Posers Welcome – Yoga for Your Health

Asana, vinyasa, chaturanga … say what? If you don’t know anything about yoga, learning the terminology alone can be a workout for your mind. Actually, one of the great things about yoga is it exercises your mind and body.

With yoga, you train by stretching and sometimes contorting your body. Remember playing Twister as a kid? This is the grown-up version, only everybody wins. While practicing odd poses with weirder names, you focus on your thoughts and feelings as they happen—a technique sometimes referred to as mindfulness. It teaches you to evaluate and control your emotions, which can decrease stress, anxiety and depression.

You may have been interested in yoga for the increased range of motion, flexibility or the calm it can bring to your mind. However, you may not know that yoga can also relieve back pain and be good for your heart through stress relief.

If you are worried about stretching yourself too thin by starting a new workout, consider several professional athletes from all major sports have adopted yoga into their cross-training routines. The athletes say yoga helps them improve flexibility and focus on their goals. There are even specific yoga poses for runners, golfers, tennis players, basketball players and baseball players.

So, are you ready to get your “om” on? If so, before you start, talk to your doctor about your fitness level and determine where to start. There are multiple levels of yoga to accommodate everyone from a couch potato to a professional athlete.

In case you are still wondering, in yoga, asana means the poses and postures used during yoga. Vinyasa is a type of yoga where you do a series of poses in a row. Chaturanga refers to a specific kind of pose. Sort of like learning a new language, huh?