Healthy You: Yoga paves the way to happiness
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle should never be sacrificed for things like friends or school, but how can you balance it all while still making time for yourself? In-Depth Editor Billy Jump lets you know how to survive the trials of high school while living a physically and mentally healthy lifestyle.
November 20, 2014
Yoga. It’s that thing that everybody’s mom has tried at least once.
But yoga extends far beyond just a trend that helps you get your body back to where it was before two kids and a minivan. It’s a physical, mental, and spiritual practice that improves both the body and the mind.
Every day, after I wake up and question why I don’t just drop out of school and start my career as an international pop sensation, I take in a deep breath, exhale, and then start stretching. Instantly, I feel the energy flow through my body like 1,000 electrical pulses waking up my muscles. After about 10 minutes of yoga, I am ready to start my day.
The benefits of yoga include improved energy, increased flexibility, increased muscle strength and tone, healthier metabolism, weight reduction, cardio health, increased vitality, and countless others. Yoga also introduces you to meditation techniques, which tremendously influences your ability to handle stress and anxiety. The combination of all these effects creates an enormous increase in how you feel about yourself.
One of the biggest impacts yoga has made on my life is an increased awareness of my body and an increase in self-confidence. Not only do I have the desire to eat healthier and stay away from destructive vices, but I have become more comfortable in my body and feel that my mind and body are in harmony.
One of the greatest things about yoga is that, just like how your muscles will feel afterwards, it’s flexible. Yoga works with your schedule so that you can do it virtually anywhere. You don’t need a treadmill or weights, just your body and your mind. And if you want fast, long-term results, yoga is the way to go. In just two weeks, my flexibility and core strength increased drastically.
Yoga is for everyone. Are you looking to build more muscle? Yoga. Feeling down lately? Yoga! Are you a sad man who overcompensates for his insecurities by acting like a gorilla and drives everyone away? YOGA!
Regardless of why you may decide to start this ancient practice, the benefits are overwhelmingly positive and will change the way you feel, think, and live for the better.
Billy Jump is an In-Depth Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com