Myth: Yoga Is a Physical Exercise

Submitted by Raina on July 27, 2010 - 07:31

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Yoga is an ancient practice which not only helps you to cure physical problems but also helps to maintain good health and connects you with your spiritual side. But many people tend to ignore yoga because they got to hear something adverse at a get together or through an uninformed source and hence decided that yoga was not for them. We always tend to pay heed to what people around us say and do not bother to check authenticity of such statements.

Yoga helps you to lose weight but that does not mean that yoga is a physical exercise. Had it been true, people would have stopped spending hours in gyms working out; they would simply have opted for yoga. It is true that yoga helps you to have a great physique and refreshes your mind and soul. Certain asanas and postures demand physical strength and flexibility but all these factors do not define yoga as a form of physical exercise.

Here are a few differences that would help to bust this myth:

• With physical exercise and workout you tend to strain and damage your muscles and    joints over a period of time and there is always a risk of injury. The opposite                  happens in case of yoga as your muscles and joints become stronger over a
   period  of time.
• Exercise may or may not help you to develop inner awareness whereas yogasanas        surely do.
• While doing exercise your body temperature increases while in yoga it drops.
• Yoga helps you to stay fit, provides you peace of mind and helps you balance your          emotions whereas exercises do not do all these.
• Workout helps in stimulating the sympathetic nervous system whereas yoga                  stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system.
• Yoga helps you to build stamina, makes your body agile and flexible, and prepares        your body to adapt to the changing environment.
• Yoga has a spiritual side to it while exercise does not have it.
• Your metabolic rate drops while doing yoga whereas it increases during exercise.
• Oxygen consumption is less while doing yoga whereas it is more when you are exercising.
• Your heart rate and blood pressure decreases in yoga while it increases during              workout.
• People doing yoga require lesser food than people doing physical exercise.
• With yoga, the toxins in your body are reduced whereas exercises increase the toxins    in the body.
• Yoga is a relaxed way that helps you to connect your mind with body while this does      not happen in case of exercise.
• In yoga the respiration rates falls whereas it increases while doing fast paced                physical exercises.
• And, last but not the least; in yoga your organs get more oxygen while your muscles      get less oxygen. The reverse happens in case of physical exercise.