The most famous Pop singer Madonna is probably one of the most popular bi-products of commercialized yoga. Ever since she started out with that toned and buffed figure, women all over the world have been wanting to know what kind of diet she has been following. While revealing that she had been on a journey of self-discovery and has found a new spiritual source, she also revealed her secret to finally her eternal youthful appearance - doing that yoga.

However, in addition to staying healthy and fit by practicing yoga, there is a lot more to advise people should know.

The Truth About Yoga

Before becoming gaga over yoga,  you need to get acquainted with the nature of yoga, its origins, its various aspects of the discipline, and how you can benefit from it. Let's start by explaining the foreign word yoga. Basically, the word "yoga" is rooted in the ancient Indian language, Sanskrit. “Yoga,” in Sanskrit, means “union or joining.” It can be a union that occurs between the mind and the spirit, between the body and the spirit, or the joining of the mind, body, and soul as a whole.

However, the word "yoga" can be correctly defined by another Sanskrit word for "asana" - the practice of yoga poses or postures. Although “asana” is one of the eight known forms of yoga, both terms are now considered synonymous because they both involve mental and spiritual health rather than physical activity.

Since yoga has been packaged for the Western culture,  it is now more commonly described as a general term that encompasses a wide range of disciplines. And now, yoga is well-known to people as a form of discipline that varies from one concept to another. The term yoga is now also viewed as a discipline that deals with purely physical abstraction to purely spiritual conquest and to just about everything in between. If you are thinking of doing yoga to improve your lifestyle, you should know how to convert its basic possibilities to your satisfaction.

The Ultimate Yoga Basics

If you are interested in yoga, you should be willing to learn nearly every little thing about it. First of all, you need to explain why you need it.

Some of the various yoga types that are being taught and practiced today include: 

• "Hatha," a slow and gentle style.
• “Vinyasa,” a breath-synchronized movement style.
• “Ashtanga,” a brilliant and intense style of yoga practice.
• “Iyengar,” body-aligning style.
• “kundalini,” the breath in conjunction with physical movement style.
• “Bikram” or “hot yoga” is performed in the 95-100 degree room that allows loosening of tight muscles and profuse sweating.

Yoga Benefits

In addition to being effective stress and anxiety reducer, yoga practice has also been proven to increase strength, increase energy, improve focus, build and tone muscles, concentration, and posture, lower blood pressure, improve memory, and relieve pain.

One of the basic things you should know about yoga is that it requires effort or force in different yoga poses. Gone through the performance of poses, most people would think that yoga is about stretching, utmost concentration, and unusual poses. True, you see people practicing yoga performing some kind of "acrobatic" stunts, but that stretching is not just simple flexing of muscles: these are creative processes that balance the body to build agility, strength and flexibility. Since each pose has a specific physical benefit, yoga poses can be performed sequentially to create body heat with movements that will build up an increase in stamina.