Most of you have heard about Yoga which originated from India and has now become very popular in the West. Several forms of Yoga are very popular including Ashtanga Yoga, Power Yoga, and Hatha Yoga and so on.
When ever you read about weight loss programs, most often such programs involve Yoga as a part of the daily routine. We often wonder how Yoga can help reduce weight because the exercises do not seem to be strenuous and calorie burning sort.
Yoga is an ancient method of exercises discovered by the ancient sages of India to promote overall health and wellbeing of the body, mind and Soul. The word Yoga signifies Union of Body, Mind and Soul.
Yoga as a system consists of many segments. Yoga system works with Asanas which means postures, Mudra meaning hand gestures and Bandha referring to particular system of locking the parts of the body.
Going into the depth of understanding Yoga, you will get to know that the physical body comprises not only of physical constituents like muscles, bones and blood etc, but is kept alive and working with the help of Pranic Currents. These currents are responsible for the assimilation, circulation, elimination and other metabolic processes in the body.
The Yoga system works to rectify the problems and balance both the physical as well as the energy currents in the body and thereby promote good health.
The Yoga system consists of Sitting Postures, Standing Postures, Breathing exercises, Eye Exercises as well as specific body part exercises. There are over sixty thousand postures practiced in Yoga.
The breathing exercises help promote mental peace and relaxation besides helping the overall energy circulation and enhancement in the body. One can also learn to meditate and learn to be calm.
Besides the health aspect, there is yet another deeper aspect in Yoga practice which is to do with understanding oneself as the soul and realizing the difference between the body, mind and soul. With the understanding of these three, we go on to realizing the soul’s connection with the cosmic consciousness.
So far we have talked of what is Yoga. But naturally the question that you would want an answer to is to know How Yoga can help you loose weight.
Well, Yoga helps you to correct and remove the internal blockages in terms of the current flow in the body and thereby improve the functioning of all organs especially of digestive system. With a regulated metabolism, your consumption of calories will increase.
Secondly the exercises are strenuous though slow and not only stretch and work on all parts of the body and the muscles, they burn up calories which in turn helps burn the fat accumulated.
Due to exercising the fat deposits in the body not only get diluted by you will find an equal distribution of fat in the body and your body gets a better shape and flexibility.
Continuing with Yogic exercises will help you reduce all the body weight and helps you regulate your eating habit too thereby helps you avoid over eating.
For centuries people have practiced and adapted Yoga as a daily routine to loose weight and to maintain ideal weight as well as health of the body. You too can benefit from this system which has been perfected for ages by the sages of ancient India.