Yoga is a part of Ayurveda, the ancient Indian system of holistic medicine. According to Ayurvedic philosophy, life comprises of five elements: ether (space), air, fire, water and earth. These elements combine in various ways to create three main doshas (properties): Vata (air and space), pitta (fire and water) and Kapha (water and earth). Physical stability, mental clarity, and emotional stability all depend on the balance between these doshas.
Yoga derives from the Sanskrit root Yuj, which means “to unite or join.” In other words, yoga helps you unite your mind and body to achieve a state of balance. Yoga helps balance the doshas by strengthening muscles, improving flexibility and joint mobility, increasing circulation throughout the body and calming the mind. Asana positions help to stimulate prana (life force), which flows through channels called nadis that run throughout the body. Prana moves through these channels like water flowing through a riverbed; when it becomes blocked or stagnant, it can lead to disease or imbalance in the body’s systems. Yoga poses can unblock these energy flows by stretching tight muscles around joints, so they don’t limit range-of-motion during movement patterns that need full flexibility. This benefits coordination and fluidity of movement.
Yoga Asanas for Weight Loss
- Chaturanga Dandasana
Chaturanga Dandasana is a yoga pose that requires flexibility and strength. It is a foundational pose, meaning you will learn it early in your practice and revisit it throughout your training.
You are reaching forward with your hands to bring yourself up into a push-up position in this pose. In yoga, “chatur” means “four.” In this case, it refers to the four limbs of the body: arms and legs.
“Danda” is a Sanskrit word that means “stick” or “staff.” This refers to the fact that you’re resting on a stick in this stance—your arms! The name refers to the idea that yoga can help you develop the strength of a staff, which can be depended upon for support and stability.
As with all yoga poses, Chaturanga Dandasana has many benefits: it builds core strength, improves balance, develops upper body strength and flexibility, relieves stress (both physical and mental), increases circulation throughout your body (especially to your heart), improves digestion (by strengthening your core muscles), and provides relief from chronic pain conditions like arthritis or fibromyalgia by strengthening connective tissue around joints throughout the entire body (including neck).
Chaturanga Dandasana is one of the most effective yoga poses for weight loss and toning. This posture works the upper body and arms, helping to burn fat and create lean muscle. It also tones the abdominal region and improves posture.
How to Perform: To start, lie on the floor with your arms straight by your sides and your palms flat on the ground. Inhale as you roll forward and up into a plank position, with your body forming a straight line from head to heels. Exhale as you slowly lower yourself to the floor in a pushup position, keeping elbows at 90 degrees and hands directly under your shoulders. Inhale as you push back up into plank position again. Repeat for 10 repetitions.
- Sarvangasana
Sarvangasana, or shoulder stand, is a yoga posture that stretches the back muscles, strengthens the arms and shoulders, improves balance and coordination, and helps promote weight loss.
It’s also one of the most challenging poses for beginners to master. But if you’re looking for a way to boost your metabolism and shed some pounds, it might be worth trying.
The pose can help improve circulation in your body by increasing blood flow to your brain and heart. This helps reduce stress on your cardiovascular system and lowers blood pressure, which can help you lose weight. The increased blood flow also helps improve digestion by increasing the absorption of nutrients from our food to get more out of each meal we eat!
In addition to these benefits, a shoulder stand also stretches out your spine and promotes flexibility in your neck to stand up straight when you walk around all day long.
How to Perform: In this pose, you lie on your back with your legs straight up in the air and your arms resting on the floor by your sides. You then place your palms under your shoulders and push up into the air. Once you’ve gotten into position, keep breathing deeply and hold the pose as long as possible to reap its full benefits.
- Dhanurasana
Dhanurasana yoga pose is called the bow pose. It is an excellent pose for weight loss and maintaining a healthy weight.
The bow pose helps your body release toxins by massaging your internal organs. It also improves digestion and cleanses your liver. This makes it easier for your body to burn fat as fuel instead of storing it as fat cells. You might even find yourself with more energy than ever before! This pose can also help with constipation by stimulating digestion through controlled breathing patterns while staying still for an extended time (which tends not to happen often when we eat). This will help encourage regular bowel movements every day.
Another benefit of doing this pose regularly is that it increases flexibility in your spine, which will help prevent injury if you ever fall or get into an accident while doing something like walking around outside or even driving somewhere new (like if you’re visiting someone else’s house).
How to Perform: Lie down on your belly with your legs together, and hands stretched out in front of you. Bend your knees at a 90-degree angle while keeping your feet flat on the floor. Slowly raise your torso off the floor until you have formed an arch with your body by raising your arms above your head while inhaling deeply through your nose and exhaling through your mouth slowly; hold this position for several seconds before returning to starting position (on belly). Repeat this exercise 10 times every day for the best results!
- Bhujangasana
The Bhujangasana pose has many benefits, but one of the major ones is that it helps people lose weight. This is because when you perform this pose regularly, it helps improve digestion and reduce bloating. It also helps strengthen your core muscles, which helps burn fat faster. It stretches your abdomen and lower back muscles, which reduces stress on these areas and increases blood flow to them. This helps burn fat more effectively by making it easier for oxygenated blood to reach cells in these areas.
In addition to stretching your abdomen and lower back muscles, Bhujangasana also improves circulation throughout other parts of your body, including organs like your heart and lungs. This helps organs function more efficiently, so they can burn more calories from food than they usually would without this increased circulation.
How to Perform: The pose involves lying on your stomach with your legs bent at the knee and feet together. Then, you push yourself up off the floor with your arms bent at 90-degree angles so that your elbows are touching the floor. You should feel like you’re pushing against an imaginary wall behind your head as you lower yourself back down into the starting position.
Ayurvedic practitioners believe that yoga creates an opening for prana—or the body’s vital energy—to circulate freely in the body, thus making a person more healthy, fit, and happy. With this in mind, yoga can provide plenty of health benefits and psychological perks.
