Nurturing Your Mind Through Yoga
Aside from the Physiological Benefits Of Yoga, regular practice also comes with psychological advantages. However it is quite unfortunate that these psychological benefits are not properly highlighted and given the importance and attention it rightfully deserves. Unlike other forms of exercises that only focuses on developing and strengthening the body, Yoga also comes with valuable benefits for the mind. This is in line with helping individuals achieve and maintain mind-body alignment.
Psychological Benefits Of Yoga
Here are some of the wonderful advantages you can derive from regular practice of Yoga:
Boosts Self-Confidence
Practicing Yoga can effectively enhance your self-confidence. Yoga energizes your mind, creating energy that makes you more confident and determined. Self-confidence is an essential ingredient for achieving success in various aspects in life. Through Yoga, one can work on attaining the sense of worth and confidence to pursue goals and the conviction of one’s capability to achieve those goals. You will be gain a better understanding on the difference between ego versus self-esteem.
Increases Well-Being on a Subjective Level
Researchers say that the subjective well-being of an individual is just as important as physical well-being. Yoga, unlike other exercise methods, focuses not only on your physical well-being but also on nurturing the mind. This is important in order to achieve and maintain that mind and body alignment, in order not to simply survive but THRIVE.
Improves Concentration and Memory
Yoga works as a memory booster. We all know that improving brain memory sometimes depends on focus and concentration. The inability to concentrate can greatly affect your memory and the ability to pay attention to important details. One of the basic goals of Yoga is to improve your concentration through meditation and yoga poses. This particular benefit is especially highlighted in the article Yoga for Seniors.
Decreases Anxiety and Stress
Another important psychological benefit of Yoga is its ability to effectively decrease anxiety levels and help promote quality relaxation. Anxiety and depression are known to greatly affect our mental balance and health. Yoga, as a physio-psychological exercise method, not only reduces your anxiety but also helps you fight mental depression.
Increases Self-Acceptance
We focus on our inner-self while practicing Yoga. And another important lesson of Yoga is ‘to focus on positive aspects of life’. Thus we discover the positive elements within the SELF. This practice gradually increases our self-acceptance and coming into terms with ones weaknesses and limitations and celebrating the positive aspects.
Increases Self-Realization
Practicing Yoga opens the door for self-realization. In our busy corporate and business life, we hardly have time to focus on our inner-self. While practicing Yoga, we focus on our true SELF, it helps us to realize what we really want, desire and wish even at a subconscious level.
Increases Social Skills and Attachment
Practicing Yoga in a group develops a participatory mentality thus increases social attachment. Researches show that people who practice Yoga in groups participate in social events more than the people who prefer to practice Yoga at home.
Increases Compassion
Yoga helps feel compassion for oneself and those around. It helps you create a better understanding and empathy towards others, which is key in helping you become a more superior human being.
Reduces Hostility
Regular practice of Yoga reduces the level of hostility. It makes you more calm and compassionate. A recent survey conducted in Australia shows that people who practice Yoga and meditation at an average of 40 minutes a day have lower levels of hostility than the people who don’t practice Yoga and meditation.
Increases Satisfaction and Gratitude
Regular practice of Yoga creates a feeling of true satisfaction. Practitioners are suggested to focus on positive aspects of their lives when they are practicing Yoga, they eventually experience the feeling of gratitude for all that they already have. When we are mentally disturbed, we feel dissatisfaction welling up. Yoga can effectively reduce this disturbance.
Improves Learning Efficiency
Another important psychological benefit of practicing Yoga is its capacity to improve learning efficiency. Yoga helps calm your mind and balances your emotional state. This calm and balanced state of mind is perfect for promoting a quicker and more efficient learning process. Some under graduate students from Indian universities report that they have experienced positive changes in their learning ability after they started practicing Yoga.
Better Spiritual Experience
In ancient India, Yogis and Gurus used yoga as an alternative way to experience higher spiritual connection. Yoga, a physio-spiritual exercise method, was developed not only to derive physical benefits but also to get spiritual achievements. Yogis developed Yoga to get a healthy body so that they can stay in a meditative state for a longer period of time and can experience spiritual connections more intensively.
Increases Peace of Mind
Yoga helps you to increase your peace of mind. Through regular Yoga practice, you can be able to achieve a state of mindfulness. As peace of mind and a perfect health are the two major components of a balanced life, techniques used in Yoga are focused on these two parts with equal importance.
Mind-Body Alignment
How can we achieve a perfect mind body alignment? The answer is ‘through practicing Yoga’. Yogis practice a combined yogic framework which includes not only physical exercises but also some meditation techniques to get perfect mind-body alignment.
Integrated Function of the Body
All organs, glands and tissues including the cells work in an integrated way when one regularly practices Yoga. This improves overall health condition and thus creates physical balance. And we all know that to get peace in mind we need a balanced body. We feel mentally disturbed when we are physically unfit. Thus Yoga helps us to feel better not only physically but also mentally.
Go through your yoga poses with renewed vigor and deeper appreciation of its great benefits. Make sure to end your yoga sequence with savasana to fully enjoy the wonderful psychological benefits to be integrated to your life.
