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| Dr. Firoz Ali Biswas M.D (AM) |
15 minutes of yoga a day can alter your brain chemistry and boost your mood.
Studies have shown that yoga can decrease the secretion of cortisol, the primary stress hormone, which in turn can improve your overall health.
Wherever you are and whatever you're doing, it's easy to squeeze in just 15 minutes of yoga practice a day. Here are 10 reasons why it will be worth it
1. Improve flexibility, strength, and posture
Daily yoga practice will help stretch and tone your body muscles. Popular poses like the plank will simultaneously work on strengthening your arms, legs, shoulders and abs. You don't have to be super flexible to practice yoga, the beauty of yoga is that it can be practiced at all levels of ability.
A few minutes a day practicing poses like the warrior or the downward facing dog, will soon make you really feel the difference in your flexibility, whether you're pretty bendy already or not. Daily yoga helps improve your posture, making you walk taller and sit up straighter at your desk. Aches and pains caused by incorrect body posture such as back pain can also be alleviated.
2. Better all-round fitness
When thinking of improving your fitness, most of us think of huffing and puffing away at the gym. But weights are not the only way to work out. Yoga gives you all that a gym can, but in a peaceful, safe and more holistic way. It combines aspects of cardio, functional and strength training all in one. What more could you ask for? The best part about this workout is that it can be done at your own pace, in your own home.
3. Weight loss
You don't have to practice Hot Yoga or be able to bend double in a yoga pose to lose weight. An everyday gentle yoga practice will fuel the metabolic system and will help burn fat, leading to weight loss. Daily yoga can also help restore the hormonal balance in your body, which can normalise your body weight.
Levels of cortisol, the hormone that is released in response to stress will be lowered, leading to less overeating. Daily yoga also strengthens the overall mind-body connection and helps you deal more effectively with unpleasant emotions rather than reaching for food to suppress those feelings.
4. Increase your energy
Just a few minutes of yoga every day will provide that much-needed energy boost in our busy lives and will keep us fresh for longer. Yoga, with its unique synergy of body and breath work, is perfect when your reserves are running low.
Daily yoga practice will awaken the main energy centres (called chakras) in your body. Great poses for extra energy are those that extend the spine, such as the tree pose, allowing energy to circulate throughout the whole body, and poses that open the chest, like the cobra pose, encouraging the intake of more breath.
5. Breathe better
Breathing deeply and calmly is an essential part of every yoga practice. Yogic breathing techniques (called pranayama) focus on trying to slow down the breath and on breathing fully from the pit of your stomach to the top of your lungs.
These methods will make you feel more relaxed and balanced and will help you face the day with confidence and calm. They also have some great side benefits including increased lung capacity and more tidal volume (the total amount of air your lungs can hold at any one time). You can adopt these techniques whenever needed in daily life. They can help you stay calm in emergency situations, think clearer in stressful situations and they can help reduce pain