by Bhavya Dabas

Created on: October 28, 2009   Last Updated: November 03, 2009

For those of us exposed to mounting levels of physical and mental stress, yoga can be a life saver. It can work wonders for your physical, mental and emotional health.

Yoga involves exercises that stretch your muscles and require you to breathe deeply. Let's take a look at what this sort of exercise can do for you.

Yoga increases your flexibility. It stretches out your muscles and ligaments, relieving stiffness, stress and pain. Yogic postures and exercises have been studied scientifically, and they have been proven to release lactic acids and increase lubrication in the joints. The exercises also help improve your blood circulation and maintain a healthy body weight.

Certain styles of Yoga, particularly the more vigorous ashtanga style, lead to increased endurance and strength.

People who practice Yoga also develop better posture over time, which is partly due to the increased flexibility, and also due to the fact that Yogic postures are designed to make you more aware of your body positions so that you can immediately correct yourself if you are slouching.

Yoga also involves meditation, which comes with its own set of benefits. It soothes and calms the mind, relieving mental stress and tension. It also leads to improved concentration and better moods. This is all extremely beneficial for the heart and leads to a reduced risk of hypertension or heart disease. It may even lead to better interpersonal relationships.

A Yoga instructor should be chosen with care. Choose someone who has been practicing for an extended period of time, on a daily basis. Someone who has a small class size of not more than a dozen people at a time, so that they can give each student personalized attention. It is also important that they should offer different programs for people with different needs and different levels of expertise, so that you can easily find one that suits you.

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