BENEFIT OF YOGA

First-Hand Experience With The Benefits Of Yoga . 

I myself have experienced yoga’s healing power in a very real way .

1. Improves your flexibility

Improved flexibility is one of the first and most obvious benefits of yoga. During your first class , you probably won’t be able to touch your toes, never mind do a backbend. But if you stick with it, you’ll notice a gradual loosening, and eventually, seemingly impossible poses will become possible. You’ll also probably notice that aches and pains start to disappear. That’s no coincidence. Tight hips can strain the knee joint due to improper alignment of the thigh and shinbones. Tight hamstrings can lead to a flattening of the lumbar spine, which can cause back pain. And inflexibility in muscles and connective tissue, such as fascia and ligaments, can cause poor posture .

2. Builds muscle strength

Strong muscles do more than look good . They also protect us from conditions like arthritis and back pain and help prevent falls in elderly people . When you build strength through yoga , you balance it with flexibility . If you just went to the gym and lifted weights you might build strength at the expense of flexibility . 

3. Betters bone health

Many postures in yoga require that you lift your own weight . And some , like Downward and Upward-Facing Dog , help strenghten the arm bones , which is particularly vulnerable to osteoporotic fractures . 

4. Increases your blood flow 

Yoga gets your blood flowing. More specifically, the relaxation exercises you learn in yoga can help your circulation, especially in your hands and feet. Yoga also gets more oxygen to your cells, which function better as a result. Twisting poses are thought to wring out venous blood from internal organs and allow oxygenated blood to flow in once the twist is released. Inverted poses, such as Headstand, Handstand, and Shoulderstand, encourage venous blood from the legs and pelvis to flow back to the heart, where it can be pumped to the lungs to be freshly oxygenated. This can help if you have swelling in your legs from heart or kidney problems. Yoga also boosts levels of hemoglobin and red blood cells, which carry oxygen to the tissues. And it thins the blood by making platelets less sticky and by cutting the level of clot-promoting proteins in the blood. This can lead to a decrease in heart attacks and strokes since blood clots are often the cause of these killers.

5. Ups your heart rate 

When you regularly get your heart rate into the aerobic range, you lower your risk of heart attack and can relieve depression . While not all yoga is aerobic , if you do it vigorously or take flow or Ashtanga classes, it can boost your heart rate into the aerobic range. But even yoga exercises that don’t get your heart rate up that high can improve cardiovascular conditioning.

6. Eases your pain 

Yoga can ease your pain. According to several studies, asana, meditation, or a combination of the two, reduced pain in people with arthritis, back pain, fibromyalgia, carpal tunnel syndrome, and other chronic conditions. When you relieve your pain, your mood improves, you’re more inclined to be active, and you don’t need as much medication.

7. Supports your connective tissue 

As you read all the ways yoga improves your health, you probably noticed a lot of overlap . That’s because they’re intensely interwoven. Change your posture and you change the way you breathe. Change your breathing and you change your nervous system.
This is one of the great lessons of yoga: Everything is connected—your hipbone to your anklebone, you to your community, your community to the world. This interconnection is vital to understanding yoga. This holistic system simultaneously taps into many mechanisms that have additive and even multiplicative effects. This synergy may be the most important way of all that yoga heals.

HOW YOGA CHANGES YOUR BODY.....

WHY I DO YOGA ?

I am a human, much like you, and that means we are consciousness somehow floating inside a meat sack supported by bones. The mind-body duality maintains the same mystery as it did when the ancient philosophers were thinking about thinking, and then thinking about the relationship of those thoughts to the physical form that contains them. Even though we all have minds and bodies, the complexities keep us in a state of wonderment – and this is why I yoga . There are the physical poses that connect to your body , but that is just 1 of 8 limbs of yoga . If you explore the full spectrum , yoga becomes a life practise and not just an exercise routine .

Here a few reason why i do yoga :

1. Reminds Me To Breathe

I can't tell you how many times I have almost lost my cool and psychically eviscerated someone who made me mad ., but instead took a deep breath and remained calm .The ability to react to aggression with peace has drastically improved my relations with others and decreased my stress . The more I connect to my breath , the clearer I think, and makes me be a better person .

2. Gets Me Out Of My Own Selfish Head

I don’t know about you, but the vast majority of my thoughts are about me. If I am hungry, what I should wear tonight, what I did yesterday, what I am going to do tomorrow. Me, me, me. I think about me all the time and it is the root of misery. The more I think about me, the less happy I am. Yoga reminds me to direct that internal obsession to the external needs of others. The more I prioritize helping those around me and caring about the beings on this planet, the more peace I feel inside myself.

3. Helps Me Stay Focused

In our modern world everyone has their own smartphones . We have portable units that suck us into a vortex of being anywhere but the present. Come to think of it, when was the last time I emptied my bowels while not looking at Facebook? Every day I have to make a conscious decision to avoid the chaos of modern living and genuinely direct my attention to what is happening in front of my face , whether it’s work, chores, or spending time with others. I want to be a person who is actually there living it .

4. Makes Me Feel Strong

Using my body and improving throughout the years reminds me of how capable I actually am. I don’t need someone to help me with my bags, I can move furniture, throw my enemies into a pool , hike mountains, swimming and run far away . I don’t feel limited by my physical self and that is an empowering state of being .

Welcome to the world of Yogasanam

I think it is great to have so many Malaysian who are interested in yoga practice whether their motives is for fitness only or for spiritual realization. It doesn’t matter if we are Malay or Indian or Chinese or any other races in the country who are so enthusiastic in going for some yoga classes regularly.

Malaysia is a heaven on earth. We don’t have many natural disasters like earthquakes, volcanoes, sand storms, wind storms, hurricanes, cold winter, hot summer or extreme weather. Through out the whole year we have a stable temperature and rains. The forests and jungles are always green and there is minimum problems of dryness. Most of all the people here are friendly and open minded towards people from other countries and different cultures.

We also don’t have wars or violence in the country. Despite the imperfection of some political conflicts and petite crimes which is very common in everywhere in the world, I think most of the Malaysians would like to live in harmony with all the different races, and to respect each other’s different cultures and believes. Everyone are wishing for positive improvement and prosperity for Malaysia to become a beautiful and nice place for people to live in.

Yoga is something that can bring peace and harmony into all the people’s heart who live in Malaysia with different races, cultures, believes, languages and nationalities. Although Yoga originate from India and the Vedas are part of Hinduism, yoga is always open to all living beings who are in search for self-realization or enlightenment. There is no differentiation of sexes, races, religions, languages, believes, cultures, castes, sects, social status, education levels or good and bad people in the propagation of yoga.

The existence of yoga is to transcends suffering and bring every living beings back to their true self or original nature or the pure consciousness which is whole and self-contain, which is beginning-less and endless, beyond creation and destruction, beyond birth and death, beyond good and evil, beyond happiness and suffering, and beyond all names and forms.

Even though lately there has been an issue about the Fatwa on yoga for Muslim in Malaysia, but I believe that wouldn’t change the understanding of yoga in the hearts of many Malaysian Muslims who are sincerely practicing yoga and who truly understand the harmony and peacefulness that yoga practice brought into their lives and into their hearts. And the wisdom and compassion that they had attained from yoga practice will not disappear due to the issue of Fatwa on yoga . Actually the real yoga practice will make a person becomes a true religious and spiritual person, help people to develop stronger faith in their religions and practices which suppose to develop love, peace, respect and harmony in their hearts and in life, and not provoking anger, hatred and petite mindedness.

Conclusion , if everyone are sincerely practicing yoga , become selfless and attain self-realization , the world is a peaceful heaven .