It’s National Yoga Awareness Month!!!
Many people do yoga to help improve their quality of live. Whether it is through physical exercise, mental clarity, a mind body connection, or an awareness of self, yoga can truly give you a complete sense of wholeness.
In 2008, the Department of Health and Human Services designated the entire month of September as National Yoga Awareness Month. Yoga is truly for ANY body, meaning any person with or without any limitations. It’s all about finding the right instructor and the right studio to fit your personal needs.
The biggest thing to remember this month is that yoga is so much more than just physical exercise. The study, practice, and philosophy of yoga is founded upon 8 limbs, based on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.
The 8 Limbs of Yoga Are:
- Yamas - The practice of integrity through ethical standards by focusing on our behavior.
- Niyamas - The practice of self discipline and service.
- Asana - This is the most popular limb, the physical practice of yoga.
- Pranayama - This is the practice of mindful breathing.
- Pratyahara - The practice of internal awareness.
- Dharana - The practice of concentration not through a task, but through a single point of focus to create meditation.
- Dyana - The practice of uninterrupted concentration, or the practice of meditation.
- Samadhi - The practice of peace.
The first four limbs of yoga truly focus on mastery of body and mind awareness to then help deepen the remaining four limbs, which focuses on an internal mastery of mind and peace.
Yoga doesn’t have to be done in a studio, yoga can be practiced anywhere.
For us at YESyoga, yoga is truly all about lifestyle and movement practices. Come to the studio to practice your body awareness so that you can go home and practice an internal and mental awareness. We want you to live life on purpose, and have clarity of mind so that you can make hard decisions and be curious and courageous along the way.
Where can you create more focus and depth in your yoga practice this month, not through “advanced” yoga poses but through body and mental awareness?