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Yoga has been around for ages. It is composed of age old principles that correlate with the connection between a person’s mind and body. The importance and benefits of practicing yoga exercises for health have now been researched and proved by modern medical sciences. Yoga is a short word, or can be said to be a nick name for the old word “Yogasana”. This exercise involves the body, mind and soul of a human being. People practicing and doing Yoga are known as Yogis. In order to fully reap of the rewards of practicing yoga exercises, one should believe that it will indeed benefit him, as it is an exercise strongly connected with the mind.

Yogis believe yoga brings health to the body and peace to the mind. So people practice yoga relax the body and mind and to improve health and fitness. Yoga is concerned with movements, patterns, postures and alignment of the human body. While yoga can be performed by people of all ages, it should be practiced under a teacher’s supervision when starting out.

Types of Yoga postures

There are many types of yoga postures. Some of the more well-known postures are discussed as follows:

• Sukhasana or Lotus is a sitting pose of yoga and is easy to perform. It is used as a starting position of yoga exercises. It is useful for strengthening and opening the lower back, groin, and hips.

• Tadasana or Mountain pose is used to improve the balance of mind and posture of the body.

• Virabhadrasana or Warrior is a yoga pose that can be performed after Tadasana or mountain pose. It strengthens the bones, stretches the arms and legs, and improves balance.

• Uttanasana is a yoga posture in which the body is extended upwards and then bent in the forward position to touch the toes. It helps in stretching the neck, legs and back bones, while also provide relaxation to the heart and mind.

• Adho Mukha Svanasana or Downward Facing Dog is a yoga posture performed by putting and maintaining forehead on the floor in front of you. It helps to increase the flexibility of the hamstrings and back.

• Bhujangasana or The Cobra posture is performed by laying down flat on your stomach on the floor. It helps open the chest area and heart and stretches and strengthens the spine.

• Janu Shirshasana is head to knee pose of yoga exercises. It’s perfomed while sitting on the floor and attempting to touch the hand to the foot. It helps in improving the flexibility of the arms, back bone and hamstrings.

• Trikonasana or the Triangle is a yoga pose in which the body is bent in the form of a triangle by separating the feet 3-4 feet and then touching one foot with one of your hands. Improves spinal flexibility opens up the torso area.

• Ardha Sarvangasana or Half Shoulderstand is a yoga pose that is formed by lying down on your back with elbows and lower arms on the floor and rise you legs up in the air. It helps in enhancing thyroid function and blood circulation in the body. It also provides strength to abdomen muscles and organs and provides stretch to upper back bone.

• Sethu Bandhasa or the Bridge is that yoga posture in which the body is laying down on the floor with arms resting at its sides while the body is risen such that the head, neck and feet are on the floor but the middle part of the body including tail, tail bone and spine is raised in the shape of an arc. It helps with the opening of the chest and low back and abdominal strength and flexibility.

• Hatha Yoga is the most difficult and demanding type of yoga postures as it requires very hard exercises and practices, immensely involving every muscles of the body.

• Pranayama is a yoga posture that involves breathing exercises.

• Dog and Cat posture helps in increasing the strength and flexibility of spinal cord.

• Savasana or the Corpse posture is performed at the end of yoga exercises session to relax the body and also provides a refreshing effect on the mind. It is an easy pose to perform.

Benefits of practicing yoga

There are really countless benefits to practicing yoga. Here are just some of them:

• Fortifies the immune system and increases the body’s natural healing ability.

• It enhances perception, improves concentration, and relaxes the mind.

• It improves the body’s overall flexibility.

• It increases memory and learning ability of the mind.

• It promotes cardiovascular health.

• It helps provide stability to the nervous system.

• It decreases the pulse rate thus decreasing the blood pressure.

• It increases awareness and improves brain function.

• Normalizes the endocrine glands and gastrointestinal function.

• It improves equilibrium and increases the energy level.

• Many people have found that it helps with weightloss.

• Yoga helps improve balance.

• It helps in decreasing depression, tension and anxiety by relaxing mind.

• Yoga can help lower cholesterol.

• It can help deal with diabetes.

• It tunes and tones the muscles.

• It has been shown to be helpful with a variety of diseases including insomnia, aids, asthma, and arthritis.

• Practicing yoga can help to slow down the aging process.