5 Reasons To Practice Yoga

The first time that I walked into a yoga class, it wasn’t in a studio. The class was held in the gym of an Upper East Side high school and was part of New York Road Runners Yoga for Runners series.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had a friend in high school who practice yoga but that was the extent of my yogi friends. I just thought that yoga would make me a stronger runner…or so I heard.

That was over 15 years ago. In that time, yoga has become a big part of my life, and there are so many lessons that I’ve learned on the mat that I have taken off the mat.

I try not to push yoga on people (even though I truly do believe everyone can benefit from it). Usually the reaction I get from people when they find out that I practice yoga regularly (and am now a yoga teacher) is, “Oh. I can’t do yoga. I’m soooo not flexible.” Most yogis I know would respond, “Yoga is so much more than being flexible.”

But what do we really mean when we say that? What is yoga all about? What are the reasons to practice yoga?

Sure, we’ve all heard about the health benefits of yoga – boosts immunity, helps you sleep better, eases aches and pains, and helps you be more mindful – but there are so many reasons why yoga is awesome. Here are five reasons to practice yoga – in my humble opinion.

1. It’s about the fascia.

Yes, yoga does help to lengthen and strengthen your muscles, ultimately improving your flexibility. However, its benefits run far deeper. Personally, I think one of the biggest benefits of yoga is that it helps maintain the health of your fascia – the connective tissue network that runs throughout your body.

Healthy fascia helps to distribute strain across your body so that you don’t end up excessively loading one part of the body and causing injury. If your fascia is tight or forms adhesions, it limits your range of motion and can even compress your muscles and nerves. Yoga helps to stretch and differentiate the fascia so that it glides easily in your body.

1. Learning to breathe.

While we breathe day in and day out, we often aren’t fully aware of our breath, and we don’t breathe to our fullest capacity. Some of us are belly breathers while others only breathe into their chest or their collarbone area.

At a minimum, yoga offers and opportunity to stop and notice how your breath moves, and it can help you learn to connect your breath from you belly all the way up to your collarbones rather than compartmentalizing it. Plus, I feel like my heart rate immediately drops when I start taking deep breaths.

1. Truly being present in the moment

When you are holding Warrior III pose and your leg muscles are firing and your glutes are burning, it’s nearly impossible to be anywhere but right there in the moment, on your mat and in the pose. In our go-go-go and technology overloaded world, learning to be present and mindful is something that many of us struggle with. Yoga provides a moment during the day when you can practice being present.

1. Learn to laugh at yourself.

I think that yoga often gets a bad rap for being a super serious practice. However, It’s inevitable that you will fall out of a yoga pose, whether it’s an arm balance or an inversion or triangle pose. Falls happen. It’s all part of the process and it offers the opportunity to bring some levity to the practice. So instead of being embarrassed, it’s OK to chuckle because chances are, everyone else in the room has fallen out of a pose before too.

1. Learning to let it go and leave things on the mat.

The thing is – yoga is not really about the pose at all. That’s not the goal (and why it’s important to laugh at yourself). The goal is actually non-attachment and learning to let go of your expectations – expectations that you will achieve a certain pose or that you will feel a certain way during your practice.

In the same way, intense emotions and thoughts can arise while you’re on your mat. Yoga provides an opportunity to notice those thoughts and emotions and then leave them on your mat. It’s a great exercise in learning to let things go rather than let it bog you down.

There are about a bajillion of other reasons why I love yoga but I’ll leave it at that.

5 Reasons to Practice Yoga #fitfluential #yoga
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Do you practice yoga? What’s your reason for practicing?

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