Do you know the benefits of yoga for the mind ? It is known that certain disciplines promote healthy states in several aspects, however most of the time we only focus on physicists.

The study is based on cognitive performance or what is equal to everything that is associated with the use of the mind such as memory, concentration, development and understanding of language, learning, problem solving, use of reason and decision making.

The disciplines like yoga including breathing exercises help to calm and soothe the mind chatter, reducing anxiety and stress states.

It follows that the effects of yoga on cognitive performance are maintained over time after the end of class.

More benefits of yoga for the brain

The practice of yoga makes the nervous system and brain function in a synchronized and in total harmony; without the person proposing or making efforts, yoga induces the abandonment of harmful habits, modification of harmful patterns by positive others.

In its beginnings, yoga was developed as a method to achieve the greatest benefit between mind and body through meditation, breathing and postures; in order to achieve a mental control over the thoughts so that they become allies in our lives and not enemies making us fall into fears or negative thoughts.

With yoga the mind can be trained through the practice of exercises called asanas which will obviously positively affect the flexibility and physical well-being of the body.

Here are some of the benefits of yoga. Check out:

1. Teaches you to breathe better

To breathe we need not even think. However positive this may be, there is a downside: we hardly notice our breathing and therefore the way it relates to states of stress and relaxation. In addition to how it facilitates or makes difficult the realization of some movements.

Yoga teaches you to breathe calmly and deeply. Also how to have control over the breath, allowing the person to change the way he breathes, everything to achieve a state of relaxation or to evolve in the practice itself.

2. Helps to relax

Whether for personal or professional reasons, people live in a constant state of stress. This activates the sympathetic nervous system, which accelerates the heart rate and increases blood pressure, in addition to increasing the concentration of adrenaline and blood sugar.

From the association of correct breathing (quiet and deep) with movements, yoga helps to break the circle of stress and makes the person relax, increasing the sense of well-being. In this way, yoga also acts on diseases caused by stress, such as cardiovascular problems, hypertension and autoimmune diseases, making it practically healthier and with more quality of life.

3. Promotes a sense of self-efficacy

Self-efficacy is a psychological concept that relates to the person’s conviction that he or she is capable of performing a certain task. From the domain of breathing and certain asanas (yoga poses), yoga enables the person to become more convinced that he can, by himself, restore his state of calm and relaxation and thereby minimize the effects of stress.

4. Contributes to decreased anxiety

Again, breathing has an important role to play. However, it is not only through it that yoga helps to reduce anxiety: practice works with the idea of ​​presence and attention.

Already at the beginning of a lesson, there is a moment of meditation or internalization that aims to make the person disconnect from everything that happened up there and everything that stands outside the yoga room. The point is that you can focus only on practice.

During the exercise, the practitioner is also encouraged to keep his focus on the movements and not pay attention even to what his yoga colleagues are doing. This is done, among other ways, through the guidance of keeping the gaze at a fixed point or closing the eyes and keeping the eyebrows between the eyebrows.

By demanding concentration on what is being done at the moment, practice makes the person gradually go from thinking about the various other things that need to be done or solved. From this, the decrease in anxiety occurs.