Yoga was my go to when I was going through an anxious time in my life and it still is the workout that I lean towards when I need a good mental check. There are so many benefits to it that I love so I wanted to share with those who may need it and not know! It is the most relaxing, but energizing workout that any 'lazy' person like me can do. Especially with it becoming fall, I struggle with Seasonal Affective Disorder that yoga helps me get centered and not worry about the lack of sun we'll get this winter, etc. I wrote a post about SAD last year and honestly had the best winter and had such a lower effect. I'm not sure if it was me writing it all out, or what I did to combat it, but it worked and doing yoga during that time definitely helped.
1. Psychical Benefits
Yoga can lessen chronic pain like back pain, arthritis, headaches and carpal tunnel (and honestly with our generation on our phone all the times, we need a good stretch in all parts of our body)
You also:
A. become way more flexible than you were beforehand
B. you increase your muscle strength
C. improve your energy levels
D. help maintain a balanced metabolism
E. you can lose weight
F. and it can protect you from future injury just by being stronger and more limber.
There are so many more health benefits listed here.
2. Mental Benefit
My FAVORITE benefit from yoga is the mental benefit.
You really don't understand how beneficial it is for your mind until you really let yourself go into that yoga class, and embrace it.
It's easy to start out and think all the breathing etc is weird or not normal but if you actually try to embrace it, you will be surprised how calm you can get and how amazing you feel afterwords. Lowering your stress through yoga can help back or neck pain, sleeping problems, headaches, inability to concentrate, and starting to have a more positive outlook on life. If you still have a problem with relieving stress or getting the full mental benefit about yoga, I wrote about my experience seeing a therapist here. It was the best thing I have ever done.
Where to practice?
A. Sometimes your work building has gym classes and they offer yoga- make sure to check that out!
B. Revival Yoga Studio in Palos Heights, IL has great classes and they also have groupon deals! That's how I first started going there and now they started to do aerial yoga which seems so awesome!
C. BJJ X Yoga Studio in Pilsen just recently opened and they are offering a free week of unlimited Yoga and Jiu Jitsu classes. If you want to do Yoga after that, it's only $10 for the 45 minute Restorative yoga class.
Here's some more info on them since a lot of my readers are downtown!
Address: Inside Evolve and Elevate Gym in Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago 2201 S Halsted St, Chicago, IL 60608
It's a family owned gym run by:
Jeff Yumu (Jiu Jitsu)
Black belt under Pete the Greek Letsos. 2018 IBJJF Pan Am Brown Belt Silver Medalist, 2018 IBJJF Chicago Open Brown Belt Champ
Deana Spear (Yoga)
Trained in Vinyasa Yoga and certified under the well-respected Chicago School of Yoga.
If you don't know what Jiu Jitsu is, this is what they specialize in:
The focus here is on using the self-defense art of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu to better improve your body and strengthen your mind. The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu classes will be focused on beginners and uses competition tested techniques. BJJ is a martial art that does not use striking but uses the leverage and movement of your attacker to safely secure and defend yourself.
And then the Yoga part of the gym is detailed here:
The Yoga aspect of BJJxYoga is for recovery and development of body flexibility to improve overall health. The style of Vinyasa yoga aka Flow or Power yoga is used to help the body flow through different positions and strengthen through such movement.
Hope this helps you and let me know if you go to any of the studios listed!
xoxoo ela