Health Benefits of Daily Yoga: 10 Best Yoga Asanas to Do Everyday

Practicing yoga in daily life is the perfect way to discipline your body, physically and mentally. While yoga practitioners swear by wholesome improvement in their mind, body, and soul, non-practitioners are often reluctant about including it in their fitness regime. Yoga might appear to be just a physical activity of stretching one’s body to an onlooker, but its benefits go beyond in improving an individual’s body, soul, and mind. Apart from building your physical strength, the countless advantages of yoga can help in improving immunity, relieving stress, and maintaining a healthier lifestyle. If you are still hesitant about starting yoga, here are some of the daily yoga benefits to make you change your mind.

Importance of Doing Yoga Every Day

Below we have mentioned some of the important benefits of daily yoga. Take a look at each of them.

Yoga Provides Stress Relief

From high blood pressure to insomnia, from migraines to heart attacks, stress is responsible for several physical and mental ailments.

• By slowing down the mental loops of negative thinking, frustration, anger, fear, etc., yoga helps in checking the mind fluctuations.
• As yoga encourages you to relax and breathe slowly, it increases the blood flow to vital organs and balances your nervous system to calm and restorative state.
• As you focus on the present, you have better coordination and reaction time.

Simply speaking, by avoiding overthinking, everyday yoga helps in calming your mind and relieving stress.

Yoga Improves Flexibility

Stretching your body makes it flexible. Tightness and inflexibility in your body can result in several health issues like:

• Inflexible muscles and ligaments cause poor posture.
• Stiffness in hamstrings results in back pain by flattening the spine.
• Tight hips disrupt the alignment of thighs and shin, which can cause knee damage.

Although you might not notice it on the very first day, daily yoga practice makes your body flexible slowly and gradually.

Yoga Boosts Immunity

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic highlights the importance of the immune system in keeping your body healthy like never before. As you practice yoga, you stretch your muscles, your organs move around inside your body, and increase the drainage of lymph. In the human body, lymph is a viscous fluid that is rich in immune cells.

• By disposing of the toxic waste produced by the functioning of the cellular system, the lymphatic system fights infection and keeps the body healthy.
• Cleaning exercises like the Jala Neti drain the sinuses and removes foreign particles like pollen and viruses from the nose.
• By achieving a perfect equilibrium between your mind, body, and soul, yoga improves overall immunity.

Yoga Increases Work Efficiency

As yoga keeps you mentally and physically fit, it makes you efficient in your day to day activities. The all-round increase in work efficiency is due to:

• Mental discipline helps in overcoming inertia and inhibits dysfunctional habits.
• Yoga increases your self-esteem by making you more confident.
• By building your mental focus, yoga shortens your response time and makes you more attentive.
• By increasing the blood flow and strengthening your core muscles, yoga keeps you efficient throughout the day.

Yoga Instill Enthusiasm

In the human brain, activity in the left prefrontal cortex is responsible for happiness and immunity.

• The left prefrontal cortex manages serotonin production and checks the levels of monoamine oxidase.
• The continued practice of yoga heightens the left-sided activity that increases serotonin levels significantly. As a result, it improves depression and makes you happy.
• The soothing effect of yoga also thwarts worry to keep you enthusiastic.

Yoga Makes You Energetic

Shuttling through daily chores and hustle-bustle of work-life can be exhausting and taxing for the nervous system. Fatigue in the human body results from mental or physical exhaustion, stress, lack of sleep, etc. Practicing yoga can boost the hormone cortisol and keep you energetic by:

• By reducing stress, it improves energy levels.
• As yoga builds muscle strength and improves balance, it increases your physical endurance.
• Restorative yoga poses like Savasana, Yoga Nidra, Pranayama, etc., calm your nervous system that results in sound sleep.

With deep sleep, yoga relieves your body, and you feel less tired after waking up.

Best Daily Yoga Asanas

Now that you are aware of the daily yoga benefits, here are 10 best asanas for doing yoga every day to energize your body with detailed steps and benefits:

Easy Pose (Sukhasana)

The meditative pose of Sukhasana is the best way to start your day.

How to Do?

• Sit straight on the mat and stretch your legs.
• Bend one of your legs and put it under the other thigh.
• Bend the other leg underneath the folded pose.
• Sit over your sitting bones in such a way that your pelvis is straight.
• Straighten your neck to align your trunk, neck, and head in a straight line.
• Place your palms in your lap or your knees.
• Tilt your head and chin towards the chest.
• Focus your mind between your eyebrows and sit in this position as long as you can.

Benefits

• Relaxes your brain
• Broadens your collar bone and chest
• Improves posture

Mountain Pose (Tadasana)

How to Do?

• To do Tadasana Keep your feet slightly apart as you stand on the floor.
• Place your arms at the sides.
• Engage the abdominal and hamstring muscles by tucking your tailbone.
• Extend your arms on the sides with your palms facing up and breathe in.
• Exhale as you bring your arms back down.

Benefits

• Strengthens ankles, knees, and thighs
• Reduces flat feet and improves posture
• Straightens buttocks and abdomen

Warrior 1 Pose (Virabhadrasana I)

How To Do?

• Stand in the Mountain Pose and keep your feet around 4-feet apart as you exhale. Ensure that your right knee is over the right ankle.
• Turn your left foot towards the right by around 45 to 60 degrees. Keep your right foot outwards by 90 degrees towards the right.
• Bring your arms out and upwards. Keep your chest open by keeping your palms on your overhead.
• Keep your left hip forward and your right hip back to make a square shape.
• Keeping your right thigh parallel to the floor or mat, ground down through your left foot.
• Lower your hands down to the floor and release by moving your right leg back.

Benefits

• Strengthens legs
• Stretches arms and opens chest and hips
• Improves concentration and balance

Warrior 2 Pose (Virabhadrasana II)

How to Do?

• Begin by standing in the Mountain Pose and move your left foot back by around 4-feet as you exhale. Ensure that your right knee is over the right ankle.
• Turn your left foot towards the right foot by 90 degrees. Align the heel of your left foot with the heel of your right foot.
• Balance by pressing down through the toe edge of your back foot.
• Breathe in as you extend your arms alongside, keeping them parallel to the floor. Face your arms downwards.
• Bend into your right knee by keeping your right shin perpendicular to the floor.
• Engage your core as you draw your low ribs into your body. Keep pressing through the toe of your back foot.
• Stay in the pose for around 1-2 minutes.
• Repeat by reversing the feet.

Benefits

Chair Pose (Utkatasana)

How to Do?

• Begin by standing in the Mountain Pose with your arms raised perpendicular to the floor.
• Bend your knees and try to keep the thighs parallel to the floor. Press your thigh bones downwards on the heels and imagine as if you are sitting on a chair.
• Keep your hands parallel to the floor and stretch your spine by moving your tailbone towards the floor.
• Maintain this pose for 30 seconds and straighten your knees to stand.

Benefits

• Stimulates heart, diaphragm, and abdominal muscles
• Strengthens arms, ankles, thighs, calves, and spine
• Opens shoulders and chests

Tree Pose (Vrikshasana)

How to Do?

• Start with the Mountain Pose and distribute your weight evenly on every corner of each of your feet.
• Lift your left foot off the floor and shift your weight into your right foot.
• Keeping your right leg straight, bend your left knee, and place your left sole on your inner right thigh.
• Square your hips by applying pressure between your thigh and foot.
• Maintain this pose for 2-3 minutes.
• Lower your left foot to the floor and repeat the asana with your right foot.

Benefits

• Strengthens core muscles and legs
• Builds better balance and stabilizes your body
• Improves posture

Boat Pose (Navasana)

How to Do?

• Sit down with your feet resting flat on the floor and knees bent.
• Keeping your knees bent, lift your feet till your shins are parallel to the floor.
• Keeping your spine straight, lift your leg to 45-degrees forming a V shape.
• Rollback your shoulders and keep your arms parallel to the floor with palms facing up.
• The balance on your sit bones by lifting your chest for support.
• Maintain this pose for 1-2 minutes and release your legs as you exhale.

Benefits

• Strengthens abdominal and core muscles
• Builds balance

Crow Pose (Bakasana)

How to Do?

• Stand in the Mountain Pose and keep your arms at sides. Bring your palms on the floor at the shoulder’s distance apart by bending your knees.
• Bend your elbows back and open your knees to align them with your upper arms.
• Keep your knees on the back of your upper arms and bring your weight forward as you lift your head.
• Starting with one foot, lift your feet off the floor slowly with support from your thighs.
• Keep your feet on your butt and maintain the pose till you are comfortable.

Benefits

• Strengthens wrist, forearms, and abdomen
• Improves balance

Lord of the Dance Pose (Natarajasana)

How to Do?

• Starting with the Mountain Pose, lift your left foot from the floor as you shift your weight on the right foot.
• Touch your left foot with your left hand with your thumb resting on the sole.
• Lift your right arms towards the ceiling and move your left leg behind.
• Move your right arm forward to balance the weight of your body on the right foot.
• Stretch to deepen the backbend without splaying your left knee or bending the right knee.
• Maintain this pose for 1-2 minutes.

Benefits

• Strengthens core muscles and legs
• Improves balance
• Stretches your backbone and shoulders

So these are some of the daily yoga asanas that one should try to adapt in everyday life. Daily yoga delivers long term benefits.