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What Are The Positive Effects Of Yoga?

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Why do yoga? The obvious reasons are to gain and maintain strength and flexibility, but researchers have found that the positive effects of yoga on your body and mind go far beyond the obvious. Yoga is an ancient practice originating in India. Nowadays it’s popular the world over. The benefits of being active and doing any type of exercise are well known. But is there more to the overall sense of wellbeing you feel after a yoga session than after doing other types of exercise? Scientific studies suggest that there is. Here are some benefits you didn’t know about. 1. Yoga Is Better Than Anxiety Meds. Why do you feel more chilled out after a yoga session? Yoga affects your brain chemistry. The sense of calm you feel after a yoga session is because your brain is flooded with gamma-aminobutyric acid, or GABA for short. Yoga causes your brain to release this neurotransmitter, which suppresses neural activity, helping you to chill out. GABA is what anti-anxiety medication is designed …show more content…

Negative emotions can be hard to process (especially if you’re the bottling up type). Emotions are held physically in areas of our body, and yoga postures can help to release them. Think of it this way, emotions can cause your muscles to tighten, like when you feel stressed you might get tense shoulders. When this happens, you are holding the emotion in that part of your body, so as you stretch and soften your muscles you can release the emotion held there. It can take some time working on specific poses but the long-term effects on your health and your life are worth the effort. Yoga can be particularly effective with processing trauma, which often effects the brain and body at a level that talking therapies (counselling) cannot reach. It’s common for people to feel moments of anger or get a bit teary when holding certain postures. That’s just the emotions getting released. It’s not so scary cause you have your GABA hit to help you

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