How Yoga Has Seriously Helped Improve My Life.

I’ve been practicing yoga (almost) every day for about a month now. I’ve noticed some pretty radical shifts in my body, too, and I wanted to share those today.

Less Anxiety.

Yoga has mellowed me out so much. Before I started practicing yoga every day, I was a huge ball of nerves. Now, I’m a substantially smaller ball of nerves.

Vinyasa yoga (the type of yoga that I practice) synchronizes your movement to your breath. You’ll come into a pose on an inhale and move into a deeper version of the same pose on an exhale. This type of yoga really helps promote mindfulness and awareness of the breath. If you’ve ever had a panic attack or any sort of anxiety disorder, you’d probably know that one of the biggest tips people give for those things is to breathe deeply. “In through your nose, out through your mouth.”

More Mindfulness.

Speaking of mindfulness, yoga has helped me with this, too. Vinyasa yoga is more geared toward awareness of the breath, but yoga in general helps you become aware of your body. You move your body in ways that you wouldn’t normally, so this automatically helps you become more aware of muscles that you don’t typically use.

I’m more mindful in many areas: what I eat, what I drink, how I spend my time, and how I carry my body throughout my day. I think yoga has helped improve my posture, too, by strengthening my back muscles.

Less Depression.

Any type of exercise releases chemicals in your brain that naturally help you combat depression or general sadness. Yoga, being a form of exercise, has helped me tremendously with my depression. I know that I don’t look the best doing yoga (which is what some people shoot for), but I feel the best doing yoga. I love using my body in new and unique ways to me.

Given that I’ve done yoga almost every single day for about a month now, I’m feeling great. Yoga in combination with quitting a medicine that I think was doing more harm than good has dramatically increased my quality of life.

More Happiness.

I’ve just become a generally happier person. My mindset has shifted on a variety of different topics. I no longer view nighttime as a time to be sad that the sun has set (I also suffer pretty badly from S.A.D.); now, it’s a time to practice the super relaxing moon salutations.

It’s amazing how your perspective on things can shift if you just give it the chance.

Less Isolation.

It sounds kind of odd, but I don’t feel as alone as I used to. I don’t know what your religious beliefs are, but I consider myself an agnostic. I think there’s something out there that helps guide us through life, I just don’t know exactly what it is.

That being said, yoga helps me feel more connected to the Universe. I also feel connected to other yogis because we share the same passion.

More Gratitude.

Because of yoga, I wake up excited in the morning. I used to wake up hating the fact that I had to go through another day,  but I’m now excited because I get to do my morning practice. I haven’t mastered the art of getting up early enough to do yoga before work yet, but I’m definitely a lot better at it than I was.

I’m just more thankful in general. I’m thankful for my body (which is a huge first for me), for my yoga mat, for the videos on YouTube, for the DownDog app (I’ll do a review on that soon), and for so many other things. It’s incredible how much we have to be thankful for that we miss because we’re too caught up in our lives.

Learning Sanskrit.

The original language of yoga is Sanskrit. There are translations of the poses into different languages, but Sanskrit is the first language in which yoga was spoken about. I’m actually learning Sanskrit (more than just the pose names) to deepen my practice. I’m using this book to help me along.

The Bottom Line.

I love yoga. Like, I seriously, seriously love it. It’s the first form of exercise that I actually enjoy and don’t mind when I get sweaty. I’m planning on taking a yoga teacher training course at a local yoga studio later this year, and I’ll definitely be blogging about that experience.

Overall, I would absolutely highly recommend you try yoga if you haven’t already.

I’ll be making another post all about what yoga is, what it can do, the Sanskrit names of the poses, and a lot more. Stay tuned!