Celebrities swear by it, your coworkers go twice a week, and your doctor recommends it.  We read about it in magazines, social media, and even the news.  Everyone raves about yoga, but why?  How does yoga actually benefit you?  Here are a few reasons why you should be spending some time on the mat.

Yoga Improves Mobility and Flexibility

Mobility and flexibility are important to ensure we have a healthy range of motion in our joints and length in our muscles to allow that movement.  Having the ability to move fully and freely through a movement reduces the chance of injury by a large percentage.  Also, it’s pretty convenient to be able to tie our own shoes and comb our own hair.  Through properly executed stretches and poses, yoga will give you greater mobility and flexibility, allowing greater freedom of movement!

Yoga Improves Strength

It’s true, yoga will make you stronger!  Yoga works all the muscles in the human body, but is one of the best ways to strengthen your intrinsic stabilizers, commonly referred to as “the core”.  Your intrinsic stabilizers are responsible for keeping your body in correct alignment and posture.  This allows the other muscles to maximize their performance by eliminating the need for stronger muscles to compensate for weaker stabilizers.  Yoga is essentially the rehearsals for the orchestra of muscles in the body.  When you combine this strength with mobility, movement becomes both painless and effortless!

Yoga Is For EVERYONE

The #1 reason for people to shy away from yoga is something along the lines of, “I’m not flexible enough”, or “I’m not strong enough.”  Well, where do you think yogis learn to be flexible and strong?!?  Yoga is not a final destination, it is a journey, and everyone starts at the beginning.  Yoga is where you learn to become stronger and more mobile.  There is no requirement of ability, no limit of age, and no expectation to do anything other than to be courageous and to practice what you learn.  Regardless of your current ability and apprehensions, yoga IS for everyone!