Eight Science-Backed Health Benefits of Yoga

Yoga is an incorporation of physical, mental and spiritual practices that ultimately seek to liberate, bringing mind and body together. Yoga seeks to create harmony between your body, mind and spirit. This ancient tradition which has stood the test of time (more than 5,000 years) is a health booster, and its benefits have been backed by science. Yoga can be practiced by just about everyone - not only the extra bendy or flexible people, or those who want to meditate. Here are eight benefits that arise from practicing yoga:

1. Betters bone health: Many yoga postures require that you lift your own weight - exercises such as down- and upward-facing dog help strengthen the bones of the arm, which are more vulnerable to osteoporotic fractures. According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, women can lose up to 20 percent of their bone mass in the five to seven years after menopause. It is thus important that women start practicing yoga in their youth to prevent such severe bone mass losses. Research shows that people in the early stages of bone loss can reverse the process by practicing yoga for as little as 10 minutes a day. Some skeleton-strengthening poses include: tree pose, chair pose, cobra pose, bridge pose, Warrior I and II poses.

2. Improves flexibility, mobility and balance: Yoga gently eases you into regaining your flexibility. In physiological terms, flexibility is the ability to move muscles and joints through their complete range. We're born flexible but our restricted, sedentary lives make us lose this ability as our bodies get lazy, muscles atrophy and our joints settle into a limited range. Ageing also contributes to a loss in flexibility. Our tissues lose about 15% of their moisture content by the time we reach adulthood, hence becoming less supple.

. Yoga stretches slow the dehydration process by stimulating the production of tissue lubricants. The following yoga poses lengthen and stretch muscles safely and effectively: bound angle pose, child's pose, extended puppy pose, garland pose, standing forward fold, and seated forward fold. There are many more.

Attaining balance requires a lot of effort, but the effort is worthwhile. Good balance protects us from daily falls, control our movements, improve mobility, and reduce the risk of ligament issues in athletes. Adequate balance is determined by our control of three senses: sight, vestibular and somatic senses, whose effectiveness tend to diminish with age and health issues involving sight and hearing. In a study carried out by Arlene Schmid, PhD, a rehabilitation research scientist at the Roudebush VA Medical Center and assistant professor at Indiana University, stroke survivors who completed an eight-week course of twice-weekly yoga classes showed an impressive 15% increase on balance scores. According to Dr. Schmid, "Yoga improves balance because it’s complex—it includes the mind and the body, and helps to coordinate movements." The following poses will improve your body's balance: mountain pose, tree pose, triangle pose, chair pose, lord of the dance pose, eagle pose, half-moon pose, warriors II & III poses, extended hand-to-big-toe pose.

Mobility has to do with movement - how well the body actively moves itself within a particular range of motion, while flexibility has to do with the static position of a joint - how far the body can move. Increased mobility goes a long way to decrease injuries and increase tissue health, given that the more strength we have available to us in all our ranges of motion, the better prepared our body will be to  catch itself in a sudden fall, for example. The following yoga poses improve mobility: cat-cow stretch, pigeon pose, dolphin pose, triangle pose.

3. Enhances breathing: Yoga breathing techniques, referred to as pranayama constitute a fundamental part of yoga. In yoga, the breath is the source of our prana, or vital life force. The following pranayama techniques enhance breathing: Nadhi sodhana or alternative nostril breathing, Kapalabhati or skull shining breathing, Ujayi or ocean breath, and Sitali or cooling breath. These yoga breathing practices have been shown to improve lung capacity in asthmatics. Asthma results in a diminished ability to get air into the lungs, hence a reduced lung capacity. A study published in the 2009 issue of "MC Pulmonary Medicine" showed a significant improvement in lung capacity within eight weeks of practice of yoga asana (postures) and pranayama (breathing techniques).

Pranayama when practiced alone has also been shown to improve lung function in patients with bronchial asthma. Other breathing-related benefits of pranayama include:

Clearing and cleansing of the nasal passages.

Strengthening the intercostal muscles (muscles located below the rib cage) which help in breathing. 

Clearing bronchial congestion.

4. Builds strength: Yoga is often mistaken for a passive practice, but it isn't. Yoga strengthens the muscles as well, and builds muscles in the arms, legs, core and others. By practicing consistently, yogis strengthen their major muscle groups (core, back, legs, and arms) and other small support muscles. Strength-building yoga poses include: forearm plank, low side plank, dolphin pose, plank pose, four-limbed staff pose, and boat pose. Yoga utilizes your own body weight in building strength. Poses like the plank pose spread your weight equally between your arms and legs. Arm balances such as the crane and crow poses challenge your arms more by making them support your full body weight.

5. Better heart health: “A large number of studies show that yoga benefits many aspects of cardiovascular health,” says Hugh Calkins, M.D., director of the Cardiac Arrhythmia Service at Johns Hopkins. “There’s been a major shift in the last five years or so in the number of cardiologists and other professionals recognizing that these benefits are real.” Practicing yoga can help lower blood pressure, blood cholesterol, blood glucose levels, and heart rate, which improves overall heart health. Artrial fibrillation, defined as an abnormal heart rhythm characterized by rapid and irregular beating that can lead to stroke and other complexities. A review published in the Journal of Arrhythmia in 2015 revealed that patients who suffer from atrial fibrillation experienced less of such episodes once they started practicing yoga. 

6. Leads to weight loss: Leigh Crews, an American College of Sport Medicine media expert gave his opinion on yoga's ability to induce weight loss, when questioned on yoga's ability to cause weight loss, by MyHealthNewsDaily. He said, "The short answer is, there's no short answer. Yoga is too diverse for that.

"Experts agree that increasing your physical activity level is a good first step towards losing weight. So, with that in mind, it is important to choose the right style of yoga.

"If your goal is weight loss, choosing one of the vigorous, flowing styles of yoga, such as Ashtanga, Vinyasa or Power Yoga, is the smart choice. These classes traditionally last 90 minutes, and can most definitely have a cardiovascular benefit. You will burn calories, tone and stretch your muscles, and provide weight bearing exercise for your bones with these forms of yoga.

"The second, more subtle factor, is yoga's ability to foster an inward focus, making you more aware of how your body feels in all of your daily activities. That self-awareness can cause a shift in the way you think about how you treat your body in other ways, such as eating when you are hungry, rather than because it is your normal time to eat, and choosing to stop eating when you are satisfied, rather than over full."

7. Decreases stress: Many studies have led to the conclusion that a little yoga during the day minimizes stress and anxiety, and increases productivity. Prolonged stress drains us physically, emotionally, and mentally, affecting our libido, digestion, sleep, and relationships. Yoga promotes relaxation of both mind and body, hence reducing stress.

Certain pranayama techniques like alternate nostril breathing reduce stress. Certain asana permit us to release emotional energy (even when we're not aware) which if not released creates pressure and stress. We tend to store emotional tension in our shoulders and hips; postures that release these areas get rid of the built up emotions.

8. Improves posture: Modern life conspires against good posture - the long days spent sitting at desks, staring at computer screens, travels in cars and planes, lounging around in overstuffed chairs that provide little lumbar support, and others which result in poor posture that could eventually damage the spine. Yoga can assist with proper spinal alignment and strengthening posture-support muscles. The body is said to be in the correct posture when it is aligned in such a way that the back is straight, shoulders squared and relaxed, chin up, chest out, and stomach in. Good posture rids us of neck and back pain, and improves bodily alignment. Yoga poses that correct "smartphone" posture and "tech neck" include: forward fold with clasp, camel pose, sphinx pose, bridge pose, and wheel pose.