18 Sep Why Yoga Makes You Happy

Yoga has more to offer than your average trip to the gym or jog around the block. It’s more than just physical, it’s really an ancient mind-body-spirit science that looks at you as a holistic being, and that includes your sense of peace and happiness, because your happiness goes hand in hand with a healthy body.

Asanas are yoga postures great for developing flexibility and strength on a physical level, but there are emotional and psychological benefits that make yoga one of those special pursuits that can enhance your life on many levels.

Feel The Love

Yoga classes have a loving vibe. Yoga has a philosophy of mindfulness and the ideal of reaching inner peace. People gathering with this intention creates a positive bond of goodwill and interaction that has been found to boost serotonin levels – definitely a happy sign. The area in the brain that is associated with contentment has been found to be more developed in people who practice yoga regularly too. Where you place your attention, grows!

Just Breathe

Yoga helps you relax and let go in the now moment – it’s not just the physical movements, you are encouraged to breathe correctly and still your mind. This signals your body to go into an altered state that lowers your heart rate, slows your breathing and as you relax and let go, your body becomes less constricted and blood and energy begins to flow more easily.

Being in the now moment gives your body and monkey mind some downtime to stop stressing and producing those nasty ageing stress hormones. Let go of fright or flight for a few blissful moments and lower your cortisol levels. Yoga’s been proven to do that. Imbalanced cortisol levels can be very ageing and can be a result of extreme chronic stress – take a load off.

Proper breathing, combined with your yoga postures, is crucial to detoxifying your system and creating a sense of centred calmness. Focusing on your breath has an amazing ability to still and calm your mind, and is a great way to alkalise and cleanse your body too.

Go With The Flow

Yoga increases blood and energy flow to various parts of your body, especially your brain, and unblocks stuck and stagnant energies that may be causing problems such as infertility or various aches and pains. Yoga techniques also work on your meridians, which are the subtle energy lines that flow through your body.

Encouraging this energy to move properly has an effect on more subtle, emotional levels, all the way to your physical health. It can help heal and release emotional blockages. Our emotional stress can become “locked” in certain locations in our bodies – getting this stagnant energy moving can help us process this stress and release it. Yoga gets energy, blood and lymph flowing and this boosts your immune system and overall health and cleanses you on both a physical and emotional level.

A State Of Balance

By stimulating and massaging your hormonal glands with certain postures, yoga can help balance your hormones and boost your metabolism, and aside from the bonus that you’ll look and feel younger, a balanced well-functioning hormonal system is key to our emotional wellbeing. Many yoga postures focus on balance – balancing your body also creates more balance in your brain as well as your emotions. All these things are connected – find your mind-body-spirit balance.

Yoga is a lifestyle and state of mind that addresses your aesthetic, spiritual and emotional needs along with your physical health and fitness – that’s why it has the unique ability to evoke a sense of wholeness and fullness – and who wouldn’t be happy to feel like that!