The Benefits of Yoga for Mental Wellness and How to Get Started!
Even if you’ve never practiced yoga, you certainly know of it, and know that it can benefit your well-being in a number of ways. Today we are going to dive into the many benefits of yoga, and especially why you might want to consider it as a part of how you care for your mental wellness.
The reasons that people start yoga might be curiosity, wanting to ‘find their zen,’ seeking a low-impact way to get healthier and fitter, or even to benefit their sport by becoming more flexible and injury-resistant. But what ultimately is so great about yoga is that most of us discover that whatever we came for, we ended up discovering so much more!
So let’s just start with: what is yoga?
Yoga is an ancient practice originating from India that encompasses a variety of physical, mental, and spiritual disciplines aimed at promoting overall well-being and harmony. The word “yoga” itself comes from the Sanskrit root “yuj,” which means to unite or to join, reflecting the union of body, mind, and spirit that yoga seeks to achieve.
While there are many different styles and approaches to yoga, most practices typically involve a combination of physical postures (asanas), breath control (pranayama), meditation, and ethical principles (such as the yamas and niyamas).
Practically speaking, you can think of yoga as typically matching breath to movement. As you move into one pose, you inhale, and as you move into the next, you exhale.
And that is the first element of what makes yoga special: it can end up being hard to focus on anything other than the movement or the breath! And the positive and happy side effect? You are fully present!
You can absolutely get stronger and more flexible doing yoga, but for our Ready to Hope purposes, let’s dive into how yoga can benefit your mental wellness!
Yoga can help reduce stress and anxiety
Yoga techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, and mindfulness help calm the nervous system, lower cortisol levels, and promote a sense of inner peace and tranquility. But even better: the more you practice it, even just one or two classes a week, you will discover that you find it becomes easier to return to those positive feelings you experienced during class.
Yoga can increase feelings of calm and happiness
As with any physical activity or exercise, your yoga practice releases endorphins, known as the happy hormones because they increase feelings of wellbeing and calm, and even relieve pain.
Yoga can help with overall confidence and body confidence
Some forms of yoga can be quite challenging, as you move quickly through poses or hold poses for longer times, and in so doing, you may discover a strength you didn’t realize you had- and the corresponding confidence!
Yoga can help with attention and focus
The practice of yoga is in and of itself a mindfulness practice. As mentioned before, the connection of breath to movement forces you to become present. Being present is really the heart of mindfulness: being aware of what is happening in the present moment. The more time you spend being mindful, the easier it becomes to focus your attention on other things such as school and your connections with others.
Yoga can offer a sense of community and connection
If you choose to practice yoga in a studio, you may discover a group of people that become a support network and maybe even close friends! This might mean trying out different classes and different studios, but if you are open to it, it is very possible that you find a group that you love and can create some meaningful connections.
Yoga can offer physical benefits from general fitness to improving your sport, and beyond
We care about your mental wellness, of course, but we all know: when you feel better in your body and you feel healthy and strong, that is an automatic benefit to your overall well being, including your mental health. Yoga can improve flexibility, strength, balance, and endurance, depending upon the form of yoga you choose to practice. Whether you are just happy to feel strong and fit or want to do better in your chosen sport, yoga can help you achieve your goals!
How to get started with yoga:
Free or inexpensive options include streaming at home
We want to make mental wellness as accessible as possible, so of course we are going to open with no- or low-cost options!
No-cost option:
For a no-cost option, just open your YouTube app and type in “yoga workout.” You’ll discover that there is so much you won’t know where to begin! So a few tips:
Looking for a challenging option? Try “power yoga” or “Baptiste yoga.”
Looking to feel calm and centered? Try “slow flow yoga” or “calming yoga class.”
Looking to just get started? Try “beginner yoga.”
And from there, you can choose the length you desire and dive in! You will likely discover quickly that there are many different styles of teaching and some you will love, and some you won’t! With free streaming, you get to move on and keep trying until you find a workout you want to keep coming back to!
A couple YouTube options that we have found that we love include:
Yoga with Adriene https://www.youtube.com/user/yogawithadriene
Boho Beautiful https://www.youtube.com/@bohobeautiful
Low-cost option:
For a small monthly fee, there are a wide variety of streaming services that offer yoga, many of which offer other workout styles as well.
Rather than go into each of these, we’ll just offer you the links to check out and you can explore on your own. Some we have found that we like include:
AloMoves.com
ALO Moves is a streaming service devoted largely to yoga and a mindful approach to fitness, as well as meditation and tips for self-care
Glo is very similar to ALO in that it it is primarily yoga and mindfulness but also offers a great deal of pilates and some fitness classes. Both Glo and ALO offer free trials so you can give them a chance before you commit!
Yes, that Peloton! And yes there are a lot of cycling classes here as well as treadmill and fitness, but they offer a wide variety of yoga options, from five minutes on up. And you can use the streaming service without having to buy the bike or treadmill. You just don’t show up on the leaderboard during live classes!
Les Mills is an Australian-based company that has been creating gym-based and streaming workouts for literally decades. If you enjoy guided workouts, they offer everything from kickboxing to pilates to heavy lifting programs, and their yoga is called BodyBalance. It is an athletic form of yoga set to music, and they offer mindfulness and meditation classes as well.
Moderate-cost option: find a local studio!
The price will vary greatly, but finding a local studio is one way to discover wonderful people and gain that sense of community we discussed above as an important benefit of yoga.
Many traditional gyms offer yoga classes as part of their group exercise schedule, or you can find a studio devoted to yoga.
And if you are on the north side of Indianapolis, we can’t recommend Fire & Flow enough! They are warm and welcoming, they want to see you succeed in your practice whether you’re a beginner or have been practicing for many years, and they offer a wide variety of heated and non-heated classes, from restorative to vigorous and challenging!
We hope that if you’ve tried yoga in the past but moved away from it, the info here will motivate you to get back to it, and if you’ve never tried it, we hope you feel led to give it a try!
And as always, we love to hear from you. Whether it’s about yoga or just whatever might be on your heart, never hesitate to send us a message here!