Benefits of Yoga at Work.

Yoga has been practiced for over 5,000 years worldwide, and currently, an estimted 15 million Americans are practicing yoga for its health benefits.

• Healthier Employees and Lower Health Costs - Companies offering yoga and wellness programs find they realize lower health costs.

• Reduce stress and feel calm - Yoga is specifically designed to assist us in calming our minds and reducing stress, in order to find a state of calm. Yoga has been shown to assist our bodies in the production of norepinephrine, dopamine, oxytocin and epinephrine which results in a feeling of calm. The production of the natural chemicals in our bodies have also been found to improve our relationships at work.

• Productivity - Companies find when employees practice yoga, and have reduced levels of stress, they are better able manage workloads and before more efficient and productive.

• Pain Releif - Yoga can ease pain. Studies have demonstrated that practicing yoga asanas (postures), meditation or a combination of the two, reduced pain for people with conditions such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, auto-immune diseases and hypertension as well as arthritis, back and neck pain, and other chronic conditions. Some practitioners report that even emotional pain can be eased through the practice of yoga.

• Flexibility - Yoga helps to improve flexibility and mobility, increasing range of movement and reducing aches and pains. Many people can’t touch their toes during their first yoga class. Gradually they begin to use the correct muscles. Over time, the ligaments, tendons and muscles lengthen, increasing elasticity, making more poses possible. Yoga also helps to improve body alignment resulting in better posture and helping to relieve back, neck, joint and muscle problems.

• Strength - Yoga asanas (postures) use every muscle in the body, helping to increase strength literally from head to toe. And, while these postures strengthen the body, they also provide an additional benefit of helping to relieve muscular tension.

• Posture - As you progress, you will find your increased strength and flexibility will bring you better posture and physical awareness.

• Weight Loss - Yoga (even less vigorous styles) can aid weight control efforts by reducing the cortisol levels as well as by burning excess calories and reducing stress. Yoga also encourages healthy eating habits and provides a heightened sense of well being and self esteem.

• Breathing - Yoga teaches people to take slower, deeper breaths. This helps to improve lung function, trigger the body’s relaxation response and increase the amount of oxygen available to the body.

• Mental Acuity and Happiness - We always here students of yoga talk about how they feel happier and more focused from there practice. Having more oxygen directed to the brain has also helped students feel improvements in the area of depression and OCD.

• Heart health and Circulation - More yoga studies have been done on heart health than any area. Students have been shown to have lower blood pressure, slower heart rate, decreased cholesterol and triglyceride levels, and improved immune benefits as well. More and more often we have students being referred by their doctors for improved heart heath.

• Sleeping and Insomnia - Students generally find that they begin to sleep more soundly and fall asleep easier fro practicing yoga.

• Bone Strength and Density - Yoga posture or "asana" has been shown to produce stronger more dense and healthier bones.

• Improved Digestion - Yoga practice increases blood flow to your digestive tract and stimulates the intestinal action known as peristalsis so digestion become more efficient. The calming effect of yoga also relaxes the digestive system and leads to more effective elimination.

• Focus on the Present - Yoga helps us to focus on the present, to become more aware and to help create mind body health. It opens the way to improved concentration, coordi- nation, reaction time and memory.

• Coordination and Balance - Many yoga postures improve our ability to balance through concentration resulting in a fine sense of coordination.