What benefits do you feel from yoga?

[C1239]

I have started to go to yoga class once a week the last three weeks, a beginners class but it is getting more testing. I enjoy it and I feel good afterwards but I was just wondering what benefits you feel long term?

The benefits for me are flexibility and strength. It’s still hard but I can do things I never thought possible like full plank and no knees. Also my balance has improved too. I’m 55 and I wished I had started sooner especially when I see what some of the younger ones can do.

My DH also goes once a week - he has a bad back and is now 90% pain free and walks tall and well.

I do yoga and meditation 5-6 times a week vinyassa and yin. Yoga gives me strength, flexibility, balance, calmness and reduces my stress off the mat. It has changed my life in so many ways.

Daft question but can you do yoga if you're fat?

Turfaccountant yes, but if you’ve got a big g tummy, it can get in the way a bit.

Turf - I’m sure I’ve seen one or two yoga teachers online who are definitely in the curvy category.

Turf - yes! Can you mindfully breathe with movement? That's what yoga is. It's not twisting yourself into a shape that looks exactly like the teacher.

OP, main benefits for me are a sense of calmness, much better connection, awareness and appreciation of my body and mind, improved strength and flexibility of body and mind.

Cheers guys. I've been thinking of giving it a go, getting a bit stiff in the joints

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I feel more “connected” to my body, don’t get headaches as much, and am so much stronger. I’ve been going 3 years now and the progress I’ve made is really heartening.

Strength. Big time. I can move into positions I didn't think I could and hold them for longer. I'm sure my legs got more defined too.

Yoga has helped me so much, I have a disability so I attend a class that is supported by a charity that helps people with my disability, the class focuses yoga for people less able we have lots of people come, some have MS, Parkinson’s, may be recovering from surgery, suffer from depression etc.

It helps me greatly, with stretching, calms my mind, it has built on my core muscles, helped my flexibility, breathing exercises.

Yoga is great for everybody, the important thing is to pick the right class and instructor.

Helps my constipation

Yoga helps me to be a nicer person.

Knee pain, embarrassing looks, bad back, ankle sprain, falling asleep and being left alone in a strange room. A teacher I want to throw a brick at.

On the upside it’s good to get home and have a piece of cake.

I do yoga but the changes I have noticed most have been for a male friend who is now mid-sixties. He became interested in yoga maybe 10 years ago and eventually trained as a yoga teacher and took over the class taught by his yoga teacher she she retired. He is very lithe, nicely muscled and has really good posture. From being generally quite stiff he has become very supple and can now do some of those very bendy positions - like putting our head on the floor when leaning forwards between your legs -that a few years back he would not have imagined possible. He is also very serene. I think if you practice most days and do try to extend the positions you eventually get to have the "yoga look" I'm short and dumpy, but still trying. I can stand on one leg better than him, but he tells me that is not what it is all about.!

I've been practising on and off for the last 5 years now. I'm more off at the moment and I've noticed that I am (a) a lot less cam and (b) significantly stiffer, especially first thing in the morning.

Calmer. Stronger. Reduces stiffness in my shoulders caused by working at computer. More toned around the midriff (and I do other aerobic exercise and strength exercise which doesn't touch this in the same way)

I don't creak as much in the morning and I can sit for longer more comfortably on the floor playing with my children

Unkinked, straighter, taller, neck, back and shoulders are less stiff, less tension, more emotionally regulated, more able to concentrate, overall well-being, makes me smile to myself. When else do I stop and focus entirely on a teacher (one thing), what my body is doing/feeling, and internal sensations, for 1 hour +. That is incredibly regulating.

^Did a three hour Yin workshop yesterday so feeling very Om!