible. Research now shows it can help weight control, lower back pain, insomnia, and even heart disease.

Why try yoga

Studies indicate yoga helps with weight loss and maintenance. In a study of 15,000 adults, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center found that those who did not practice yoga gained approximately 18.5 pounds more over a 10-year period than those who practiced for at least four years.

There was also a study done at the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California. This study found people who regularly practiced yoga and meditation, exercised, and watched their diet lost more weight than those who exercised, and ate a balanced diet, but did not practice yoga.

Additionally, Yoga can improve your range of motion in your hips, reducing lower back pain. A study done at The American College of Sport’s Medicine, suggests that yoga increases lower back flexibility and decreases pain.

It was a small study conducted on older women age 44-62. Persistent back pain, however, should always be professionally diagnosed before embracing any exercise program including yoga. Yoga’s backbends and forward bends may exacerbate some back conditions.

Yoga can also calm your body and your mind, which can help people who suffer from insomnia. Sat Bir Singh Khalsa, PhD., an instructor of medicine, division of Sleep Medicine at the Harvard Medical School recently published a study.

What to expect when doing yoga

He found a half hour to 45 minutes of daily yoga practice with a focus on meditation and breathing, helped chronic insomniacs sleep through the night. The subjects increased their overall sleep by 12%.

Yoga breathing can help lower your heart rate and calm your nervous system. The breathing techniques can help alleviate serious anxiety and depression and reduce stress. Practicing yoga for an hour and a half three times a week can make your heart healthier in just six weeks.

A recent study out of Yale University School of Medicine had 33 men and women who practiced yoga at that rate. This lowered their blood pressure and improved their blood vessels’ ability to expand and contract by 17%.

Researchers believe the improvements are based on the stress-reducing benefits of yoga.

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Jack Rourke is the Health Ninja.

A truly average person who has worked his butt off to be awesome fit and healthy. Well maybe just the best version of himself.

With a little effort, the average person can achieve better than average results.

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