Yoga works. And that is the simplest reason why the practice has been around for a few millennia if not more. While most people start a yoga regimen to get a better body, it has a lot of mental benefits too.
Weight loss
Most yogic regimens are designed in a way that they impact every body part. Even a 10 minute yoga regimen would include asanas that need to be performed for a maximum of 30 seconds but the entire routine would work out all your major muscle groups. This helps a person achieve a uniform weight loss from every part of their body.
Prevention of diseases
Yoga is a low impact exercise. Through gradual movements, it allows the muscles to stretch, warm up and tone up while enhancing the flow of blood through the body. Other known physical benefits of yoga include lowering of blood sugar, production of natural insulin through stimulation of the pancreas and reduction of cortisol levels that helps prevent the onset of arthritis. For people that are genetically susceptible to these diseases, yoga may be an ideal way to prevent their onset in the future.
Low impact physical exercise
People that find it hard to stick to other forms of workout can easily adapt yoga and get their daily dose of exercise without wearing themselves out entirely. In fact, for people that are battling morbid obesity or those that suffer from arthritis and cannot indulge in other forms of exercise, yoga may be the ideal way to workout.
Mental benefits
What yoga does is that it basically allows you to disconnect from artificial sensory stimulation (loud music, workout machines) and helps you to slow down the pace of your mental activity. In the course of a regular day, you may be plagued with thoughts about your work, the chores you have to do and personal problems. But when you practice yoga, you are able to devote some time to just sitting at a place and letting your mind wander. Many people even claim that mediating during yoga helps them find solutions to their problems as they aren’t distracted by any kind of work at the time.
