When I first started college I met a person who introduced me to Yoga. I was always interested in it, but never had pursued it. She showed me a couple beginner dvds and I started doing it every night. Fell in love with it.
I think it was about 2 years after doing it every night my schedule completely changed and I stopped doing yoga because I didn’t have the time for it.
About 8 weeks ago my friend Heather talked me into joining a Friday am yoga class with her. I’m so glad that I did because it reminded me how much I miss yoga. It happens every time I do it, but with this being an 8 week class I was bound to really get back into it.
So this back story brings me to today. I went to go look in my little library of books (which is pretty much 90% about food and health) and a couple books caught my eye that I forgot I had. I grabbed both of them and opened them up.
The first one is called Yoga Anatomy.
Photo pulled off of Amazon.com
It basically breaks down a few different poses and shows you the muscles that are used. It goes into the science and physiology of your body and yoga. It’s only about 221 pages cover to cover, so it’s not a huge book. I found it helpful in understanding why we do certain poses and how to breath.
The other book I pulled out of my library was Yoga as Medicine.
Image from Amazon.com
This book is great because it targets different areas of the body for specific health benefits. This one is about 568 pages cover to cover. More resembles a college textbook but is broken down in different chapters for different areas of concentration. Part 1 is basic yoga philosophy, different areas yoga can help (ie stress and others). Part two explains safety, styles and how to get started. Part 3 is yoga in action. It breaks down into types of treatment (anxiety, arthritis, asthma, backpain, carpal tunnel, depression, headaches and the list goes on).
It obviously can’t cure diseases and certain medical conditions, but I truly believe that it can help reduce symptoms and make dealing with certain pain much easier. It’s a great alternative to dealing with these sorts of issues with before immediately turning medicine (if that is your thing, some people prefer the meds and that is fine).
One thing that particularly grabbed my attention was this chart that I pulled from the book.
40 Ways Yoga Heals – Yoga as Medicine
Do you do yoga? If so, what health benefits have you noticed from doing it?