The Basics of Yoga
Yoga can improve breath awareness, posture, flexibility, balance and reduce stress. There are many forms or styles of yoga practice.You can practice yoga anywhere.
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Breath Awareness
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Central to yoga is awareness of the breath. There are breathing exercises that help you improve your oxygen intake. There are some that help remind you to be in the present by controlling how you intake and exhale your breath and there are some that help you stay in more difficult positions.
Improving Posture
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Yoga emphasizes a neutral spine. That means, if you are lying down, the majority of your back is on your mat but there is a little hollow where your lower back doesn't touch. In standing poses, the emphasis is on feeling centered as if you had a string from the ceiling through your head to the ground running along your spine.
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Improve Flexibility
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Flexibility is key to many of the yoga poses. Starting simple and building up to harder positions will keep you from getting discouraged.
Improve Balance
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Not only do the standing positions of yoga require balance, many of the floor exercises do too. As you master these positions, you will improve your balance, adding grace to your everyday movements.
Reduce Stress
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Because yoga is about being in the present, it can help reduce stress through breathing exercises and muscle tension release. Yoga can also help you take a longer view of situations by remembering that everything is possible if you take things in manageable steps.
Types of Yoga Practices
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There are many types of yoga practices. Ananda is gentle yoga focused on meditation. Anusara offers challenging positions. Ashtanga is quicker paced for athletes. Bikram is done in a heated room to improve weight loss and cardiovascular endurance. Hatha is the most common yoga practiced in the U.S. Lyengar is slow yoga that focuses on healing. Viniyoga can be used by people recovering from injuries.
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