Yoga Poses for Beginners

19 January, 2022 (updated 11 August, 2022) | By Dan Kirby | 0 Comments

Monica
Ālaya Yoga

Yoga Poses for Beginners

January 19, 2022

Beginning your Yoga Journey? Here is a list of 5 yoga poses for beginners to start with.

Many of the things we do for fitness today involves rigorous strength training, such as weight training, running and cardio, but all of this comes at the expense of flexibility and the mental relaxation and mindfulness that yoga provides.

Along with the physical benefits of yoga, the breathwork involved in yoga allows our body to obtain the most benefits out of each physical posture we do.

If you find yourself intimidated to start your yoga journey, or maybe you’ve just been out of touch with your yoga practice and would like to start again, here are a few yoga poses for beginners you can try the next time you’re on the mat.

Finding yourself intimidated to start your yoga journey, here are a few yoga poses for beginners you can try the next time you’re on the mat.

Seated Forward Fold

A seated forward fold is a relaxing yet active stretch that improves flexibility as well as lengthens the spine and stretches your entire body. This pose helps relieve a lot of the stress that we hold in our bodies along with providing a gentle stretch to all the big muscle groups in our body.

Benefits of this pose:

Lengthens and stretches the spine, as well as provides a gentle stretch to the entire body
Massages the digestive organs, and relieves digestive problems such as constipation
Great for problems with the sciatica
Relaxing and gentle stretch for the hamstrings and the backs of the legs
Calms the nervous system and relaxes the mind

Beginners tip:

Even though this is a foundational yoga pose, a lot of yoga practitioners struggle with this pose. If you find yourself unable to reach your feet with your hands, rest your hands on your shins as you fold forward with your palms facing upwards as you keep your focus on lengthening your spine.

Downward Facing Dog

The downward-facing dog is a wonderful foundational yoga asana that strengthens and stretches our entire body. This pose can sometimes feel challenging but over time with repetition, one can achieve all the great benefits that this pose offers.

Benefits of this pose:

Beginners tip:

This asana offers a deep stretch to our upper body as well as lower body. To start with, keep your knees bent and keep your attention on lengthening through the spine. You can also walk out your feet to engage both your legs individually.

If this pose feels challenging for you, try a puppy pose to start out with. Bring your knees down to the ground, and stretch your arms forward while lifting your hips and arching your back.

Bridge Pose

Bridge pose is a chest opening yoga asana. It is typically performed towards the end of a yoga session. It provides a gentle stretch to the back and one can reap the benefits of an inversion without physically being upside down.

Benefits of this pose:

Stretches the chest, neck and shoulders and lengthens the spine.
Calms the mind and the body and is a wonderful stretch for cooling the body down.
Strengthens the calves, hamstrings, glutes as well as ankles.
Opens the chest and the heart.
Helps relieve menstrual discomfort.

Beginners tip:

This pose can be strengthening as well as restorative. While the more advanced variation involves interlacing your fingers underneath your back, you can also place your palms flat on the ground next to you to provide more stability. Lift your hips and place a bolster, cushion or yoga block directly underneath the sacrum to provide support to your lower back.

Triangle Pose

Triangle pose is a standing pose that is great for both advanced as well as beginner yoga practitioners as this asana has many variations one can use. It’s a great pose that improves both your physical and mental health.

Benefits of this pose:

This pose strengthens your core, in turn improving your stability.
Stretches and lengthens the spine while also improving spine mobility.
Targets the lower back, where people often carry a lot of tension resulting in reduced anxiety.
Opens and stretches the hips and the shoulders.

Beginners tip:

If it’s challenging to reach the floor with your hand, you can reach for your shin or your knee. Another variation is resting your elbow on your knee to provide more stability and support.

Child Pose

The child’s pose is a gentle beginner pose. Even though this pose may feel like rest, you’re actively engaging your back as well as your hips to achieve a gentle stretch throughout your body. It works as a great stretch to warm up your body before getting into more advanced poses. It also gives you the chance to reconnect with your breath.

Benefits of this pose:

Beginners tip:

This pose can be very calming and restorative. You can keep your knees together or separated depending on whichever pose feels more comfortable to your body. To achieve even more relaxation, place a cushion or a bolster underneath your chest for additional support.

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5 Reasons Why You Should Try Yoga

20 December, 2021 (updated 11 August, 2022) | By Pranali | 0 Comments

Monica
Ālaya Yoga

5 Reasons Why You Should Try Yoga

December 20, 2021

Here are 5 Reasons why everyone should try yoga

Yoga is often defined as a form of exercise in which you practice poses that help you relax your mind, become more flexible and improve your strength. Yoga, however, is so much more than just that. It’s a practice that perfectly combines breathwork, meditation and mindfulness to tackle everyday stresses as well as ease our minds of any anxiety we may feel on the regular. Through the practice of Asana and breathwork, yoga improves our mobility, flexibility and strength, targeting our mental, physical and spiritual well being.

Yoga practitioner is encouraged to keep their focus on their breath and to practice mindfulness to get the most out of each pose. The daily practice of yoga can help you feel more centred throughout your day, helping ease the stresses that we face regularly in today’s world where people have looming deadlines, rush hours and workloads. It can help you feel more balanced in your approach to life. Other than these benefits from the practice, yoga can also help hasten the healing time in medical ailments such as insomnia, depression, arthritis etc and has mental and physical health benefits for people of all age groups. Yoga can be modified for different people based on their level of fitness, age, and disabilities.

In this article, I’ll talk a little more about some of the most popular reasons people practice yoga.

A yoga practitioner is encouraged to keep the focus on their breath and to practice mindfulness to get the most out of each pose.

Yoga improves strength, mobility and flexibility

The most obvious benefits of making yoga a part of your daily practice and routine are the physical benefits to your body. Yoga helps increase blood circulation in our bodies through the practice of asana’s, many of which target specific locations in our body.

So many people today spend hours upon hours on a chair working, which can often lead to neck and back pain and can even cause irreversible changes to our posture and our spine. Something as simple as doing a sun salutation can help open up your chest, and stretch out your back and reverse the effects of sitting still for extended periods of time. Yoga also involves stretches that if done regularly can help us become more flexible and can improve our strength. One can even alter their daily practice based on what they want to target.

Yoga can help with insomnia

Yoga can help people who suffer from insomnia and poor or irregular sleep patterns. Studies have shown that people who practice yoga before bed find it easier to drift off to sleep as your physical body as well as your mind is more at ease. It can help prepare our mind and our body not only to fall asleep but to stay asleep. Meditation is also a great tool to use when you’re lying awake in bed. When you’re in a meditative state, your mind has the chance to revisit each problem and put it to rest, and this process of mentally putting an end to the day can help calm an overactive brain.

Studies have shown that people who practice yoga before bed find it easier to drift off to sleep...

Yoga can help manage and prevent anxiety

Our bodies are complex structures that hold emotions, thoughts and feelings in their alignment. Holding our bodies in particular positions can provoke thoughts and feelings associated with that pose, for example, people with an open chest and their shoulders back and down maybe habitually more receptive and open to the world around them, while people with a hunched back may suffer from issues of self-esteem.

Anxiety can manifest in our body in 2 physical ways, through our muscles and our breath, i.e., our body becomes stiff and tense while our breath quickens.

• Here are 8 breathing exercises for anxiety you can try right now.

By learning how to manage our breath through the practice of pranayama and being more informed about the alignment of our own bodies, we can manage anxiety more efficiently as well as avoid panic attacks before they even occur.

Studies have shown that people who practice yoga regularly have more energy throughout the day.

Health benefits of yoga

As a lifestyle choice, yoga has proven to help with multiple health issues and is recommended by medical professionals all over the world as a complementary health approach and a holistic health practice.

– Practising yoga can lower the risk of heart disease and is recommended as a preventative measure especially for patients who have suffered from cardiac arrest.

– Yoga can also help reduce chronic stress, anxiety, depression, and insomnia as well as chronic arthritis.

– It can help improve our overall brain health, especially brain functions such as attention and memory.

– Yoga is also great for improving your balance, which is all the more important for people who are older.

– It can help boost our immune system as well as help with thyroid issues such as hyperthyroidism as well as hypothyroidism.

– The practice of yoga can even help prevent diabetes.

– Pranayama is also great for the health of our lungs and can help us improve the quality of our breath.

These are just some of the many health benefits that yoga provides. With regular practice, yoga can help us lead healthier as well as more balanced lives.

Yoga can help improve our moods, temperament and stress levels

We face stressors in our daily lives, be it at home, work or even in social situations and stress can become a habit just like anything else. This constant low-stress mode we face throughout the day can impact how we think, how we act, and even our posture. They can gradually become the root cause of physical and mental illnesses, such as depression, anxiety and chronic pains.

Yoga can help boost our moods so we feel negative emotions less often. People who suffer from poor anger management and suffer short tempers can also benefit from yoga through the practice of pranayama and mindfulness and is often recommended by therapists.

Yoga is more than just a form of exercise, it is a lifestyle choice that can help improve our mental and physical health. The next time you’re feeling stiff, stressed out or just low, do a small yoga practise and see how it affects your mind and your body. Over on the Ālaya Yoga platform we’ve got loads of great express classes on our live schedule as well as in our video back so you can practice anytime.

Ready to give yoga a try?

At Ālaya Yoga, we’ve got a team of expert teachers who are all trained to teach to all levels, including complete beginners. Explore our memberships at Ālaya Yoga and start your journey to holistic wellbeing today.

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