Advantages and Disadvantages of yoga

Nothing in this world is free of errors; there are pros and cons for every kind of miracle that you expect from any kind of exercise.

Yoga has been in our history for a very long time, and its existence has made a few of our lives better in ways we could have never imagined. But as beneficial it might be, it also has its advantages and disadvantages ruling around with it.

If you are all in for yoga and find yourself quite passionate about it, then these pointers would help you out to go ahead with yoga with prior knowledge. In general, you would discover yoga as the go-to exercise for you, and it is the whole package that one looks out—keeping that in mind it’s also impossible for it to be all perfect and flawless right.

Thus, here we come up with a few of the advantages and disadvantages of yoga. We shall go through what exactly yoga has in store for us.

There are a hell lot of benefits of yoga; what yoga and meditation can make you do and help you with your health and mental stability is insane. This union of your mind and body helps us unleash the most powerful sensations in us that being your consciousness and confidence to think appropriately.

Our thoughts are what we put into actions, and yoga has some divine power to help us create that space within us that helps us gain control and righteously implement them.

Since yoga has been running in our civilized world for a very long time, their process of discovering new health benefits of yoga is a never-ending trend. 

Researchers have found so many relations and positive outcomes of yoga in our day to day life.

There are numerous discoveries and effects of yoga on one’s body, but here we are going to name only a few of the most effective and prominent ones.

a. Advantages Of Yoga for Personal Benefits

People who have taken up yoga in their life, connect their body and mind with this beautiful practice. If you haven’t started this journey, then connecting yourself with the millennia-old tradition will provide you with insights and benefits you haven’t even imagined of.

Yoga has its way around many aspects of your life, as they help us in our personal life, mentally and physically as well, so here we come to you with few of the personal benefits that yoga can bring into you.

Stress Busters and Moods

Yoga has been practiced for keeping oneself fit, but did you know that its way of stretching and series of breathing can just help you deal with your day to day stress.

Researchers had seen much evidence in making people do yoga for 15 days and see the difference in their way of thinking as compared to when they started off with the practice.

Controls Anxiety

Any disorder in our life usually leads us to overthink about it, thus causing anxiety. Panic attacks and disorders are some of the vigorous effects of stress that can happen to us.

Surprisingly theses anxiety and panic disorder affect our overall bodily function as well, like its affects our body, eating habits, mind, etc.

Yoga is known to have positive effects on your mental health and anxiety levels. The process of self-care and relaxation comes in automatically as soon as you start doing yoga.

Yoga has been known to ease the anxiety level by helping us clear our mind and enhance mindfulness within us.

Fights Depression

There are always medical ways to treat depression, which can be a healthier way to handle it naturally, just by focusing on oneself. Yoga has long been known for its anti-depressant quality.

Studies have shown positive results on the mental health of people who follow and practice yoga.

Quality Sleep Time

A night of improper sleep can have many effects on our body; the function of the brain is crucial for acting and reacting to day-to-day activity. Proper sleep promotes a healthy state of mind as well as body.

Sleep disorders have been associated with stress, obesity[6], and even depression[7].

Yoga’s effect on the sleep pattern of humans has been checked and studied, and they found that yoga helps promote a longer sleep cycle and a well-rested mind.

Promotes Flexibility and Balance

The yoga asanas and postures help us to make our bodies open up and flexible than before. At first, it might just take some time to either reach your toe or bend yourself, but eventually, you will see the difference.

An inflexibility in one’s body causes restricted movements and can lead to poor posture as well. Thus, yoga is the best way to improve your flexibility and balance your mind and body.

The postures used in yoga asanas help you concentrate more on how you stand and how well you can maintain the posture, thus aligning your mind and body in the straight line, thereby increasing your body’s balance.

In a study done in 2013, the scholars have reported that doing yoga improved mobility and balance in older adults as well [9]. There is a considerable amount of science backing this theory, as specific asanas have been used to target a particular area’s mobility in studies as well.

Mindful Eating

Healthy eating, just like proper sleep, controls a lot of things in our body, the blood sugar level, weight, and other health-related problems like cholesterol.

Thus getting yourself into a healthy routine is quite remarkable, and one might get distracted and find it difficult to maintain, but yoga has its way out.

Yoga somehow has the ability to make our urges for unwanted food lower down, have more self-control, and helps in promoting healthy eating.

Mindful Breathing

Although almost all the yoga exercises have controlled breathing involved in it, there are specialized yoga practices that just concentrate on our breathing rates and activities, its meditation.

Careful and mindful breathing helps in controlling one’s breath, and concentrating on how we inhale and exhales, researches have seen that these practices have the ability to improve our lung capacity and might also help with lung diseases, asthma, and other heart problems as well[10].

Improves Your Posture

The yoga practices involve various forms of postures and stretching. These have a direct effect on the mobility of our joins and posture of our body.

A poor posture can cause various problems like back pain, spondylitis., arthritis, etc., thus maintain a good posture is always suggested.

Yoga asanas tend to make our spine all proper and flexible. The spinal discs that function as a shock absorber and keep the spine placed in the right place with cushioning between each bone help in the movement, and yoga is said to have a positive effect on them.

Improves Blood Flow

Any physical activity helps in the blood flow, pumping up of the muscles. Yoga also has a way to promote blood flow. The positions used in yoga improves the flow of blood in a very synchronized manner with the body.

There are twisting poses, handstands, and shoulder stand pose in yoga that helps in the blood flow, rate of blood flow, and the hemoglobin content also increase with the help of yoga and its practices.

An increase in the overall blood flow also helps in maintain proper skin and hair, blood supply rates increases, and so does the elements in them; thus, it indirectly helps in getting better skin and hair.

b). Medical Benefits For Yoga

Apart from having personal benefits of yoga, there are high thoughts and studies on how yoga helps to build up our body from within in a more cellular level.

Here are a few advantages of yoga in the medical aspects of our body.

Increases Grey Matter Of Our Brain

The scientist has seen direct physical changes in the brain, and yoga seems to have the potential to increase the grey matter of the brain.

Studies say that just after 8 weeks of yoga practices, the grey matter was more, and its concentration started increasing in areas that were linked with memory, emotion, learning, etc.[11].

On the other hand, the grey matter decreases in the areas of the amygdala that is associated with stress, anxiety, and blood pressure.

Boosts Immunity

Studies have shown that when compared to people who do yoga regularly with people who don’t when given a flu virus, yoga doing, people have a more natural way to get out of the disease.

The number of antibodies produced was way higher of the yoga people than the others.

Our immune system is the main component that is responsible for maintaining our regular bodily function by fighting against the external pathogen.

Thus, a proper and fast immune system is always beneficial than the one who would take time to generate and produce antibodies.

Yoga is said to promote better immune response and better immune functioning.

Helps With Digestion

If you have bowel problems like constipation, thus yoga can help you out with it. Yoga helps in maintaining a good and healthy bowel movement.

The physical exercises that are included in yoga help up to ease constipation problems and help to maintain regular bowel movement.

Improper bowel movements can also cause colon cancer; thus, it is essential to care about the bowel system of our body.

Due to the rapid movement and flexibility promotion, the bodily fluids also get all activated, thus facilitating more food and waste products through the bowel.

Improves heart health

The yoga practices are said to have a positive effect on cardiovascular disease and conditions, and they help in the variability of the heart rate.

A proper heart rate basically helps in the adequate transfer of oxygen and removal of carbon dioxide from various tissues and parts of our body.

Conditions like blood sugar level, cardiovascular disorders have shown to be reduced if yoga is practiced regularly[12].

High blood pressure is quite common in today’s world, and it is majorly caused due to heart problems. Yoga helps in lowering blood pressure, thus help in avoiding all the health-related issues like diabetes.

A study showed that yoga could decrease cholesterol and bad cholesterol in our body by 26%[13].

As mentioned above, everything comes with their pros and cons, hereafter getting a bit clear idea about all the benefits that yoga can provide us with, let’s dive into the cons of yoga.

Even though there are immense benefits of yoga in general, but knowing about the cons of yoga is equally important as the pros of yoga.

Yoga is not For all

Although the saying goes that yoga is for anyone and everyone, its is not entirely true.

Few exceptions follow as well; not everyone is supposed to do yoga regularly.

Exceptions like pregnant women and people with injury or disabilities are suggested to set the pace back and not strain themselves over yoga.

Certain poses might help in the relaxation, but without a proper guide, it can become dangerous for pregnant ladies; thus, proper guidance is a must; taking doctors’ consultancy is also required.

May Cause Injury

Even though the poses in yoga might look familiar and positive to go around with, there are high chances you can hurt yourself, thus start at a slow pace and glide onto the yoga asanas.

The poses used in yoga can be tedious and dangerous for a newbie at least; remember it, you feel too much for the strain on any part of your body, just let go.

The risk of physically harming yourself can be daunting and challenging to carry on with it. If you want to follow the yoga regime regularly, you might consider taking it slow and seeking professional help.

People practicing yoga have reported incidents that caused muscle spasms and muscle strain, overstretching yourself, and ignoring the pain, which can lead to many unwanted injuries.

It Takes Time

The effects of yoga on your body might take some time to show some actual difference. Unlike other physical activity which might actually display maximum difference, yoga doesn’t have the ability to do that.

But you need to remember that yoga is not only about physical and mental health. Both are affected, and although it might take some time, it does work pretty well to rejuvenate your inner self.

Increase In Blood Pressure

Excessive exercise and poses may cause high pressure. People who already have hypertension may find it challenging to carry on with a few of the postures of yoga.

There are cases when it might as well lead to complications with glaucoma. It is a condition in which pressure increase behind our eyeball, thus leading to eyesight loss.