By Taylor Byrd

“Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self.”

Are you looking for a way to enhance your health and fitness? Increase your vitality, flexibility, and have more energy? Just feel better in general? Well, there is a simple solution, yoga. There are many benefits of yoga. You may be thinking that yoga isn’t for you; well yoga is for everyone. Whether you are 12, 55, or 93 yoga is for you. 40 hour work weeks? Countless hours of studying and school work? What better way to relax your mind and to forget about all your issues and stress. Think you don’t have time for yoga? Just 10 minutes a day on your mat will leave you feeling more relaxed, healthier, and happier. In fact, the more you think you don’t have time for yoga, the more you need to take time to do yoga.

Yoga is a Hindu spiritual and ascetic discipline that includes breath control, simple meditation, and the adoption of bodily postures, which is widely practiced for health and relaxation.

There are many different faces of yoga, whether you are a beginner or at an expert level. It is known to cure some diseases, increase flexibility, strengthen muscles, energize the body, and promote overall better health. Over 20 million people in the United States practice yoga, spending over $10 billion on yoga gear.

Not only does yoga reduce stress and boost your overall well-being, it also offers numerous physical benefits. There are many different types of yoga; here are the main four types of yoga that are commonly and frequently practiced around the world.

1) Hatha Yoga: focuses on practicing the “asana”, which are specific yoga poses. The asana are known to rid the body of disease and help in promote spiritual and mental well-being. This leads to a healthier, happy life.

2) Ashtanga Yoga: This oldest type of yoga includes postures, breathing, concentration, withdrawal of senses, and meditation. The main benefit of ashtanga is that it purifies the body and makes the body physically and mentally fit.

3) Mantra Yoga: The practice of chanting mantras. Through chanting these mantras it is believed that the vibrations will cure diseases and help a person achieve his or her goals. Incense and rosaries are often used in mantra yoga. The correct mantras need to be chanted in order for this method of yoga to be successful.

4) Bhakti Yoga: The type of yoga based solely off of faith and belief. When practicing Bhakti yoga one simply places their faith in and belief in a higher power, or god. This makes for a more emotional yoga flow. The emotional flow reduces all negativity.

Although there are many different types of yoga, these are a few of the main types of yoga you should try when you are just starting out. From each and every type of yoga you benefit from something, leaving you at peace within your mind, heart, and soul.

Header photo byJean Henrique Wichinoski (flickr creative commons license).