Yoga is about creating balance in the body through developing both strength and flexibility.  Its purpose is to help each one of us achieve our highest potential and to experience enduring health and happiness.  With Yoga, we can extend our healthy, productive years far beyond the accepted norm and, at the same time, greatly improve the quality of our lives.

Benefits of the Heat

1. Hot Yoga facilitates deeper stretching, injury prevention, stress and tension relief, and systematically stimulates and restores health to every muscle, joint, and organ of the body.

2. 60  minutes in our state of the art temperature and moisture controlled studio creates approximately the same amount of perspiration as a 10 kilometer run!

3. Studies show that most of us have between 400 and 800 chemical residues stored in the fat cells of our bodies.  When our bodies exceed the limit that we can excrete, we begin to store these toxins.  This seriously compromises our physiological and psychological health and leads to chronic disease.  Perspiration is recognized by health practitioners worldwide as perhaps the most effective method of removing both difficult chemical and heavy metal toxins from the body.

4. Sweat contains almost the same elements as urine and for this reason the skin is often referred to as the third kidney.  It is estimated that as much as 30% of bodily wastes are eliminated through perspiration.  Be prepared to sweat more in our 75 minute class than most people do all week!

5. Sweating can also help detoxify your body by removing the accumulation of potentially carcinogenic heavy metals as well as alcohol, nicotine, sodium, and cholesterol.

6. The high temperature during class triggers the production of white blood cells and killer T cells by your thymus.  The generation of antibodies and the production of interferon speeds up, resulting in a strengthened immune system.

7. The heat causes the tiny blood vessels in the skin to expand and the heart rate to rise which increases blood circulation but not blood pressure.  

8. Detoxifying the body helps in weight loss because chemicals stored in the fat cells  are excreted making weight loss much easier.  Many people who have been unsuccessful in losing weight have received tremendous results from Hot Yoga! 


Physical Benefits

Flexibility: Stretching your tight body in new ways will help it to become more flexible, bringing greater range of motion to muscles and joints. Over time, you can expect to gain flexibility in your hamstrings, back, shoulders, and hips. Flexibility of the body results in flexibility of the mind!

Strength: Many yoga poses require you to support the weight of your own body in new ways, including balancing on one leg (such as in Tree pose) or supporting yourself with your arms (such as in Downward facing dog). Some exercises require you to move slowly in and out of poses, which also increases strength.

Muscle tone: As a by-product of getting stronger, you can expect to see increased muscle tone. Yoga helps shape long, lean muscles.

Pain Prevention: Increased flexibility and strength can help prevent the causes of some types of back pain. Many people who suffer from 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 breathe very shallow into the lungs and don't give much thought to how we breathe. Yoga breathing exercises, called pranayama, focus the attention on the breath and teach us how to better use our lungs, which benefits the entire body. Certain types of breath can also help clear the nasal passages and even calm the central nervous system, which has both physical and mental benefits.

Mental Benefits

Mental Calmness: Yoga 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 how you breathe and disengagement from your thoughts, which help calm the mind.

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 doing yoga. This provides a much-needed break from your stressors, as well as helping put things into perspective. The emphasis yoga places on being in the moment can also help relieve stress, as you learn not to dwell on past events or anticipate the future. You will leave a yoga class feeling less stressed than when you started. 

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.
 

Our program is designed to benefit everyone regardless of Age, Weight, or Physical Agility and we welcome all from beginner to advanced yogi.  Come and experience amazing benefits at Sedona Hot Yoga!