Benefits of Yoga

Practitioners of yoga talk about a unification of the body, mind and spirit acquired through practicing the yoga exercises and techniques.

One of the fundamental beliefs that yogi share is that the mind and the body are a unified structure, which can find its harmony and can heal itself, when in a proper environment. Due to these principles, as well as to the results obtained, many doctors consider yoga to offer substantial therapeutic results, and recommend it for curing a number of illnesses, mainly related to the nervous system.

Yoga is not a recent life philosophy. It has been practiced for thousands of years, with people commenting on and benefiting from the results throughout the ages. Yogis and other interested people have also conducted investigations, in order to clearly establish the areas in which people can obtain health benefits, through an extended practice. The information obtained after conducting the investigations was grouped in categories, establishing that yoga practitioners are likely to observe improvements in these three areas: physiological, psychological, and biochemical.

From the physiological point of view, a prolonged yoga practice can cure pulse rate decreases, respiratory and blood pressure dysfunction. It can contribute to stabilizing the nervous system equilibrium, normalizing gastrointestinal functions and endocrine function, increasing the joint range of motions, endurance level, energy level, immunity to diseases and cardiovascular efficiency, and improving eye-hand coordination, reaction time, dexterity skills, depth perception and sleep.

The second category, comprising psychological benefits, points to the fact that yoga can also contribute to increasing somatic and kinesthetic awareness, self-acceptance and self-actualization, social skills and well-being, as well as improving concentration, memory, attention, mood, learning efficiency and symbol coding.

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