Why I Love Yoga

It always borders on awkward when I have a conversation with someone who's never tried yoga, and get to gushing about how life changing it is.  It's difficult to put into words how anxiety and tension seem to melt away when you're in a forward fold or hip opening pose, or how arriving at and maintaining your edge in a challenging pose can bring moments of clarity and perspective regarding emotions you never even knew you had.  

Not to mention the physical benefits.  I'd been chained to the gym for about ten years.  Literally - other than when I was on vacation somewhere, I don't think a single week went by where I didn't hit the gym at least three times.  Christmas Eve?  I was there.  Wedding day?  I think I did a body pump class in the morning.  Transit-crippling snow storm?  I had only gone two times that week and it was Sunday;  I was thus forced to use our condo's crappy gym.  It turned into an addiction - a healthy addiction, but an addiction none the less.  I still go to the gym sometimes, but only when I truly feel like it (which is actually a lot more often than I could ever have imagined when I was going solely to avoid guilt).  

Yoga, particularly the power variety, yields many of the same physical benefits as regular exercise, without taking a toll on your joints and muscles.  If fact, I actually prefer how my body looks since I became a regular at the yoga studio.  I still have muscle tone, but it's leaner and longer than before (I build muscle easily, but bulging biceps and thighs on a woman simply aren't my idea of attractive).  

Best of all, I find regular yoga practice makes you want to live healthier.  My consumption of alcohol has decreased substantially because, well, a glass of wine would sort of kill the life-affirming high I get from a yoga class.  The same goes for eating unhealthy foods, and giving into unhealthy dietary compulsions (e.g. eating for comfort, snacking out of sheer habit).  After a gym session, I always felt "entitled" to eat more; now I see that feeling entitled is not a good reason to eat, let alone an effective way to generate any real enjoyment from the food you're eating. 

I guess this post has gone on a little longer than I intended.  Anyway, I strongly recommend you try yoga.  Remember how it felt to be really, truly excited about something as a kid?  Like, a "we're going to Disney World tomorrow" level of excitement?  It's kind of like that.