These are some of my thoughts about the practice of yoga, Lisa.
As a scientist I love yoga, to me it’s a way to explore the effect breath and movement have on my physical. emotional and mental state. It is time to take stock of myself if you will, a way to find benchmarks of normality and notice deviations. When I come to my mat its like a raft away from my busy life; sometimes I work though my problems, other times I take a break from them and just breath and move, either way I feel better afterwards. Yoga has always been a way for me to control my stress and keep it to manageable levels.
I do not feel like exercise in general is a punishment but rather a celebration of what your body can do, I want to be able to use my body to its fullest for as long as possible. Keeping muscles strong and flexible (the two are not mutually exclusive) is one of the side effects of a regular yoga practice. Conditioning your joints and increasing or maintaining their range of motion is another side effect. Yoga can also help keep the balance in your endocrine system; by using the breath to tap into the parasympathetic nervous system we can reduce the secretion of stress hormones such as cortisol and encourage the release of “feel good” ones such as endorphins or dopamine.
There are many benefits to doing any exercise, to me if you find a movement paradigm you enjoy, that is what you should do, I am not one of those teachers who just advocate doing yoga and nothing else! Rather yoga should be a compliment to your exercise regime, even if you do it once a week or just once a month to take notice of how you are doing physically, mentally and emotionally. Yoga can help prevent injury, the act of noticing a niggle and taking preventative action can save you from pushing yourself to a point where pain takes over and stops you in your tracks.
I am aware that there is a lot of bullshit in the yoga world, all I can tell you is that there are a lot of teachers now basing their classes on science, not unsubstantiated mumbo-jumbo. I read peer-reviewed science papers on sports science and I only talk about what I know. Having realised that it is only possible to feel the world through my own body and senses and I encourage my students to do the same. This means that visitors to my classes are empowered and to make their own decisions about their practice; my philosophy is that you are the world expert on your body, a lot of problems can arise when we hand that autonomy to another. Yoga is a way to get to know your body a little better, to take time to notice what is going on, it’s a gift of time to yourself.