Yoga is a popular type of practice these days, its popularity in the US and worldwide rocketed in the last decade. Well, by the year of 2022, over 55 million Americans stated that they practice yoga. And worldwide, it is reported that approximately 300 million people regularly practice yoga as of April 2023.
Yoga gain its popularity because of the physical and mental benefits it brings to practicers. Based on regular practice, yoga can make you stronger and more flexible, also, it serves as a great way to stay limber and energetic. Many yogi feel more focused, alert and function better in daily life.
However, every sword has two edges, there have been reports of both benefits and adverse effects of yoga. Did you know that if you do poses incorrectly, then instead of reaping the expected benefits, the negative effects arrives, so can yoga become detrimental to your health?
Negative effect of yoga practice
According to a cross-section survey conducted in India, an adverse effect of yoga was reported by 1.9 percent of the respondents (3135 yoga experienced persons). The three most common adverse effects reported were:
- Soreness and pain
- Muscle or joint injuries
- Fatigue
Stretching your body the wrong way, performing incorrect asanas, and breathing in an incorrect manner during exercising, all these can be harmful to your health. Additionally, wrongly performed poses might result in acute pain and long term chronic issues.
For both beginner and advanced yogis, avoid common mistakes and foster good practice habit while doing yoga can largely reduce these negative effect. Read on to get to know 5 common mistakes people make while doing yoga.
5 biggest mistakes yogis should avoid
1. Skip warm up routine
Warming up routine helps your body to get prepared for what is coming next, this reduces the chance of over stretching. It is much easier to bend over your body after warm up as those simple warm up poses help to lubricate your joints.
Skip warm up is not wise at all. Chances are you might get hurt as your muscles are cold and stiff. Scientific researches have confirmed the importance of warming up the body in preventing injuries. Without physically warn up, you are gonna perform poorly and likely get injured.
2. Not being mindful about your exercise.
Mindful practice is the key to seeing progress and improvement in yoga practice. Not being mindful meaning you will not see much results as well as risk yourself of getting hurt. Pay attention to your movements, listen to your teacher, as well as mind your breath, these all require complete engagement of the mind, body and heart.
This is also often some students wonder why they have not made progress in the past year, your body is here, your mind is out there. Though you follow every step by your teacher, without paying attention it is barely just repeating.
3. Overdoing poses, forget about body limits.
Just because you cannot get into the full expression of an asana, or practice a pose like your fellow students or teacher does, doesn’t mean that the efforts you put in will not pay off. It is natural to push yourself for progress, but without taking enough time to digest do more harm to our health both mentally and physically.
Know your body limits and listen to your body, avoid what you are not ready for is crucial on your yoga journey. Physical signals like fatigue, newly developed pain between joints, bones or tendons, and soreness in muscles are all signs of overdoing.
Another criteria of overdoing is by observing how your breath react to your movement. As long as your breathing is deep, easy and in a steady tempo, chances of overdoing it are small.
4. Wearing too loose or too tight clothes
Your yoga clothes should neither be too tight nor too loose. Wearing too tight that reflecting your silhouette is good looking, but it’s important to know that looking good is not the reality of most yoga classes, feeling comfortable and supported is. Your yoga bra and yoga pants should absorb sweat well and allow you to move, stretch, and breathe with ease.
Apart from yoga bra, I suggest wearing yoga tops that are slim fitting, so they will not ride up when your arms are raised high or when you are upside down.
5. Skip the cool down ending
What happens in the ending part of a yoga class? Your muscles are cool down, your breathing are slow down, and your heart rate return to normal zone. Like a walk after running, Savasana soothes your nerve system, bring your body back to normal and get you a little more prepared for the rest of the day.
On the contrary, stopping quickly without a cool down can lead to light-headedness or dizziness. I understand that modern life is chaotic, sometimes, those extra minutes earned by skipping cool down are crucial for getting back to work on time. However, each time you pass the corpse pose, you are missing on a handful of both physical and mental benefits.
Final Thoughts
With so many people around the world join the journey of yoga, I feel it is meaningful to remind every yogi of those common mistakes people make while doing yoga. It takes time and efforts to progress on yoga and meditation, hope this article will help with your experience on the mat.
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