DEAR MAYO CLINIC: I’ve all the time been pretty versatile, so I’ve by no means felt compelled to incorporate yoga in my health routine. Sometimes, I simply stroll and perhaps do some weights for energy coaching. I used to be speaking to a buddy who mentioned her bodily therapist advisable yoga as a part of a well-rounded exercise routine. What’s the advantage of yoga? Ought to I add it to my routine or persist with what I am doing?

ANSWER: Yoga is an excellent type of train that gives advantages that strolling or energy coaching do not present. In Japanese cultures, yoga is just not seen as train, however reasonably “a transferring meditation.” Within the Western world, many individuals know energy yoga or vinyasa yoga, that are categorized as train.

No matter the kind of yoga, when practiced mindfully, there are various benefits for the physique, thoughts and soul. Yoga can present three main advantages {that a} typical health club routine might not present.

Profit 1: Yoga improves the perform of the nervous system. Since yoga relies on respiratory, components of the nervous system are affected when exhales are lengthened and breath is managed. That is cued all through explicit yoga sequences. Particularly, yoga can assist decrease the fight-or-flight response and enhance the physique’s “rest-and-digest” response.

Working towards sluggish, managed respiratory stimulates the physique’s vagus nerve, which takes details about the present state of rest and relays it to the remainder of the physique, together with the mind. One space affected when the vagal nerve is stimulated is the parasympathic nervous system, which controls the physique’s relaxation and digestion features. The aware respiratory practiced in yoga will increase the exercise of the parasympathic nervous system. Because of this, yoga lowers the guts fee, improves digestion and high quality of sleep, and strengthens the immune system. One other profit is an improved stress degree.

Profit 2: Yoga can enhance joint vary of movement. The distinction between flexibility and lively vary of movement is vital. Consider flexibility as how a lot a muscle could be passively stretched. In distinction, vary of movement is how a lot muscle tissues can be utilized to manage a joint’s motion.

It’s not unusual today for folks to report neck and again ache, and poor vary of movement of their thoracic backbone resulting from fixed sitting, typing on computer systems and looking out down at cellphones. Yoga is great in bettering thoracic vary of movement as a result of many poses contain extending the physique by means of the rib cage and utilizing energy to carry these postures.

Yoga incorporates all 4 motions of the backbone: flexion, extension, rotation and side-bending. Subsequently, yoga can forestall stiffness and disuse that can also happen with age. Having the ability to management the accessible vary of movement in joints is essential to good posture and lowering the chance of damage.

Profit 3: Yoga improves dynamic stability, lowering the chance of falling. Consider stability like a muscle. By working exhausting at completely different workouts, stability can enhance. That is much like improved energy by lifting weights.

Stability is a posh system, requiring three components: the feeling of the foot on the bottom, or proprioception; imaginative and prescient; and the internal ear, or vestibular system. These three components inform the mind the place the pinnacle is in area. These three parts work collectively to manage each static and dynamic stability. Yoga trains the proprioception and visible techniques to enhance stability. Relying on the pose, cues are despatched to focus, as an illustration, on the foot rooted to the bottom. By concentrating in an try to take care of contact, the large toe, little toe and heel type a tripod of kinds, which in flip helps focus the proprioception portion of stability.

In yoga, chances are you’ll hear the time period “drishti,” which refers to acquiring a targeted gaze or focus within the thoughts. The idea comes into play as folks intention to carry a pose with their eyes closed. Sure poses develop into more difficult with eyes closed, which improves the visible a part of stability.

Additionally, transferring backwards and forwards between poses with out absolutely touching a limb to the bottom can enhance the flexibility to dynamically transfer and never lose stability. Over time, this may cut back the chance of falling whereas strolling on uneven floor or turning shortly.

Whereas it could be exhausting so as to add yet another factor to your busy life routine, incorporating yoga into your exercise routine can profit your stress degree, mobility and stability in ways in which might not be achieved from a daily health club routine.