Yoga Paper

Palamara 1
Isabella Palamara
Mrs. DeBock
English IV
November 17th, 2015
The Benefits of Yoga
Yoga is a mental, physical, and spiritual practice and is originated from India and it about
five thousand years old. It is a key point in ones health and well-being. It is a technique one can
use to help strengthen their flexibility, yet clear their mind at the same time. People love doing
yoga for that reason. Along with that, it comes with many benefits to help better a person in their
daily life. Yoga is the practice of quieting the mind, which shows that it goes hand in hand with
meditation. It can help one from reducing pain or a physical illness, all the way to reducing stress
on a person. Yoga positively benefits a person physically, mentally, and cognitively.
Yoga is not only a relaxing, meditation like practice; you are also getting exercise while
you are doing it. One of the ways yoga can benefit one physically, is by keeping joint health in
shape, which is one of the main reasons people do yoga. According to Bemiss, a man named Dr.
Bob Arnot wrote a book called Wear and Tear. In this book, he illustrates that while doing
most sports- even though they will keep one in shape- can lead to ones joints being worn out;
yet yoga, does not deplete the joints. Along with joint wellness, it keeps the spine healthy. It
keeps the spine healthy because of the stretching that one is doing; it keeps the vertebrae from
compressing. Yoga is beneficial when it comes to back pain, which is another major reason why
people do yoga. Yoga can also help one relieve wrist pain. As stated by Guthrie, one in ten
Americans experience carpal tunnel syndrome- a painful condition of the hand and fingers which
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is caused by compression of nerves over carpal bones. A study was done that stated that certain
types of yoga can be beneficial to ones to suffer from CTS with more moderate conditions. The
stretching factor in yoga helps to relax the skeletal system, which will lead to growth and bone
mass. Another way one can benefit from yoga is by it helping one to breathe well. Breathing is a
key factor in everyones daily lives, and it is connected to a persons stress response. According
to Shaw, breathing exercises are a key point in doing yoga and should be practiced when starting
out with yoga because they keep you inward-focused. Yoga also helps release good hormones
throughout your body, and some of the poses done during yoga can even also help energize a
person. Yoga is also beneficial and a good practice when it comes to a person who is trying to
lose weight without doing the intense exercising. It does this because yoga helps burn calories.
Yoga is beneficial practice to help with ones mental health. According to Richmond, a
woman who was diagnosed with hypothyroid, stopped taking medication and started taking yoga
classes. It is stated that yoga gave the woman more focus and patience when it comes to things.
Meditation goes hand in hand with yoga. While working on the body and meditating, it will help
one to relieve stress, because meditation help morph the brain and give one a more peaceful
attitude. The meditation factor gives one coping skills and helps lead one to make better choices
in their daily life. Meditation affords us an opportunity to take a step back, breathe and evaluate
our inner soul; meditation lets us relax, evaluate ourselves and our progress, and experience
benefits to our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being (Shaw 2). According to
Dowdle, yoga will help one to slow the mind and think about every aspect of things when you
have to make an impulse decision or choice. Along with making better decisions, yoga can help
one to be a healthier person just by mindfulness thinking. This happens by being aware of what
one is about to eat and even how it will make one feel after it is eaten; it will help a person
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realize what is good for the body and what is not. Mindfulness thinking is a helpful technique in
the practice of yoga. Yoga can even help reduce anxiety and depression by helping clear the mind
with the amount of stress put on ones nervous system. Yoga also helps one with increased
attention which has to do with mental health, and cognitive skills.
Increased attention, memory and arousal control are all beneficial factors from yoga.
Yoga can be valuable when referring to ones cognition. According to Nangia, and Malhotra, a
study was done to examine if ones cognitive skills were increased during yoga, and they were.
Yoga will help one to focus more, and alert your attention to things more. This is because of the
meditation factor that comes with most yoga practices. Yoga can make people perform tasks at
hand more quickly without getting distracted by other things. Studies have been done to show
that people are indeed quicker when coming to certain tasks, and are also able to recall for
information given. Studies have also been done to see if memorization is improved from doing
yoga. Yoga clears the mind, so therefore according to Nangia, and Malhotra, this may have an
effect on the stimuli and will cause a person to recall information more easily.
If one practices yoga and sticks to it, it has a plethora of things that one can benefit from.
Yoga is the practice of quieting the mind, so by doing this it can have many benefits. People love
doing yoga because of all of the benefits from it. Meditation also goes hand in hand with yoga,
which is a major factor of yoga. Yoga is a peaceful technique. It can help one lose weight, and
also help one lose their stress as well. Yoga is a greatly beneficial technique when it comes to
benefiting a person positively in the physical, mental, and cognitive aspects.
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Works Cited
Bemiss, Faith. "Yoga Good for Both Body and Mind." The Sedalia Democrat (MO) 24 Sept.
2014: Points of View Reference Center. Web. 28 Oct. 2015.
Dowdle, Hilary. "The Magic of Yoga." Natural Health (2014): 68. Points of View Reference
Center. Web. 28 Oct. 2015.
Guthrie, Catherine. Yogas Healing Power. Health (Time Inc. Health). Apr2005, Vol. 19 Issue
3, p120-170. 7p. 2 Color Photographs. Web. 28 Oct. 2015.
Nangia, and Malhotra. Yoga, Cognition and Mental Health Journal of the Indian Academy of
Applied Psychology. July 2012, Vol. 38, No. 2, 262-269.
Richmond, Christine. "No-Doze Yoga." Natural Health 40.1 (2009): 48. Points of View
Reference Center. Web. 28 Oct. 2015.
Shaw, Beth. "Living In Balance. Meditation + Yoga = Balance." Massage Magazine 229 (2015):
68-70. Alt HealthWatch. Web. 28 Oct. 2015.

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