The Many Benefits of Yoga

Doing yoga has virtually unlimited physical and mental benefits. People know it for its stretching abilities. But it was designed to stimulate different glands to improve mood and overall health of the body. Also these glands create anti-aging hormones. There is a book by a medical doctor, Timothy McCall M.D., that is called Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing. On the cover it says "Read this to find out why we teach our patients YOGA." -- Mehmet Oz M.D. (better known as Dr. Oz)

I have read stories about people that started doing yoga because they were depressed and it helped so much that they became yoga instructors. Note that depression can have many different causes including a lack of nutrients including vitamin D that you can get from sunlight. Psychology Today has an article saying that the increase in depression is due to sunscreen since it filters out 95% of the vitamin D. As far as all the women doing yoga, women are twice as likely to get depression as men. Note that there are many famous celebrities that do yoga including Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.)

You can even do a search on the internet and find yoga positions, postures or poses that help with depression. I have been doing yoga since I was 12 years old and it has kept me young mentally and physically. As far as it helping prevent depression, I read a story where a woman doing yoga postures went through a similar set of emotions that people go through when they are getting psychotherapy. Of course it may also have something to do with people doing yoga also having a healthier lifestyle like getting more sunlight and eating healthier. You can also find poses with a search that also help mental anxiety and insomnia (trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep). I sleep like a baby.

Doing yoga also increases balance that can prevent falls that can be damaging to your body. A couple of years ago I went to a health fair that does all sorts of health tests. I had my balance tested and it showed my score and also has a graph of people of a certain age and their range of scores. It showed that no one my age has a balance score as high as mine. Although to be objective I was doing martial arts and tai chi (moving meditation) when I was 12 years old.

In Positive Psychology they study how people can be happier. They say that yoga and martial arts are especially good at helping people to feel the flow experience. This is an experience where people feel extremely happy or euphoric and they can feel that time has stopped. Now with the teachings of Eckhart Tolle, people will say that they feel much more in the present.

As people age, yoga has more benefits like in preventing dementia and preventing aches and pains that people think is a normal part of aging. I know some people that have gotten knee replacements with a titanium knee or a plastic knee. I know that yogic stretching of the knee could have prevented that. I have had some bad knee pains and have helped in a few minutes of doing yogic stretching of the knee. I can see know that the human body was made to be stretched daily or almost daily to remain healthy. Yoga also strengthens the body to make the muscles stronger. Stronger muscles also causes the body to burn more calories.

Yoga also strengthens the core so people will look thinner by preventing their belly from protruding. The core is the area around the abdomen. This can also help with one's posture especially as they age. This may also account for many more women than men doing yoga. Hillary Clinton has been doing yoga since law school. Also while in law school, President Bill Clinton also did yoga at the yoga classes that they went to. Yoga can be very therapeutic mentally and physically. Some have used it to recover from accidents and physical injuries. Tennis player John McEnroe was unable to play tennis at one time. It may be due to tennis strengthening one side of the body more than the other. He did Bikram's hot yoga and recovered from this.

A study found that people that strectched and became more flexible had more flexible arteries. Having more flexible arteries prevents heart attacks and strokes. So there are unlimited benefits from doing yoga.