Yoga is a mindful workout plan that aims to improve mental, physical and spiritual health. It can help women cope with the challenges that life brings and build resilience.
It’s a great way for women to connect with their inner warriors, and to build strength, courage and confidence while also using their strengths like compassion, intuition, and tenderheartedness.
Improved Mental Health
Practicing yoga helps women develop a sense of stability and peace, a feeling of wellbeing that can be used to support their life. This is important because when we feel steady we are better able to connect with our innate qualities, such as creativity, vitality, tolerance, compassion, patience and love.
Whether you are experiencing hormonal changes during your cycle or menopause, yoga can help to alleviate symptoms including hot flashes and depression. It also improves sleep and reduces stress levels.
More and more clinically trained professionals are encouraging yoga as a mental health tool that can complement talk therapy. Studies suggest that yoga can reduce PTSD symptoms in women who have experienced trauma, as well as help people with anxiety and stress.
Optimised Productivity
The practice of yoga boosts productivity in a number of ways. It improves energy levels, increases physical flexibility and helps employees learn how to deal with everyday work challenges more easily.
Yoga also reduces stress and anxiety, which are known to affect productivity. It also promotes sleep, which has been linked to improved work performance.
In addition, practicing yoga regularly increases the level of focus and concentration. This makes it easier for workers to concentrate on their tasks without getting distracted by external influences.
Prevents Obesity
Yoga is an excellent way to reduce stress, which can be a major factor in weight gain and obesity. It can also improve mood, lower cortisol levels, reduce anxiety and depression, help with sleep problems, and even help manage chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes and hypertension.
A 12 week yoga intervention in adult females with central obesity significantly reduced waist circumference, body mass index, percentage of body fat, and lipid profile. In addition, yoga improved participants’ mental and physical well-being and self-esteem.
Prevents Pregnancy Complications
Pregnancy complications are a major concern for both the mother and baby. Annually, around half a million women die due to pregnancy-related diseases or disorders (Hogberg, 2005).
Yoga reduces the risk of developing some common pregnancy complications. For example, this study found that women who practiced yoga had fewer hypertension-related complications and preterm births.
The results of this randomized study suggest that yoga could be a preventive therapy in high-risk pregnancies. It also suggests that yoga can reduce the frequency of hypertensive disorders, gestational diabetes, and intrauterine growth restriction, as well as improve fetal outcomes.
The combination of controlled stretching and breathing in yoga helps increase blood flow to your heart, ensuring that you have more oxygen-rich blood flowing to your baby, keeping them healthy. It also decreases stress, anxiety and depression.
Postnatal Recovery
Yoga can help with postnatal recovery in a number of ways. It can reduce stress and depression, and it can also help to restore your body back to its pre-pregnancy state.
You can practice yoga as early as a few days after delivery, depending on how your birth went. However, you should wait until your doctor says it’s safe to exercise again.
You’ll want to listen to your body, and only do poses that are comfortable for you. You might also need to avoid certain poses, such as deep twists and lying on your stomach.