Yoga

Yoga is a sport that combines the movement of body that requires concentration, composure, and relaxed body to maintain a perfect calm state. The movements of yoga involve meditation, imagery, breath work and music. Yoga also involves stretches, and focusing strength especially when we lift our body. Yoga is often used for therapy purposes because of the amazing benefits like reducing pain, relaxing muscle, and brings a gentle healing to our immune system.

It is believed that yoga was originally has root in India, around 2,000 BC. Yoga came to the attention of western audience in the middle of 19th century along with other topics of Hindu philosophy. The first teacher who teaches the aspects of yoga into a western audience was Swami Vivekananda from Hindu.

There are a lot of benefits by practicing yoga as daily routine. There are physical benefits, and mental benefits.

The physical benefits of doing yoga are that we can feel the difference in our body; we can feel every cell is filled with more “prana” or energy. This result in joy, peace and enthusiasm as the level of prana in the body increases. There is also studies, proves that yoga also produce many health benefits, such as lowers high blood pressure, and lowers the levels of blood lactate, reducing anxiety attacks, decreasing any tension-related pain such as; tension headaches, ulcers, insomnia, muscle and joint problems. Yoga also increases serotonin production that improves mood and behavior, including improves the immune system, and increases the energy level, as you gain an inner source of energy.

The mental benefits of doing yoga, one of them is proven that yoga brings gentle healing. Such as refreshing our mind, decreasing our anxiety, stabilizing our emotion, increasing our creativity, relaxing our mind, feeling peaceful, and sharpening our mind by gaining more focus in our activities.

There are also other benefits of yoga in beauty case, such as burn fat, lose weight, tighten our muscle, smoothen, improve skins health, and many more.

In general, there are 8 major styles of doing yoga. There are Anusara, Ashtanga, Bikram, Hatha, Hot Yoga, Iyengar, Restorative, and Vinyasa. Anusara seeks to use a physical practice, to help people open their hearts, experience grace, and let their inner goodness shine through. Ashtanga is based on ancient yoga teachings, which links every movement to a breath, and performed in the exact same poses in an order. Bikram yoga involves a lot of poses that is done inside a heated room, that resulting a lot of sweats. Hatha is a generic term of yoga that refers to any type of yoga, which teaches physical postures. Hot yoga is basically the same thing as Bikram, but hot yoga’s movement is not in order. Iyengar is a very meticulous style of yoga, with utmost attention paid to finding the proper alignment in a pose, Iyengar provides a wide array of yoga props such as blocks, blankets, straps, chairs, bolsters, and a rope wall are all common. Restorative yoga is a perfect way to relax and soothe frayed nerves, Restorative yoga uses bolsters, blankets, and blocks to prop in passive poses so that the body can experience the benefits of a pose without having to exert any effort. The last one, Vinyasa is a yoga that is known for their fluid, movement-intensive practices, Vinyasa teachers choreograph their classes to smooth the transition from pose to pose, and often play music to keep things lively.

Adapted from:

Hanley, Kate. (2008). A Beginner's Guide to 8 Major Styles of Yoga. Accessed from: http://life.gaiam.com/article/beginners-guide-8-major-styles-yoga

Wikipedia, Yoga as exercise or alternative medicine. Accessed from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga_as_exercise_or_alternative_medicine

Anonymous, Benefits of Yoga. Accessed from: http://www.artofliving.org/yoga/yoga-benefits/top-ten-yoga-benefits