Women’s Health and Yoga
Yoga for Women’s Health | Online Yoga
Jodie from Kevala Health with her Staffy.
Who wants to be a healthy woman?
From a positive body image to menopause, yoga benefits a woman’s health in all areas and ages. As a woman, we can experience many health challenges at different stages of life. Some of us go through weight gain when hormones are not balanced or like me, the big ‘M’, menopause. We can go through menstrual issues in our younger years, pregnancy challenges, thyroid issues, fatigue, stress, and lack of sleep raising children. A woman in her senior years of life has their own challenges as the body starts to change with age! The good news is, that you can be a healthy woman with yoga.
So, What is a healthy woman? A healthy woman is someone who looks after her health physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. She feels happy inside, balances her health in all areas, and enjoys living. Yoga has been around for 5000 years and can help you at any age! One of the great benefits of yoga is that you can do it all at home!
Did you know yoga is a complete workout for the mind, body, and spirit? The goal of yoga is to open and calm the mind and deepen the mind-body connection so we can live a healthy life. With even more challenges we have in today’s world with covid and more illnesses increasing in people, it’s an important time to focus on our health.
Practicing yoga regularly is very beneficial for women’s emotional and hormonal health. Yoga works not only on the mind and body but also helps us manage our emotions and mental health. You don’t need any equipment or go to an expensive yoga studio. You can learn yoga at home and be guided at the beginning by an experienced yoga teacher like myself. I teach live-stream yoga online classes you can do in real-time on your phone, computer, or tablet. You just need the internet. I’m in my 50s as I write this blog and always reflect on how much yoga has helped me through the changes in life.
You already may know that yoga can improve your flexibility, but there are many positives about how yoga can benefit women’s health. I have listed 20 important reasons why yoga is perfect for women’s health.
20 Reasons to Do Yoga for Women’s Health
Improves bone health: As we age our bones become weaker and brittle. Weight-bearing yoga postures will strengthen your bones, and reduce osteoporosis.
Protects spine: Yoga helps to keep the spine mobile and strong, which protects the spine and supports your joints and organs. It’s important to have a well-balanced yoga practice to balance the spine.
Boosts Immunity: Yoga works on the endocrine system which strengthens your immunity and helps you manage stress to strengthen the internal body.
Decreases blood pressure: Gentle yoga poses and relaxation will help you improve your blood pressure and reduce stress. Read more about yoga for heart health.
Improve your moods: Whether it’s external or internal stressors, yoga can improve your moods. Using meditation, mindfulness, and breathing exercises. Yoga helps you manage anxiety and mild depression symptoms.
Improves balance: Regularly practicing yoga increases proprioception and balance. Generally, if you have bad posture or uneven/unsteady movement patterns you will have poor proprioception. This can lead to hip and knee issues, and back pains.
Sleep better: Restorative yoga, yin yoga, meditation, and yoga breathing exercises encourage relaxation and nourish the nervous system. When you have good quality sleep, you are less tired and you improve your mood.
Improves breathing: Various yoga breathing exercises help to expand the lungs more and improve efficiency. Yoga stretches the muscles around the rib cage which works with breathing. Yoga breathing through the nose, filters, warms, and purifies the air we breathe.
Can prevent digestive issues: Yoga can help ease constipation and IBS, which can be caused by stress. Improving your elimination will reduce the risk of colon cancer.
Increases self-esteem: Many of us may go through low self-esteem during our life and this can lead to taking drugs, overeating, or working too much. Yoga teaches us to explore (self-examination) and be our better selves. No comparing, and no competition in yoga.
Ease pains: Yoga will teach you to move correctly, balance the body, improve joint health, and reduce pains from fibromyalgia, back issues, or arthritis. You will learn to balance strengthening and stretching in your body.
Improve inner strength: Yoga can help you make changes in your life and make the right choices. Gain discipline and courage to move forwards and make those healthy changes. Studies have shown regular yoga improves your concentration, coordination, focus, and memory. Learn more here on how to improve your mental well-being.
Lower medication usage: Is it time to assess how many medications you are taking? Is there something else you can do to reduce your reliance on drugs? These are two good questions you may want to ask yourself! Yoga can help you reduce or remove a lot of medications, especially when you combine it with more plant-based eating. Always see your doctor first before changing your medications. Be drug-free and live longer!
Reduces allergies: Yoga helps keep your inner organs healthy and meridian lines open to reduce allergies. There are different breathing exercises and cleansing techniques to flush toxins out of the body.
Builds mindfulness: Being more awake and aware is mindfulness. Yoga teaches you to be more mindful about your thoughts, feelings, and actions affecting your body and mind. Increase awareness of healthy eating: As you get to know the body more, you learn about how foods affect your health. You make more effort in choosing the right foods.
Encourages self-care: Yoga gives you the tools to make positive changes and learn to do more things that nurture and nourish your mind and body. Seeing you can change gives you hope and this can lead to healing.
Helps with addiction recovery: The covid pandemic has caused higher mental health issues and many have turned to substance abuse or other addictions. Yoga helps you align with your true self and be more aware of your emotions. People with high anxiety and depression generally are prone to addictions. Yoga helps you work on anxiety and depression symptoms and opens the mind. A healthy body and mind reduce your risk of addiction.
Improves joint health: Yoga works on strengthening and stretching your muscles which creates balance and helps improve joint health. If muscles are too tight around joints, this causes imbalances and pain. If your muscles are too weak, this also causes imbalances and problems in the joints.
Relieves stress: Yoga activates the parasympathetic nervous system, the calming system. Restorative and Yin yoga are perfect practices to reduce stress and improve sleep. This is wonderful for people who suffer from anxiety too! This will also help you reduce blood sugar levels and reduce the risk of diabetes and heart disease.
Help balance hormones: A regular yoga practice helps you deal with stress, depression, and anxiety which manages your endocrine system. When stressed or fatigued our adrenal glands are overworked. When women go through pregnancy or menopause their hormones are changing. Yoga can help you manage symptoms of hormonal imbalances.
Let’s not forget the importance of healthy eating for a woman’s health.
As a woman ages, it’s important to look at her diet and aim to eat more plant-based foods and less meat and processed foods. Foods to improve a woman’s health should include; Iron-rich foods like dark green leafy vegetables, nuts, and seeds, Right protein like chickpeas, tofu, and non-dairy milk, Anti-oxidants like berries, nuts, and more green teas. Limit the coffee and alcohol, if you still want those treats sometimes! Stay away from high-sugar, and fatty foods and avoid overeating. If you are an emotional eater like me, then be more aware and try another activity like some yoga stretches to help you detach from these destructive emotions.
Remember it takes up to 21 days to form a new habit. Don’t be hard on yourself if you lapse. Keep trying and focus on why you are making these healthy changes. Maybe keep a food diary to help you track your eating habits and moods.
Try my FREE online yoga for a 14-day trial and be a ‘Well’ ‘Being’! Make your health your priority and live longer.
Read more on the 5 best beginners Pilates exercises you can do at home.
If you are over 50, read our blog about the best exercises for women over 50.
Want to know how to improve mental health? Read our blog for tips to improve your mental well-being.
Do you get tired all the time? Learn how to reduce tiredness in our blog.