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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
believes that yogi share is that the mind and the body are a
unified structure, which can find its harmony and it can heal
itself, when being in a proper environment. Due to these
principles, as well as to the results obtained, many doctors
consider yoga as having therapeutic results, and recommend it
for curing a series of illnesses, mainly related to the nervous
system.
Yoga is not a recent life
philosophy. It has been practiced for thousands of years
and during all this time, people benefited from the great
results obtained. Furthermore, they conducted investigations,
in order to clearly establish the areas in which people can
obtain health benefits, by an extended practice. The
information obtained after conducting the investigations was
grouped in three categories, establishing that yoga
practitioners are likely to observe improvements in what
concerns physiological, psychological, biochemical
aspects.
From the physiological
point of view, prolonged yoga practices can cure pulse rate
decreases, respiratory and blood pressure dysfunctions, it can
contribute to stabilizing the nervous system equilibrium, to
normalizing gastrointestinal functions and endocrine function,
to increasing the joint range of motions, endurance level,
energy level, immunity to diseases and cardiovascular
efficiency, to improving eye-hand coordination, reaction time,
dexterity skills, depth perception, sleep,
etc.
The second category,
comprising psychological benefits, points out that yoga can
also contribute to increasing somatic and kinesthetic
awareness, self-acceptance and self-actualization, social
skills, well-being, as well as to improving concentration,
memory, attention, mood, learning efficiency, symbol coding,
etc.
As for the biochemical
benefits of yoga, we can enumerate substantial decreases of
glucose, sodium, cholesterol, total white blood cell and
remarkable increases of vitamin C, total serum protein,
hemoglobin etc.
Furthermore, various
studies revealed that yoga exercises are extremely effective
when it comes to increasing the level of joint flexibility,
together with the level of lubrication of joints, ligaments and
tendons. Another interesting aspect has to do with the fact
that yoga is one of the very few techniques, which contributes
to massaging all the internal organs and glands, including the
ones that are hardly ever stimulated during the lifetime of a
person, such as the prostate. The stimulation and massaging of
the internal organs proves to be beneficial when it comes to
preventing and keeping away diseases.
Moreover, these ancient
and efficient techniques guarantee a complete detoxification of
your body. When stretching the muscles and performing a
thorough massage, due to the complexity of the yoga exercises
you ensure the optimum quantity of blood supply you need. As a
consequence, toxins are eliminated from your body and certain
undesired processes, such as aging, are considerably
delayed.
As a final remark, all
the benefits presented above come in addition to the most
important aspect provided by yoga practices, meaning the
harmony and the synchronization between body and mind, as well
as strengthening your meditation and emotional
systems.
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