Yoga is beneficial to us in a variety of ways! Learn more about the half-sun salutation yoga position and how it can benefit you!
Yoga has its origins in northern India, where it is in practice for 5000 years. It’s a way of bringing the body, mind, and spirit together. To enhance physical and mental well-being, this practice incorporates physical postures, concentration, and breathing techniques. Besides, it strengthens your body and helps you relax your thoughts. Yoga has grown in popularity as a way to maintain fitness and overall health all around the world.
Yoga Benefits
You’ve probably heard that yoga is good for the body. Perhaps you’ve even tried it and concluded that it helps you feel better. Regular practice of yoga has numerous mental and physical health perks. Some benefits, such as increased flexibility, are immediately noticeable.
Others, such as emotional stability, enhanced productivity, and reduced anxiety, are less obvious but equally effective. When combined together, these yoga benefits lead to increased well-being, which may explain why so many folks find yoga to be so addicting. Below are some of the most important yoga benefits, as well as some positions to try to get the most out of your Yoga practice.
- Improves strength, balance, and flexibility
- Relieves stress and improves mood
- Prevents obesity
- It helps relieve and manage the symptoms of chronic diseases like diabetes and arthritis
- Relieves chronic pain
- It helps maintain emotional balance
- Yoga helps quit smoking and other addictions
Half-Sun Salutation Yoga
Surya namaskar, or Sun Salutation, is a set of 12 yoga asanas or postures that are excellent for heart health. In a standing position, half sun salutation yoga is a novice posture. You can use it as a warm-up pose in the sun salutation asanas to prepare the body for more intense or challenging poses.
Sun salutations are a series of postures performed in a fluid sequence that is commonly popular as a warmup at the start of a yoga practice. However, the advantages outweigh the warmup.
Sun salutations help you lengthen and strengthen your muscles while also burning calories to help you lose weight. This Yoga asana has been popular for increasing cardiovascular conditioning, avoiding weariness, inducing calm and relaxation, and giving a variety of other mental and physical positive impacts. Even if you don’t have time for full yoga practice, a few rounds of sun salutations might help a lot.
How to Do Half Sun Salutation
- Mountain Pose: Stand with your feet parallel, 2 to 3 inches apart, and facing front. Lightly press your palms together as if doing a ‘Namaskar’. Maintain a back-and-down posture with your chest pressed on your thumbs. Keep your head straight and hold your chin up. This position is called the mountain pose.
- Raised Arms Pose: Inhale and lift your arms such that you join the palms above your head and look up at your hands.
- Forward Bend: Exhale and bend down forward, placing your palms on the floor or on your knees. Move your forehead towards your legs.
- Flat Back: Inhale again, lift your body halfway up and forward. Keep your back straight and lift your chest and look up as high
as you comfortably can. Place your palms on your shins or let your fingertips touch the floor.
- Forward Bend: Exhale and bend your upper body and head towards your legs.
- Raised Arms Pose: Inhale, sweep your arms up and look up while lifting your waist as if reaching towards the sky.
- Repeat the Mountain pose.
Each breath and exhale should ideally take 5 seconds. Repeat this sequence of procedures at least 5-6 times. You can execute the sun salutation yoga positions once you’ve established a steady and comfy rhythm.
Half Sun Salutation Yoga Benefits
1. For Lungs and Heart
In application, you should do the positions one at a time, with one breath between each posture. Progressing from posture to pose without taking a break generates heat in the body, and most learners will begin to sweat as their heart rate rises. This serves as a warm-up for the muscles, allowing them to become more flexible and ready for deeper positions.
Sun salutations, on the other hand, are a good cardiovascular workout on their own. Sun salutations were found to improve lung function, respiratory pressure, and resting cardiovascular parameters in a 2011 study published in the International Journal of Yoga.
2. Physical Fitness
Sun salutations are great aerobic workouts when you perform them in quick succession because they generate heat in the body and raise myocardial oxygen demand. You burn calories whenever you raise your heart rate. You’ll burn fat if you burn enough calories to offset your food consumption.
The results of three various types of cardio training — circuit training, treadmill walking, and sun salutation training — were all found to be helpful in managing weight and improving physical fitness in obese women in research.
3. Reduction of Stress
Yoga is infamous for its benefits to the body and mind, as a form of moving meditation and a technique to relax and build harmony. Even a brief sun salutation practice can produce the same results as a comprehensive yoga session.
The impact of sun salutation practice on stressed-out college students in Pune, India, was investigated in a study published in the “International Yoga Journal” in 2015. Researchers discovered that stressed-out students who practiced Sun Salutations for 14 days were more physically relaxed, mentally tranquil, calm, and at ease compared to those who did not. Students who practiced also appeared to be more relaxed and rejuvenated, with less anxiety and negative emotions.
Conclusion
Half-sun salutation yoga is an incredible method to begin a yoga practice at home as it accelerates stamina and serves as a warm-up as well. This will effectively help to prepare you for more challenging yoga poses.
It extends the spine as well, opens the hips and hamstrings, strengthens the back and muscle groups, and boosts metabolism. This yoga also produces a deep and regular breathing pattern and gives your session a meditative vibe.
Precaution
Considering the fact that Half sun salutation benefits the knees and muscles, in particular, it is crucial to avoid doing the half sun salutation yoga position if you have recently injured your back, knees, or hips. We’d even advise you to refrain from engaging in this yoga if you have untreated hypertension.