Yoga originated centuries ago and has been evolving ever since. Recently, hot yoga is becoming more popular in the West.
Besides the various health benefits of traditional yoga, like flexibility, enhanced muscular endurance, and de-stress, hot yoga offers an intense workout that helps burn calories, reduce blood sugar, improve skin, and more.
Here’s where you’ll learn about the benefits of hot yoga.
- Calories are Burning
Heat can assist in burning more calories. Traditional yoga can burn around 183 calories per hour. One study found that yoga practices aid people in weight loss. During a hot yoga session, the calorie burn can reach up to 330 for women and 460 for men.
A hot yoga workout will burn more calories than traditional yoga. The hot studio makes you sweat more. Your body’s metabolism increases so do your blood circulation. Overall, your body and muscles are more engaged in hot yoga.
- Promote flexibility
Stretching muscles in warm conditions enhance flexibility and achieve a greater range of motion. The heat makes soft tissues more relaxed and elastic. The increased laxity allows your body to perform various poses and deep stretching more easily.
- Good for Depression
According to American Psychological Association, yoga and meditation are good for easing depression symptoms. Wars can have adverse effects on a person. Veterans more often have to fight depression after returning home.
A study in Military Medicine has shown how yoga improved depression and mood among veterans. Each session was a 60-minute long, and participants did yoga, meditation, and breathwork. Another investigation in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine found that hot yoga effectively alleviated depression symptoms in middle-aged women.
- Improve Lung Capacity
Yoga focuses on various breathing techniques. With these breathing practices, your lungs can retain more air.
Having more oxygen in your bloodstream helps keep your lungs healthy and increases your lungs’ capacity, especially helpful for aged people.
One form of yoga known as Pranayama focuses on breathing. The thoracic, abdominal, and clavicular breathing in this exercise allows an increased oxygen intake.
- Builds Bone Mass
Women after menopause drop around 50% of bone mass. It is normal to have decreased bone density with age.
According to one study, women who practiced hot yoga for over five years had shown increased bone density in the neck, lower back, and hips. The heated environment reduced the effects of osteoporosis in women, which prevented bone loss.
- Stress Reduction
Stress is pretty common in Americans. Yoga is known for its effective role in stress reduction. And as such, it is quite popular among many people.
Hot yoga is becoming increasingly demanding in the USA, with most practitioners’ primary concern being stress reduction.
Yoga mediates the inward journey and helps deal with external factors that cause stress. The combination of heat and deep breathing relaxes the body and mind.
- Nourishes Skin
You may often have experienced a post-yoga glow due to increased sweating and blood flow to skin cells. The increased circulation provides nutrient-rich blood to the skin cells that nourish the skin.
Perspiration helps the skin produce more collagen, retain more moisture, and reduce wrinkles.