Ten Health Benefits of Hot Yoga

Most everyone is familiar with the many benefits of yoga, as well as the many different forms of yoga. There’s traditional yoga, prenatal yoga and even something called hot yoga. Perhaps you’ve heard of hot yoga; it’s the biggest trend in yoga right now. While its formal name is Bikram, hot yoga is the name you’ll hear more often.

Hot yoga is not for beginners. It’s for those who’ve practiced yoga in the past, are familiar with the bodily demands and who are willing to participate in the 90-minute session. With 26 different poses and an environment with a temperature of 105 degrees and 40 percent humidity, the session is designed to work your muscles hard. Before you decide to try hot yoga, speak with your healthcare professional and read on to find out the 10 superlative health benefits of hot yoga.

Detoxification

Flushing the toxins from your body is one of the biggest health benefits of hot yoga. The heavily heated environment and high humidity make it absolutely certain you will sweat profusely throughout your 90-minute session. This helps to flush toxins from your body, which can eliminate water weight. However, it’s imperative you drink plenty of water while practicing hot yoga to prevent you from becoming dehydrated.

Elevated Heart Rate

The hot temperature in the room makes your heart rate accelerate. This benefits your body by forcing you to work harder to maintain your poses and posture. This makes hot yoga a more intense workout. It’s beneficial to your body because it helps to improve your posture, your muscle tone and your flexibility with its cardiovascular workout.

Minimize the Effects of Asthma

Deep breathing has always been associated with yoga. In the instance of hot yoga, however, deep breathing can help benefit those who suffer from asthma. The heat causes you to relax your body and it improves your ability to breathe. This helps to minimize the effects of asthma. Studies show that practicing hot yoga can help to minimize the number of asthma attacks, the severity of attacks, and the number of times asthma sufferers have to use their inhalers.

Hot Yoga Increases Water Intake

One thing you absolutely must do is drink water excessively when you practice hot yoga. Excess water consumption produces a number of health benefits. One benefit is that you will eat less when you drink more water. Drinking plenty of water helps to improve the overall look of your skin. It helps you look younger, it gives you more energy, and it even helps you lose weight.

Improved Sleep

Getting eight solid hours of sleep each night is one of the most important things you can do for your body, mind and overall health. Practicing hot yoga can help you to accomplish this goal. The intense workout will help you have more energy during the day, but it will also help you sleep better at night. It’s a difficult workout, which will tire your muscles and make it easier for you to fall asleep and stay asleep without interruptions.

Eases Stress and Anxiety 

Everyone suffers from some amount of stress and anxiety, whether it’s frequently or not. However, practicing hot yoga can help to eliminate a significant amount of your stress. Hot yoga is exercise, and exercise produces endorphins that eliminate stress producing hormones in the body. When you practice hot yoga, you relax your mind and ease your level of stress. The feeling of being stress-free and relaxed can last as long as three to four hours after your 90-minute hot yoga session is complete.

Injury Prevention

Practicing hot yoga increases your muscle strength and tone. Improved strength helps to prevent injury from occurring. A combination of increased strength, muscle tone, better posture and more flexibility lowers your risk of injury when participating in sports, from falls and even from accidents.

Improved Concentration

It’s not uncommon for most of us to find it difficult to concentrate at work, at home, in the car and everywhere in between. However, one of the benefits of hot yoga is that it provides you with 90 minutes of deep concentration during each class. This practice teaches you to learn the art of concentration and how to remain focused on any given task. It’s a great benefit because it helps you in all aspects of life; your work will improve, your productivity will improve and your ability to make better decisions and focus on completing tasks will improve.

Lessened Chronic Pain

Chronic pain sufferers know what it’s like to be miserable on a regular basis. Whether your chronic suffering is from headaches, migraines, low back pain, neck pain or even arthritis, you can help to lessen the pain practicing hot yoga. The heat works to relax your body and your muscles. Medical professionals state that a relaxed body helps to minimize the chronic pain. The poses and posture helps to stretch your muscles and strengthen your body, which also minimizes the effects of chronic pain. Those who practice hot yoga quickly notice they suffer from fewer headaches, less pain and even frequent absence of chronic pain.

Improved Mental Well-Being

Perhaps the most beneficial aspect of hot yoga is its ability to help improve your mental well-being. Meditation and deep breathing are two of the most important characteristics of hot yoga. Together, these two characteristics help you to become more in tune with not only your body, but also your mind. Improved concentration and less stress work with your meditation and deep breathing to help you feel calmer and develop a positive life outlook. This can lead you to notice you have more body awareness and mental clarity.

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