HomePranayamaWhat is Iyengar Yoga? Know it's Techniques With Benefits

What is Iyengar Yoga? Know it’s Techniques With Benefits

Due to the change in lifestyle, people around the world are more inclined towards yoga. And Iyengar Yoga is one such branch that is gaining popularity among a new generation of people. Its simplistic approach to practice is believed to be the main reason for its popularity. However, to do this yoga, you do not need to be a fitness expert, and you don’t even need to hire a trainer. Iyengar yoga poses are a highly disciplined style of yoga. Like other types of yoga, it also encourages self-awareness through meditation.

Let’s dig deep into this and discover why it’s gaining a lot of recognition across the world.

Iyengar Yoga

Why is Iyengar Yoga Popular?

Iyengar Yoga is a style of Hatha Yoga and the practice concentrates on precise technique and proper alignment. It focuses on slower movements with an emphasis on better quality. Iyengar yoga practices combine pranayama (breath) with asanas (poses). This helps to build stamina, strength, and flexibility.

History of Iyengar Yoga

Iyengar Yoga was founded by B.K.S. Iyengar in the 1960s. It was popularized by his book named Light on Yoga. As European and American students started seeking yoga instruction, Iyengar’s technique became prominent. He then established the principal school, called Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute, in 1975 in Pune, India.

Iyengar yoga asanas have their foundation in the yoga sutras, and they help to strengthen the connection between the mind and the body. As per Iyengar, this branch of yoga helps us to cure the body and mind. It provides a balanced body, which leads to a balanced mind. Iyengar yoga provides holistic benefits by combining meditation (mind) and movement (body).

9 Benefits of Iyengar Yoga You Should Know

1. Strengthen & Tone Your Muscles

Iyengar Yoga improve your Strength and toning of muscles

Iyengar Yoga requires holding a pose for longer durations (usually more than a minute), which helps to strengthen the muscles. This practice helps to strengthen your muscles and tone your body. It has standing postures like tree pose or warrior pose that help to increase the strength of the lower body and make the core more robust.

2. Improves Flexibility

Iyengar Yoga practice like all the other forms of Yoga helps to improve the flexibility of the body. Iyengar Yoga is not an exception in this regard and works well to improve body elasticity. Only after a few weeks of practicing Iyengar yoga did the practitioners see a great increase in the flexibility of their hamstrings and spines.

3. Enhance Body Posture

Iyengar Yoga Improves Body Posture

As Iyengar Yoga has a strong focus on the alignment of the mind and the body, a practitioner of Iyengar Yoga can develop better body posture. It also provides improved alignment for the body. The practice focuses on improving the stiffer and weaker areas of the entire body, including the neck and the back.

4. Reduces Chronic Pain

Reduces Chronic Pain for doing Iyengar Yoga

A lot of chronic pain can be a result of improper alignment in the body. Iyengar Yoga focuses on improving the standard of living by curing the ailments in the body. The practice relaxes the body muscles, and the regular practice helps to reduce the chronic pain in the back, neck, and leg muscles while also improving the flexibility in the body.

5. Decreases Stress & Anxiety

Iyengar yoga helps to increase the production of mood-boosting chemicals and hormones in the brain. These are happy hormones, and with a higher level of these hormones, the practitioners can experience better wellbeing with lower levels of anxiety within a few months of practicing Iyengar yoga.

6. Maintain Blood Sugar Levels

Maintains Blood Sugar Level

Regular practice of Iyengar Yoga helps to improve blood glucose levels and increase insulin sensitivity. It also helps to manage weight gain, which is also a major cause of problems for diabetics. Thus, yoga practices help to keep diabetes under control and help to manage weight gain in the body.

7. Bring Improvement in Lifestyle

Iyengar Yoga is a great way to manage the wellness of the body, and this has been established throughout the years. Thus, Yoga poses are being performed by everyone who wants to improve wellness. It also manages the stress level and helps to keep the mind relaxed, even when you are working under pressure.

8. Improve Breathing

Enhance breathing through Iyengar Yoga

As Yoga is mainly a practice of controlled breathing, and it also helps with better meditation. The best benefit of Iyengar Yoga is improved breathing, to improves all bodily functions. This helps to improve body functions and keep the mind relaxed with a better supply of oxygen to all parts of the body.

9. Lowers Blood Pressure

Lowers Blood Pressure

It has been established that Iyengar yoga for weight loss helps to trigger a relaxation response in the body. This helps to slow down the heart rate, and these yoga poses helps to decrease blood pressure. Thus, practicing Iyengar Yoga at home helps to keep the heart healthy, which also reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease and other diseases.

How Do I Practice Iyengar Yoga?

For practicing Iyengar Yoga at home, you must create sequences with the many different poses and breathing techniques that exist in Iyengar. You can mix and match these poses as per your liking. The Iyengar Yoga poses and benefits are usually based on the sequence. The practice starts with a meditative warm-up, which is followed by standing postures and ends with restorative poses.

Iyengar Yoga practices a peak pose, which dictates all the other postures that can be practiced after all the other poses. In Iyengar Yoga, you need to go through the sequence from poses to breath to movement, but they can be held for an extended period of time. Thus, you get a chance to get the correct body alignment and move into each pose in a deeper and better manner.

Iyengar yoga helps in deepening your yoga practice and helps to align your mind and body with a better yoga practice regimen. Iyengar yoga is a great option for the body to ensure a good physical workout mixed with mindful and self-aware practice. This benefits the body with wider benefits in the long run and provides a balanced mind and body.

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YogaCurious
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