Yoga: Why I Love it! And How I live a Higher Quality of Life Doing It!
Photo by James Wong. Written by Genesis. Connect with her on Tw.
I practice yoga because it’s the best thing I can do for my body.
I was a runner since I was 16, but in my twenties, yoga steadily took over my exercise regime. I started practicing on a weekly basis in a Bikram studio. After a year or so, in which I started going more and more often, this turned into a daily practice.
Bikram yoga will probably always be my favorite. I love the intensity and I love breaking a sweat.
Sometimes I leave the studio for a while, sometimes I even leave practice for a while but I always come back. I love yoga and how it rewards me. For me, yoga is essential. Everything else is recreational.
For me, the stretching, holding the postures, paying attention to how I breathe works everything I need.
I work my muscles, my inner organs such as lungs and heart, but also my ability to focus and my determination. Yoga is not just exercise, it’s a work-out for your entire being. You incorporate everything you have into your practice, which is great for me personally because I tend to get a little fragmented sometimes.
Yoga has changed the way I look.
When I kicked up my yoga practice to a daily basis, I lost at least 3 kilograms of fat. I gained muscle tissue, but that’s hardly noticeable: I just look thinner, leaner. I look like I have lost closer to 7 than to 3 kg. People started commenting in amazement of how fit I look, how good. I once had an acquaintance come up to me and asking me if I was my own younger sister.
But what’s most interesting to me is that my weight has been stable for over a year. Even over periods where I do not practice yoga, my weight remains the same. Even with my running and reasonably healthy diet, that never happened during my teenage years: my weight fluctuated and I easily gained weight. Thanks to yoga, I don’t anymore.
I’ve started gravitating towards healthier foods since yoga too.
I feel more connected with my body and that connection makes me more alert to how foods I eat make me feel. I feel best when I drink a lot of green juice and eat primarily vegetarian/vegan, with as little artificial sugar and carbs as possible.
I’m also more intuitive, more relaxed and a lot more focused. My skin looks better, I hardly ever have back pain anymore. I’ve always had a good immune system, apart from the occasional cold, but these days I hardly even get colds anymore. You can put me in a room with four sick people and I won’t catch anything.
What I love most about yoga is that it is completely yours. Whether you do it in a studio together with forty sweaty people, in candle light in a secluded room with only a couple of other people or by yourself in your underwear, it’s always your practice. You can’t compare it to anything anyone else does, you can only focus on yourself and how you’re doing. You’re getting to know your physical body, what makes it feel great, what it can do, what it’s comfortable with. It’s being nice to your body, and that’s why it feels so good to me.
Right now, I am experimenting with my at home practice. I take my yoga mat, an egg timer and a glass of water into the living room in the morning and just start. I do 10 minutes of sun salutations, 30 minutes of standing postures, 30 minutes of floor postures and 5 minutes of meditation. For me, that’s perfect right now. It took me a while to find my perfect at-home routine, but for now, this is it. And there’s so many ways to practice yoga that I can always keep trying new things and experimenting.
I wonder: how does your practice look?
Take care, xo
Genesis
About Genesis:
Genesis is a currently unknown self-help guru. She has a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology and has been helping people all around the world. She just started a brand new blog called TheSelfHelpHipster.com
Check it out! And connect with her on Tw.
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awesomeness <3