benefits of Yoga
Yoga has a multitude of benefits. It is transformative, on a physical, mental and emotional level. Yoga can help increase concentration, awareness, ability to focus and function effectively. It improves strength, flexibility, posture and breathing. Yoga can calm the nerves, improve your energy and help relaxation.
We recommend our students start with a weekly class and we encourage a regular practice. Having a set time each week means students are far more likely to sustain their yoga practice. Some students come to two or three classes a week. This routine supports students' developing skills and awareness. We can be there to observe changes as they develop, encourage their growing self awareness, and help them achieve the long-term benefits of yoga.
What is a Yoga practice for?
- Making Life Meaningful : yoga transforms you into an inspired artist that shapes your body, thoughts and emotions into a work of art.
- Getting things into perspective : from your yoga practice you learn that what rises, then passes away, just like each breath.
- Gaining insight : into the habitual patterns of thought, emotional states and physical tension that you hold onto. From this insight, you can create a different way.
- Discovering miracles within : “There are so many great treasures and miracles within you, so many magical possibilities hidden inside you. Through discipline, you can make them manifest for you, and in this way, you can make the earth a greater paradise” Swami Chidvilasananda, in ‘The Yoga of Discipline’
- Living in the Here and Now : “Breathing in I calm my body, breathing out I smile – living in the present moment, I know this is a wonderful moment” Thict Naht Hhun
- Developing an Inward teacher : “No-one is ever really taught by another; each of us has to teach himself. The external teacher offers only the suggestion, which arouses the internal teacher, who helps us to understand things” Swami Vivekananda, in Karma-Yoga and Bhakti-Yoga
- Learning the skill of Happiness : cultivating wholesome thoughts, feelings and actions, practicing gratitude and joy for others. “As we are all human beings living on earth among countless other human beings, our happiness is intimately connected to that of others. It is hard to imagine personal happiness detached or separate from the happiness of others. For it is certain that if we aspire to happiness, we must be deeply concerned about the happiness of all mankind” The Dalai Lama, in ‘Beyond Dogma: Dialogues and Discourses’.
- Nourishment : when you are practicing yoga enjoy it, feel excitement; be thankful you have the opportunity; fall in love with your yoga practice, expand into it. Allow your yoga practice to nourish and regenerate you.
- Practicing Compassion : cultivate a natural state of kindness, compassion, love and forgiveness for yourself. “ Do not look at your body like a stranger, but adopt a friendly approach towards it. Watch it, listen to it, observe its needs, its requests, and even have fun.” Swami Karmananda Saraswati, in Yogic Management of Common Diseases.
- Cultivate Stillness : “ Something happens when we consciously choose to become still, to let go of all thinking and just be very quiet… When thinking and worrying come to a stop, energy is no longer fragmented or dispersed. In the silence that follows the ending of thought, we actually experience a gathering, an accumulation of energy.” Jim Dreaver, in ‘The Power of Silence’
- Understanding emotions : watching anger, fear, and other destructive emotions, and seeing how they manifest in the body, how they disturb the mind, and how they soon disappear again, if we stay as a witness.
- Developing non-violence : “Learn to be gentle with others and learn to be gentle with yourself. Violent people are violent because they are not at peace with themselves. So be gentle to yourself. Then you will be able to express gentleness in your mind, action and speech.” Swami Rama, in ‘Inspired Thoughts of Swami Rama’
- Practicing Simplicity : delighting in simple things, like the gentle rhythm of the breath, the slow stretching of muscles, awareness of how you are feeling, sensations in the body. Doing one thing at a time, with awareness.
- Growing More and More Aware : “In the course of spiritual growth, all of our concepts, ideas and beliefs have to be investigated and re-evaluated over and over again. What you are thinking now may hold no value in three months or three years. You will have grown, your awareness will have increased, and your level of understanding will have risen. From being a sleep-walker, a hypnotized or conditioned person, you gradually become a person who is awake.” Swami Sivananda Radha, in Kundalini Yoga for the West’.
- Individualisation : knowing when to change your practice to support you in the journey of life. Choosing a practice to suit your temperament, your rhythm, your state of health, your age, your level of fitness, your level of physical activity, and your stress levels.
- Learning about discipline : “ People who practice the self-control that yoga teaches impart a feeling of controlled energy. They are efficient, they go about their work with a minimum of effort. With no wasted energy and few unnecessary movements.” Richard Hittleman, in Guide to Yoga Meditation
- Calmness and Relaxation : “When we are relaxed, calm and open like a pool in a glade, the quality of our inner nature stands out clearly. We have a keen and direct perception of ourselves and our interaction with everything that is going on around us”. Tathung Tulku in "Skillful Means".
- Skilful Breathing : “ Our breath is constantly rising and falling, entering and leaving our bodies. Full body breathing is an extraordinary symphony of both powerful and subtle movements that massage our internal organs, oscillate our joints, and alternately tone and release all the muscles in the body. It is a full participation with life.” Donna Farhi, in ‘The Breathing Book’
- Experiencing space : “ Experiencing peace is like looking at our hands. Usually, we see only the fingers – not the spaces in between. In a similar manner, when we look at the mind, we are aware of the active states, such as our running thoughts and the one thousand and one feelings that are associated with them, but we tend to overlook the intervals of peace between them.” Thynn Thynn, in Living Meditation, Living Insight