5 Benefits Of A Committed Yoga Practice
You hear it all the time. Maybe it’s from a friend, a family member, or a coworker, or perhaps it’s from your spouse. They proclaim that their lives have improved due to the benefits of a committed yoga practice. And you admit to yourself that you have seen a change in them. Their step seems lighter, and their smile seems brighter.
They talk about how comfortable their yoga clothes are and how easily they can bend over and touch their toes. They talk about their wonderful yoga teacher. Your friend or family member is constantly trying to recruit you, but you have resisted.
You secretly wonder what is behind these changes and how a yoga practice might help you. You can experience a clearer self-awareness and feel better and more in balance.
Yoga may start with physical flexibility and more comfortable clothes. Still, upon closer inspection, you can understand how yoga can affect someone on a deeper level. Here are five benefits of a committed yoga practice:
Establish a place of strength
Without a proper grounding in asana practice, you falter. Yoga teaches us to be grounded by focusing on the foundation and working our way up. Once you can connect and become more grounded in your body and your life, you can establish a place of strength that allows for expansion.
Cultivate deeper insight
With yoga, you can begin to slow down, become present, and listen – not to the surface noise but to a deeper place of knowing. Some call it intuition or a gut feeling.
Remove obstacles that prevent the Mind-Body from working together.
Once you connect and become aware of the energetic imprints in the mind and body, you can begin to let go and come to a more natural and relaxed state of being. From this place, you can start clearing away old thinking, doing patterns, and making way for new ones.
Create a harmonious internal space
When you start a yoga practice, you connect with the physical body. As a result, its many activities become more balanced, and the mind and body become harmonious. As a result, you can experience a clearer self-awareness and feel better and more balanced.
Re-establish wholeness
The practice of yoga helps connect us to ourselves at a deeper level by centering the body, releasing blockages, and creating new pathways of awareness. It is an excellent opportunity to re-establish wholeness and remove obstacles that prevent the mind and the body from working together in a unified way.
As your yoga practice progresses and unfolds, there are many growth opportunities. As you become more grounded and centered, the mind slows down. You can begin to listen to a deeper place inside, creating a more harmonious internal space. From this place, you can branch out into the world feeling more connected to all that is, with a deepening level of compassion for yourself and others.
So the next time someone asks you to go to a yoga class, why not take them up? Keep going until you find the suitable style and teacher for you. Who knows? Maybe one day, your friends and family will wonder where your brighter smile and lighter step came from. They may even ask you about it.
About the Author
Hope Knosher is the founder of Healthy Living With Hope and Hope’s Yoga. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, she is a Certified E-RYT500 Yoga Teacher, National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC) & Certified Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT) with the International Association of Yoga Therapists.
Hope and her work have been featured in numerous publications, including Reader’s Choice “Best Of Atlanta” by Atlanta Magazine, one of Atlanta’s “Over 40 & Fabulous” by Best Self Atlanta, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for her work with cancer survivors, MindBodyGreen, Noteworthy, Mantra Yoga & Health and cover features with Northside Woman and Yoga Magazine.
Hope’s weekly yoga classes are open to everyone in the studio or via live stream. She also offers corporate yoga & meditation, wellness coaching, and workshops. Hope is a regular guest speaker on yoga, Mindfulness, and Health & wellness topics. Learn more about Hope.
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