What is Yoga?
Yoga can be defined as the combination of physical, mental, and spiritual activities that are derived from the ancient India. It is particularly derived from the core concept of Hinduism.
When we take a deeper look at the roots of yoga, the positions of yoga are extracted from ancient spiritual practices of many Hindu scholars who tried to have an inner peace through various methods.
In today’s world, the same yoga, which has been practiced throughout the ancient period, is now gaining popularity. It contains various stretches, meditation to various other spiritual practices.
Some of the practices of yoga are also very similar to aerobics and other cardio workouts. The researchers claim that the stretches performed in the yoga can have a positive impact on various aspects of our health.
In this article, I am going to talk about the best yoga poses which you can try in your home for better health. The best yoga poses have their specialties and set of benefits for their users. However, the first thing you need to understand is that there are levels in yoga. i.e. beginner, intermediate, and expert.
To reach an expert level, you need to devote your time to master the yoga poses. To provide the best value for you form this article, I have listed out some of the best yoga poses which are suitable for beginners, intermediate, and also for expert yogis.
Before talking about the best yoga poses, let’s look at some of the claimed health benefits of yoga.
What Are the Benefits of Yoga?
Yoga stretches have gained some popularity due to its positive impacts on the people’s health. The research shows that the popularity of yoga is on an increasing trend in the United States, and it has increased from 5.5% in 2002 to 9.5% in the study conducted in 2012.
According to the studies, researchers claim that the yoga provides benefits in these areas of the person’s life:
1. Enhances your bone health
The weight-bearing exercises lead to improvement in your bone health. On that basis, there are different poses in yoga, which requires you to lift your bodyweight. Although, high efforts are required to carry out these poses, the benefits they provide are something you should keep your eyes on.
2. Improve your mental health
Yoga can also improve your mental health, increasing your focus and helping to release your stress. Many experts in yoga claim that performing yoga stretches regularly, can reduce your stress, increase your body’s awareness, and sharpen your concentration.
However, the thing is, you need to be dedicated in order to master many of these poses, and experience the benefits involved.
3. Improves Your Respiration & Energy
The third benefit of yoga is an improvement in your respiration and energy levels. Many yogis claim that their respiration and lung function has improved after carrying out various yoga poses.
Various breathing exercises and stretches increase the level of oxygen in your body, to help with the improvement of respiration and energy levels.
4. Enhances Your Flexibility
Many stretches in yoga require you to bend your arms, legs, and other parts of your body.
In the earlier days of yoga, you will find the yoga stretches hard because of its difficult poses, but as you keep on going, you will eventually see an improvement in your ability to perform these stretches.
Once you become better at these stretches, you’ll also enhance the flexibility of your muscles and connective tissues.
5. Reduce Your Weight
Another benefit of yoga is that it helps in reducing your weight. The stretches performed in yoga helps you burn more calories. Furthermore, it also makes you more conscious of your eating habits. So, yoga is great for losing weight.
These are only some of the health benefits of yoga. There are many other benefits which are claimed by science. These five are just listed to give you a glimpse of what you can expect.
Now that we’ve explained several of the awesome benefits, let’s check out some of the best yoga poses.
7 Useful Yoga Poses For Your Health
Whether you are a beginner or an advanced guy in the field of yoga, this list will be useful for you. I have listed these 7 yoga poses after researching various resources to increase the value of this article for you.
Here are the 7 best yoga poses which will provide various benefits to your health:
1. Mountain (Tadasana)
The first one in the list is Tadasana or also called yoga mountain pose. This is a very simple pose to perform.
You just need to stand on your big toes, keeping your heels slightly apart. After that, you need to balance your weight equally on both feet and lift up your arches. Involve your thigh muscles a bit to lift up your kneecaps. However, you should not lock your knees.
It is simple yet an effective pose. It strengthens your feet, increase its flexibility, and have a positive impact on your knees and thigh.
2. Legs-Up-The-Wall Pose
This is another simple yoga stretch which has a lot of benefits to your health.
The first thing to do for this pose is to bring a blanket and put it on the ground. After you put the blanket on the ground, you should sit on it, and one of your hips should touch a wall beside you. The next step is to sweep your legs up on the wall with your lower back elevated.
This pose helps you to relax, and it is also very beneficial for those people who are having problems with insomnia.
3. Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana)
Uttanasana is the next one in the list. First of all, you should stand in a mountain pose with your hands on your hips. You should then exhale, inclining your chin a little bit towards your chest, and bend your body forward at the hips.
After being in this position, relax your head, neck, shoulders, and arms. Position your fingertips/palms on the ground beside or just in front of your feet.
To end the pose, bring your hands back to your hips again, and inhale while you lift up. Keep your chin a little inclined and stretch your torso as you come back into the position.
This pose helps in calming your mind and stretching your muscles on your hamstring and spine.
4. Tripod Headstand
The first thing to do to perform this pose is to position your head’s crown on the ground. Then, you should place your shoulders apart, and elbows must be placed above the heels of the head. Keep your toes under and slowly straighten your legs entering a dolphin pose.
Focus on the elbows, making sure they’re inwards. Move your shoulders up apart from the ground to prevent yourself from any neck injuries. Now try to walk in your current position.
It’s a bit challenging, but it also has many benefits. This pose helps to improve your balance, digestion and strengthens your arms and core muscles.
5. Breathing through Alternate Nostrils
This might be the easiest yoga pose to implement for everyone. First of all, you need to relax. Be in a comfortable seated position with equal pressure on the two sides of the autonomous nervous system. You should then slowly inhale and exhale with alternative nostrils.
This pose helps to improve your respiration and releases your stress and anxiety.
6. Forearm Plank
This is like an upper-pushup, but it is done on your forearms. Keep your elbows under your shoulders, palms flat on the floor. You should then firmly push your shoulder blades right back and move your heels back.
Maintain the position of the neck and spine pointing towards the floor, a little bit ahead of you. Stay in this pose for around 30 seconds to a few minutes. If you want to come out of this pose, you just need to rest your knees on the floor.
It helps to strengthen your bones, preventing osteoporosis.
7. Downward Facing Dog
This final yoga pose I am going to mention is the Downward Facing Dog. If you are having problems with low testosterone, this yoga pose might help you out. It helps to improve overall flexibility and increase your libido.
This pose is also very easy to implement. To try this pose, you need to keep your shoulders back and provide your neck some room to stretch out. Keep your heels on the ground for releasing the hamstring. Aim your bum straight at the ceiling.
Now, you should look like an inverted V. Move your forearms towards each other.
Video: The 20 Minute Yoga Weight Loss Challenge
Conclusion
After experiencing various benefits of yoga, I think you should definitely try the poses mentioned above. One of the unique benefits of yoga stretches is an increment in libido. Yep, there are yoga poses which might even help people suffering with low testosterone levels.
Having low testosterone may steal all the pleasure from your sexual life, so it might be beneficial for anyone with this issue to try give yoga a try!
Hence, with many benefits claimed from performing various yoga poses, the popularity of yoga is steadily growing in different nations around the world.