By DeVona Seymour

The benefits of yoga are now being recognized and welcomed in the West, but the benefits are not only physical; people who practice yoga regularly know that their quality of life improves on all levels: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.

We are mostly concerned with the physical aspects of yoga, but those who practice the postures consistently will soon see other changes in their lives. Their sense of physical well-being will improve, along with feelings of stability, clarity, and a greater ability to concentrate. Yoga can lift your capacity to succeed in all other areas of your life: your work; study; sport; and relationships.

When you practice yoga regularly, you will find that it helps relieve depression and anxiety. It increases energy levels, controls weight, helps relieve arthritis, and keeps you flexible and energetic. Yoga also improves osteoporosis, circulation, digestion, and lowers blood pressure. It can replace the so-called buzzes of alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, and other stimulants.

Yoga is a great way to tone and strengthen your body. You can practice yoga for the physical benefits alone and be very satisfied with the results; however, it has the potential to replace old, negative patterns with positive, life-affirming choices.

Yoga is an ancient practice that creates a sense of union in the body, mind, and spirit. At the physical level, yoga has proven to be extremely effective in increasing flexibility. Stretching the body in new ways will help it become more flexible. This in turn, brings greater range of motion to muscles and joints. Surprisingly, it has been found that the body, which may have been quite rigid, becomes very flexible, even in those parts that were not consciously worked on. This is because the yoga positions act upon parts of the body in an interrelated manner. When done together, they become harmonious in creating flexibility. Sometimes in yoga practice, someone cannot even touch their toes; however, the benefits of yoga include lengthening the muscles, tendons, and ligaments in the body to help you become more flexible. The flexibility attained through yoga also makes one feel good and thus look good.

Many yoga poses require you to support the weight of your own body. These would include balancing on one leg, supporting yourself with your arms, and moving slowly in and out of poses. This increases strength and muscle tone. Some of the yoga poses build upper body strength. This is very important as people age, as are the postures that build strength in the lower back. Almost all the yoga poses build core strength in the abdominal muscles. When you have core strength, you will naturally sit and stand tall. Therefore, another benefit of increased flexibility and strength is better posture and increased body awareness. This awareness tells you when to adjust your posture.

Yoga is a practice that massages all the internal glands and organs of the body. This wholesome stimulation and massage of the organs is beneficial because it helps keep disease away, and forewarns us of an onset of disease or disorder. Since yoga gently stretches the muscles and joints, as well as massages the organs, it ensures the blood supply to various parts of the body. This helps to flush out toxins and provide nourishment to all parts of the body. This leads to benefits such as delayed ageing, energy, and zest for life.

Yoga benefits the mind by teaching you to focus and concentrate. This focus is internal—between your mind and your body. Since your state of mind is reflected in the way you breathe, by controlling the breath, you can learn to control your state of mind. Yoga breathing revitalizes the body, steadies the emotions, and creates clarity of mind. Learning to breathe correctly, using the diaphragm, is one of the most important exercises in yoga.

In yoga, the breath is known as “Prana”, or the universal life force energy within all of us. Yoga breathing techniques are known as “Pranayama” or practices that control the breath in order to create a state of inner peace. One of the greatest health benefits of yoga is stress reduction, and just learning how to breathe deeply can reduce or eliminate many symptoms triggered by stress.

The breath in yoga is seen as a bridge between the body and the mind. For example, during the yoga postures, if there is discomfort in a certain area, you can consciously exhale into that area and experience a release of tension. This makes it possible to relax more into the pose. You should learn to use the breath as a tool to create support for your movements and to release the whole body.

This quote by Gurutej Kauna in Fit Yoga magazine sums up the healthy benefit of yoga breathing. “People think we get energy from food and sleeping, but the breath is our most abundant source of energy. Breathing oxygenates the blood, improves circulation, and gets more oxygen into the muscles which allows them to function better. Even though life can be complicated, the solution could be using your breath, basic movements, and a heightened sense of awareness to balance the physical body and mind with the spirit.”

Another way that yoga calms the mind is through meditation. To meditate is to become aware of what is going on within you. The practice of meditation helps you stay centered regardless of your circumstances. Because meditating helps you to slow your breath, quiet your mind, and find peace, it can be beneficial physically, mentally, and emotionally. Some of the benefits of meditating are: it clears your mind for better sleep; refines your ability to focus on a goal or situation; slows your respiration for longer, deeper breaths; and boosts your immune system. Meditation is also beneficial mentally and emotionally by reducing anxiety and depression, by helping you detach emotionally, which helps you break unhealthy habits, by improving communication with yourself, and by helping you stay in the present moment instead of the past or future.

Remember this quote from Beth Shaw, author of the book Yogafit, “You are not seeking to find anything through the practice of meditation. Rather, it is through meditation that you are found. It’s a mistake to think that through meditation, you are trying to become somebody else. The true intent of yoga and meditation is to become the best possible version of yourself”.

Spiritually, yoga makes you aware of your body, your feelings, the world around you, and the needs of others. It promotes interdependence between mind, body, and spirit. It is beneficial because it helps you live the concept of “oneness”. Yoga becomes part of your spiritual life because it teaches “right” living in dealing with yourselves and others. Just by working on a difficult pose will teach you patience, forgiveness, and the value of gentleness.

In the true spirit of living, yoga plays a major role. It helps in developing and attaining personal values by reducing a variety of mental ills. Yoga enhances personal values by avoiding the element of fear from our lives. By practicing yoga, you gain control of your mind, and this results in the control of the thoughts and actions as well. Yoga controls the emotions of a person with the help of mental exercises. This helps a person achieve contentment.

Another spiritual benefit of yoga is that it makes an individual accept faith in life. It replaces pessimism, cynicism, and suspicion with an appreciation of life. Yoga helps a person to be at peace with himself and the world, and therefore attain poise, serenity, contentment, patience, and assurance.

The physical, mental, and spiritual benefits of yoga are extensive: stress relief, pain relief, better breathing, flexibility, balance, increased strength, weight management, improved circulation, cardiovascular conditioning, focusing on the present, and inner peace. What more could you want? Yoga is the answer for an improved quality of life—physically, mentally, and spiritually.

DeVona Seymour is studying to become a certified Yoga teacher.