Yoga For Men - Top 8 Benefits

This post is geared towards getting more Men to practice Yoga regularly :)
So, if you are one of my women students, do encourage your partner to read the post, discuss briefly and hopefully, He can start Yoga practice :)

Here are 8 proven ways yoga improves your health -- enough reasons to roll out your mat and get started!!

• Improved Flexibility: This is one of the first and most obvious benefits of yoga. During your first class, you may not be able to touch your toes, leave alone try a backbend! But, if you stick with it and consistently practice, you'll notice a gradual loosening of joints and muscles. Eventually, seemingly impossible postures do become possible :) 

• Strong Muscles & Strong Bones: When you build strength through Yoga asana, maybe breathe in a pose like Virabhadrasana 2 (Warrior 2), you balance it with flexibility. This strength protects you from arthritis and back pain. It's also well-researched that weight bearing exercises strengthen bones, helps keep the calcium in them and wards off osteoporosis.
• Heart Conditioning & Blood Pressure: When you regularly get your heart rate into the aerobic range, you lower your risk of heart attack. Even if the yoga class you attend is not completely aerobic, the deep breathing combined with yoga asanas definitely improves cardiovascular conditioning. And, one of the best postures for lowering high blood pressure is Shavasana - the last pose of every class.
• Nervous system / Brain Waves: An important instruction throughout a Yoga class is 'focus on the present moment' - basically, its an important tool to improve concentration, increase coordination, reaction time, memory and even IQ scores. It shifts the balance from the Sympathetic nervous system (the fight-or-flight response) to the Parasympathetic nervous system. This helps in lowering heart rates, decreases blood pressure and is calming and restorative to the body.
• Disconnection from constant stimuli: Our world is over-stimulated, with mobiles, internet, so we are never really disconnected from work or the outside world. This leads to constant bombardment on the immune system, and over a period of time, weakens it. Yoga can provide respite from the hustle and bustle of modern life. 

• Immune system functioning: Regular practice of Asanas, Pranayama, and Meditation has been researched to prove that they increase the functioning of the immune system. You will fall sick less often, have more resistance to diseases, and will be able to do more without burnout. That's the power of Yoga practice!

• Pranayama - Just Breathe! : In various studies, it has been shown that Deep Yogic Breathing improves lung functioning, encourages breathing through the nose, which filters the air, warms it, humidifies it, removing pollen and other allergens you'd rather not take into your lungs.

• Healing Hope: I feel Yoga gives you the tools to help you change, the more you commit to your practice, the more you benefit !! You get involved in your own self-care, you make better choices in your diet, you become more aware when your body and mind need rest and do the needful.
• And in this way, the effects are cumulative -- because they affect deep, lasting change in you in a holistic way, or 'whole'istic way -- you connect Body, Mind, and Spirit!

I hope this post has given a deeper understanding of Yoga practice.    

See you in class soon,

Namaste,
Asha