Yoga is beneficial in many ways — it helps with stress management, improves flexibility, and even results in better sleep (www.hopkinsmedicine.org). Almost every area of life can be enhanced by a good yoga practice — and that includes your bone health. Incorporating yoga into your daily routine can benefit your bone health through weight-bearing practices that help bone density and function (www.emedihealth.com).
Bone density changes as we age. As the bones begin to lose important minerals and become thinner, they decrease in density and mass (medlineplus.gov). Because the bones are more fragile, they break more easily, and problems like osteoporosis and arthritis become greater risks to older people. How can we avoid these issues? Well-rounded diets and adequate vitamin consumption are important to improving bone density, but weight-bearing exercise and strength training are also lifestyle changes that can be extremely helpful in avoiding bone loss as we age (healthline.com). Here is how incorporating yoga into your lifestyle can strengthen your bones.
What Is Yoga And How Does It Help?
Yoga is an ancient form of exercise and movement that targets concentration, awareness of breathing, and multiple poses that work to improve flexibility and strength. Though it originated as a spiritual practice, it is now used for its health benefits all over the world, and recommended by doctors for a multitude of health issues (yogajournal.com). There are many different types of practices, and it may take some experimenting or personal research to decide which type is the best for each individual person. Ashtanga, bikram, and sivananda are a few of the many styles, and each emphasize different difficulty levels and philosophies about the practice.
Different from running on a treadmill or using other exercise equipment, yoga uses your own body as the tool, and gradually improves your body’s ability to support itself and move efficiently. Each pose works on an area of the body — stretching, pushing, and pulling in healthy ways that the body is not always being challenged in our more sedentary modern lifestyles.
For this reason, yoga can help push the body back into postural alignment, and may relieve types of osteoarthritis. Research suggests that yoga even improves low-back and neck pain (nccih.nih.gov).
How To Incorporate Yoga Into Your Life
Talking to your doctor about yoga as a possible avenue for improving bone health might be the best first step to take. If you’re expecting a baby and you’re seeking for a healthier pregnancy, a kids chiropractor will likely have a multidisciplinary approach, and help you find a practice that meets all of your fitness and health goals. So if you need prenatal chiropractic treatments, make sure to visit an expert prenatal chiropractor.
Yoga classes are also offered at most gyms, and the internet proves to be a great resource for finding additional information at home, with instructional videos that allow you to follow along with an experienced yoga instructor. If you find a certain practice too difficult or perhaps unhelpful, there are dozens more to try. This may take a little bit of fine-tuning and research, but in the end, adding a yoga routine to your daily life will be worth it for the plethora of health benefits. But if you aim to be a yoga teacher, you may attend Yoga Teacher Training Courses, sign up now if you’re interested!!!