UPDATE: This is an update of an article was originally published on 2/22/23

Yoga is an ancient practice that has been around for centuries, and provides numerous health benefits. Practicing yoga regularly can help improve not only your physical strength and flexibility, but also, and just as important, your mental wellbeing. It can reduce stress levels, improve sleep quality, and even help with weight loss. In this post, we will discuss five health benefits of practicing yoga regularly.

1. Yoga Increases Flexibility and Strength: One of the primary benefits of doing yoga regularly is increasing flexibility, strength, and muscle tone in your body. Yoga helps strengthen muscles in your body as well as increase coordination, and joint mobility. When you regularly practice yoga, you can easily see the physical benefits when you are able to twist yourself into a pretzel or bend over with your head on your knee with no problem at all.

2. Yoga Keeps Your Heart Healthy: We all know that exercise is imperative to keep your heart healthy and strong. Yoga is a type of exercise that does not require any special equipment or facilities, so it is incredibly accessible for people of all levels of ability and means. While it may look like you’re not doing enough (like those bootcamp classes), do a few one breath, one movement sun salutations, and I promise you’ll feel the heat rise in your body and your heart pumping.

3. Yoga Can Help with Stress: One of the best forms of exercise for decreasing stress, yoga can reduce anxiety and depression, improve your mood. When we are caught up in a stressed out state, yoga gets us out of our head and brings us back into our body and helps us feel grounded. Being in our body is crucial in regulating our nervous system. When you are holding a challenging yoga posture and breathing into it, you are training your body to manage stress. This can also help manage symptoms of chronic pain because it improves your body's ability to focus on a single point while calming the nervous system.

4. Yoga Helps Improve Sleep: According to the CDC, more than 1/3 of Americans do not get the proper amount of sleep. Yoga has been shown to not only improve sleep quality, but also improves motivation and mood during the day. If you are having trouble sleeping, consider trying a modified version of yoga poses, like these, in order to help calm your mind and body so you can sleep more soundly

5. Yoga Increases Our Sense of Self-Awareness and Connection to Ourselves: To learn more about yourself, you first have to be mindful and take a step back from your busy life. The best way to do this is by doing yoga regularly. Yoga practice allows us to get in touch with our physical bodies in a very intimate way. By practicing regularly, we learn to meet our body where it is physically, and provide it what it needs. We also learn a lot about ourselves mentally through practicing yoga. We learn how our mind responds to physical stressors. We learn to nurture ourselves mentally and physically.

If you would like to learn more about yoga, check out Episode 9 of the Easewell Podcast, The Health Benefits of Yoga with Diana DeLatour, Owner of Be Hot Yoga Atlanta.