Everyone knows that yoga has made a major comeback over the past several years. Most people who practice yoga will swear by its benefits. What some people may not realize about yoga is how many health benefits this ancient tradition can offer.

One of the primary benefits of any type of yoga is increased flexibility. Unlike some fitness programs that target specific areas of the body, yoga works more as a whole body routine. This allows you to work with muscles and joints that are typically not used on a daily basis, creating a better well rounded routine and a more balanced symmetry.

Yoga also works to keep all of the tendons, joints, and ligaments in your body well lubricated. This can help alleviate the symptoms of arthritis and other similar impairments. Its low impact nature also makes it ideal for people with existing conditions that may prohibit them from undertaking other fitness programs. As with any new exercise, results are usually not immediate. Repetition and consistency over time coupled with other common sense factors like eating healthy and sufficient rest is the general formula for success. Active yoga can also help prevent future health issues.

According to experts, yoga exercises can help to massage and detoxify the internal organs of your body. The various combinations of yoga positions are designed to impact your organs, as well as your muscles. Yoga is also known to help increase blood flow and oxygen levels throughout the body.

Overall, one of the most rewarding benefits of yoga is the state of relaxation it can provide. The beauty of yoga is that it is intended to workout your mind, as well as your body. It helps to promote an overall sense of peace and serenity. The more relaxed your body is, the easier it becomes to reap the physical benefits that yoga can provide. Yoga is also a tremendous stress reducer, making it an ideal workout to start a busy day with, as well as the perfect way to unwind at the end of the day.

Today in modern Yoga classes very little is made of the deeply spiritual history of yoga and it is used as a fitness system more than anything else. However there is also a great deal of evidence from medical studies that it is a very effective stress reduction method too. The combination of raising fitness and reducing stress has made it an extremely popular activity over the last few years. For example in 2005 a US survey by Yoga Journal noted that 16.5 million people were now practising yoga and more recent figures have gone so far as to double that number.

What has been left behind in the rush to fitness and health today is the wonderful union of mind and body, male and female, strength and surrender which the ancient yogis included within their concept of Yoga. This is where the more recent development of interest in Yin (female) Yoga to be practiced alongside the more common active and more masculine Hatha Yoga postures starts to bring back the best of what used to be taken for granted in the ancient yoga practice.

Yin Yoga uses postures which focus on the joints and connective tissues in the body rather than the muscles and skeleton. If one combines the active practice of Ashtanga or Power Yoga with the more meditative form of Yin Yoga you begin to get a flavour of what the old yogis would have been doing so many centuries ago. Yin Yoga helps our joints to stay flexible and the tissues within the body to be irrigated and mobile enough for the layers in the body to glide over one another. Postures are selected carefully and are held for some minutes – up to ten or more in some cases. If this is used alongside the muscle strengthening postures of Power Yoga the practice becomes a wonderful mixture of sun and moon, male and female and takes the student beyond ‘health and fitness’ into a more spiritual practice which can have a profound impact on their Soul and emotional life. It can bring people to questioning their purpose in life and why they think they are here – what they want out of life – and what truly are their priorities. Hatha Yoga practised in the ancient and classical way (with Yin Yoga included within the asana sequence) is a marvellous pathway to the expansion of what it is to be human.