Sure, everyone knows that yoga can help you achieve better balance and stretch your body. I am certain you have heard a dozen times how yoga is one of the most beneficial practices you can do. However, there are some unexpected benefits of yoga that many people are not aware of.
In the latest years, yoga is becoming increasingly popular in the west. However, this ancient practice has been with people for more than a millennium, and this is because of its timeless advantages.
What is the hype all about? Is yoga really that beneficial, or is this just a myth? I’ll list 15 of the most unexpected benefits of yoga, so you can decide for yourself.
Let’s get started!
Immediate Benefits of Yoga
There is a reason why yoga is so popular, and that is that many of its benefits are noticeable the moment you start doing your training or right after it. The moment you start doing yoga you might find yourself feeling calm, and your breathing will improve. This is common knowledge.
However, there are some unexpected benefits of yoga that amateurs might be surprised about. Here’s what they are:
1. Mood Improvement
The mental benefits of yoga have been proven several times. While any form of exercise can help you get stress relief by releasing endorphins through your body and giving you a feeling of accomplishment, yoga seems to be a leading type of exercise when it comes to improving your mood. In fact, this can be noticed the moment you start practicing it. [1]
Yoga is a great choice not just for people battling anxiety or depression, but also for regular individuals who simply want to improve their mood on the days when they are feeling low.
As such, yoga can be considered an act of self-care, especially when you pick yourself up and do it when you’re not feeling your best. If you do it in the morning, chances are you’ll start your day on a positive note and have a better mood throughout the daily activities.
2. Helps with Insomnia
Yoga is relaxing, especially the gentler poses that are good for vitality. Next to improving mood, they’ll help people sleep better, especially if you’re doing restorative yoga poses.
There are numerous poses you can use to help you sleep better. In fact, you might even use some right before you go to bed. If this isn’t enough, you can do some in your bed.
As such, you might do yoga right before your meditation before sleep time, which can help you fall into a deep sleep might faster.
3. Cures Hangover
If you like to have a few drinks during your weekend out, you’d be happy to hear that there is a solution to ease your hangovers – yoga! Yes, yoga can help with hangovers, at least with the physical pain that goes with it.
Sure, yoga won’t help tremendously if you’re feeling sick to your stomach. However, some poses can help your tummy process alcohol faster. At the same time, you won’t jump as much as if you would do some exercises or sport, which can be extremely beneficial.
Also, if you’ve fallen asleep on the couch or jumped too much in the club, yoga can help with the stiffness you’re feeling in the morning.
Benefits Of Yoga on Body Shape
Although not as effective as strength training, yoga can help you improve your body shape and get the best out of your body type.
Everyone probably knows how yoga might help us lose weight if we do it properly. However, there are a few other benefits doing yoga might have on your body.
Here’s what they are:
1. The Increase in Upper-Body Strength
Yoga can help you increase the strength of your upper body. This is because you’ll mostly use your upper body to do certain poses, whether that be headstands or simply using your torso and hands to balance yourself.
As you help yourself hold the standard poses for a long while, you’ll notice that your upper body gains strength at a much faster rate than the lower body.
There are many benefits to this, such as:
- Improved posture.
- Decreased risk of injuries.
- Better performance at physical activities.
This doesn’t mean that your lower body will remain without any muscle or strength gain. However, the progress will be much more visible in the upper body.
2. Helps Athlete Training
Yoga is a great exercise if you’re preparing yourself for any competition, or simply if you want to become a better athlete. Yoga can boost you on many levels, including endurance, coordination, flexibility, strength, and balance.
Not just that, but yoga is more gentle on your body than most exercises you do regularly, so it won’t put a strain on your body.
You can do yoga in your local gym as well.
Long Term Benefits
Not all advantages will be noticed right away. However, the benefits that happen over time are usually the ones that will stay with you for the longest amount of time.
This is similar to losing weight. When you lose lots of weight fast, you’re also likely to gain it back. However, if you wait for the results, you’ll stay slimmer for a long period of time. The same goes for these consequences of doing yoga.
Here are some long-term benefits only those persistent in this practice will get to experience:
1. Back Pain Relief
Yoga is one of the best things you can do if you suffer from chronic back pain. As it improves your flexibility, it can also help stretch your back and ease the pain. This is why yoga is especially good for people who lead an otherwise sedentary lifestyle.
Just remember to always consult with your doctor before you begin any new exercise routine.
2. Increases Fertility
Yoga helps us decrease our stress levels. It also seems to be a good motivating factor for healthier living. As such, there are some indications of an unexpected benefit of yoga, and that is that yoga might help fight infertility.
Of course, fertility is a challenging issue and many factors come into play. However, stress is tightly connected with the inability to conceive, and yoga is one of the best things you can do for yourself in stressful situations.
Also, yoga might help increase the blood flow to your reproductive organs, no matter if you’re male or female. This can further help increase the chances of conception.
Remember that you need to see your doctor if you’re having fertility problems. You need to rule out various medical issues before you decide that yoga is the right treatment for your problems.
3. Improved Metabolism
Metabolism is in charge of all processes that convert food into energy while burning up calories. The higher your metabolism rate, the easier you’ll lose weight. In general, being physically active is the best thing you can do for your metabolism rate.
Yoga usually requires you to move, so it will greatly improve your metabolism. This one is easy to conclude.
However, another way in which yoga can improve your metabolism is by improving your breathing. Most yoga practices require you to breathe deeply, which will help your blood flow. In general, fast blood flow helps make your metabolism faster.
As such, while yoga might not be as physically demanding as some other exercises, it will still greatly improve your metabolism and help you get the body you wanted.
4. Improved Heart Health
The cardiovascular system is one of the most important parts of your organism. As such, keeping your heart healthy is likely the best thing you can do if you’d like to live a long life. This also means keeping your heart beating at the optimal rate.
Many forms of yoga, especially the vigorous ones, can help your heart pump, keeping it healthy. However, it won’t beat as fast as it would after some intensive sports, such as soccer or doing exercises in the gym. This is why yoga is considered one of the best types of exercise you can do for your heart.
5. Arthritis Help
While it might not seem that way, yoga is a good exercise for people with arthritis. Arthritis is a debilitating condition that can affect almost anyone, but some people are genetically more prone to it. This disease reduces regular joint function, causing discomfort and even pain. A person with arthritis feels as if they are losing their independence, as many regular activities become nearly impossible.
However, yoga seems to help people with arthritis, as it will give them relief from pain. At the same time, it will help with vitality and improve the overall quality of life.
6. Better Memory
If you practice yoga for a while, you can help yourself manage stress better. Over time, this can improve your memory and help you do mentally challenging tasks much easier.
When you release tension from your body and mind, your cognitive functions will increase. As such, you’ll be able to think with more clarity and to recall things much easier than you would if you weren’t doing yoga regularly.
7. Immune System Support
Let’s face it. We all need a little bit of immune boost, especially after the past few years. Yoga is a great way to improve your immune system and help you fight off many contagious diseases.
Regular exercise might lower inflammation processes, especially if you don’t do exercises that make you too tired. Yoga also boosts blood flow, which helps white blood cells and other beneficial cells to flow through your body.
In other words, if you do yoga, you have a better chance of not just defeating viruses, but of not contracting them in the first place.
Of course, yoga isn’t a replacement for other methods of keeping yourself safe, but it surely can help.
8. Better Sex Life
Even if you think your sex life is excellent, you can probably agree that it never hurts to make it a bit better. Yoga might be the right thing for you! This is one of the unexpected benefits of yoga you probably didn’t count on.
These exercises will increase your energy and your sex drive, which is never a bad thing. Also, it might help you have stronger orgasms that will last for a long while. It’s no wonder that yoga and Kama Sutra come from the same side of the world!
9. Hormone Balance
Even people who are not trying to conceive can benefit from balancing their hormone levels.
Nowadays, no one can say they have all blood parameters in the perfect order. We live in a stressful period of history and with our jobs and responsibilities no one can say they are entirely free of anxiety. All of this can affect our health, especially our hormone levels.
Balanced hormones are important for many things, not just for starting a family. Getting your hormones in balance will up your sex drive, improve your mood, help you sleep better, and also increase your energy levels, helping you run your errands throughout the day.
10. Helps with Migraines
Few things are more painful than migraines. Migraines can ruin your entire day or even week, and many times it feels like there is not much you can do to make them stop. These specific headaches seem to affect your entire body, and doing sports is probably the last thing you feel like doing.
Fortunately, yoga might be one of the things you can try to help fight this painful condition. It can be very beneficial due to its effects on blood flow and stress relief, and there are some indications that doing yoga can help reduce not just the intensity but also the frequency of migraine episodes.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many unexpected benefits of yoga that not even some professionals are aware of!
Yoga can help improve your life in more ways than one. It is one of the most beneficial exercises you can do, especially if you do it the right way. If you stay consistent, you might even experience some long-term benefits that will greatly improve your quality of life.
Just remember to be careful and do everything correctly. Make sure you have proper guidance so you don’t injure yourself.