Unit 5 CAM Project

Lesson 3 Lecture
Health Benefits

Lesson Summary: This lesson will go through the various health benefits of
physical, mental, and spiritual health. Additionally, as we learned in lesson one yoga
has many benefits. This lesson will identify the types of yoga that may be better for a
specific type of health benefit.

Lesson Content:
Physical Health
As briefly mentioned in the previous lessons, yoga can do fantastic things for your
physical health. Want to be more flexible or have a better functioning cardiovascular
system or improve your strength and endurance? All of this can be achieved through
practicing yoga. No, you are not going to build an immense amount of muscle from
yoga but yoga can assist you in getting the muscle mass you are trying to achieve in
the gym. Improve your endurance and flexibility will allow you to perform better
while doing both weight lifting and various cardio exercises. Another reason yoga is
fantastic for your physical health because it can be used in a supporting role to
achieving various goals of fitness or athletics. Many individuals are born with a gift
of athletics but what separates them form other gifted athletes is the extra time they
put into their fitness. Many professional athletes practice yoga to give them that
extra bit needed to overcome their peers. LeBron James, Shaquille O’Neal, and Ray
Lewis just to name a few. The best forms of yoga to do to improve your physical
health are Vinyasa, Bikram, hot yoga, and Ashtanga. By improving your core
strength, flexibility, endurance, cardiovascular system, and balance you can improve
your body in an amazing way.

Mental Health
A lot of people forget about the importance of improving your mental health. Post
traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, and bi-polar disorder are just a few
psychiatric disorders that can be improved though yoga. Not only is it good for these
disorders it is also good to reduce stress, improve your mood, increase your focus,
improves your ability to socialize, help with sleep and gives you a gateway to do
some reflecting. Another fascinating mental health effect of practicing yoga is the
increase in the amount of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). GABA is a chemical in
the brain that is responsible for helping in the regulation of nerve activity
throughout the body (Psychology Today, 2013). Considering that nerves are either
directly or indirectly involved in everybody function, practicing something that can
improve a chemical responsible for regulating nerves could be extremely beneficial.
The styles of yoga that are better for improving mental health are Kundalini,
Restorative, and Iyengar. Regardless of which style of yoga you chose to do, they all
can provide some form of mental health benefit.
Spiritual Health
Even more forgot about or confused is your spiritual health. Spiritual health is
confused because a lot of people assume that spiritual health is automatically
associated with religion. While religion is a great way for people to improve their
spiritual health, it is not the end all be all. Spiritual health is the belief in something
greater and finding peace with life and the world around you. A great way to find
peace is through the mind body connection you make through yoga. By opening
your mind and engaging your body you are allowing yourself to achieve an
enlightened state. The enlightened state promotes peace within yourself. The reason
yoga is a great way to improve spiritual health is because it is one of the few
activities that combines improving mental health and physical health at the same
time. By improving both at the same time you can connect on a spiritual level
improving your spiritual health. Not to mention that as we learned earlier the
meaning of yoga is unity. Uniting mind, body, and spirit. For spiritual health the best
styles of yoga depend on your goals to reach enlightenment. Following the
recommendations in the previous teachings of bettering physical or mental health.

Reference:
Psychology Today. (2013). Take a Stand for Yoga Today. Retrieved from
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/get-hardy/201305/take-stand-yoga-
today