Mind body fitness- holistic approach to your health
When we think about personal development we often forget about our body. The body and mind are very much interconnected and every imbalance will demonstrate itself and influence the way you feel psychically and on the mental level. Lets look here at the holistic approach to your health or what I call mind body fitness 🙂
When looking for holistic exercise you will find that Yoga is the best combination of exercise, breathing and meditation.
Who doesn’t know that yoga is such a good exercise and have so many benefits for our body and mind?! Amazing flexibility, perfect posture, relaxed mind and body, great focus and improved balance- these are only few of the gains.
What is Yoga?
Yoga is an ancient Indian philosophy, thousands of years old. It was first designed as a path to spiritual enlightenment. Nowadays it is more seen as a gentle form of exercise and stress management. There are many different styles of yoga, but each of them basically relies on holding special poses (asanas) which are practiced with breath awareness.
Health benefits
Researchers have shown that the regular practice of yoga can produce many health benefits, including increased fitness and normalisation of blood pressure. Yoga is a type of the exercises which have amazing effect on our body but also our mind. By slowing down, relaxing and properly breathing we can lower levels of stress, and increase feelings of happiness and wellbeing. Basically yoga brings your body and mind together and seems like perfect combination of exercise, breathing and meditation!
The exercises of yoga are designed to put pressure on the glandular systems of your body, increasing your body’s efficiency and total health. Breathing techniques increase breath control to improve the health and function of body and mind.
Based on Wikipedia
Long-term yoga users in the United States have reported musculoskeletal and mental health improvements, as well as reduced symptoms of asthma in asthmatics.There is evidence to suggest that regular yoga practice increases brain GABA levels, and yoga has been shown to improve mood and anxiety more than some other metabolically-matched exercises, such as walking. The three main focuses of Hatha yoga (exercise, breathing, and meditation) make it beneficial to those suffering from heart disease. Overall, studies of the effects of yoga on heart disease suggest that yoga may reduce high blood-pressure, improve symptoms of heart failure, enhance cardiac rehabilitation, and lower cardiovascular risk factors. For chronic low back pain, specialist Yoga for Healthy Lower Backs has been found 30% more beneficial than usual care alone in a UK clinical trial. Other smaller studies support this finding. (…) A research group from Boston University School of Medicine also tested yoga’s effects on lower-back pain. Over twelve weeks, one group of volunteers practiced yoga while the control group continued with standard treatment for back pain. The reported pain for yoga participants decreased by one third, while the standard treatment group had only a five percent drop. Yoga participants also had a drop of 80% in the use of pain medication.”
How you can practice yoga
1. Find good Yoga studio
Depends of what you prefer, you can choose yoga class in your existing gym or more private small yoga studio. Professional yoga teacher will help you to correct your asanas, give you some advise or adjust your poses according to your flexibility.
It is not always easy to find good yoga studio or commit to the times when classes are available. Our lives are busy, full of duties, work, kids… never ending “I don’t have time for myself”. It can only lead to more stress and what comes with it some health problems. In this case you can try online yoga.
2. Online Yoga classes
The best online yoga classes I found on internet is Yoga Download.
You can find my review of this program here
By signing up you gain access to 900+ online classes. You have an unlimited streaming of various classes, free downloads to keep, all yoga styles and intensity levels to choose from. For as little as $10 a month (or $60 for a year membership during promotion period) you can give it a go 🙂
3. Reading Yoga books and following instructions
There are some good books available with great descriptions and pictures of asanas. Check my review of “Light on Yoga” by B.K.S Iyengar. Highly recommended!
If you have any questions or something to say please feel free to leave a comment below or send me an email to elektra@booksforthewise.com
Thanks for visiting my website!
I have never practiced yoga, but it is on my list of things to do in this life since it is so beneficial to us as humans. I am doing mostly visualization techniques at the moment, which is also a very powerful form of meditation.
I have to pace myself and take it one step at a time while I go through the phases. I will be looking into this 900+ online yoga classes when I get the time to do so. $10 per month does sound like a really good deal indeed.
Thank you for some great inspiration today Elektra.
Best,
Jason.
Hi Jason, great to see you here again! The visualisation techniques are great for your personal development but if you add to it yoga as well you will see amazing effects. It is like a new level of improvement 🙂 Check it out! Thanks again for a comment!Have a great day, Elektra
Hey there it’s Alexey!
Really good article on yoga and the mind-body-fitness topic. I am an athlete so I can relate to what you’ve wrote.
I really love yoga by the way – I think it is a necessity to practice yoga in a world like ours with all those pressure and problems !
Hi Alexey, thanks for your comment! I’m glad you liked my post 🙂
Hey Electra,
great post. Yoga is one thing i want to try, me and my girlfriend have lost 20lbs each since jan 1st and although I walk the dogs for 2 hours a day and run, i have heard yoga is great for toning? My other half goes to yoga with the girls, but being a mans man ha ha, i feel it might be worth the 10 bucks to try it in the safety of my own home 🙂
many thanks
Dave
Hi Dave, Thanks for your comment! Congrats on your weight loss, it’s a great achievement! Yes, yoga is good for muscles toning too. You will see lots of benefits when you start it. Give it a go- you have nothing to lose but lots to gain :)Have a great day, Elektra
Wow Elektra!
Your website is stunning! I loved this post on an holistic approach to your health!
I have been interested in Thai Chi and Yoga for years and you make a fantastic statement when you mentioned that the mind and body are very much inter connected.
There is no one, without the other.
It’s great that you mentioned online Yoga classes. I find that when starting new ventures, it is far easier and more comfortable to be doing it at home, without the feeling that you are being watched… At least for introverts like me anyway.
Excited to get started with Light on Yoga. Thanks for the recommendation.
Keep up the awesome work. I am looking forward to reading more on your website.
Cheers,
Marc Parsons
Thanks so much for your kind comment Marc! I like Thai Chi too. I’m planning to write a post soon on another types of meditation/exercises and want to include Thai Chi as well 🙂
Great Articles I never knew doing yoga can help in many area of the mind, that explain why my ex boss were very fit and strong.
I recently been injured from my Taekwondo Training and dislocated and injured my ankle, force to retire from it, I wondering if doing Yoga would be great for retire member like myself?.
Yoga is great for your body and mind. I’m sure it would be a good way for you to still keep exercising and keep healthy lifestyle after retiring from Teakwondo but as for any other physical activities get medical advice about your injury and starting yoga. Good Yoga teacher will be able to adjust your poses that suits your needs. Give it a go! Good luck!
Hi Elektra,
I’m such a homebody – so the idea of being able to do Yoga when it best suites me from home is really appealing. I have limited time and regret losing time in transit to a local class. From past experiences, I’ve found that some online Yoga classes can be horribly cheesy..to the point where I simply can’t watch them! In about a year, we are going to live a very rolling stone kind of lifestyle, setting down into a place for a couple months and moving on…we also won’t have cars :). But we will have a good internet connection.Based on this information, do you think Yoga Download would be good for me? If I don’t like it, will they give me my money back?
Thanks.
Alyssa
It seems perfect for you 🙂 To be honest I could not find anything on their website about money back guarantee, need to dig deeper and actually send them a question about it. You could always try with just one month subscription and try different classes to find something suitable for you. There is a huge selection of classes, styles, teachers- I’m sure everybody will find something of interest for them.
I’ve been practicing Flow Yoga for 5 years now and it has definitely done me a lot of good. From focusing my mind to flexing my body, I feel younger with every practice session. Still can’t do headstand, but I will get there 🙂
Online yoga is an interesting concept and I’ve actually never thought of that. I can certainly see the benefit on days that I can’t attend classes and the ease of doing it from my own home. Thanks for recommending and I’ll check out this program.
I really recommend it, you can find there classes which suit any level of fitness! Thanks for your comment Cathy!