Flexibility: Stretching your tight body in new ways will help it to become more flexible, bringing a much greater range of motion to muscles and joints over time. With practice you can expect to gain flexibility in your hamstrings, back,shoulders, and hips.
Strength: Many yoga poses lead you to support the weight of your own body in new and challenging ways, including balancing on one leg or supporting yourself with your arms . Some exercises require you to move slowly in and out of poses as well as hold poses, which also increases strength.
Mental Calmness: Yoga asana practice is intensely physical . Concentrating so intently on what your body is doing has the effect of bringing serenity and calmness to the mind. Yoga also introduces you to meditation techniques, such as watching how you breathe and disengagement from your thoughts, which helps to calm the mind.
Stress Reduction: Physical activity is good for relieving stress, and this is particularly true of yoga. Because of the concentration required, your daily troubles, both large and small, seem to melt away during the time you are doing yoga and after as well. The emphasis yoga places on being in the moment can also help relieve stress, as you learn not to dwell on past events or anticipate the future. You will leave a yoga class feeling less stressed than when you started. Many folks speak to the long lasting effects of how they feel after attending a class. Yoga has been become fairly addictive for people in today's information overload world.
Body Awareness: Doing yoga will give you an increased and enhanced overall awareness of your own body. You are often called upon to make small, subtle movements to improve your alignment. Over time, this will serve to increase your level of comfort in your own body. This can lead to improved posture and greater self-confidence