Although it’s a time-honoured practice, yoga has become the exercise du jour in recent years. Everyone from A-list celebrities to your co-workers are getting their om on these days — and for a very good reason.
Practising yoga has incredible health benefits beyond flexibility as well as balance, although those are some of the great perks. Studies show that yoga does everything from fighting anxiety, depression, and stress right down to reducing inflammation in the body. Yoga can even make migraines seem less severe.
There are many types of yogic practice. Likewise, there are also a number of different popular yoga poses dependent on type (standing, sitting, etc.) and in terms of difficulty. So to cover a lot of ground, the poses listed below will be a mix of yoga poses that are popular in classes of yoga for beginners as well as for the intermediate and advanced classes.
Mountain Pose
- Stand up straight and ensure that your feet are together or hip-distance apart.
- Ground down through all four corners of your feet.
- Move your shoulders away from your ears. Take your shoulder blades down your back and then lift the crown of your head.
- Engage your thighs and draw your belly button in. Lengthen up through your spine. Turn your palms so that these are facing the front of the room.
- Relax your jaw and unfurrow your brow. Breathe easily.
Boat Pose
- Lie down on your back and have your legs together. Keep your hands on your thighs or next to the thighs on the floor.
- Inhale and then raise your head, arms and head in a straight line off the floor at a 30-degree angle.
- Make sure to keep the toes pointing upward.
This asana boosts the efficiency of abdominal muscles, it is good for digestion, and annihilates belly fat. The boat pose also strengthens organs in the abdomen as well as leg muscles.
Chair Pose
- Begin in Mountain Pose. As you breathe in, raise your arms, spread your fingers and then reach up through your fingertips. As you breathe out, sit back and down as if sitting down into a chair.
- Shift your weight towards your heels and lengthen up through the spine. As you breathe in, lift and lengthen through your arms. As you exhale, sit deeper into the pose.
Head To Toe Pose
- Sit with your extended legs and flexed toes. Breathe in and raise your arms. Exhale and then pull your navel in.
- Stretch your spine forwards from your hips. Hold your toes with your hands, bending the elbows outward or downward.
- In the final position, your awareness should be on your abdominal breathing.
The head to toe pose stretches the calf and hamstring muscles, which assists for better circulation. It elongates the spine and gives a good stretch to it. It also regulates vital energy to the nervous system and ensures good circulation to internal abdominal organs.
These are MANY popular yoga poses and these are just A COUPLE of them, compiled and taken from different categories and difficulty levels of yoga poses.