Benefits of Hot Yoga

Yogiraj Bikram Choudhury (known today as Bikram) founded the Yoga College of India in 1964. When he was injured badly and told he was never going to walk again, he turned to hot yoga to heal him-and it did. The magic of this practice is now being proven more and more, with thousands of success stories about how this practice heals both the body and the mind. Even if you have no major injuries, practicing hot yoga can be quite beneficial to your health.

Here are some benefits of practicing hot yoga:

1. It helps you get rid of stress. Hot yoga is an excellent stress reliever as it is an extremely testing form of exercise. If you commit and put all your energy into a full class, you come out feeling completely energized and refreshed.

2. It improves your cardiovascular system. Some studies have shown that relaxation through yoga may help some people lower their blood pressure. Yoga can also improve blood flow through the body.

3. Accelerated weight loss-you can burn up to 800 calories in one session! The heat in the room speeds your heart rate up, making fat burn much more rapidly than it would in a normal yoga session.

4. An increased ability to focus and be more clear headed. A hot yoga session requires extreme determination and concentration-in sweltering heat! This helps to clear the mind and focus on the present moment. During a session students are told to keep their eyes open throughout-most hot yoga students find this helpful in concentrating.

5. Sweat out toxins: Hot yoga is done in a room anywhere from 35 to 45 degrees celcius for 90 minutes. This means you are constantly sweating and getting rid of unwanted waste in your body. Some people even report smelling certain things that are being eliminated from their body during yoga-a common one is cigarette smoke.

Although hot yoga is not for everyone, for some people the practice has changed their lives. As Ana Serrano says in a testimonial, “Yoga makes you choose what is right for you. It makes you more understanding towards others and more patient.”