Benefits of practicing yoga on a regular basis

You've probably heard that yoga is good for you. Maybe you have even tried it and discovered that it makes you feel better. A regular practice can offers all kinds of mental and physical health benefits. Some, like improved flexibility, are clearly evident. Others, including mental clarity and stress reduction, may be more subtle but are just as powerful. When put together, all the benefits below contribute to an increased feeling of well-being, which helps explain why so many people find yoga so addictive.
Here are some physical benefits:
Flexibility: Moving and stretching in new ways will help you become more flexible, bringing greater range of motion to tight areas. 
Strength: Many yoga poses require you to support the weight of your own body in new ways.  Holding poses over the course of several breaths also builds strength.
Muscle tone:  Yoga helps shape long, lean muscles.
Balance: Improved balance is one of the most important benefits of yoga as you get older. 
Pain Prevention: Increased flexibility and strength can help prevent the causes of some types of back pain. Many people who have back pain spend a lot of time sitting at a computer or driving a car. That can cause tightness and spinal compression, which you can begin to address with yoga. Yoga also improves your alignment, both in and out of class, which helps prevent many other types of pain.
Better Breathing: Most of us take shallow breaths and don't give much thought to how we breathe. Yoga breathing exercises focus the attention on the breath and teach us how to take deeper breaths, which benefits the entire body.
Here are some mental benefits:
Mental Calmness: Yoga asana practice is intensely physical. Concentrating so intently on what your body is doing has the effect of bringing a calmness to the mind. Yoga also introduces you to meditation techniques, such as watching the breath and how to disengage from your thoughts. 
Stress Reduction: Physical activity is good for relieving stress, and this is particularly true of yoga. Because of the concentration required, your daily troubles, both large and small, seem to melt away during the time you are on the mat. This provides a much-needed break from your stressors, as well as helping to put your problems into perspective.  You will leave a yoga class feeling less stressed than when you started. Reducing stress can also make a big difference.
Body Awareness: Doing yoga will give you an increased awareness of your own body. You are often called upon to make small, subtle movements to improve your alignment. Over time, this will increase your level of comfort in your own body. This can lead to improved posture and greater self-confidence.

Whether you do yoga once a week or every day, you will still see some benefits from your practice.  In my opinion, the more benefits the better!!

~Melanie